I've learned to turn down the constant barrage of advertisements on radio, television, internet, newspaper, magazines, billboards, and those inevitable, unwelcome suppertime calls from telemarketers.
On occasion, I do "tune in" to ads, often in disbelief about the products portrayed as nearly indispensable for my life, health or happiness. Lots of money is spent to convince consumers that a product is indeed very special. You may have noticed that contented animals on green pastures, red hip-roof barns, and smiling young farm families are now very vogue, and used prolifically to evoke images that sell. Does it matter that the images might not have anything to do with how the food was actually produced?
Advertising and authenticity are often worlds apart. Advertising images are illusions, carefully crafted and veneered over sometimes very ordinary, generic or even unappealing products or production methods. Advertising can play on emotions, nostalgia, and yes, ignorance, but there's no doubt that successful advertising contributes mightily to the bottom line. Now we have arrived at what really counts, and it is right there in black or red.
There's nothing warm and fuzzy about the bottom line, or emotional, or nostalgic. As a society, we have been trained to use the bottom line as the sole determinant of what works and what doesn't, what to discard and what to keep.
Globalization is the reality behind those customer-friendly ad images of young farm families with children posed with farm animals in a 1950s era farmyard. The reality of the scene is increasingly rare.
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As would-be "widgets" in a global economy, we are given strong, repetitive signals that we must produce more for less, or get out of the way, for if we don't reach the ever-climbing standard of productivity, we are of no more value than an obsolete part of an obsolete machine. To some, that obsolete part might be just another farmer, and the "obsolete machine" might be known as a rural community. To produce more, cheaper and faster is increasingly more feasible in developing countries, and has rendered the United States a net importer of foods.
We don't feed the world anymore, the world feeds us. What does this new reality mean for rural communities?
For decades, our chief export from rural communities has been our young people. We live in communities nearly devoid of people in their 20s and 30s, devoid of their young families, devoid of their ideas, energy and enthusiasm, and yet we have come to view this horrible lack as the undeniably normal course of events. We are losing, or have already lost, countless schools, churches, health care options, main street businesses and political representation.
Fast forward your community 10 years. What does it look like? Who is working now on the master plan for your community? In a context of ever-increasing pressure toward globalization, rural communities everywhere are struggling to re-invent themselves. The struggle is a strong signal that in spite of our many casualties, hope is not one of them.
Sustainable family farmers have an unshakeable commitment to a triple bottom line of economic viability, social justice and environmental stewardship, fueled by all the authenticity that the ads are lacking, need to step to the forefront of envisioning our future.
"One thing that distinguishes man from the animals is his imagination. Man is always planning; he lives in his dreams unless his hopes are dashed by repeated failure or unless circumstances compel him to believe that planning for himself is useless. In a social order built on the authority of upper levels over lower levels, imagination has little to do in this direction; for the majority, their planning is done for them." USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1940.
Mary Jo Forbord, RD, executive director of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, is a registered dietitian and a farmer. Mary Jo and her family rotationally graze Lowline Angus and market Prairie Horizons beef. The mission of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota is to support the development and enhancement of sustainable farming systems through farmer-to-farmer networking, innovation, demonstration and education.
