That's a 1948 Farmall tractor with a mower deck, and guess what, it's still cutting grass today, almost seventy years after it left the factory! Any piece of crap you buy today will be lucky to last seven years, never mind seventy.
That gem belongs to the folks at Chilligo Creek Farms, an organic market gardening operation about an hour down the road. They've got two more of a similar vintage. Why? Because they're in business for the long haul, and they want stuff that lasts. What a sad state of affairs it is when a seventy year old machine offers better prospects for longevity than a new one!
That society tolerates the scam of planned obsolescence is a mystery to me. At this point in our evolution we don't even have a choice about it anymore. Pretty much any consumer product we buy is engineered to be replaced in five years or less.
But I sense a different attitude among a lot of the young folks coming up. They've grown up inside the consumerist bubble of disposable everything, and you know what? They want to go in a different direction.
They're turning their backs on industrial agriculture, factory farming, rampant consumerism, and planned obsolescence. They're about growing real food without toxic inputs. They're about raising animals in a humane way.
They're about embracing the 1948 Farmall tractor.
They are the future of farming.
Technical problems getting the picture up, but it's coming.
ReplyDeleteTechnical problems getting the picture up, but it's coming.
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