A Digression on Generations, Food, and Farming
When I’m at work, I’m usually behind a computer screen. Now, I’m not complaining, but at times it does become hard to focus when it’s a sunny afternoon. Because of the gardening I’ve been doing, I’ve daydreamed about what it would be like to run a much larger garden. I’m thinking of the kind of garden one could make a living on. It’s a romantic dream; the honest organic farmer working the soil, harvesting the crops, and selling it to nearby city dwellers. It’s so captivating of an idea, I even mentioned it to Annie, who, rightfully, laughed and pointed out that I know nothing about market gardening.
While I have put aside my bucolic aspirations, others in my generation have taken up the challenge. I just read this New York Times article (from the Fashion & Style section, oddly), about young urbanites leaving the city to start up small vegetable farms. The thrust of the article is that young people are tired of hearing about the issues around genetically-modified food, food importing, etc., and have decided to take matters into their own hands. Now, I’m a sucker for articles that talk about trends in my generation (mostly because I think we’re on the right track), so I would’ve read this article anyway. But I loved it because it talked about something I daydream about and something I know others my age dream about too.
I know there’s a certain danger in trying to go deeper into trend the New York Times pointed out, but I just can’t help myself. I think the article gets to the issues I (and friends of mine) have with food these days. When I look down the aisles of the supermarket, I can’t believe how much processing it all went through. For every fresh cheese, bread, or vegetable, there’s a Gogurt, Hungry Man Meal, or pre cooked bacon. How did it get this way? When did it happen? TV dinners were invented in the 1950s, those living then probably saw this as an innovation. Never before were meals so convenient, and I don’t think people then understood how much worse they were than actual food (and maybe I’m wrong). Between the 1950s and today, I think TV dinners, as well as other pre-packaged and processed food, have gone from innovative to simply a norm.
My generation (Generation Y) has started to think a little harder about food. Again, I may be reaching, but so much of what we see today is mass-produced and mass-marketed to us. It’s natural for the younger generation to start asking questions about what kind of culture we have and if it’s good for us. Food is a natural place to to begin because it’s something we deal with every day.
My hope is that my generation will be the one who brings us back to supporting local, sustainable agriculture. While I can’t help but think that the young farmers mentioned in the New York Times article are a tad naïve, I hope that they’re successful and can change society’s perception about what constitutes quality food. I’ll keep doing my part by tending to my own crop in my community garden plot.