In Ancient Greek philosophy, farming was a go-to example of an activity whose value was determined by its product. Aristotle’s word for this was poiesis, meaning ‘to make’: an activity in which something is brought into being that didn’t exist before. Other examples of this type of activity might be building houses, making pots, or cooking food. It is contrasted with praxis, meaning ‘to do’: an activity defined by its process and not necessarily its product. Examples here might be playing a musical instrument or having a conversation. There is no ‘product’ from these activities, nothing is made, but they have value all the same and there is a certain craft to doing them well. This craft can be learnt and taught, implying a certain kind of knowledge is involved, and this is what the Ancient Greek philosophers were trying to understand. It seems to be a practical kind of knowledge: a ‘knowing-how’ more than a ‘knowing-that’. To be a good farmer (or builder, potter, baker, musician, conversationist) needs a practical kind of knowledge, which the Greeks called techne. This practical type of knowledge was contrasted with theoretical knowledge (episteme), which you can learn from books and requires no practical know-how.
It’s important to match up the right kind of knowledge with the right kind of activity, otherwise you are likely to get into confusion. Trying to learn a practical skill with only theoretical learning, such as trying to learn to swim only by watching instructional videos on the internet, will lead to difficulties. Most practical people understand that there is no replacement for experience and practice; a point easily missed or misunderstood if you only have theoretical knowledge.
But even within the practical domain, there are still confusions to be avoided. Compare the know-how required to make bread versus the know-how required to ride a bike. Both are practical activities, as opposed to theoretical, but they have different measures of success. A person’s bread-making ability is measured by the production of bread, the thing that is made, whereas a person’s ability to ride a bike is measured only by the riding of the bike, which is the thing being done. One is poiesis and the other is praxis and you don’t want to get these mixed up. If you started calling people good bread makers – because they talk a good talk, have an encyclopaedic knowledge of recipes, and have a nice kneading action – but they cannot produce a piece of well-baked bread, then you have misunderstood the activity. Likewise, if you go looking for the ‘product’ of riding a bike you will end up in confusion: there is no ‘product’ for riding a bike; the value, if there is any, is to be found in the activity itself.
I think farming is confused about its activity. I think it is torn between two ideas of itself: one poiesis, the other praxis. It used to be obvious that the value of farming was determined by its product: farming is the activity (poiesis) of producing food. Nowadays it seems that as much time and money is spent on the doing of things or the doing of things in a certain way (praxis), sometimes regardless of the product. For many farms in the UK, what they produce is not much more than a by-product of what they do. Until recently, an averagely-performing beef-producing farm could expect to make around 95% of its income from government subsidies. In many cases the production of beef is operating at a consistent financial loss. On this basis, it would be difficult to justify a claim that the value of this activity is determined by its product. The direction of this trend is not likely to reverse any time soon, as the government reduces subsidies for food production and moves forward with their ‘public money for public goods’ rationale (as if a secure food supply were not a public good).
The value of farming will be increasingly determined by what is done, not by what is made. Farmers will be asked to plant trees and hedgerows, restore natural habitats, maintain footpaths, etc., etc. Additionally, even the production of food will be increasingly constrained by regulations on how this is to be done in an environmentally sustainable way: increased field margins, biodiversity, soil health, cover crops, animal welfare considerations, etc., etc. These are all laudable, obviously, but we have to be clear that it radically changes the traditional concept of farming as being primarily about food production. Farming has become a praxis: a thing that is done for its own sake. It’s no longer enough to produce good produce. In a lot of cases, for a lot of the time, it’s not really about producing produce at all.
My suspicion is that farmers are being burdened by an outdated idea that the value of their activity is measured by their produce only. This idea is no longer accurate and is not fit for purpose. It’s fair to expect a fair price for your product, but if the product is no longer only what is produced but also the way it is produced, then that additional value needs to be included in the calculation.
If you defend the value of farming only in terms of the value of its produce, you will be left chronically undervaluing farming as an activity. Recognising that farming is now valued as much (if not more) for what it does as what it makes allows you to defend the value of farming on that basis, as something that is done for its own sake, regardless of its product. We all benefit from that praxis, because we all end up with clean water and air, pleasant green spaces, healthy land and happy and healthy animals. As it stands, we in the UK get all of that for a heavily discounted rate, paying only a fraction of what the produce is worth in return. If taxpayers want to live in an environmentally healthy land, they absolutely should not hesitate to send some of their taxes to support farmers. But equally, farmers need to recognise that the days of prioritising the production of food have passed. Farming is literally not what it once was.
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