Farming has never been easy. Historically, most of the problems have stemmed from the natural world - weeds, insects, diseases, too much or too little rainfall, frost and cold weather or excessive heat, soggy fields or dust storms, and much more. The modernizations of recent decades have brought newer problems such as machinery breakdowns and computer glitches. Marketing skills have been vital as long as farmers have farmed.

Keeping abreast of new technology is a growing challenge during this time of rapid change and technological development. Farmers are obliged to devote increasing amounts of time each year to learning how to produce more food to ever-increasing quality standards. This is needed just to stay even with - or, hopefully, a little ahead of - the competition. (To be fair, farming is no different in this respect from most other endeavours, except, perhaps, for the large numbers of “competitors.”)

Throughout the millennia of farming, farmers have generally enjoyed one significant privilege: their efforts have usually been appreciated by the non-farming public . And though standard history books commonly pay little heed to the growing of food, the probability of hunger in times past also meant the efforts of farmers could not be ignored. Farmers were rarely wealthy or powerful (that part remains the same), but their contributions were well recognized.

However, that too is changing.

Politically, farmers in the Western world became largely insignificant a few decades ago. It’s true that, despite their small numbers, they still have some political clout, as farmer demonstrations of recent years in Europe, Asia and even Western Canada have shown. But with each demonstration, urbanites become more blasé. Even in rural areas, full-time farmers are the minority. Hobby farmers often have more political influence than those who make their living growing food.

More striking has been the rapid loss in popular support for what farmers do. Yes, farmers still rank relatively high on polls of public approval and credibility. But farmers are not viewed as favourably as in times past. And they continue to lose favour.

Perhaps it started with pesticides. Though these were once viewed as the salvation of food producers and public alike, we’ve seen a persistent and effective anti-pesticide lobby for several decades now in most developed countries, and growing public unease about pesticide usage. Research studies may continue to show only a minute potential for health risks, and the public may insist on bountiful supplies of high-quality, low-cost foods which only pesticide use can provide. But these inconsistencies carry little weight. The public has come to believe pesticides are bad, and farmers who use them place profits ahead of integrity.

To the pesticide-pariah ranks can now be added other inputs - fertilizers, purchased energy, high-tech seeds, and more. All have been condemned by various activist groups in recent years, with each attack having some influence on a percentage of the non-farming public.

The latest addition, of course, is genetically modified (GM) crops. While GM crops often mean less pesticide use, improved food quality and lower costs of food production, the activists have done an effective job of scaring the public about potential risks while downplaying benefits. And they have played to a latent unease in the minds of most citizens about the growing corporate control of food. By using GM crops, farmers are seen as unwitting allies of the big corporations, regardless of the fact that farmers grow these crops by their own choice and not by corporate dictum. Indeed, the corporate dictum works in reverse, where farmers are obliged to continue to grow crops requiring heavy-pesticide use - with potatoes and sweet corn, for example - because of the demands of large corporate buyers. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

And it’s not just crop farmers who are in front of the gun...so are farm animals and poultry raised in large units and in cages, hutches or stanchions. So is hormone use in beef production (to reduce costs of production and provide more of the type of meat consumers demand). And now, so are all classes of livestock because they produce manure, and because manure smells and contains nutrients and E. coli. The newspapers are full of stories about “large factory farms.” (The Government of Ontario defines large as 150 “animal units” or more, which most farmers recognize as being of modest size, compared to units far larger which are becoming increasingly dominant in North American agriculture.)

As the public’s familiarity with farming continues to decline, numbers of commercial farmers continue to shrink and food stores continue to bulge with more food choices, in bountiful quantities, and at ever-decreasing real costs for basic (farmer-produced) ingredients, public support for farmers and farm practices can also be expected to continue to wither, while criticisms mount.

And farmers and their agents will need to be as skilled in public relations and in addressing perceptions as they are in fixing equipment and battling crop pests and inclement weather. To use a title coined by an Ontario agricultural committee more than 30 years ago, it’s the Challenge of Abundance. Welcome to the world of agriculture in Century Twenty-One.

1