KFC and FFA
I was recently at a hearing of the ISBE or the Illinois State Board of Education that was held in Macomb. The Illinois Secretary of Education himself came to nod with sympathy as he listened to one person after another talk about how restricted state funding was ruining their rural school districts.
Interestingly, there was a large contingent of current and former FFA students - most of us know them as Future Farmers of America. The students were there to lobby to continue to receive the special state funding that FFA currently gets from the state. They were very polished in their tight fitting blue jackets, with the gold cord and the cryptic FFA logo on the back. They spoke with poise and passion about their future plans for college and careers. One after another, these high school students talked about becoming engineers, crop scientists or geneticists at land grant universities. They talked about their plans to move into high paying technical careers with Pioneer, ADM or Monsanto. As far as I could tell, their highest aspirations were to be somewhere else, working for someone else and to have a 9 to 5 with great pay, great benefits and long, paid vacations. I can't remember that any of them mentioned becoming a farmer. Certainly none of them talked about raising good, healthy food for their family, friends and community.
It was interesting to me that FFA has changed their name so that FFA no longer stands for Future Farmers of America. FFA now just stands for FFA. What this brings to mind is KFC, which used to stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken. In KFC’s case, I suppose that this change of brand name cleared the way for KFC to use cheaper, industrial byproduct filler in the place of real chicken meat.
It’s kind of an interesting analogy isn’t it?
I bring this little episode up because it is what got me thinking about the use of the words farm and farmer. I think it is time for us to take these words back. We, the people, on the front lines of the effort to get real food to those who need it most, we, the people, fighting for the physical and economic health of our neighborhoods and of our communities, we, the people, working to heal and reinhabit our abandoned and neglected landscapes. It is time for us to take back the words “farm” and “farmer” from corporate industrial agribusiness.
A piece of property owned by an investment group in Chicago, or New York, or London, or Dubai or Beijing - is not a farm.
A piece of property managed by a limited liability corporation that employs hourly wage equipment operators - is not a farm.
The wage laborer driving the fertilizer truck while listening to his Ipod is not a farmer.
Neither is the guy making minimum wage spraying 2-4D and paying no heed to the direction of the wind or to what the neighbors have planted next store, a farmer.
The man (or woman) doomed to spend his workdays in the confines of a corporate-owned, concentration camp animal confinement operation - poor soul - is not a farmer.
A farm is not just a piece of land. A person who happens to work on a piece of land is not necessarily a farmer!
Modern industrial, corporate agribusiness is not farming and we need to call them on it! We need more farms and more farmers. If that is going to happen, than the local food movement must continue to grow and we need to differentiate between corporate agribusiness and real family farms and farmers.
Interestingly, there was a large contingent of current and former FFA students - most of us know them as Future Farmers of America. The students were there to lobby to continue to receive the special state funding that FFA currently gets from the state. They were very polished in their tight fitting blue jackets, with the gold cord and the cryptic FFA logo on the back. They spoke with poise and passion about their future plans for college and careers. One after another, these high school students talked about becoming engineers, crop scientists or geneticists at land grant universities. They talked about their plans to move into high paying technical careers with Pioneer, ADM or Monsanto. As far as I could tell, their highest aspirations were to be somewhere else, working for someone else and to have a 9 to 5 with great pay, great benefits and long, paid vacations. I can't remember that any of them mentioned becoming a farmer. Certainly none of them talked about raising good, healthy food for their family, friends and community.
It was interesting to me that FFA has changed their name so that FFA no longer stands for Future Farmers of America. FFA now just stands for FFA. What this brings to mind is KFC, which used to stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken. In KFC’s case, I suppose that this change of brand name cleared the way for KFC to use cheaper, industrial byproduct filler in the place of real chicken meat.
It’s kind of an interesting analogy isn’t it?
I bring this little episode up because it is what got me thinking about the use of the words farm and farmer. I think it is time for us to take these words back. We, the people, on the front lines of the effort to get real food to those who need it most, we, the people, fighting for the physical and economic health of our neighborhoods and of our communities, we, the people, working to heal and reinhabit our abandoned and neglected landscapes. It is time for us to take back the words “farm” and “farmer” from corporate industrial agribusiness.
A piece of property owned by an investment group in Chicago, or New York, or London, or Dubai or Beijing - is not a farm.
A piece of property managed by a limited liability corporation that employs hourly wage equipment operators - is not a farm.
The wage laborer driving the fertilizer truck while listening to his Ipod is not a farmer.
Neither is the guy making minimum wage spraying 2-4D and paying no heed to the direction of the wind or to what the neighbors have planted next store, a farmer.
The man (or woman) doomed to spend his workdays in the confines of a corporate-owned, concentration camp animal confinement operation - poor soul - is not a farmer.
A farm is not just a piece of land. A person who happens to work on a piece of land is not necessarily a farmer!
Modern industrial, corporate agribusiness is not farming and we need to call them on it! We need more farms and more farmers. If that is going to happen, than the local food movement must continue to grow and we need to differentiate between corporate agribusiness and real family farms and farmers.
