Clues to a Future Economy in Farmland and iPhones

How will the US economy change to support our evolving society? The clues may be in the demand for farmland and the mass production of iPhones.

A recent dinner conversation revolved around where our economy and society are heading. Not a surprising topic, I know.

The surprise for me, however, was an interesting theory put forth: we will increasingly return to growing our own crops, working in cottage industries and revert to living much the way our society did before the industrial revolution.

I think I hear the Luddites cheering in their graves. But, should they? 

This “back to basics” trend seemed to clash with my theory that we are moving into a new “knowledge worker’s” economy. Farming gave way to industry and industry is giving way to knowledge work.

Need convinced? Challenge yourself to buy only products made in the USA or think of one person who currently (today, not 10 or 20 years ago) works on a factory line.  The idea that farming would be the alternative to industry sounded ludicrous, at first.

Then I mulled the new farming economy idea over a bit.

“Back to basic” classrooms haven’t abandoned the computer and just because we are becoming a more holistic (female oriented) thinking society again–evident in touch screen applications like the iPhone and the HP SmartTouch computer–doesn’t mean we have abandoned analytical (male oriented) thinking–evident in literacy and the binary code.

Holistic Computing

 

Then I did a little research. It’s true, growing crops or running a small organic farm is becoming increasingly popular. The US Department of Agriculture shows a 14 percent increase (between 1997-2002) in people under 35 operating small and medium-sized farms. (source wnyc.org)

Farmland is hot property these days. Nationwide, it is up nearly 9 percent from a year ago. Iowa farmland has increased in value 18 percent. South Dakota’s value has risen 21 percent.

While some wealthy landowners celebrate this, average farmers and young people who want to own their farms are shut out.

“There are a whole lot of young people wanting to farm – both children of farm families and young people from cities and suburban towns who want to farm,” says Teresa Opheim, executive director of Practical Farmers of Iowa. (Source: The Christian Science Monitor, Richard Mertens (11/18/08))

Come to think of it, a personal friend of mine just moved back to South Dakota so that her husband could start a cattle business with his father and another friend created gardens in a Denver suburb as part of an outreach program.

It is also true, however, that farms and cottage industries don’t run at all the way they did during the pre-industrial era. They use machines to complete tasks, research, chart, and sell products. The poor Luddites would be so confused with all this melding of old and new.

At a fundraiser I was thrilled to hear a woman politician expound, “We need more women in politics, not to put down men but to have equal representation. If we want peace in the world we need the the differing insights of both women and men working together.” 

In the same way, I am thrilled to think about a new economy where we can take the best of our past holistic matriarchal societies and our more recent analytic patriarchal society to create a hybrid society that is both scientific and caring, profitable and creative. This is the change I voted for!

Of course change is often a struggle, whether it’s cutting a first tooth, learning to read or working on a home remodel, but I don’t want to be toothless, illiterate or live with 1980s Oak Express stairs.

Maybe, just maybe, we should be celebrating the recent economic “readjustment”?

No Driver Tractor