The Great Divide

Posted by Tony Ricci on 07/19, 2011 at 11:02 AM

Sometimes I learn the same lesson over and over again until it finally sinks into my thick skull. That’s just human nature. 

But the comment that usually sends chills down my spine and forces my eyes to roll involuntarily into my head is, “So when does the harvest start?” Or more obliquely, “How’s the harvest this year?” 

I usually receive such comments and their permutations while I’m setting up my stand at the farmers market, and I have to resist making a wise crack like, “Well, the crop of rocks we planted this spring is doing well, but they’re taking forever to ripen.”

Of course, I don’t say that because I want the customer to buy the tomatoes that I’m piling into a neat cairn a foot from his nose. I understand that this is just an ice breaker before the conversation steers itself into more pertinent topics like fishing or professional wrestling – which I really don’t know anything about but am expected to blather on about until the cows come home—because I’m a guy. 

I have to remind myself that this is not the fault of the speaker but reflects the great divide between the producer and the consumer in our society. We may all live in a rural area, but hardly any of us is part of the agricultural community. And when collective knowledge recedes in the community, it’s a lot easier to simplify our concepts of how food is produced and who produces it. 

So the concept of farmer becomes this amorphous caricature of a straw chewin’, tobacco spittin’, bale throwin’ cow whisperer. Or something along those lines. So I’ve gotten into the habit of just responding, “Yeap. We ‘spect a purdy darn good one this year iffin’ we ever get some dang rain.”  Which, of course, is as close to the truth about farming anything as you can get.

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