Appalachian Heritage

Married To The Land: Farming In Appalachia by Carol Stumbo The subject of farming has been on my mind this year as I have listened to national broadcasts about the tragedies that are occurring almost daily to the American farmer, and as I have traveled the side roads of Eastern Kentucky and noted what is happening to much of the farm land in my own part of the state. The two events seem inter-related in my mind. On the surface, the farmers who are losing the land that has been in their families for generations across this country may seem to have little connection to the small farmers of Eastern Kentucky, but I think there is a connection. In each case, a change is taking place and it affects our culture nationally and locally. Because of the hilly terrain, the people have never had large sections of flat land to farm like those in the Midwest. But at one time, almost every home in this area had a garden of some kind. Because hill people were cut off from the rest of the world and transporting food into the mountains was so difficult, farming was essential. When Eastern Kentuckians had no farm land, they created it. Years ago farmers, desperate for land to work, cleared the hillsides and attempted to work land that was often rocky and infertile. Now the bottom land, the choice farming land that many an early settler would have given anything for, lies untended. Less and less land is being farmed. Along a twenty-mile stretch of highway this summer, I counted only a half dozen small gardens and I saw what were once several large corn fields lying idle under beds of weeds. Both nationally and regionally, the number of people who are working with the land in a direct relationship is decreasing and that is a disturbing fact. 8 We in Appalachia seem to be moving further and further away from the land, from our dependence on it for a source of food and from our relationship to it. Part of this change is tied in with the changes that have occurred in the economy of the region. My grandfather , who occasionally took a job working at lumbering and helping float logs down the Big Sandy River to supplement his income, relied on farming as the chief source of his livelihood. When mining came to the area he experienced little change in his lifestyle. Even after coal became the largest industry in the region, our ties to the land remained. My father, a miner, continued to raise a large garden each year. Miners were not well-paid then and food from the garden was needed for the family table. Part of our responsibility when my sisters and I were children was to help my father care for the garden. It was a common sight to see entire families working in their gardens in the hours just before twilight. It is with my generation that I think the deepest break came between the people and the land. As the children of miners grew up, attended school, or found jobs that paid better than that of their parents, the number of small farms began to decrease. Farming didn't seem as necessary to my generation and much knowledge of farming was lost. Neither my sisters nor my brother have a garden today or know how to produce one. This act of separating one's self from the land has occurred with many families in this part of Appalachia . The question is what are we losing as a people when we stop working and caring for the land? The experts who have begun to turn their attention to the problems of the nation's farmers think they have an answer to the question . They think we are losing nothing when we lose the small farmer. They view the plight of the American farmer as a problem that needs to be considered in terms of losses and 9 gains, a matter of efficiency of production and bookkeeping. If I am bothered about what might happen to the quality of life as a result of more and more...