Farming comes with a culture, a history, a language—just like any nation. And as more and more young people enter into farming from liberal arts colleges with degrees in subjects like philosophy and English and fine arts, I see an increasing divide and conflict between the so called "greenhorns" and the original residents. 

Greenhorns are coming out of middle class neighborhoods with liberal arts degrees, and they are naturally able to talk to their middle class, urban customers better than farmers who must cross the cultural divide. They can throw around words like sustainable, organic, and biodynamic with ease. They know what their customers want. 

Many times at farmers’ markets I've witnessed customers gravitating to the younger, bohemian farmers who are newcomers and not nearly so good at farming as some of the old timers who simply don't know to put the word “sustainable” on their signs. I've even had customers suggest to me that they didn't buy from some of the real farmers because they think they use pesticides on their vegetables, when I know that in fact they don't. It is a matter of perception. If you don't claim to be an organic, ecosensitive, biodynamic, sustainable farmer, then you must be a chemical-drenched, pesticide-loving, monocultural, industrial farmer. In actuality, there are a lot of people who are just good farmers who are sustainable in their practices even though they don't toot their horn about it. There are even some younger, greenhorn farmers who act superior in many ways to the traditional farmers who believe that they are better farmers because they are zealots.

The fact of the matter is that many, if not most, greenhorns will go the way of greenhorns everywhere—they'll quit farming and do something else. After all, they have lots of other skills, and farming was a momentary, cool, and interesting thing to do. But the real farmers—the farmers who are in a long line of tradition—they will keep on. And some of those greenhorns will keep on too, but their farms will never be worthwhile unless they realize that they are entering a new place, a tradition and culture that is not their own. 

When I first started farming, I had a conversation with Wendell Berry in which he told me that I should listen to older farmers—even “chemical farmers.” They know more than you, Berry told me, and if you don’t listen to them then you are likely to damage the land out of ignorance. It was good advice—advice everyone in the good food movement would do well to heed, remembering that preserving the traditional farm families is as much a priority as bringing in the greenhorns.