Words Matter

Momma always said, “Choose your words wisely.”  For a long time that wisdom just meant that I should watch how I spoke of others or how I stated my opinion, but lately the need to choose my words has evolved.  Becoming more involved in advocating for agriculture, I’ve learned that what I say and how I say it can have lasting impressions.  

There are words we use that ordinarily imply very little beyond their simple definitions.  We see them used casually, normally evoking very little emotion.  Words like “factory,” “corporate,” “processing,” or “profitability” could be used in conversation about any sort of business, trade or craft without a negative connotation. But the minute you combine those terms with agriculture, the vibe immediately turns negative.

Hearing “factory farming” or “industrialized agriculture” or “food processing,” consumers immediately vilify the hard working producers that fill their favorite grocery store shelves.  They instantly believe that farmers and ranchers have thrown their moral values and ethics out the window in hopes to make an extra dollar.  They are just words, but words matter.

The phrase “corporate farm” aims to smear any large size or non-family owned operation but the truth is that farms and ranches owned by corporations only make up 3% of US operations.  Most large scale farms are family owned and operated with the same traditional values, morals, and goals that generations before them worked and lived by.

The term “factory farming” was intentionally coined to paint a negative picture of large scale operations.  From large poultry farms to finishing feedlots to mega-dairies, the highly populated set-ups, anti-agriculturists want consumers to believe that they are mass producing animals with little regard to their needs or welfare.  Sure, it’s no little house on the prairie, but size means nothing when it comes to the quality of care on any agriculture operation.

Words like “industrial agriculture” and “conventional farming” leave very little options for acceptable means of farming.  On one hand, utilizing the technologies that can help farmers produce far higher yields with fewer inputs is not good for the environment and is too far removed from our homesteading ancestors.  But on the other hand, old traditional practices are not near efficient enough or sustainable.  

It’s not just in raising livestock or crops that I’ve learned how defining words matter, but also in the conversations about how they turn those farm grown goods into foods ready to buy.  

To turn nutritious milk into delicious yogurt, the milk is taken to a processing plant- a building full of big sterile equipment, conveyor belts, and shiny machinery.  Sweet corn is taken to a processing plant to be store ready where it is mechanically cut from the cob, blanched, and then canned or frozen.  At a food processing plant apples are chunked, cooked down, and run through a food mill before being sterilized and packaged to be shelf ready.

In all of these instances, and so many others, the food is processed- simply prepared for purchase.  But for many if they hear these were “processed foods” they would be concerned with their quality.  If they learned they were “factory made” products, many would be deterred from buying them because of the ethics behind the food preparation.  

These days, “harvesting” doesn’t just mean bringing in the crops from the field, but it also used to describe processing livestock for meat.  Why?  Because words like “slaughter” or “butcher” are too direct, too abrasive to say.  The process of carving a carcass into kitchen ready cuts might not be an event for everyone to experience, but the production of steaks, rumps roasts, and hamburgers shouldn’t be thought of in a negative light.  Once again, it is simply a means of preparing food for purchase, a service to be grateful for.  

These few examples demonstrate how words depicting the necessary food growth and preparation have become twisted, misconstrued, and manipulated to confuse consumers about agriculture production.  Without the means or places for production, having the variety of foods at our fingertips would be impossible and far more costly.  I’m not ignorant that there is a cost to connect food products from the farm to the family and I believe we should all ways to minimize that cost.  But I do think that we need to recognize the crucial part processing plays in feeding our country.

I don’t know that we will ever be able to take these words back to their simple, original, non-emotional meanings in connection with food production.  But maybe we can find new phrases or words to help give a more positive impression on the journey our food products take.  Let us think of these places that make our food kitchen ready, help us have food security, and enable family dinners.  Instead of thinking of them as “factories” “processing” food but as a crucial step for keeping hunger at bay.