The theme of Farming is a strong one, especially in the context of a post-industrial city like Detroit.  It’s interesting that urban gardeners who farm quarter-acre plots of land in Detroit have come out against Hantz’s plan.  The anti-Hantzers are, according to the article, seizing on their own themes:  Racial Bias (Hantz and most of his team are white; Detroit’s population is 92% black) and Big Business vs. the Little Guy.

Comment:  We don’t have time or energy to spend on being racially or economically divided, it doesn’t matter what color the finger being pointed is or the size of the rock on the ring it’s wearing.  Themes can help us find the agreement that transcends race, religion, income level and personal history–all those things that divide us–thereby liberating new avenues for communication, learning and growth.  John Hantz and the urban gardeners of Detroit can unite around the theme of Farming to be productive and move the ‘Saving Detroit’ scene forward.

Farming on a small family farm can be a very cyclical way of life. A ten-minute hailstorm can wipe out a year’s worth of work. Cycles are 12-18 months, and can stretch into a 24-30 month downturn with two years of bad weather in a row. I draw the analogy to the current economic downturn as this–it’s the weather.  In bad-weather scenarios, the wisest path can often be to dress and act accordingly.

In my experience, farmers (I include my mom, Fern, who’s 82 and still living on my family’s farm back in Indiana, still going at a pace that would be considered ‘active’ for someone half her age) are some of the most improvisational people you’ll ever meet. Here are three ways that family farmers typically deal with or hedge against the down cycles:

1) Improve infrastructure. There’s always a fence that needs mending, an implement that could use some re-tooling, an out-building in need of paint.

2) Diversify the portfolio. The farms that best weathered the bad weather had multiple revenue streams: A range of crops and livestock; they produced non-farm income by taking jobs that helped support and maintain the family farm lifestyle. Could mean doing mechanics’ work; could mean playing with a dance band, or auctioneering. I never knew a farmer that didn’t have multiple ways of earning money.

3) Education. The farmers that are most resilient were always learning. Reading, networking, experimenting with new (and old) agri-tech, expanding their horizons — those were habits. One’s mind, like everything else on the farm, had the obligation to grow.

In what seems like a lifetime ago, I worked on the film Country, which stars Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard. It was interesting in a clinical kind of way to be on location outside Waterloo, Iowa, helping tell a story about a family farm that was floundering and doomed. As part of my work, I did video interviews with half a dozen Iowa farmers, some of whom had lost their farms, others who’d figured out a way to survive and and, in some instances, thrive during an economic downturn that put the squeeze on them like other business sectors are getting squeezed today. Along with observing Lange and Shepard, who were falling madly in love at the time, canoodle steamily on exterior sets where the winter temperatures were well below zero, the farmer interviews were the most compelling part of my Country gig.

What I learned about those farmers was an affirmation of what I already knew: The farmers who survived and thrived were nimble, flexible, idiosyncratic in their approach to their business. They were not bound by scripted behaviors–doing things the same way their folks and grandfolks had done it. The farmers who stuck to the old script? Those were the ones who lost their farms. The farmers who got creative and responded to the changing times by changing their behaviors are the ones who lived to farm another day.

I remember talking about this with Wilford Brimley, an actor who was just coming into his own at the time Country got made, at age 65, after many, many years of effort to succeed in his chosen profession. Forty years of taking bit parts, working odd jobs like blacksmithing, and dealing with a level of rejection that most businesspeople cannot even fathom let alone tolerate, had steeled Brimley to the point where he had little sympathy for family farmers or anyone else who gave up–on anything. “These people losing their farms,” he said to me at the time, “are the same ones who’d be losing the dry cleaning store if they owned that.”

Brimley made two points with that statement. First, that a good part of success is simply never giving up. In Iowa, where ‘they’re so by-god stubborn they can stand touching noses for a week at a time and never see eye to eye’, the survivors and thrivers at the time were just as all-around relentless as Wilford Brimley. Second, Brimley’s statement highlights how there are qualities inherent in businesspeople who can navigate through the turbulent waters of a down economy that set them apart from those who get swamped. It doesn’t matter whether your profession is farming, acting or dry cleaning. These qualities can all be grouped under the rubric of…(guess what?)…improvisation.

The small farm is still with us, too, it’s just that the farming most of us do is not agricultural, it’s cybercultural, and the labor is not physical, it’s intellectual. One of the most powerful ideas made possible by the Networked World is ’small farming’ — our ability to claim a small piece of intellectual property as our own and derive wealth from it.

The rows of crops may be lines of code. You may be planting and harvesting algorithms, communities, humor, CAD designs or music instead of beans, corn, barley, hogs and beef…but the principles of what it takes to successfully operate a small farm are still in play.

Here are five of those principles:

LIFESTYLE. As a small farmer, you have chosen independence and personal responsibility. But you’ve also chosen work from which you cannot walk away. It’s with you 24/7. You can take the family to Six Flags, but the entire time you’re there, you’re thinking about what to do about the weevils in your beans (i.e. the bugs in your software) back home.

DIVERSIFICATION. The peaks and valleys of the market can be smoothed out by planting a variety of crops. When wheat is down, sorghum is up. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket., and don’t cry over spilled milk. Spread out your risk. Grow smaller crops with higher yields. Explore new strains.

SEASONALITY. The time frames may be different, but like their rural forerunners, cyber-farmers must manage for seasonal effects. If you find yourself living close to the bone for the winter, you can take some solace in the fact that spring will inevitably follow.

COMMUNITY. Communities are the small farmer’s conduit to the larger world. They provide news, networking and emotional support They determine where and how you socialize with your neighbors. They shape your world view and your character. They help normalize productive behaviors.

PERSPECTIVE. In fifteen minutes one hailstorm takes out an entire year’s worth of crops…a twister takes the roof off your barn…the health of your animals comes before your own…a million stars in the sky at night show you your proper place in the universe. Life on a small farm is one neverending reminder that you are part of something more important than yourself, and that what happens is often beyond your ability to control it. This awareness keeps you humble. Centered. Rooted. At peace.

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