Editor’s Note: The following essay by Tim Wightman, sustainable farmer and President of the Farm to Consumer Foundation is a response to the Dodge Superbowl Commercial “God Made a Farmer” that was seen by millions this past weekend. I have included the commercial here for you to view prior to reading Mr. Wightman’s eloquent, insightful and moving words.
Are you a sustainable farmer? How did you react to the “God Made a Farmer” commercial? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
God may have made a farmer ….
I came of age on the Great Plains of this continent spanning from Texas to North Dakota seated in the cab of a combine consuming endless square circles of wheat for 4 summers. I met, worked with and for many farm families during those years. We regularly worked 16 to 18 hour days, sometimes for as long as 103 days in a row. Three times a day on AM radio, the words of Paul Harvey rang clear and true, reinforcing the work ethic those of us in the fields came to acknowledge as sacred.
Mr. Harvey told me John Wayne had passed on along with many other stories and legends of hard work and sacrifice that seemed to be the path of every American who had succeeded in this land and the selfless contribution that was the ingredient to success. I had heard the same mythology from my grandfather and his peers cutting trees and pulling stumps and calves and nursing food and forage from the land where only the wild had existed before.
So in 1979 I headed west not knowing if I had graduated early from high school to earn my place in the agricultural community through the many hours and sacrifice I was told was part of the job.
7 months prior Mr. Harvey gave that speech that served as the basis for the Dodge Super Bowl ad to the attendees of the Future Farmers of America National Convention. Little did the attendees know that the Earl Butz expansion model of cheap money to farmers was at full bore and by 1981 the planned consolidation of that policy would hit the agricultural community harder than anything Mother Nature could ever have thrown at them.
Farm Aid was launched in 1985 to pick up the pieces and I was left with the task of finding work in a rapidly disappearing calling. It seemed all my effort was lost to a fading memory of a proud history now blamed for doing itself in. It wasn’t until 1994 that I heard of a new movement in agriculture. They called it sustainable, community supported and organic but the movement was so new, it had just barely gotten off the ground.
As we sit and watch this commercial heralding the fact that “God made a Farmer”, it is important to remember that it was Big Ag and its lobbying in Washington that broke that same farmer’s back.
This ad perpetuates the myth that rugged individualism and the competition it creates was and is the way forward. Perpetuation of the delusion that the products grown are of no value at the farm gate, that the farmers who grew them are lucky to get anything for them, and that “off farm jobs” are normal.
In this finite wisdom we now have a collapsing health care system and soils near the end of their ability to provide for us. This is all part of Big Ag’s “bargain” – a chemically altered microbial system that has been so compromised that the tragic end result is too much to face so no one mentions it save for the occasional whisper.
The visuals of the Dodge “God made a Farmer” commercial is what we have always wanted to believe, told we should believe. I find myself having lived long enough to call 1978 long ago and words from that time stir memories and passion today. I even found myself being reminded of the myths and desire to be that rugged individual that was up and at it before much of the country hit snooze. By the end of the commercial, a sickening feeling of being sold a lie and persuaded to believe it set in, and how the reality of today’s farming community is so far from Mr. Harvey’s words of 1978.
There are those who still want to feed us, but to do so alone as a rugged individual is no longer an option. It is not that they all want new Dodge pickups, it is the fact that all should be eating in the land of plenty and no one should be scared of their food.
The commercial conveniently glosses over the fact that three-quarters of those farmers in the commercial operate at a loss for the food industry. Yes, they are their own boss but it is not fair to burden others for the sake of ourselves.
I ask that we do not take these myths, these manufactured perceptions perpetuated in the commercial to our farmer or farmers market this week. Thank them for thinking and growing out of the box. Yes, they work hard but no longer need to stand alone.
It is this generation of local farmers that will put the face of agriculture back to its rightful place in our society. Every dollar you spend directly with a local farmer is another dollar less that will be used against all of us.
I fell for the hype of serving a corporate food system with duty, honor and 100 hour weeks and very nearly ruined my health in doing so. I am now reminded of all the John Henrys I have known over the years, desperately trying to stay ahead of the system. I am reminded of the migrant workers who’s names we will never know still working the 100 hour standard. I am reminded of all the farm sons and daughters who are not on the land. God may have made a farmer, but Big Ag broke his back, broke the spirit of his wife and damned near turned our futures to dust.
Interesting. Eighth day evangelists? Wouldn’t that be referring to Lucifer?! Those whom believe God did not do a good job in the first six days and who believe that they must turn away from God and become Gods?!
Like, Monsanto, which believes that genetics are there to be manipulated, against what the Bible teaches?!
If I wasn’t mistaken, this would be the Luciferian teachings of the Free Masons to justify their turning their back on God and the 10 Commandments, with a post hoc justification of their lying, cheating, stealing and killing. Total blasphemy.
Wow! Tim’s message was great, but it was a truck commercial, with Paul Harvey, an entertainer crooning us country folk, just as Rush Limbaugh croons our country’s neo- conservative folk. Paul Harvey isn’t a prophet and was making his name in an era before sustainable farming was the word. I did notice, however, the huge combine, the images that elicited that nostalgic longing for another era, and the two CAFOs in the background of the closing frames and the Dodge Truck. To educate the consumers, I recommend a membership in a reparable Non Profit organization, who are advocate of creating a new food system that supports the small farmers’ efforts and are making individuals aware of the corporations who are increasingly and progressively gaining control of our food system by mean of proprietary marketing through the technology of Genetic Engineering.
I’m a small scale sustainable farmer (market garden + chickens), and I enjoyed the commercial but I did feel that it wasn’t really talking to me. It was playing on that typical American farmer stereotype and also a very masculine one! To me it was just that typical christian-american-male thing and they certainly weren’t marketing to me.
Well said. I live in rural Nebraska, and while I don’t personally farm more than my growing plot of a garden, just about everything around here is touched by agriculture. Really is kinda sad to see the smaller farm operations struggling to scale up to the big boys, and losing their soul in the process!
One of the farmers in that ad lives near us. I liked it. Yes. Enjoyed hearing Paul Harvey and it brought back good memories. We don’t need to politicize everything – and I am about as political as they get.
I also don’t touch the word “sustainable” with a ten foot pole. It is part and parcel of the UN Agenda 21 movement and it is not a good thing. They want to take away property rights so there won’t even BE small farms! They view traditional farms as unsustainable. Bad word we throw around.
I buy from local farmers and garden myself and I am just going to continue to enjoy that commercial and not politicize it!
Well said Denise! People hear the word “sustainable” and think of the dust bowl or of overfishing. But in terms of the UN’s Agenda 21, it means the end of land ownership, forcing the population into [government] controllable, urban areas and the end of small farms. To those of you who haven’t heard of Agenda 21–look it up–please!
I saw the commercial and thought it was perhaps one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever. It was about selling a tool that every farmer uses–the pickup. I think most pickup truck owners are either farmers, ranchers or identify with the culture. If you look at history, farming began to decrease during the industrial age. At one time everyone farmed because you had to feed your family. Farming equipment began to enable the farming of more ground with less help. People moved toward the cities for non-farm work that paid better and farms got smaller and smaller as land was divided up in wills. Most don’t farm nowadays, but many had a grandparent or great-grandparent who did.
Like it -however through the whole thing I could not help but think of the deception it brings since most farming and where our food is coming from has nothing to do with the “farmer lifestyle” which was being portrayed. Perhaps it was all true some 60 years ago, but not today. A farmer like they showed on this commercial is far and few between.
You’re so right, Deborah. This farmer is unfortunately not the norm today.
Monoculture, pesticides, GMOs, Monsanto suing farmers for illegal use of their seeds when in fact the seeds had cross-bred with non-GMO,plus dubious laws passed where one is forbidden to save the seeds of the year before – all this has killed off the family farm. This is documented. So this commercial is essentally a nostalgic look at farmers from days past.
Farmers are still being forced out of business because of high costs and low benefits.
Hopefully the movement of locally sourced organic food will go from strength to strength and bring back so many of the family farms that have been lost.
I’d bet my money that Monsanto bankrolled that commercial by giving Dodge free advertising and using our heartstrings as puppet strings.
That speech was all about my Grandparents. Thankfully they left their farm before Big Ag happened, and likely would have crushed them.
That speech IS about the local farmers at the farmers markets. It’s about the farmers under the thumb of “Big Ag” too.
The words are true no matter what era you’re speaking of. Like Dodge is using the speech for marketing its trucks, there’s nothing wrong with the author using it as a spring board to talk about what “Big Ag” has done to the Farmers God Created.
Someone should read his article with a bunch of organic farming pictures, and post it as an answer to the video on Youtube. 🙂
I am leary of anything from the media and big corporations; I agree with Tim and I am grateful to all the small farmers and ranchers trying to hang in there and do something meaningful. God bless and save America. P.S. I refuse to watch the Super Bowl as I am morally opposed to all the soft core porn they throw in to pervert normal, healthy, God-given, sexuality. Thanks…just had to share it.
Watching the commercial, I wondered where all the Mexican’s and other hard working immigrants are that largely help to bring food to our tables.