Out on Interstate 70, a weathered wooden billboard proudly announces that "One Kansas farmer feeds 129 people, plus you!" Ever thought about becoming that One Kansas farmer?
No? Well, then you're not one of the cool kids. According to The Huffington Post, "farming has totally blown up" thanks to a call to return to working the land and college graduates increasingly opting to spend a post-graduate year on a farm. In attempting to discover whether this is an economy-driven trend or just a fad for those wealthy enough to indulge an agrarian lifestyle, the article argues we are actually experiencing a paradigm shift:
Perhaps we're looking at a new world of homesteading, manual labor, and life on the land. A life of farming, in other words.
You could make the case that farming, and especially the small farm, is a cause celebre. The plight of the small farmer was highlighted in
2007's King Corn, an independent documentary about the business of growing corn. And this year's Food Inc. is a harsh rebuke of industrialized farming.
But it also might be a case of the creative class moving into farming and using social media and powerful imagery to raise the profile of farms. Right now, 29 blogs about "life on the farm" are registered with the blog search engine
Technorati. Those writers who have begun to work the land and those farmers interested in writing are certainly having an impact on the national consciousness.
As for me, I'll be moving to Solomon, Kansas, where the Greymeadow Kennels and Farm is apparently on the market for $1.3 million.
[Image via Flickr: adam arthur]
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