The Myth of the Noble Farmer

Brad Andrews took Tom Kerr's Public Essay class at Ithaca College and produced this really interesting critique of the myth of the noble farmer. Brad is the son of a former dairy farmer. As Brad points out, there is a tendency to rhapsodize about farm life and romanticize it, especially from the outside perspective. Brad debunks the myths, points out the hard, unremitting labor of dairy farming and, ultimately, notes that he was banned from farming by his father even as the Andrews family farm was auctioned.

Yet farming is clearly in his blood--he remembers it all even while decrying it. Thanks for writing this, Brad, and thanks for your honesty. Many of us want to see small farmers stay on their land and stay in farming, but you've indicated the strenuous work, hardships and struggle involved in the daily life.

Keeping telling the story, Brad.




The Myth of the Noble Farmer
Brad Andrews

The noble farmer. Each day he rises with the sun to begin his daily routine. He feeds his animals, milks his cows, and cleans his barn. . .all before breakfast. Later in the day, he'll go into his vast fields and harvest his crops. As the sun sets, he'll be back in the barn, milking and feeding once more. Then it's off to bed, only to rise again in the morning and repeat the same process.

It's easy to wax poetic about farming. It's a "simple" life, and in a world in which technology is growing exponentially and life seems to be moving at a faster pace, there's something appealing about a life working in nature's splendor, far away from the hustle and bustle of urban city life.

Not only is farming a simple life, the work almost seems to be a divine calling. There's a sense that farming is what people were "meant" to do. Humans have been farming for several millennia, and the general process hasn't changed that much. Farmers reach into the fertile soil and pull out the fruits of God's bounty.

Having grown up on a dairy farm in New York state, I can tell you: the "simple" life isn't nearly as simple as it sounds. The myth of the "noble farmer" tends to leave out one important fact: being a farmer is hard. It's back-breaking, dangerous, low-paying work with brutally long hours.

Let's look at a typical day for a "real" farmer:

6 a.m. - Awake and out to the barn to start work (milking cows/feeding animals)

Here's the thing about waking up at 6 a.m. every morning: it sucks. If you're the type that needs eight hours of sleep every night, you're hitting the hay at 10 p.m. each and every day.

But not only are you awake at 6 a.m., you're working at 6 a.m. Morning chores aren't especially brutal: they mainly consist of milking the cows and feeding all the animals. But the farmer is still on his feet for most of the morning, and on top of that, the farmer is required to squat down to put on and remove the milking machine from the cow. You may be thinking, "Squatting down? Big deal." Consider this though: if a farmer is milking 100 cows, that's at least 200 deep knee bends every morning. That's probably not good for your knees.

8:30 a.m. - Home for a quick breakfast.

If the farmer is lucky, she will not only have time to eat, but to grab a quick nap. The farmer's still got a tough day ahead, so any sleep is golden.

9:30 a.m. - Back to the barn to feed the animals again and take care of various other tasks (ridding the barn of manure, etc.)

One thing about animals that it's hard to grasp until you raise a herd of them is the fact that they tend to defecate. A lot. And if the animals are in a barn, that manure piles up (quickly). One of the more unpleasant tasks for the farmer is removing this manure from the barn.

Most farms will have a "barn cleaner" in at least the largest barn on the farm. Basically, the barn cleaner is a conveyor belt of sorts that manure can be shoveled/scraped/pushed into. The cleaner will then (slowly) take the manure outside into a waiting manure spreader.

For smaller barns or barns with no cleaner, however, the manure-removal task is far more strenuous. As much fun as shoveling manure into a spreader is, I’d be very happy to never have to do it again. Let's just say that I don't enjoy cow manure splashing on my face. (An admittedly infrequent but still all-too-common occurrence while shoveling.)

Noon - Home for a quick lunch.

Same as breakfast: eat and then sleep if you can.

1 p.m. - Out to the fields for harvesting or related work.

The myth of the noble farmer makes it seems like growing crops is easy as pie, like the soil was just made for growing plants. Not true. Besides all the possible weather nightmares, the soil itself is less conducive to plant growth than one might think. This is because most soil is loaded with large rocks, which damage plows and other machines and hinder plant growth. These rocks must be removed from the field before plowing. Let me tell you something: you haven't experienced boredom until you've spent an afternoon picking rocks out of an empty field.

Once the crops are ready, it's time for harvesting. This is not enjoyable. Corn harvesting involves driving a tractor and a combine around in circles. Believe me, if you sit on a tractor (especially an older model) for an afternoon and drive around you will be at best bored and at worst insane. The tractor is noisy and it vibrates, which can cause great pain and headaches for the tractor operator after a few hours. (Yes, some larger farmers are lucky enough to have SuperTractors with air conditioning and radios and all kinds of cool stuff. I’ll assume that makes their lives a little easier.)

The hay harvest is even less enjoyable. First, there’s the drive-in-circles step, as with corn, but then there’s the fun of “unloading” the hay. After the hay bales are brought back to the farm in a wagon, they must be loaded into the barn or hayloft. Usually a few workers carry the bales off the wagon and place them on a conveyor belt of sorts (“elevator” in farm lingo) that takes the bales to the hayloft. The hayloft is where the real party’s at, as a few unfortunate workers stack the bales into neat piles while dealing with the triple-digit temperatures and general lack of oxygen in the loft.

4:30 p.m. - Home again for a very brief break.

Basically just a chance to catch one's breath before another milking session.

5 p.m. - Repeat the 6 a.m. routine.

The day ends with more milking and lots more deep knee bends to remove milking machines. It’s a rough experience after having worked the whole day already.

7:30 p.m. - Done for the day. Hopefully.

Let's do some math. What we see here is a 13 1/2 hour workday. Granted, there are breaks spread out through the day, but even removing those breaks it's still an 11-hour day. Yes, farmers are hardly the only occupation that works long days, but keep this in mind: farmers never get a day off. Ever. Animals need to be fed and milked and cared for each and every day. Even if a farmer decides to take a "day off," these tasks still need to be completed. Therefore, an "off day" for a farmer still consists of at least a 5 or 6 hour workday.

All this means that a farmer is pulling at least a 60-80 hour workweek. Every week. It's no wonder so many farmers require their children to come out to the barn and help out with chores; they'd barely see their own kids otherwise.

And even a working week as "short" as 60 hours requires that nothing goes wrong. Unfortunately, one of the many challenges with farming is that something is always going wrong. When I'm at school, I try to limit my phone calls home because they are always depressing. Every conversation with my dad starts with, "Let me tell you about the day I had today." He then proceeds to tell me how a tractor broke, or that a cow died for no reason, or that the cows broke a fence and wandered downtown, or that the water pipes exploded and flooded the barn or that it hasn’t rained in a month or....

The list goes on and on. So many things can go wrong on a farm; therefore a farmer has to be more than just a farmer. He must be a mechanic, a veterinarian, a carpenter, a meteorologist, a plumber, or anything else that the farm needs. And, really any disaster is possible.

The weather is a constant source of concern. Admittedly, a job in which one can work with nature is a special gift. When the sun is shining and the birds are singing, it's hard not to be grateful for the opportunity to work outdoors in the sun. Nature can be a very beautiful thing.

Nature can also be a bitch. One of the hardest parts of farming is the fact that the well-being of the farm is completely and absolutely at the mercy of nature. Too much rain and the farmer is screwed. Too little rain and the farmer is screwed. Too many cloudy days and the crops will die. Too many sunny days and the crops will fry.

To illustrate just much weather can make a difference, here's a story from Summer 2005. My family's farm is located about three miles from another local farm. The two farms planted their corn at roughly the same time and used the same brands of seed and fertilizer. For some reason, our farm got 2.5 moreinches of rain this summer. We got a 25% higher yield from the corn. Thanks to 2.5 inches of additional rain. That's nothing, but it shows just how vulnerable the crops are to any weather changes.

As bad as my phone calls with my dad can be when he’s complaining about the weather, I'm always glad to just be talking to my dad on a given night; it means that he survived the day. Farming is among the world's most dangerous occupations. Hundreds of farmers die each year in the United States.730 farm workers perished in 2002 alone. Farmers are seven times more likely to die on the job than the average American worker. In addition to the high death rate, a staggering 150,000 farmers suffer a disabling injury each year.

Danger lurks in every part of a farmer's day. Cows may seem slow-witted and generally benevolent, but they are large, powerful animals with the ability to seriously injure a person. Farmers are very often victims of a damaging kick (my own father has been kicked in the face more times than he'd care to remember). A stampede can also result in devastating consequences.

Machinery is also very dangerous. One of a farmer’s worst nightmares is getting an arm or a leg caught in a running machine. (A very real possibility, unfortunately.)

There are a million other ways to get hurt on a farm. One of my uncles had to have shrapnel removed from his face when a piece of equipment exploded, shooting hot metal into his head. My other uncle was nearly crushed by a full wagon that broke off from the tractor that was towing it and rolled back down a hill. Both were back at work the same day. To them, it’s all part of the job.

As bad as farming can be, maybe milking cows for a living wouldn't be so bad if it were, you know, profitable. Another thing about farmers that's not mentioned in the myth of the "noble farmer" is that farmers don't get paid squat. As of this moment, the companies buy milk for is $15.33 per 100 pounds of milk, which works out to just $1.22 a gallon. Not included in that price is the fact that farmers have to pay milk companies to come get their milk.

$1.22 a gallon. Less than half of what a gallon of milk goes for at the average store. Not to mention that milk companies can also use some excess butterfat from each gallon for other dairy products. The price milk companies are offering farmers remained more or less constant for nearly three decades until rising from the $12-$13/per 100 range up to its current $15-$16 range in only the past few years. Hardly keeping up with inflation (or what milk has been sold for in stores).

With these prices, an average dairy farmer will maybe bring home $20,000-$30,000 a year. There are lower salaries out in there in the American workforce, but not many workers are pulling 80-hour workweeks to get those low salaries.

So let's see: low pay, long hours, and a high risk of injury? It's no wonder so many small farms are closing down in this country. Who would want this job? My own father forbade me from even considering farming as a potential occupation. (Not that he really needed to worry about that.) And I know he's not the only farmer who has given that mandate to his children.

Even if my father hadn’t barred me from farming, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to take over the family farm anyway. In April 2006, Andrews Dairy Farm will hold an auction to sell its cows and milking equipment. Facing mounting debt, my father and my uncles decided it was best to sell out now while they still were young enough to find new careers.

The auction will be a sad and frightening day for our family. Farming is all we’ve ever really known, and the future is full of uncertainty and doubt for the Andrews clan.

But while I’m scared to death, I’m glad my father’s future won’t involve farming. If he hadn’t died on the job, he’d probably have worked himself to death eventually. Such is the life of the noble farmer.