506 Modern Agricultural Reforms
also likely to be a farmer with a more unitary understanding of his or her self. The
more dialogic self of a more dialogic knowledge cultivation, like PFI’s, is a more
multidimensional self, more accustomed to taking others into consideration and
thus to envisioning what other selves might be like, including one’s own self. While
sustainable farmers may show no less commitment to being a farmer, to getting
back on to that horse and to staying on it, they are also possibly more ready to
consider other commitments when they find themselves slipping from the saddle
once again. With a more open sense of who they are, they may be more ready to
accept the outcomes of economic and other structural difficulties because they
have come to see their senses of self as less dependent on those structures. They
may be more ready to follow a path of self-reinvention, like one male PFI livestock
and grain farmer who recently left farming to become a nurse.
But many of these points on the survival rates of sustainable farmers are at best
informed conjecture. What we do know is that many PFI farms are prospering,
perhaps as well as can be expected in such a high-risk, low-return endeavour as
farming. We also know that other farmers are not exactly switching to sustainable
practices with great alacrity. It is perhaps a steady trend, but it is still a slow one.
‘I’m going to change the question a little bit about issues,’ said Donna, moving on
to one of our standard questions. ‘What do you think are the most important
issues facing farming today? The important issues facing rural families in America,
even the world?’
‘That’s a tough one. I don’t know where to start.’ Brad paused to collect his
thoughts. It was one of those open-ended questions that is so broad one hardly
knows what to say at first.
‘One issue revolves around the polarization that’s taking place,’ Brad said
finally. ‘Where out in rural America, maybe for all of America, for that matter, the
extremes have the loudest voice. Extremes on both sides. In agriculture, it’s the
farmers that are getting bigger all the time. It’s the corporate aspects of farming
that are getting bigger, especially with hogs now. And then the other side is still
those of us that are choosing to farm much differently, and trying to sell our food
more directly to the consumer. And so you got that group versus the corporate
type of farmer.’
Donna nodded and thought about saying something, but decided to stay quiet
and let Brad’s words tumble out more of their own accord. Meanwhile, Brad hesi-
tated, perhaps to consider where he had got to, and perhaps to wonder if he felt right
about calling his own side of farming as much of an ‘extreme’ as corporate farming.
In any event, he clearly was concerned about monologic interactions between the
two sides, each ‘versus’ the other, competing to be the ‘loudest voice’.
‘And then you got the rest,’ he continued. ‘Most of us are still caught in the
middle yet, trying to figure out just where in the heck are we going.’
‘Right,’ said Donna supportively.
‘It’s just such a critical time, I think, for family farm agriculture. ’Cause I think
we do have the opportunity to form networks and marketing groups and so forth,