Obviously, some farming is growing fruits and vegetables. But consider your local grocery store. When we walk into the produce section (which is probably 1/5th or so of the store) 90% of what we can see was likely grown in either Florida, California, or abroad. California and Florida combined make up less than 1% of total US cropland. Thus, most farmers are not vegetable farmers. The vast majority of farmers are grain farmers- they grow corn, soybeans, wheat, or barley, which makes sense when we consider that grain is what makes up much of the other 4/5ths of the grocery store.

It also makes sense because most of the US (and the world) simply isn’t fit for growing many of the fruits and vegetables we expect to be continuously available. Not only do fresh fruits and vegetables require warm weather, ample sunlight, and limited wind and pest exposure, they also require hand-picking which, in talking to farmers who couldn’t even find one hired man in their area to bring on part-time, is a laughable idea. Which brings me to:

2. Farming isn't done by hand.

I probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for tractors. I wish that was true because my parents had some awesome, tractor-based love story. But the reality is that tractors, sprayers, combines, and other farm machinery are the reason why the human race can scrape enough calories out of the dirt to feed billions of people. On our new age Insta-farms, we like hands. We like to think that our food passes only from plant to human to our mouths. If a human handled it, we think, it must be more wholesome, more nutritious, more real.

In the Midwest, that idea is comical. Mostly because it is so clearly a lie. Unless those soil-dusted, hard-working hands are your own, pulling the produce from the plant yourself and putting it directly in your mouth sans wash, it touches plenty of machines before it gets to you. Our produce is sorted by sorting machines, stored in refrigerators, transported in trucks, preserved with wax, bathed in special lighting and displayed on brand new checkered table clothes in roughed up wood baskets to make us feel like it was always just water, soil, sunshine, and hands. But farming in the 21st century, real farming, requires machines. And more importantly for not going out of business while farming in the 21st century requires very savvy and strategic use of machines. Which brings us to:

3. Farming is not forgiving.

The Ugly Fruit Movement has made farming vegetables more forgiving. Being an organic farmer makes farming more forgiving. Being a farmer who works or earns some kind of off-farm income makes farming more forgiving. Being a farmer who could be happy pursuing other things makes farming more forgiving.