It is too simple to say, as the Tuttles have, that the recession killed a farm that had survived for nearly 400 years. What killed it was the economic structure of food production. Each year it has become harder for family farms to compete with industrial scale agriculture — heavily subsidized by the government — underselling them at every turn. In a system committed to the health of farms and their integration with local communities, the result would have been different. In 1632, and for many years after, the Tuttle farm was a necessity. In 2010, it is suddenly superfluous, or so we like to pretend.
塔特尔家族的人将有着近400历史的农场的破产归咎于土地退化，这理由未免太过简单。使其破产的真正原因其实是食品生产的经济结构。每一年，家庭农场都要跟工业规模化的农业企业进行竞争，日子越来越煎熬。这些企业享受政府大力补贴扶持，以各种渠道以低价出售粮食。在一个致力于农场健康并促进农场与当地社区融合一体的体系里，结果本不该如此。在1632年以及之后的许多年，塔特尔农场不可或缺。然而到了2010年，它突然成了多余的东西，或者说被我们看作是一个累赘。 |
