There’s a fine line between those looking to make a viable living out of farming and those seeking a bucolic idyll; the latter often make life nearly impossible for the former, driving up property prices up to the point they’d need to grow gold-leaf salads to reimburse the mortgage.  It’s the ultimate sublime in irony that people moving to the countryside because they want a farming landscape contribute to the very downfall of farms.  Especially if they then start complaining about the price of organics. 

According to the USDA, “lifestyle” farms make up half of the 2.1 million farms in the U.S., and their number increases by about 2 percent a year.  The article is tetchy about what it means by “lifestyle” farms.  If America’s traditional, productive small family farms—like my friend Heather’s, whose parents milked cows in Michigan when she was growing up but had to stop—are being gradually replaced by people like lavender lady Ellen Sullivan, who spends most of her time making oils, lotions, soaps, body mist, and candles, that’s not exactly putting food in our mouths.  Then again, at least Sullivan is growing something other than begonias and bathos.

I think it’s a great thing that people want to move back to the countryside; not long ago, people were scrambling to get away from it.  It always happens in generations, doesn’t it?  My dad grew up the son of a Swiss cheesemaker in a canton where women were only granted the right to vote in 1990.  He fled to, of all places, Miami, as soon as he possibly could—whereas I, on the other hand, harbor dreams of flecked brown cows and sonorous bells echoing across verdant valleys.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

Nathalie Jordi's appetites keep her bouncing between between County Cork, New York, London and the French Alps.  When not slinging curd or interviewing farmers, she writes for Travel&Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Gastronomica, and her blog at www.autobiogeography.com.  Her dreams of a life spent baking, drinking margaritas, and sitting in the sun are gathering steam during her current stint as a waitress in New York City.