I watch closely when I announce that I am a flower farmer. In general, people respond with a wide smile or a sigh. I often detect hints of envy. But can I rightly claim the title of farmer? I think so. I cultivate fields. I grow flowers. Though some would require animals to make mine a proper farm, the Random House unabridged dictionary allows animals to remain a farmer’s option. A far less frequent response to my declaration is that flower farming must be a lot of work.
Americans have many unexamined opinions about farmers, farming, and physical work. Our attitudes are both varied and ambivalent. “The prestige carried by people in modern industrial society,” E. F. Schumacher points out, “varies in inverse proportion to their closeness to actual production.” Here is one man’s opinion as to why farmers, those who are most closely connected to their output, are held in the least esteem.
Conversely, farmers are viewed as heroic figures. In this politically correct vision, farmers are stalwart fellows who own mythic family farms. We romanticize them on butter cartons where farms shout the joy of a sun rising over pristine barns and rolling hills. However, neither the contented cows not the diligent farmer -- the actual workers in the story -- intrude upon the advertising images of pastoral bliss.
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