Growing a Farmer Thoughts 2

Although I have not enjoyed every aspect of this book as a whole I appreciate its simplicity and what it was able to teach me about food production. While I live in world where farm to table is the latest fad, I had never really given much thought to what that looked like. I expected that the farms in which my food came from to all be much like the ones I pass on my way up the Grape Vine to Northern California. Rows and rows of hypnotically perfect crops with a perfect amount of sun and water all growing with no problems. This however is not the reality.

The “Slaughter” chap was particularly impactful because it made me think more closely about the way in which I think about the meat that I consume. I try not to think about where the chicken may have come from, because I think it is too gruesome to think about. However, this is a problem! The part about Matt and how he brings his daughter to the pig slaughtering completely changed the way in which I think about the animals and eating animals. In order to eat meat with a clear conscience I think it is important to respect the animal at all stages of its life. To look at a package of chicken at Trader Joe’s, that looks nothing like a fluffy clucking chicken, and ignore the fact that this package was once an animal is kind of negligent. This thought is particularly well put when Kurt says, “my great education over the past two decades is just that: meat comes from animals; not from the abstraction of animals, but rather actual animal” (307).

Overall, I enjoyed my evenings reading Growing a Farmer. Although the journey to becoming an artisan cheese maker seemed unnecessarily tedious at times, I appreciated seeing his failures and how he overcame them. As a graduating senior I often worry about failing in my next endeavor but I have learned that in order to find happiness I must do what makes me happy, and embrace the struggle of getting there.