back to the land

On an american podcast (slate gabfest) i heard the other day that back to the land is on of the things (together with hairy armpits) from the seventies that we are happy to see gone. Back to the land is what we do in the sense that none of us has a farming background. The french call us neo ruraux. To a certain extend I regard my choice of profession as not different than others, this is what I chose to do for a living. I don't believe that everybody should became a farmer. On the other hand there is a whole lifestyle that goes with it and also the tendency to believe that on has moral highground (at least for organic farmers, we 're saving the planet after all). Something I'd like to avoid, but do not always manage to. I do think that everybody should have a basic understanding of how their food is produced.
I do think - although farmers generally have reputation of being dumbasses - that farming, particulary the kind we want to practice is an enormously complex activity. It is very physical, but also demands good planning, decisivness, good salemanship, good observation and is very, very diverse. That is part of the charme and part of the challenge.