Farmers and Factory Workers

Desecdents of Nishan and Almas Asoian in front of offices at
the Andover Country Club.  This renovated structure was
their farmhouse in the 1930s

     Things change. I know this. In life, some things change rather abruptly. Other changes are so gradual they I might not even notice it happening. But when I do I am taken aback and blog about it.
     I realized just this past few weeks just how few farmers and factory workers I actually knew.
     I teach Microeconomics. One of the central topics is the study of Perfectly Competitive industries or markets of which the best examples are agriculture. Many producers grow the same product say a class of corn, wheat, or, something that many Armenians in Fresno made their livelihood at, growing grapes for raisins. There are many growers and they have to accept the market price.
     I have been teaching this class for four years now and am just realizing that no one in our family farms. We haven’t had a farmer in the family for decades. My father spent summers in Andover, Massachusetts where his maternal grandparent’s families, the Asoians and Lusignians, all worked the land. I have met some Armenians in Fresno that still farm but they are not related to me. I know a lady at the university, she told me that her father, who recently passed away, and his brothers are farmers in Kansas. The father of another lady who reported to me at Newell Rubbermaid is also a farmer. Growing up in Detroit, my friend Brad’s family had a farm in Hale, MI. When I visited the farm in the Boy Scouts, they were no longer working the farm themselves but leasing the land to neighboring farmers.
      A childhood acquaintance, Bruce, took being a hippie quite seriously and actually got himself back to the land. He eschewed his suburban upbringing and may have even dropped out of college and became a farmer in rural Michigan. I was always amazed that he did this, basically going against the grain of what everyone else I knew was doing. An internet search showed that he is still active and participating in farmer’s markets selling vegetables, herbs, eggs, wool, and maple syrup. I have always wanted to sit down and get his perspective on this… but we were never that close. I may actually talk to some local folks, at our local farmer’s market that have done essentially the same thing.
      In the same vein, I know and less and less folks that work in factories. I grew up in Detroit. Back then, Detroit was more of a manufacturing town than it is today. I knew a lot of people, friends, family, and neighbors that worked in manufacturing plants. In the summer of 1973, I actually worked in a machine shop myself. My maternal grandfather, Levon, worked in the Ford Foundry at the Rouge Complex.  That experience provided great motivation to excel in my studies. Today? The last of my extended family have retired from their factory jobs. So, at this time, I can barely of anyone I know that actually works in a factory.

Ford's Rouge Complex c. 1927 - Wikipedia

      There are few factors in play here. First, times have changed. There is simply less family farmers and less factory jobs these days. Corporate farming has taken over the production of most foods we buy in the grocery stores. The loss of manufacturing jobs is well known and well documented. Secondly, my demographics have changed. In the Detroit I grew up in, we lived in a neighborhood that had blue and white collar, executives

and factory, workers living side-by-side. This influenced my experiences in school, Boy Scouts, and church. Now? Since I moved from Detroit, I have lived in mostly amongst households had the same kinds of executive positions I had. While this was OK for the most part, as my children got excellent educations and experiences… just different from mine growing up.
     I wonder what the next fifty years will bring.