Stories of the Land: Diverse Agricultural Histories in the U.S.

Land

An image of farmland at dusk that says Stewardship, Place, Resources.

The point is that use does not indicate in any real way his idea of the land. Use is neither his work nor his idea. As an Indian I think: you say that I use the land, and I reply, yes, it is true; but it is not the first truth. The first truth is that I love the land; I see that it is beautiful; I delight in it; I am alive in it.

- N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa novelist⁹

What is our relationship with the land we inhabit? How do we use it? Cultivate it? Conserve it? How do issues of displacement, dispossession, and dispute impact the way we see our place in the land? This connection is at once a question of philosophy, economy, spirituality, and ideology, and different groups have put forward competing land ethics while trying to answer these questions. This Anchor explores how those involved in agriculture express their ties to the land through ideas of Stewardship, Place, and Resources.

In the history of the United States as a nation, the debate about land ownership has often been framed around the issue of land use. The landmark Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged westward settlement, promising settlers land if they agreed to live on and “improve” the land through farming. This ideal of cultivation is often talked about as a social good, but what are the consequences of this mindset? What alternative visions of stewardship might we imagine? The Stewardship section highlights different perspectives on how to take care of and relate to the land from a number of voices and regions.

The diverse regional landscape of the U.S. is especially striking from an agricultural perspective: from swampy alligator farming in the South to the carefully lined rows of fruit trees in the Northeast. The Place section explores not only the regional differences in farming but, more crucially, how farm people from diverse communities express connections to place and land. Placemaking is at its heart an act of imagination, connecting one’s environment to abstract ideas like home and homeland. “Geography,” writes scholar Kent C. Ryden, “is clearly much more than buildings and dirt—it supports a complex structure of personal and cultural significance.”¹⁰ Here, too, you’ll find conversations about how the urban/rural divide becomes less clear as communities find new ways to ensure access to food and other resources.

The issues of stewardship and placemaking go hand-in-hand with the need for Resources. The acquisition and maintenance of land under industrial agriculture has relied on access to capital—often through government programs such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act (1938) or through private loans by banks and other lending agencies. But as we can see from twentieth and twenty-first century public programming, land loss is, at its center, a question of resource access. What do we consider to be a resource? What barriers do individuals and groups face when applying for agricultural aid? How do we provide for future generations of farmers?

Stewardship

Residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota fight for the right to grow industrial hemp, as featured in “Standing Silent Nation” (2012).

Standing Silent Nation (dir. Suree Towfighnia, Prairie Dust Films, July 3, 2007).

This documentary, broadcast on the PBS series POV, follows the efforts of the White Plume family (Oglala Lakota) to cultivate industrial hemp for livestock feed, papercrafts, and commercial sale on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Having been legalized under tribal law, hemp was not only a valuable Resource in the community’s economic development but also offered a meaningful connection with the land through Labor. But backlash from the federal government led to raids, property seizure, and a legal battle for the White Plumes and others who sought to uphold Native sovereignty in the face of unjust Policies. “In our treaties with America,” says Debra White Plume, “we retained our sovereignty. It’s not something America gave us. Sovereignty is not something that can be given to anyone.”

North Carolina Now (UNC-TV, Research Triangle Park, NC, September 30, 1996).

This local news broadcast includes a segment with interviews from Black farmers, historians, and extension agents in Tillery, North Carolina. They discuss how New Deal-era land allocation programs impacted Black farmers and the material and ideological importance of land ownership and access to Resources. “It was an opportunity for African Americans to own property, to actually not be dependent on the large white plantation owners for their livelihood,” says Gary Grant from the Concerned Citizens of Tillery organization. “It afforded them an opportunity to be independent. It afforded them an opportunity to set direction for their own lives.”

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, “Indian Sovereignty and The Longest March” (WNET/WETA, New York/Washington, July 13, 1978).

This episode of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report explores the settlement of reservation land by non-Native civilians and disputes over water access rights in northwestern states like Washington and Idaho. Those speaking on behalf of the tribes push back against the encroachment and infringement of treaty-guaranteed property, while non-tribal members express feelings of mistrust and suspicion. In the essay “Adaptation, Resistance, and Representation in the Modern US Settler State,” historian Walter L. Hixson discusses colonial anxieties that are often expressed during sovereignty struggles: “In an effort to reassert a sense of authority, the colonizer effects an inversion in which tribes are framed as colonizers […] demanding special privileges. Under this frame, the ethnic minority becomes the aggressor and the majority population the victims.” ¹¹

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, “Saving Farmlands” (WNET/WETA, New York/Washington, October 17, 1977).

This 1977 national report considers the issue of shrinking farmland as development rights to the land are bought and sold. Agricultural reporter Carol Buckland talks with farmers and residents on Long Island in New York, where the Suffolk County government stepped in to aid farmers by buying the rights to their land to ensure its agricultural use in the face of growing suburbanization. Those interviewed, such as John Talmage of Baiting Hollow, New York, justify its use as farmland and explain why government intervention is necessary, connecting with issues of food Resources and Place: “But also one might ask the question, is there some safety in having our production spread around a little bit? For instance, if something happened to our transportation system, […] there are a lot of people living on Long Island and having the reserve of the food production—at least some food production on Long Island—should add a little safety to living here.”

Place

City planners and residents share their experiences building a Black intentional community on old plantation land in this episode of Black Journal (1970).

“Farm Town” (Iowa Public Television, Johnston, November 22, 1985).

“This isn’t just a crisis of people; it’s a crisis of people and the land, and I don’t know where you separate one from the other. We say things about our roots. We talk about this as our homeland. We talk about sowing seeds to harvest hope. We are people whose culture and identity is rooted in the land and the people.” Rev. Karl Schlitz speaks on the impacts of the 1980s farm crisis and the decline of small Midwestern towns in this program from Iowa Public Television. Others interviewed emphasize how their landscape has changed in the wake of a struggling farm economy: closed local shops along main street, shuttered homes, and towns slowly emptying of people. More programs on the farm crisis of the 1980s can be found under Labor, Story, and Rhetoric, and especially under Additional Broadcasts Relating to “Politics.”

Bookworm’s Turn, “Interview with Pat Sackrey and Ellen LaRiviere on the New England Small Farmers Project” (New England Public Radio, Amherst, MA, August 30, 1979).

This radio broadcast features an interview with Pat Sackrey, director of the New England Small Farmer Project, and Ellen LaRiviere, a Connecticut hog farmer. Sackrey discusses the idea of regional self-reliance, encouraging agricultural growth in industries that typically do well in the northeast: dairy, raspberries, strawberries, tree fruits, and even grain in the Champlain Valley and Vermont. Regional networks are a part of how Sackrey and LaRiviere envision self-sufficiency, Harvest, and the management of Resources.

Black Journal, episode 26 (Thirteen WNET, New York, October 26, 1970).

The first segment in this television magazine program explores connections with the land through the story of Soul City, North Carolina: a former plantation that later became an experimental Black community. Here, land is discussed as both a resource and a site in need of resources; city planners and leaders express the need for development, both materially and socially, through self-sufficient economic and educational opportunities. The segment also connects with issues of Stewardship and Labor as locals discuss what it means to live and harvest tobacco on land intimately connected to the legacies of slavery. Scholar-activist Annalena Hope Hassberg further underscores this point in her introduction to We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy. “There has been an unshakeable conviction among Black people,” she writes, “that true liberation requires landownership.”¹²

“The Urban Farming Movement” (Commonwealth Club of California, Hoover Institution & Archives, Stanford, CA, May 12, 2010).

We often think of agriculture happening in rural spaces, but scholars who explore placemaking practices have done productive work to complicate the seemingly concrete distinctions between “urban” and “rural” that are often drawn.¹³ This radio broadcast from the Commonwealth Club of California provides interesting examples of urban farm work as the panelists share stories about one-acre rooftop farms in New York, reading applications from prospective goat herders in the city, and the changing attitudes about the urban/rural divide when it comes to agriculture and food production.

Farmsteaders (prod. Shaena Mallett, in collaboration with milesfrommaybe Productions in association with American Documentary | POV, 2018).

Filmed over four years beginning in 2011, Farmsteaders presents an intimate look at the challenges faced by a family of dairy farmers in southeast Ohio trying to survive and succeed in a period of Industry change as corporate agriculture had displaced many small farms in the area. “Whenever some ‘where’ has a hold of you, that’s kind of a powerful thing,” Nick Nolan reflects in an elegiac mode of family farm Philosophy as Farmsteaders opens. Nolan, whose grandfather once owned the farm he and his family operate, and his wife Celeste, who never had thought she would become a farmer, struggled through years of losses until they succeeded with cheese production for regional buyers. In this Emmy-nominated documentary mix of romanticism and reality, the Nolans share with viewers the physical and emotional Labor of their daily lives, their connections with nearby communities where they sell their products, the meanings that farming has had for them, and the experiences of their children, Youth who like Nick, grow up working and playing on the farm. Producer/director Shaena Mallett also grew up on a family farm.

Resources

Featured Item

Wilson Lumia (Yakima) discusses the historical and social importance of fishing in the Pacific Northwest in this National Native News Special Feature (Koahnic Broadcasting Corporation, September 18, 1990). https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-206-343r25ph.

National Native News Special Features (Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, Anchorage, AK, September 18, 1990).

What happens when there’s a dispute about which resource should take priority? The first news segment in this radio broadcast examines those impacted by the development of hydroelectric dams along the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the Pacific Northwest—particularly local tribes, who sought legal intervention to protect their land and fishing treaty rights. Wilson Lumia (Yakima) expresses his frustration, discussing his experience as a fisherman and the devastating effects of the dams on the Chinook salmon population: “They killed 90 percent to 80 [percent] of the juvenile fish going over the dams. We got to do something about the dams to save the fish.”

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, “Family Farmer” (WNET/WETA, New York/Washington, March 9, 1978).

This national broadcast considers the decline of the idealized “family farm” Philosophy and approach to agriculture. The struggles are couched both as issues of Weather—droughts, freezes, and storms—as well as a strain on resources that makes it more difficult to retain their land. Of particular anxiety is the issue of inheritance: passing resources from one generation to the next. Here, there are echoes of the patriarchal farming approach as “sons” and “sons-in-law” are exclusively discussed as the heirs of farmland. But with a lack of prospective successors, family farms around the country continue to be absorbed into larger agribusiness Industry.

Oregon Story, “Harvesting the Wild” (Oregon Public Broadcasting, Portland, October 2, 2003).

This special program from Oregon Public Broadcasting discusses those involved in the Harvest of non-timber forest products: berries, mushrooms, moss, echinacea, and more. But as outsiders trespass into the Warm Springs Reservation in search of the surprisingly lucrative huckleberry, pushback from Native foragers start conversations about Stewardship and land loss. Who retains access to these natural resources? How are land boundaries navigated and negotiated? Those interviewed tackle these questions from a variety of perspectives, from local hobbyists to forest service workers.

Midday, “When Farmers Took a Holiday” (prod. Mark Heistad, Minnesota Public Radio, St. Paul, February 18, 1985).

This radio documentary looks back at the experiences of farmers during the early years of the Great Depression, with interviews from farmers and historians who look back on the Midwest populism of the Farmers’ Holiday Association movement. During that time, farmers Collectively withheld products and resources from the market—and sometimes resorted to violence and “hellraising”—in order to effect Policy changes. The broadcast incorporates a bit of art too, in the performance of Ernest V. Stoneman’s song from that time called “All I Got’s Gone”: “Whole lot of people own nice little farms. Doin’ pretty well, didn’t do no harm. Sold their farm, bought an auto or two. Now it’s come due, they had to skid-doo. All they got’s gone, all they got’s gone.”

Louisiana Public Square, “Louisiana Grown: Agriculture Across the State” (Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Baton Rouge, July 28, 2010).

This broadcast shows the continued discussion of “family farmer” ideal and Philosophy nearly four decades after The MacNeil/Lehrer Report broadcast (see above). How do farmers pass on their resources and land? Panelists on this local program discuss why young people haven’t been getting into farming. Justin DeKeyzer, a fourth-generation Louisiana farmer interviewed for the segment, suggests that land and high expenses are the primary factors: “Hard to get the land to farm, unless you own it, you know. A lot of people—this land gets passed down, or any land gets passed on to their kids, and most of them sell. And most of that is either sold too high a farmer can’t buy it, or it gets put to housing.”