Where do the Jetsons get their kale?

Farmers worldwide are caught between cheap and efficient large-scale operations that raze the earth, and expensive small-scale practices that regenerate instead of damage. Is there a realistic compromise?

Were there any farmers in "The Jetsons"? OK, I realize, shockingly, the 1960s cartoon has not turned out to be the most accurate predictor of the future of humankind. But this week, the Monitor considers a future that, in some ways, might seem stranger than flying cars and robot maids. Do we really need farmers?

In their cover story, Erika Page, Whitney Eulich, and Srishti Jaswal chronicle the farmer protests that have erupted around the world. But beneath the portrait of farmers in crisis is a question: Are the tractor-borne demonstrations we've seen typical advocacy, or farming's last gasp? 

That might seem an overstatement, and perhaps it is. But not by as great a margin as you might think. Of course, cultivation of food will continue for as long as humans put fork to mouth. But who will do it, and how?

Today's farmers are tilting against two powerful trends: 

1. Farming on a massive, corporate scale is vastly more efficient than small-scale farming and therefore provides much cheaper food.

2. Most farming remains devastatingly awful for the planet.

Both trends gained speed in the postwar era and are interlinked. Large agricultural operations have played an essential role in producing food on the scale needed to feed humanity. This has saved millions from hunger and starvation. 

But it has also accelerated practices that pillage the Earth: Pesticides poison ecosystems, massive amounts of water are used, soil is sucked of its nutrients, and animals live in inhumane conditions.

The irony is that farming, done with sustainable practices, can do the opposite. It can perpetually renew the Earth and its ecosystems. At this moment, we're caught in between: relying on corporate farming and the bad practices that grew out of the postwar world, but recognizing the environmental cost and wanting to do something. 

This is a double whammy for small farmers. Most rely on techniques that are destructive to the environment, and those need to change. But these farmers live on much finer margins and have fewer lobbyists than corporate farms. Many might want to do the right thing, but it's financially impossible, and nations can pick up only so much of the tab. 

Which leads us back to the question: Do we need farmers? 

Our cover story speaks elegantly of the nobility of farming, not to mention the benefits of noncorporate food. For example, flour tortillas that don't taste like carpet. Some farmers have gotten out ahead of the trends and carved out a niche in which they use sustainable practices to meet local demand.

But the whole profession is facing a reckoning. How can the world wean farming off its old ways while maintaining the output needed to feed humanity? Small farmers are being forced to answer that question first, and the answer is not really about this subsidy or that regulation, but about the nature of the enterprise itself. The Earth is demanding a change. Where small farmers go from here will give us a glimpse of how these problems will be solved. And whether they will someday be able to sell George Jetson his space kale.