Have you ever signed onto Facebook and been instantly swamped with invitations to play Farmville?  Really, never?  Yes, I’m being a tad snarky here, but it’s all in good fun, and I do have a point.  The world has obviously been infected with farming fever.  Symptoms include the sudden onset of a desperate need to farm.  Usually, this presents as a preoccupation with produce that doesn’t really exist because it’s virtual, but the very real underlying psychological reasons behind the fascination are worth looking into.  Could everyone’s love of Farmville really be traced back to our ancient purpose on the face of the earth, or linked with our inborn desires to grow fruits and vegetables and to be stewards of the goods of all creation?

Real Life Farmville

I saw a great special on my Comcast cable bundles about a real life Farmville! In Britain, one small farm has decided to make it a very real for Farmville players who want to experience something more like actual farming.  The sign says “Farmers wanted — no experience required” and challenges people with the tagline “so, you think you know where your food comes from?”  Check out the video and let us know what you think of this idea.  Would you like to see a real life Farmville in your community to raise awareness about farming, its importance, and difficulty.

“So what’s stopping ya?” I asked her.

“I don’t have room for that in my backyard,” she said.

I’ve been to her house several times, and her yard isn’t exactly like the front lawn of the White House, but it’s not too small to plan and mark off some garden space and get it going after the spring thaw.

It was in setting out to help her that I came across an infographic I’d like to share with you today.  It has to do with the amount of space you actually need to have a garden at home.  I was surprised by how little land you really have to have. Take a look:

That’s right, the reality is quite something else. Farms that are known to use dangerous contaminants and chemicals are the ones getting fat from this deal, and those are the same farms that supply subsidized food programs in schools and other institutions — the same places we expect our green experts of the future to rise from.  How can we as a nation expect the children in our public schools to become innovators and defenders of the environment when we can’t even feed them produce grown organically?  Our priorities are out of whack, as you will see in the infographic here:

Carolina Heritage Vineyard and Winery, a 35-acre farm about three miles east of Elkin, North Carolina, has been doing business since 2005.  This might not seem like a very long time, but North Carolina is a state with a long and prestigious wine history. Prior to the Prohibition, the state had more vineyards than any other state, and is just now beginning to be noticed again as a wine producing area.

Enjoy the video below to see what Carolina Heritage Winery has to offer tourists and day visitors, and arrange a trip there for yourself sometime.  The area of Elkin is lovely in the fall when the leaves are bright with color, and the curving roads of the foothills provide you with a sense of the nearness of the mountains.  This will be a tour you’ll be glad you took.

But if you’re the globally conscious, civic minded planetary citizen that I bet you are, you won’t be satisfied at merely shutting the Farm mongers out.  You probably really want to let them have a piece of your mind — to let them know that they aren’t really farmers at all, because REAL farmers have a much tougher row to ho, as it were, and they ought to walk a day in a real farmer’s shoes before acting like sanctimonious seed sowing nerf herders all the time.

Yes, I said nerf herders.

Here’s an infographic that might help get your message across:

Many children are growing up in a life where they don’t know where things come from or how the plants look. They think that things magically appear on the shelves in the grocery store. They don’t recognize a chicken unless it is a chicken nugget coming out of some sort of kids meal. The future generations of America are seriously going to be in trouble if things keep progressing this way.

People from the city often like to make fun of people from the south in saying that they are less educated, and  talk slower, implying that they are less intelligent. It is true that many people who grew up on farms weren’t fully educated in the school system because they needed to work in the fields to help provide food for not only their own families but for many other families as well. They may not know how to do calculus or write a perfect essay, school smarts is not their strong suit. They have life smarts and common sense. When it comes down to the things that matter and being able to survive off the land using your own hands to get you there, a farmer would be my choice over someone from a city any day.

People who work on farms know things that other people would never even consider. The don’t even think about all the math and calculations they use everyday for various things on the farm. It’s just something that they have to get done. They can fix almost anything on their own, they don’t even consider taking things to the shop when they stop working.

There are many things about farmers that aren’t good things but in the long run they are the ones that make our world go round. We first had the farmers before we had the cities. It’s important not to forget about the farmers that are working everyday, all day, for years and years. The tradition is beginning to not be carried down like it used to because of other advances in the world; it’s important to advance but it is also important to hang on to the things that gave our country it’s start. Those are the farmers.

Not to say that one is better than the other but the south has always been known for farming, as well as the country music. The two go hand in hand. When the first people came to America they survived off of hunting and farming. Farming still plays a large role in the lives of Americans today as well. Although it is not for survival as much as a tradition that is passed down. Many people still live on farms and grow their own vegetables in their gardens.

We can’t let the tradition of waking up as the sun comes up to get out in the fields before the southern heat gets to hot to bare. Or if you work in the fields like your great grandparents did, which is sun up to sun down. If you have never experienced the taste of something that you planted, tended, and then picked strait from the ground you don’t know the meaning of natural. There is nothing better than sinking you teeth into something that you picked that very morning; it brings a whole new meaning to the word ‘fresh’.

Here are a few if the song that share the spirit of an American farmer and the things that they go through on a daily basis.

• This local food helps to support the local farm families in your area.  There are fewer than 1 million American people who state farming as their main occupation.  One of the main reasons for this is the extremely low commodity prices that lead to the farmer getting only 10-15 cents for every retail dollar.  If you buy direct from the farmer, they get full retail price for the food they have produced so they can support themselves and keep growing those local goods.

• Genetically modified fruits and vegetables do not exist with local farmers!  The GMO seeds that are being commercialized by biotechnology companies are only offered to factory farms that mainly sell on a large scale to grocery chains.  With more and more Americans wanting to know where their food came from and asking for labels on genetically modified produce so they can avoid it, the simple path to control this is to buy local.

• Local farmers place much more value on their land and keeping it fertile and productive because that is their source of income.  These farmers put nutrients back into the ground that they have taken out and take preventative measures against erosion.  By supporting the land in such a way, these farmers are benefiting the wildlife and giving them a sustainable area to live and flourish in the future.  Without this type of environment, many species would leave certain areas and you wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing nearly as much of them.

• Taxes are also another very intriguing benefit of local farming in your area.  It has been found that taxes on residential areas do not cover the actual costs that the government must pay for in services for those areas.  However in the case of farm land, for every dollar paid in taxes, there is much less than a dollar required in services from the government.  This means that by keeping the local farms in your area alive, you will also help keep the overall tax rate lower.

• Supporting the future is the essence of every green movement and that is also the greatest benefit of local farmers.  Preserving the beautiful open spaces of farms throughout our country is essential in preserving the history of our nation.  The agricultural landscape is something that most people take for granted, but it should appreciated and valued for generations to come.  The nourishing produce that will sustain future generations doesn’t have to be loaded with chemicals.  You can help support this cause and help local farmers protect the heartland.