The Roots, Rationale, and Reality of America’s Idyllic Farm Fiction

America loves a quaint, picturesque, hard-working farm. 

Rolling fields of grain blow gently in the wind. A three-rail fence leads you to a classic white farmhouse. A rustic red barn catches the late-day sun while the farmer cares for animals he knows by name and crops he tends by hand. 

This farm? You’ll find it on the side of an ice cream carton or a can of green beans. Children’s toys mimic this fiction, and it feels authentic on the big screen. You’ll hear all about it in popular country, blues or folk music, and farm-to-table restaurants have a knack for serving up a taste of this rural myth. 
 

You’ll be hard pressed, however, to find this farm at work in the real world. The farm most Americans love isn’t the one we actually have. It’s part of a long history of romanticizing agrarian life.

The realities of today’s farm are far more stressful than the fiction would have us believe. There are 7-day work weeks, shrinking margins of a commodity market, and every spring, farmers plant their livelihood with the hopes that it will resurface later that season. When it does, they’ll have grown more gray hair as well. 

Out of necessity, today’s working farm is also far more advanced than the imaginary one. Innovations in technology, data analytics and agricultural science have helped modern farmers make incredible strides in conserving Earth’s natural resources while producing enough to feed our growing population. 

This disparity between reality and fiction is nothing new. Journalists and authors have explored the theme at length. Most echo Chris Cunningham’s conclusion from his article, Pastoral Romance. “By misrepresenting—or misunderstanding—our food history,” Cunningham writes, “we make a realistic conversation about what to change and how to change it more difficult than it already is.” 
 
In other words, we’re having a societal conversation about changes in food production with a frame of reference that, for many, isn’t real. It’s not only a challenge to the productivity of the dialogue, but a disservice to the farmers at the heart of the conversation who are working toward real solutions.

Why do we collectively subscribe to this agricultural utopia? What is it about society that predisposes us to share the same unrealistic vision of life on the farm? 

EARLY ROOTS AND THE YEOMAN FARMER

Most Americans are generations removed from the farm. They might remember riding on Grandpa’s tractor when they were young, and the nostalgia for those carefree, youthful moments is relevant. The roots of agrarian idealism, however, go back much further. Not to our own formative years, but America’s. 

The 18th-century yeoman was a land-owning family farmer, a freeholder. In the colonies, he belonged to the majority and would come to represent freedom, democracy and opportunity for all. 

The Promise of the Frontier

The republic’s dependence on small landholders and the nation’s reverence for the self-sufficient farmer continued throughout the 19th century. In fact, it was fueled by acts of Congress. The Homestead Acts, beginning in 1862, afforded many Americans the same opportunity as the yeoman farmers before them: to be freeholders. 

Writers and politicians continued to praise rural society, even vilifying the city. In 1849, Prairie Farmer proclaimed the city “crushes, enslaves, and ruins so many thousands of our young men who are insensibly made the victims ... of reckless speculation, and of ultimate crime.” 

Editors of Prairie Farmer may have had a flair for the dramatic, but they didn’t exaggerate this: the numbers. While the Homestead Acts and the promise of a virtuous country life lured Americans to the farm, farmers’ sons and daughters were moving to the city. By the thousands.   

The Trouble with Change

The rural-to-urban migration signaled a striking departure from the picturesque American farm fiction. Yet, even though the landscape was changing, the “image” of farm life did not. It had already been set. 

As humans, it’s hard to change an image once we’ve accepted it. We tend to favor information which reinforces what we already believe to be true. It’s called confirmation bias. 

Change, however, is hard. The tractor was met with resistance. Ira Nichols contributed an opinion to Nebraska Farmer that echoed the sentiment of vocal anti-tractor advocates. “The automobile and tractor craze will be over in a few years and then we will be wishing for more horses or mules,” he predicted. 

Like the advent of the tractor, the collective vision of the American farm is shaped by human acceptance of change as much as anything. And there was another seismic shift on the horizon.

A Crisis, and the End of the Yeoman

The economic conditions of the 1980s were a perfect storm for farmers. Political embargos and decreased exports meant supply outpaced demand. Commodity prices fell. At the same time, interest rates, costs and oil prices were jumping. It was a farm crisis. 

Many farms that had been in the family for generations were foreclosed. Their land was purchased by neighbors and as the number of farmers significantly dropped, the size of the remaining operations rapidly grew. Farmers needed new ways to keep up with the added acreage. 

Society took notice. Even if they lived in the city, Americans knew of the struggles on the farm. Some rural sociologists theorize this was one point at which society conflated the arrival of technological solutions and scientific advancements in agriculture with a strict new economic structure and the hardships of farming. 

Agriculture had become more of a business. Rural population continued to plummet. Tech and ag science companies were delivering new solutions for new farming realities. From the perspective of America’s love affair with the agrarian utopia, the farmer as a symbol of individualism and the building block of democracy was under attack.

Simpler Times vs. the Information Age

At the same time, something else was at work. It was the dawn of the information age. 

“You’ll notice I didn’t say knowledge age.” That’s Dr. Paul Lasley, Professor of Sociology at Iowa State University. “You can get on the internet today and find claims and counterclaims on nearly every topic.” These conflicting scientific “findings,” including those aren’t accurate or fact-based, have contributed to what Dr. Lasley calls the undermining of the believability of science. 

The contradictions, fueled by limitless access to both reputable and non-reputable sources, have created uncertainty in the current food system. 

“People become especially nostalgic when they are anxious about the present and, especially, the future,” says Gregory Carpenter, Professor of Marketing Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management. He goes on to say in this Forbes article that, “The past is safe because it is completely predictable.” 

If you subscribe to Professor Carpenter’s line of thinking, it’s no wonder that rural flight, economic hardships, conflicting claims, and new, unfamiliar technologies have conspired to leave many in society uncertain about the future and longing for simpler times.

Except, those who are nostalgic about the past weren’t there. Most of today’s society are so far removed from the farm and the pre-industrialized food system that they can’t recall the era they long for, or know if it was, in fact, better. What we “remember,” instead, is a rustic red barn catching the late-day sun, and the mythological, fantastical image of agrarian life.

What's Missing From This Rural Utopia?

Left out of the idyllic vision of the American farm are a lot of unattractive realities from the past, and the necessary advancements thanks to helpful new technologies, innovations, digital tools, and data applications of modern agriculture.

The selective recall of nostalgia for “simpler times” tends to omit the fact that many previous generations of food production relied on slave or indentured labor of both humans and farm animals. The farmer’s own family paid a high cost as well. Manning the farm meant kids stayed home from school, sacrificing an education and the opportunities it would afford, not to mention the collective growth of the community and country.

Farmers in bygone eras also risked losing everything to pests or climate conditions, but modern agriculture gives them the crop protection tools they need to mitigate risk and guarantee food security. 

When farmers don’t have to worry as much about making ends meet this year, they can start thinking about next year and the year after that. They continue to learn how to better care for natural resources like water, soil, and energy, using less while growing what the world needs.

Moving Forward in Modern Agriculture  

It’s natural to be nostalgic for simpler times; it’s entirely human to believe the idealized version of past food production is advantageous to an unpredictable future. In a way, our shared political, economic, and technological past has conspired to create a bias to that end. 

Like any deeply-rooted cultural bias, we can’t eliminate it. Instead, we can recognize it and do our best to learn from it.

We don’t need to say goodbye to the rustic red barn. It’s a beautiful image, and a vibrant thread in the fabric of American culture. The values of the self-reliant farmer, past and present, are those to which we can all aspire. 

If we can appreciate the idyllic farm for what it is, while still holding constructive conversations grounded in facts, science, and healthy debate, then perhaps we can collectively create a food future that is a little less uncertain.

Fondly remembering our past, always with an eye toward improving upon it. Never beholden to bias, but moving beyond it. Moving forward.