So New York Made a Farmer: Anastasia Weighs In

I think by now the whole Western world has seen the Dodge Ram ad that ran during the Super Bowl. The reverent tone of Paul Harvey’s 1978 Future Farmers of America Convention speech played over a montage of pastoral farm images struck a stark contrast to the splashy hilarity of the epic sportacular. Since it aired a few short days ago I’ve been asked no less than a half dozen times, “whaddya think of the farmer ad?”

I’m not made of stone, so of course I choked up just a little looking at those pretty pictures of an agrarian American utopia while a gravelly voice reminiscent of grandpa patted us soothingly on the back for our hard work. It’s a beautiful speech, listing all the many hats a farmer wears: caretaker; tireless laborer; patient husband; gentle midwife; strong shepherd; industrious, resourceful genius and hero to his neighbors. But I’m also acutely aware of the myriad ways in which the ad was a reductionist look at a bygone era designed to tug on the heartstrings of an American viewership increasingly naïve to what farming actually looks like in this country at present. Luckily, the historian Rachel Lauden took the time to call them out in a brilliant and incisive piece on her blog. She talks about the price of the 9R John Deere the farmer is riding towards the end of the ad (~$300k), the price of land ($5k an acre) and the reality of farming in a global economy, which involves less time milking cows than it does sitting in front of a computer to key data into crop management software, checking international agricultural prices and repaying the steadily mounting debt (s)he has raised to operate on that pricey piece of land. Lauden’s gripe is that we’ll never “get a sensible grip on agriculture” if we continue to promote this mythology, and while I certainly understand where she’s coming from, rather than tear down the cultural memes we’ve adored and to some degree glorified from an increasing distance for the better part of our history, why not update them? Why not rewrite our stories?

I, for one, am barely up on the farm these days after hurting my back last spring. My story would read more like “And on the eighth day, we looked at our inbox and said ‘we need somebody to respond to the seventy new emails we’ve received in the last two days’ and so necessity made me Communications Director.’” But Ben, Gwen, Chase, Matt and as of this spring, our new Farm Manager, Bradley, as well as our compost partners, educators, apprentices and colleagues all have amazing stories of their own. So to them, I offer up this paean, with the apology that no tribute written here could begin to do justice to the incredible hard work everyone has contributed over the last four years.

It all began back in the fall of 2009, when we looked at all the blank rooftops of New York City and said, “We need to plant these.” So New York City made some farmers.

Brooklyn Grange flagship farm install crew, Ben Flanner on the left. Photo courtesy of Donnellt Marks

We need someone to wake up at 3am and direct traffic on bustling Northern Boulevard around eighteen-wheeler flatbeds delivering 3,000 lb sacks of soil, lay down green roof and shovel dirt for eight hours in punishing rain, pay the crane guys, then stay up past midnight to speak at a conference on the future of urban planning – so New York City made a Ben Flanner.

Gwen, Anastasia and the crew shovel out rows at the flagship farm. Photo © Andy Kropa 2010

We need someone with arms strong enough to haul twelve sixty-pound toters full of food scraps and wood chips up two flights of stairs from the freight elevator up to the compost pile, then turn a steaming, stinking pile of diverted waste pitchfork by pitchfork, all while eight months pregnant – so New York City made a Gwen Schantz.

We need someone to meet with the suits and negotiate a better deal on rent, then slip into a different type of suit to smoke a hive of buzzing bees into submission before splitting their growing population into a new home – so New York City made a Chase Emmons.

We need someone quick enough to navigate surly fork-lift operators through a busy warehouse in pursuit of a chicken that seems to share genetics with a road runner, then gentle enough to calm her fluttering wings before boarding a rush hour elevator back up to the coop she flew – so New York City made a Matt Jefferson.

We need someone patient enough to come in early and work long hours harvesting in the hot sun then smile at every customer who stops by the farmstand, picks up a bunch of hakurei turnips and says, “I love these radishes!” – so New York City made a Melissa Kuzoian.

Chase, Ben and Gwen

We need someone to read through all the DOB permit guidelines and loan applications and LOIs and MOUs and fill out the scheduled process forms for our 20c after staying up till the wee hours in a commercial kitchen making hot sauce so hot the very air in the room burns the tender skin around the eyes and nose; someone to enter all the sales in Quickbooks and take the checks to the bank and send the investors an update; who still has the drive to come back at sundown to transplant seedlings while the light is low, and still sticks around to stake the transplants cause that’s a fierce wind starting to kick up from the Southwest and we wouldn’t want those tender stems to split – and then even still has the patience to ride a crowded subway home. So New York City made some farmers.

And we’re not going anywhere.

http://www.brooklyngrangefarm.com/so-new-york-made-a-farmer-anastasia-weighs-in/