Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

There’s a romance about farmland that affects all parts of culture; from the organic growers to the industrial combines. There’s a wholesomeness that surrounds farmland, even when it’s commercialized, because we’re reminded of farms every time we go into a grocery store; and the beauty of fruits & vegetables also has a lot to do with it. Disconcertingly, many children have never even visited a farm, and the only farm animals they’ve ever seen were in a petting zoo. They haven’t ever seen fields of corn or wheat except on television. This disconnect between where we live and what we eat has led to the last few generations wanting to put farmland into nature conservancies to protect the environment. Farming is existential: without it, most people die; certainly civilizations fall, as they have throughout history when the rains didn’t fall, or the harvest failed. In fact, in the United States and elsewhere, farmland is considered of strategic importance which shouldn’t be subject to normal Capitalist upheaval. That’s why government maintains the resource with heavy subsidies even during times of plenty: “garmers get paid not to grow food,” comes from this phenomenon. Unfortunately, farmland requires farmers, and those are raised, not made. With less-and-less people not growing up on farms and instead becoming environmentalists, this may become a problem?