Missouri Farmer Attacks Michael Pollan

The American Enterprise Institute recently published an article by a Missouri corn and soy farmer, Blake Hurst, decrying “the critics of industrial farming”, and Michael Pollan in particular. It’s been generating a lot of discussion in environmental circles. Hurst’s argument boils down to a claim that “agri-intellectuals” are not living in the real world, that they do not understand farming as a “dirty and bloody” business. Using the trope of a loudmouthed man he randomly met on the plane who had read Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Hurst raises the kind of cultural rallying cry that ignites so much reactionary media:

He thinks farmers are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families. I would not presume to criticize his car, or the size of his house, or the way he runs his business. But he is an expert about me, on the strength of one book, and is sharing that expertise with captive audiences every time he gets the chance. Enough, enough, enough.

Hurst is a conventional farmer, and to him all organic practices amount to farming in an archaic manner, like, as he puts it, his grandfather did. As with so many right-wing populists, Hurst’s cultural contempt runs throughout the piece. He assumes that the critics he attacks are bereft of practical experience or common farm sense; he claims that they don’t know that young turkeys left out in a thunderstorm might drown from standing in the rain with their heads up (a rather dubious claim), or that sows sometimes roll around in a large pen, killing their piglets.  He assumes that they don’t discuss the backbreaking nature of farm labor down at the Whole Foods. Never mind that many of the lessons of alternative agriculture have been hard earned in the fields, Hurst barely refrains from talk-radio level clichés of Volvo-driving latte sipping liberals.

Hurst’s cultural hang-ups obviously drive a lot of his animus to organic farming practices. Yet he talks about his own use of the no-till method (an innovation straight out of the organic movement he so belittles) and touts its environmental benefit but says that it would be impossible without pesticides. But there are plenty of organic farmers who practice no-till without pesticides. Hurst just isn’t there yet; nor, most damningly, does he ever want to be. What’s most telling about Hurst’s logic is his frequent use of straw men arguments.  Following on a rather mild and sensible suggestion by Pollan that urban composting be used as farm fertilizer, he imagines the carbon footprint of hauling thousands of tons of compost from New York City to his distant corner of Missouri. Never mind that a dedicated localist like Michael Pollan would never suggest such a course of action, and the last time I checked, there were actually cities in Missouri; Hurst would rather attack arguments not made.

Ad Hominem attacks, straw men and other distortions are normally the signs of a losing argument. They also work both ways. Tom Philpott at Grist certainly scored a direct hit on Hurst when he pointed out the Hurst family has seen over 1.4 million dollars in taxpayer subsidies flow into their farms in the last 12 years. But beyond such blow-landing, there is one inherent thing missing from Hurst’s attack on Michael Pollan. It’s the feeling he hasn’t actually read Pollan’s books. If he had, he might address the fact that Pollan writes mostly not about farming, but about eating.

In The Ominvore’s Dilemma, A natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food, Pollan talks about agriculture, yes. But he mostly talks about food, and the effect food has upon humans. Pollan’s main argument is that industrial food is destroying not only nature, but human health as well. In Defense of Food boils it down to this: thousands of years of evolution knows better then current food science about what our bodies need to be healthy. It’s an argument Hurst doesn’t even bother to address, either because he consciously is avoiding it, or he doesn’t really have an answer.

We grow food to feed ourselves. If the food we are growing doesn’t make us healthy, why are we growing it? If Blake Hurst’s corn is used for nothing but corn-syrup-laden junk food and as feed for antibiotic-pumped beef, what is, in the end, the good of what he does? I know it’s a big request, asking someone to re-evaluate their utility, their way of life. But if Blake Hurst opened his mind, he might find a way to continue to do the farming that he loves, a farming that is without question a good thing, without passing on a measurable bad effects of modern industrial systems.

Michael Pollan will be speaking this year at the Bioneers conference, and if I get the chance, I plan to ask him about Hurst’s criticism. In the meantime, let’s get a discussion going about Hurst’s attack and the impact of industrial farming over at the Bioneers community. Anybody’s turkeys drown lately?