Dear Dad and Mom:
You did not fail your children and grandchildren
Dear Dad and Mom:
With Farm Aid 2025 happening today, naturally I turned on the livestream to watch the pre-concert press conference. Story after story was told from legacy family farmers, farm advocates, and young new farmers who are doing the work to feed us, feed themselves, protect the water, and provide better lives for their children.
Suddenly I began to cry uncontrollably.
The memories of what we had 40 years ago came flooding back. My childhood memories at Victor and Creston, living and working the land and the livestock. Turning the soil, planting and weeding, watching it all rise from the ground, combining and drying, then taking it all to the co-op -- the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings...all of it washed over me all at once. I had to sit down on the meditation pad and sit to calm myself.
I know I am not the only member of our family who was traumatized by the end of it all...40 years ago.
I remember the packing up, the lining up of the equipment, the clearing out of the buildings, Quentin and Lloyd pulling up to load the last of our possessions in their trailers and trucks to take us away from our land for the final time. The loss, the tears, the deep deep pain...it is all so real to me as I write this to you.
I know you blamed yourselves for a long time for "failing" at farming. I want you to know that I know that is not true. It was not your fault. You did not fail your children and grandchildren. The system set us all up to take our lives, our farm, and our identities from us. The system of corporate greed, consolidation, predatory lending, and pitting neighbor against neighbor to literally seize the dignity from us, the system did that to us.
I also want to tell you that I am proud to be a child of farming. I am proud of the values that you both raised me to believe in. I am proud and grateful that I learned what real work is, why "doing it the right way" is important. I am grateful most of all that we are all still alive to remember, to know the truth, to understand what it is like to be part of a family that feeds the world, preserve and conserve the land and water, and do so honestly.
Thank you for giving me that. I am so grateful that you tried and you raised us to try. I am proud of you both, and of what we did.
Love,
Your farm son, Scott
If you would like to be a part of the solution to help keep family farmers from losing their land, and to help new people keep building the food ecosystem, and help protect the land and water, consider donating to Farm Aid 40 here: https://give.farmaid.org/campaign/689242/donate
That’s lovely Scott!