Mindless Debacle: Man and Earth.
By Anya
“Farming should be given to machines,” was my boyfriend’s input when we were talking about agriculture and the economy. We were sitting in a sandwich shop a couple of days ago, and one way or the other the topic turned to agriculture and how the fields of agricultural engineering, biology, and biotechnology are all rapidly growing. My boyfriend’s thought was that farming itself should no longer be a human occupation. With the vast technology we have, we should leave it to the machines to farm and allow all the farmers to change their job line.
All I responded was, “I don’t like that idea.” I had no argument, no counterpoint. Nothing. All I could say was, I didn’t like the idea. Perhaps the most frustrating part of my lack of real argument was, I didn’t know why I despised that idea. The subject was subsequently dropped when it was realized I had no input and thoroughly was not happy with my lack of a decent retort. And, I didn’t have the heart to tell him then, but thinking about that made me more angry because in all seriousness, what’s wrong with farms going mechanical? It would save up on a lot of energy, and allow people to put their minds elsewhere.
The number of farmers are steadily decreasing anyway, with most farmers moving to the cities to try their hands in a new craft. A National Geographic article a few years ago stated that many small towns in Kansas and other parts of the Great Plains were diminishing rapidly and the plainest evidence of that was how local elementary schools were closing down. Most of the younger generation left for the cities to try and work their lives there and chose to establish families and households there, instead of the country.
Still, this is no real answer as to what is it about mechanizing farms that disturbs me, but after more thought, the answer comes to me in more of abstract images and pieces that I hope I can connect through this editorial. What seems to be irksome about robotics farming seems to not be that machines are doing the work, but rather that, people aren’t. I come from an old school train of thought, and to me some things are best left small. Instead of Wal-Mart, I like the Mom and Pop stores. Yes, I am a poor broke college student and therefore, I have sold my soul to the corporates, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to have a preference for one or the other. But what strikes me about farming is, it’s such a basic human industry, that do we really want to hand it over?
Back in the cro-magnon days, humans were nomads. We traveled all across the land chasing after leaping gazelles and so forth. We hunted our food. When we got a bit smarter, we realized that we can stay in one spot and still have our food. How? Farming. We learned how to grow our food, and this development that led us to become sedentary gave us the time and thought to not only fuel ourselves as individuals but helped us leave the tribes and form societies. Societies brought government. Government brought established civilizations. Wait a couple hundred years or so and we have civilizations that are advancing. Picking up on developments such as the concept of zero, the calendar, and city-wide plumbing, we have humans as not only another species of animals roving through planet Earth, but rather a very dominant and intelligent life form that has learned to make the environment adapt to them rather than the other way around (for the most part).
And all this started with agriculture. So if agriculture brought us to great developments, is it alright to just turn around and cut off the human hands that are responsible for tilling the soil, even if those hands operate John Deere tractors?
Perhaps that’s not a real reason to oppose the mechanization of farms.
Well then, how’s this…
True: Farming has been around for centuries. It is the most basic industry established by mankind. False: It is utterly useless in modern society.
Bottom line, we are people. We need food. Agriculture will always be a necessity. But will humans be the necessity?
Perhaps not. Because, as I had no retort a couple nights ago while I was eating my sandwich, I still don’t. I guess there might not be a practical argument I can come up with. What I can say though is there is a certain sense of respect I hold for those that farm, and perhaps because of that I abhor the idea of machines taking over the world of agriculture. Every year I watch my mother plant random vegetables in large pots and every fall, my family can safely munch on these veggies and remark how tasty they are, and my mother with great pride can say she not only cooked them, but grew them. My grandmother used to say the same, on her estate back in the homeland (so to speak). She has a huge tract of land filled with all sorts of tropical fruits and vegetables, most of which remain unknown to the western world and years ago, when my Grandfather was alive, there used to be more fruits and vegetables. He would till the soil, grow all these wonders, and never once did they rely on buying food. Why buy when it’s in your back yard? All year long there was a plethora of food, so much so that food was given to the neighbors, who also had estates of their own and would often return the favor by giving us much of the food we already had. Yet, they were all very proud people.
Now, my grandfather was a highschool headmaster and therefore had a PhD and was definitely a well-educated man, but he spent all his free time in the gardens. Why? Because to him, to every member of my family, there was no greater joy then reaping the benefits of your work, and farming is perhaps one of the most literal ways to live that statement. How could you not enjoy the fruit that grew on the tree you planted? How could those mangoes ever be sour if you planted them? Or what about all the beans that are growing in the patch far over there? They surely, must be delicious. And they were.
Now, my grandmother is not physically able to farm as much as before with my grandfather, and has settled with buying food, but she still talks of how nice it was to not have to buy such items. And my mother has it instilled in her, that there is no greater pleasure than to reap the benefits of one’s hard work. And while, I, her daughter can’t stand to dig in worm-filled dirt, could never pot a plant let alone provide water to a goldfish, I understand if anything, there is a sense of nature in working laboriously to raise food.
From dawn to dusk, to physically till the soil, water the crops, and to grow such commodities and tend to them brings a sense of pleasure. It’s the type of thing that after 15 hours of work when one goes home and crashes into bed, he or she can thing, “yeah, I accomplished something today, and onto more tomorrow” and in a couple of months, harvest time has arrived. Then the reaping of joys begins.
Perhaps that’s it. Farming, no matter how difficult, how painful, how not the suburban me, farming is one physical activity, one human industry , that still brings the man to the earth. Farming makes us realize what a wonder the earth is. The importance of the sun, its rays, its light, its nurture and its force that kindles life on this planet. The need of water, the moisture that softens the earth. the connection that brings the man to the ground.
That’s farming.
And with robots and machines built by the likes of Boeing, controlled by the likes of Haliburton and other construction companies, and harvested and distributed through the hands of Proctor and Gamble, well then farming is corporate.
It’s not man and nature. It’s well crafted crop circles used and harvested and sold for profit only, with the likes of such large companies who would conglomerate within a few years and then, agriculture is owned by one company and one company alone. And suddenly, it costs $50 for an apple.
Then we’re really screwed.
But then again, who am I to voice my opinion?
