I’ve written a number of harsh posts about those living in rural America, mostly based off the perception that is pushed by the Republican party, that is, rural Americans don’t understand, and resent urban Americans. That rural Americans are the god-fearing, backbone of America and urban and city dwellers are welfare dependents, and worse still, socialists. Certainly, the Republican party continue to push this agenda today, dividing sub-urban and rural communities from the cities.
As shown here, rural Americans claiming benefits has sky rocketed between ’96 and 2015; increasingly, the programs getting cut, adversely hit rural America harder, as rural Americans are smaller in total number; medical coverage may not “be a right” according to the Republican party, it should be a “choice”, try maintaining a community without easy access to modern healthcare; schools are also a right, without them, not only are local taxes higher, more subsidy is needed to get kids to schools outside the city. School Choice won’t save rural schools without a massive rethink.
However, rural Americans, and farmers especially, deserve another perspective. They’ve largely been screwed by the “agricultural industrial machine”. Sure, many farmers have sold out and reaped substantial profits, more though are barely getting by. There is a lot to be said about a community completely upended over the last 30-years.
Laura Dunn, Two Birds Film (Austin TX) has produced a beautifully filmed, subtle, but brilliantly edited, and panoramic, poignant portrait of the changing landscapes and shifting values of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture, as seen through the eye of American novelist, poet, and activist, Wendell Berry.
Berry represents, if not the best known defender of rural, natural America, then certainly the most eloquent. His contributions to Lauras’ other major work, The Unforseen, were the first I’d heard of him. Certainly, this profile certainly made me think again. You can watch the trailer on youtube(below) or the complete film on Netflix.
“To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope” American author and poet, Wendell Berry.
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
Remember Earl Butz? Not many do, he was Nixons secretary of argiculture, the government driver of industrialized farming and profit. He was also a racist and was eventually forced to resign.
As with Nixon, so it should be with Trump, focus not what he says, but what he enables pic.twitter.com/huPnkImqK8
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
America’s farming was in crisis before sanctions, big agri business has been killing it since Earl Butz declared there was no future in food without P R O F I T. https://t.co/t3J8CYl7uo
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
Farmers are getting approximately the same per pound now as they were in the 70’s. In the 70’s a pickup truck cost $7500, today it costs $35,000… Industrialization and automation killed the small farms.
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
The cultural mistake in the USA was to not value millions of individual, small communities, and we are paying the penalty for that…
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
Through soil erosion, toxicity, polluted rivers and polluted air. What we have sacrificed for all the choice we have is to be absolute slaves, to the people who want to to sell us what we need to survive.
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
The mind of industrial agriculture long ago lost contact and context with the land and the lands people. In a very real sense it has no idea what it’s doing.
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…
The Second Coming
W. B. Yeats— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” Wendell Berry.
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
This thread was inspired by, and some of the tweets taken from @twobirdsfilm Look & See – A portrait of Wendell Berry. If you have not seen it, do. It is available on Netflix https://t.co/G2Xz1SPKu7
— Mark Cathcart (@cathcam) October 10, 2018
Mark,
Your article inspired me to do some research into the similiaries that farming has today with the 1930’s – in this country. Here is a wonderful table that puts things into perspective:
Table 1
The Great Depression vs Great Recession in the advanced countries
Real GDP Price level Unemployment (%) Trade volume
1929 100.0 100.0 7.2 100.0
1930 95.2 90.8 14.1 94.8
1931 89.2 79.9 22.8 89.5
1932 83.3 73.1 31.4 76.5
1933 84.3 71.7 29.8 78.4
1934 89.0 75.3 23.9 79.6
1935 94.0 77.6 21.9 81.8
1936 100.6 81.4 18.0 85.7
1937 105.3 91.5 14.3 97.4
1938 105.4 90.4 16.5 87.0
2007 100.0 100.0 5.4 100.0
2008 100.5 102.0 5.8 100.6
2009 97.3 102.9 8.0 85.0
2010 99.6 103.7 8.4 93.3
Sources: 1929–38: Real GDP: Maddison (2010) western European countries plus western offshoots; Price level: League of Nations (1941); data are for wholesale prices, weighted average of 17 countries; Unemployment: Eichengreen and Hatton (1987); data are for industrial unemployment, weighted average of 11 countries; Trade volume: Maddison (1985), weighted average of 16 countries.
2007–2010: IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2010.
I am looking forward to watching the film you have recommended, on Netflix, this weekend. As always, great work Mark.
D’Arcy
thanks for the feedback D’Arcy. Always enjoy hearing from you.
I went looking for some comparison numbers, I have not verified them with other sources, but they seem to resonate with the decline in rural America.
1920 Total population: 105,710,620; farm population: 31,614,269; farmers 27% of labor force; Number of farms: 6,454,000; average acres: 148
1930 Total population: 122,775,046; farm population: 30,455,350; farmers 21% of labor force; Number of farms: 6,295,000; average acres: 157
1940 Total population: 131,820,000; farm population: 30,840,000; farmers 18% of labor force; Number of farms: 6,102,000; average acres: 175
many rural workers moved in the following years to help with the war effort in cities and factories. They never went back.
1950 Total population: 151,132,000; farm population: 25,058,000; farmers 12.2% of labor force; Number of farms: 5,388,000; average acres: 216
1960 Total population: 180,007,000; farm population: 15,635,000; farmers 8.3% of labor force; Number of farms: 3,711,000; average acres: 303
1970 Total population: 204,335,000; farm population: 9,712,000; farmers 4.6% of labor force; Number of farms: 2.780, 000; average acres: 390
1980 Total population: 227,020,000; farm population: 6,051,000; farmers 3.4% of labor force; Number of farms: 2,439,510; average acres: 426
1990 Total population: 261,423,000; farm population: 2,987,552; farmers 2.6% of labor force; Number of farms: 2,143,150; average acres: 461
I have not had time to trawl through all the most recent data, but back in 2012, farmers were down to 1.5% https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAPEMANA
The reality of this is exactly what you see, rural decline. The number of businesses to support 12% of the population who were farming was significant, now the number of farmers is approaching insignificant, there is little profit in supporting them.