And why not? Back to the land?
Gleaning Oats. Lionel Percy Smythe
A seemingly interesting trend here, maybe:
Milan, Italy - Confronted by the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, and with little support from a debt-burdened government, an increasing number of Italy's young people are returning to the land for agriculture production - a sector the generation before nearly abandoned.
Piergiovanni Ferraresi, 23, is one of these new Italian farmers. After graduating law school, he decided to return to his family's farm instead of practicing law. In the countryside just outside of Verona, in northeast Italy, Ferraresi transformed the farm into a modern agribusiness that produces milk, soya, and different varieties of grains. He has since hired two employees, including his younger brother Mario.
According to Italy's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, 11,485 new agribusinesses were established in 2013 - a 2.6 percent increase from 2012. About 17 percent were started by individuals below age 30.
From Aljazeera
More younger people like Ms. Lavarde are making lives as small-scale farmers in France, drawn in some cases by idealistic notions of tilling the land and of getting away from the rat race of the cities. They often leave behind well-paid jobs, as well as relatively comfortable lives that they nonetheless find unfulfilling.From the New York Times.
Lesbos, Greece - Odysseas Elytis, the Greek Nobel laureate and poet, once wrote: "If you disintegrate Greece, in the end you'll see that what you have left is an olive tree, a vineyard, and a ship. Which means: with these you can rebuild it."
Having endured eight years of a deepening economic crisis, thousands of young Greeks are taking heed of Elytis' words by leaving the cities to work on the land.
One of them is 35-year-old Alexandros Kleitsas, who until four years ago had spent his entire life in Athens, the capital of Greece, working for a private company that certified organic products.
After spending two years being unemployed, Alexandros decided he had no other option but to leave everything behind and move to his grandparents' village in Kalabaka, four hours' drive north of Athens. There he started a farm with his brother and three friends.
"Someone has to start producing again in this country," Alexandros says. "We can't all be in the service sector and so I left the city. I started from zero, without any land or experience."
Alexandros isn't alone in his thinking. For the first time in 20 years, employment in the agricultural sector has been rising, from 11 percent in 2008, a 35-year low, to 12.9 percent in 2015, according to the latest available report by the Greek Statistical Service. Almost half of all new farmers come from the cities.
Again from Aljazeera
According to the USDA's most recent census of farmers from 2012, the number of principal farmers between the ages of 25 and 34 increased 2.2 percent from five years before.
In addition, a new survey by the National Young Farmer Coalition finds that millennial farmers are different from previous generations: they are more likely to be college-educated, not come from farming families, use sustainable practices and produce organic food.
Among those recruiting millennial foodies into farming is Kimbal Musk, brother of tech billionaire Elon Musk. His project Square Roots is an accelerator incubating vertical farming startups inside a shipping container in Brooklyn.
From CNBC
Liz Whitehurst dabbled in several careers before she ended up here, crating fistfuls of fresh-cut arugula in the early-November chill.
The hours were better at her nonprofit jobs. So were the benefits. But two years ago, the 32-year-old Whitehurst — who graduated from a liberal arts college and grew up in the Chicago suburbs — abandoned Washington for this three-acre farm in Upper Marlboro, Md.
She joined a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.The Washington Post
And you can find a lot of similar stories from within the United States and Canada. Mostly of young people, often with no farming background or light connection to farming in their family, returning to farming. And for many, but not all, of these people the farming they are returning to is a true throw back. They aren't majoring in agriculture so they can go to work for ADM as an employee. No, they're getting involved in small scale agriculture most often in a way that resembles agriculture of the 20s, 30s and 40s. Very local, as a rule, and bordering in the yeomanry pattern of old.
What's going on here?
Well, maybe nothing whatsoever. After all, people with long memories can recall prior "back to the land movements", such as, for example, the Hippiecentric one of the early 1970s. And we all know how that played itself out. The commune living back to the lander would be paleolithic farmers moved back out a few years later, got themselves jobs in law, accounting and business, and are today's Boomers lamenting the lack of values and virtues in millennial's. Those same people who sit down and reminisce while watching Easy Rider are also reading the Washington Times and grumbling about the lazy young, dagnabbit, who won't follow their hard working example. . . And we know that demographically its still the case that younger generations are moving from rural areas into cities.
This could be the same thing. I.e., it could be a youthful flirtation like the one of the 1970s.
But I suspect it isn't.
Here's what I suspect is going on.
The move off the land, if you will, started some time in the late 19th Century but it wasn't really strongly in play until just about one century ago. Indeed, we haven't quite gotten there yet, even as we've been tracking the years on a daily basis for some time. 1919 was the peak year in economic parity, in the United States, for farmers. I.e., that's the last year that farmers family incomes matched, more or less, their urban counterparts.
Now, I don't know if that was also true for European farmers, but I suspect it was the case or close to it. This plays out a little differently in Europe, however, as at least on the continent the overall standard of living was lower than it was in the United States until some time roughly after World War Two.. We tend not to think of countries like France, Italy, Spain, etc. . . . or even Germany, having a lower standard of living, but they frankly did until, roughly, the 1950s*.
Village and town life in France, for example, was lower than the equivalent in the United States and it had frankly changed little since the 18th Century, or even earlier, in some significant ways but not so much as to make it roughly analogous in some ways to the average American's life, particularly if they came from rural areas, but even if they came from urban ones. Lots of American farm and rural kids who served in France came from homes that didn't have electricity, that heated with wood, or certainly coal, and which didn't have indoor plumbing. To them, conditions in the average French village were not very much different or were at least recognizable, to Americans. Even those who came from larger towns and cities might still have only just acquired electricity in their homes, assuming they had, and outdoor facilities were still fairly common in smaller towns. Bigger cities weren't necessarily nice places to live either, as a lot of Americans from large cities lived in pretty crowded and rude conditions. For them, the conditions in larger French cities would have been darned near identical to what they had seen at home.
This plays out, by the way, in a strange way for American servicemen in World War One as compared to World War Two as the average American of the First World War was quite taken by the French, although those who served in the Army of occupation in Germany were very impressed with the Germans, particularly how clean they were. Servicemen who wrote home during World War One generally found the French to be quite charming and they didn't complain about conditions in the French countryside. While we hear about war brides from all wars, it's often missed that this this was particularly a phenomenon for American servicemen in World War One in spite of the very short period of time during which Americans were in Europe. A lot of American servicemen met and married French girls in the short period they were stationed there. Some met and married German girls during the short period the Americans occupied portions of Germany, and as noted Americans were hugely impressed with Germany while they were there, but of note a sizable number of Americans met and married Russian brides if they were stationed in Siberia during the expedition there, so many that a legal opinion had to be issued on whether the US recognized Russian Orthodox weddings (it did).
In comparison, American servicemen who fought in France during World War Two were sympathetic to the French but tended to be shocked by how "dirty" they were and how "dirty" the country was, and even more so by the Italians, who were regarded as truly dirty peasantry. The common view of Italy at the time was that it was a hopelessly backwards nation full of peasantry. Why the change in views? Americans who entered Germany were again impressed with it, but all the more so in comparison with the countries south of the Rhine, and often noted that the country seemed a lot more like home than other European mainland countries did. This became a problem for the American forces given the development of a level of sympathy with the German populace that the American Army did not want, although it did not occur nearly as often amongst combat troops who were pretty disgusted with the Germans as a rule.
So, what had changed? Were the French and Italians really "dirty" and were the Germans really "clean" and if so why isn't it that American servicemen of World War One hadn't noticed that? Well, because it wasn't really true, except in an odd context. Conditions in Europe had not changed much between the wars. Conditions in the US had.
Village and town life in France, for example, was lower than the equivalent in the United States and it had frankly changed little since the 18th Century, or even earlier, in some significant ways but not so much as to make it roughly analogous in some ways to the average American's life, particularly if they came from rural areas, but even if they came from urban ones. Lots of American farm and rural kids who served in France came from homes that didn't have electricity, that heated with wood, or certainly coal, and which didn't have indoor plumbing. To them, conditions in the average French village were not very much different or were at least recognizable, to Americans. Even those who came from larger towns and cities might still have only just acquired electricity in their homes, assuming they had, and outdoor facilities were still fairly common in smaller towns. Bigger cities weren't necessarily nice places to live either, as a lot of Americans from large cities lived in pretty crowded and rude conditions. For them, the conditions in larger French cities would have been darned near identical to what they had seen at home.
This plays out, by the way, in a strange way for American servicemen in World War One as compared to World War Two as the average American of the First World War was quite taken by the French, although those who served in the Army of occupation in Germany were very impressed with the Germans, particularly how clean they were. Servicemen who wrote home during World War One generally found the French to be quite charming and they didn't complain about conditions in the French countryside. While we hear about war brides from all wars, it's often missed that this this was particularly a phenomenon for American servicemen in World War One in spite of the very short period of time during which Americans were in Europe. A lot of American servicemen met and married French girls in the short period they were stationed there. Some met and married German girls during the short period the Americans occupied portions of Germany, and as noted Americans were hugely impressed with Germany while they were there, but of note a sizable number of Americans met and married Russian brides if they were stationed in Siberia during the expedition there, so many that a legal opinion had to be issued on whether the US recognized Russian Orthodox weddings (it did).
In comparison, American servicemen who fought in France during World War Two were sympathetic to the French but tended to be shocked by how "dirty" they were and how "dirty" the country was, and even more so by the Italians, who were regarded as truly dirty peasantry. The common view of Italy at the time was that it was a hopelessly backwards nation full of peasantry. Why the change in views? Americans who entered Germany were again impressed with it, but all the more so in comparison with the countries south of the Rhine, and often noted that the country seemed a lot more like home than other European mainland countries did. This became a problem for the American forces given the development of a level of sympathy with the German populace that the American Army did not want, although it did not occur nearly as often amongst combat troops who were pretty disgusted with the Germans as a rule.
So, what had changed? Were the French and Italians really "dirty" and were the Germans really "clean" and if so why isn't it that American servicemen of World War One hadn't noticed that? Well, because it wasn't really true, except in an odd context. Conditions in Europe had not changed much between the wars. Conditions in the US had.
So what's that have to do with anything?
Well, quite a lot. What those American servicemen of World War Two really expressed was the American push away from far life that followed World War One. The same thing would set in all over Europe after World War Two.
The US went into World War One an industrial nation, but one that had one foot in an agrarian one. It had become an industrial powerhouse but at the same time it remained heavily agricultural in nature in much of the country. Of course, the US remains a country with a very large agricultural sector, but not like it had at that time and frankly would for some time thereafter.
After World War One the move towards the cities really started to accelerate, slowed only by the Great Depression, which also served to mask that. The change was very real, however. After the Great War the US entered an agricultural depression that accompanied a post war recession in the overall economy. At the same time the march of the machines, which saw its expression in every aspect of American life, from the home to the factory, also was coming on strong in the countryside. At the same time, while rural life continued to be celebrated in American culture, the contrary force which depicted farmers and ranchers as hicks increased. Farmers and ranchers themselves came to increasingly believe that the life for their children should be a city life, not a rural life, and pushed children in that direction.
Those children are the ones who fill the obituary pages today, and you can see the results. A common obituary reads something like this, with of course a million variants.
Perhaps automation is increasing this, and perhaps that's the ironic byproduct of replacing ourselves, as we are increasingly doing, with electronic machines. Having made our work intolerable, and the conditions in which we live also intolerable, we are now ironically free to return to the work we escaped. And its the most basic variant of it as well. The types of farming that are low intensity in machinery.
At least it appears that many are. Not all, by any means. We're told that the millennials increasingly are moving to the big cities. . . but that's from the smaller cities and the suburbs. Perhaps that migration isn't as unconnected in some ways as it might seem. People seem to be recreating, in a cleaner less dangerous forms, the conditions their ancestors started leaving a century ago.
So now we're seeing a retreat all the way back.
*By standard of living we're not getting into the statistical analysis of this, which often leads to debates, but only using the term loosely. The "standard of living" isn't even the same from state to state, so it certainly isn't from country to country. But what we mean by this is the overall economic picture at the family and individual level, and what that meant.
Well, quite a lot. What those American servicemen of World War Two really expressed was the American push away from far life that followed World War One. The same thing would set in all over Europe after World War Two.
The US went into World War One an industrial nation, but one that had one foot in an agrarian one. It had become an industrial powerhouse but at the same time it remained heavily agricultural in nature in much of the country. Of course, the US remains a country with a very large agricultural sector, but not like it had at that time and frankly would for some time thereafter.
After World War One the move towards the cities really started to accelerate, slowed only by the Great Depression, which also served to mask that. The change was very real, however. After the Great War the US entered an agricultural depression that accompanied a post war recession in the overall economy. At the same time the march of the machines, which saw its expression in every aspect of American life, from the home to the factory, also was coming on strong in the countryside. At the same time, while rural life continued to be celebrated in American culture, the contrary force which depicted farmers and ranchers as hicks increased. Farmers and ranchers themselves came to increasingly believe that the life for their children should be a city life, not a rural life, and pushed children in that direction.
Those children are the ones who fill the obituary pages today, and you can see the results. A common obituary reads something like this, with of course a million variants.
John Doe was born on his families farm outside of Wheatland Wyoming. He grew up on the farm and then attended the University of Wyoming until he was called into service during World War Two. After he left hte Army after the war, he returned to University and graduated from law school in 1948, after which he practiced in Cheyenne. He is survived by his children, Dr. John Doe II, of Cincinnati Ohio, and Jane Smith, of Denver Colorado.What we see in these obituaries is that people of humble rural origin routinely left that life in their youth and went into "good jobs". Their children went into better "good jobs". Their grandchildren have discovered that a lot of the good jobs were, well, not so great. So people who are one or two generations removed from the farm now wish to come back, and all the way back.
Perhaps automation is increasing this, and perhaps that's the ironic byproduct of replacing ourselves, as we are increasingly doing, with electronic machines. Having made our work intolerable, and the conditions in which we live also intolerable, we are now ironically free to return to the work we escaped. And its the most basic variant of it as well. The types of farming that are low intensity in machinery.
At least it appears that many are. Not all, by any means. We're told that the millennials increasingly are moving to the big cities. . . but that's from the smaller cities and the suburbs. Perhaps that migration isn't as unconnected in some ways as it might seem. People seem to be recreating, in a cleaner less dangerous forms, the conditions their ancestors started leaving a century ago.
So now we're seeing a retreat all the way back.
*By standard of living we're not getting into the statistical analysis of this, which often leads to debates, but only using the term loosely. The "standard of living" isn't even the same from state to state, so it certainly isn't from country to country. But what we mean by this is the overall economic picture at the family and individual level, and what that meant.
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