FAIRVIEW

By ANDY KEGLEY/Columnist

Years ago, I contributed a more or less weekly column to this newspaper on farm related items, titled, some might recall, Agricultural Notes. At the time, I was a 24-7 full-time kind of dairy farmer. This was before fancy word processing machines were the rage, and I remember submitting columns scrawled on paper towels from the dairy barn, and the poor staff at the Enterprise having to decipher my handwriting. More than once, they made humorous mistakes, for which I can’t blame them.
Much has changed in the 20+ years since I last wrote one, and I’m compelled to jump back in the public conversation about things agricultural and rural. For one thing, everyone has one of these word processing machines, with spell check neatly attached, so that is no longer a barrier to ideas flowing. For another, this thing called the Internet has also changed the world as we once knew it, and I for one still believe there is value and usefulness obtained from holding a printed document, the newspaper. Oh, I read at least three daily newspapers on a screen without holding the paper, and while I glean the same information, there is something missing from the tactile experience, of reading and touching, and being a part of a community as opposed to the solitary experience reading pixels dancing across a screen.
One of the things I’m most interested in writing about is the sense of community created at a farmers market. A book I just finished reading said that the average grocery store shopper engages in no conversation while rushing through the store procuring stuff shipped an average of 1,500 miles, while the average shopper at a community farmers market spends two hours, engaged in upward of a dozen meaningful conversations. It’s that conversation I’d like to have a part in rekindling.
Last night, reading the most recent printed copy of Progressive Farmer, I was struck by the cover story on the Top 10 list of Best Places to Live in Rural America. Guess which Virginia county led the list, and was No. 8 in the southeast U.S.? Ours truly, Wythe. Many of us already knew this, so it’s a little late to be barring the barn door, as the word has been out for a while. The criteria used in reaching this conclusion included home and land prices, crime rates, environment, education, economic factors and access to health care. We might debate some of these locally, and we may debate them in the future, but overall, it’s hard to find fault with what we wake up to every morning.
Another thing I’m interested in exploring—the quintennial Census of Agriculture, which all farmers were legally bound to submit to the U.S. Department of Agriculture this past week. Some may think those 24 pages of queries are kind of tedious and invasive, but I find a perverse sense of satisfaction in filling out the form. Questions about the number of emus, alpacas and persimmons raised on our farm are a little random, as my daughter might say, but there is still a cultural story to be told once those reports are released. And that story is the same rich story told at the farmers market, and around the kitchen table.
That’s a story worth digging into, if only because we’re all linked by the food we produce and consume. See you next time around the table.
Andy Kegley manages a non-profit community development agency, in addition to a non-profit family farm in the Fairview section of Wythe.