Lessons From the Farm
*I’ve been meaning to get back to writing post-sabbatical but the rhythm I had established in the spring of last year, never seemed to find itself again. Perhaps with the new year and new opportunities in 2023, I’ll be more consistent…but for now, back to writing :)
In the midst of COVID my family moved onto a small 12 acre farm on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky. The timing could not have been more amazing given the lockdown and our ability to get outside everyday. We were able to purchase this property simply because it had been neglected for the past 40+ years and was underpriced just enough because of the immense wilderness that had taken root. Over these past several years…we have spent many a Saturday as a family chopping and burning to clear this small bit of wilderness out into something we can nurture and enjoy.
Also, having grown up most of my life in middle America, I have driven many a mile across wide open farm fields teeming with growth and an agricultural bounty that is foundational to our food system, not just here, but across the world. Yet, what is easy to miss, is what this part of the country used to be...how this land looked before the farms and before large industry and machines. The past is not really that far back, and yet, we easily forget. We also can miss the men and women that took huge risk to make it so…to have a vision to build; to cultivate; and to produce. The reality as well is that what we see today was not simply one generations hard work…but several. One after the other, family farmer’s that built, cultivated, and improved upon the work of the previous generation.
The first priority of turning a forest into tillable land is left up to a cultivator with the mindset of a creator. A person that has has a vision for what is possible…what the land can become. And a person with the fortitude to see it through. A person with the mental agility needed to prevail and a mindset of abundance and opportunity…not scarcity. The other reality of this person is that they intimately understand the interconnectedness in which they live - in which they succeed or fail. The fact that their ability to thrive is tied to the community and the ecology of the place in which they set out to make something for themselves and their family.
The second concept of building and cultivating over time, is that of the farmer. A person that is rooted in community and place. A person that has embraced an adaptive process of improvement and incremental creativity. A person that is satisfied hitting base hits and not always swinging for the fences - that appreciates and knows personally the work of those that have come before and feels the weight of responsibility to build upon that success for the sake of the next generation.
What Wendell Berry means in his works about our loss of identity and relationship to the land is something far great than simply a treatise about it’s food system implications and the environmental impacts of a disconnection to local food sources…it’s a true loss of history. A loss of appreciation for the struggle to build our communities - to quite literally carve them out of the wilderness. And an assumption of position that has bred the entitled and privileged attitudes we see today in culture. More than this…it has created the fracturing we experience today in business and in politics.
These skills and values are present in a person that desires to restore and build…rather than exploit and destroy. They are driven by contributing something of themselves to the greater good. They are regenerative in their thoughts and in their actions - creator; cultivator; farmer…entrepreneur.
With the onset of the industrial revolution, we saw unbelievable improvements in productivity - but we also lost a sense of human dignity. People now are like cogs…interchangeable parts to the machine of industry. This realization didn’t occur overnight, but now over 100 years later, we see it’s impact. Depression and shame associated with not working; as well as people hopeless in their work…people who do not understand why what they do matters and how it connects to the bigger picture. Yet before all of this industrialization, we knew that what we did, mattered…and that if we didn’t contribute, it had very real consequences. In fact, we literally saw the fruits of our labor in physical and profound ways. But now, we simply sub in a new cog and the machine keeps rolling on.
That is why people are attracted to entrepreneurship in principle…it’s the “wild wild west” where a person is idolized for charting a course and actualizing their unique purpose on the world. We idolize these big leaders in business because in some way it makes sense and resonates with our core need as human beings.
But these principles are still possible…
Having a creator mindset
Understanding the ecology of a place
Building systems (businesses) that are regenerative
Embracing the value of incremental creativity
By reframing our understanding on the purpose of work and business. And by embracing the interconnected reality in which we all live and find our purpose…maybe we can finally reclaim some of ourselves in the process.