Conscious Choice Seattle: The Real Dirt

May 2006 | Back Words

The Real Dirt

Independent farming is not easy and almost never associated with being flamboyant. But never say ‘never’

By Andrea Blum

The first time I encountered John Peterson, a third-generation farmer from Caledonia, Ill., was in the Castro district of San Francisco. Former Vice President Al Gore was there, too.

Beaming and beardless, Gore stood behind a podium on the Castro Theater stage, looking rather jolly with his pear-like girth. Only hours before, I’d heard Gore deliver a commanding speech on the perils of global warming as part of the UN’s World Environmental Day.

Now he was introducing and praising the documentary film, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John,” which was a big hit at last year’s Seattle International Film Festival and has since played at theaters around the country and is newly available on DVD. I sensed Gore’s passion for his own childhood farm flowing through his veins.

Not a moment too soon, the curtain opened, the organist disappeared and I was introduced to a curious man who, like many farmers, is passionate about dirt, metal and tractors.

But when I saw John Peterson wearing a dress with an orange boa and sitting sidesaddle on an old red Farmall tractor in one of the opening scenes, I feared I was in for a slapstick, gay-farming flick.

I was wrong. It’s not a film about a gay farmer. To anyone reading this, I apologize for my preconceived judgments. It seems it was the intention of the director and Peterson to challenge a stereotype by accentuating the flamboyant side of this distinctive farmer. As Peterson asks early in the film, what are you supposed to do when you live “in a rural community where you aren’t welcome because you are kind of different?”

Peterson, a Midwest farm boy who was thrilled to discover art and theater in college, wrote the script and stars in this odyssey. He shares himself with complete candor as he plots the shelf life of an average American farm.

The documentary serves as homage to Farmer John’s mother and father, who worked their entire lives to maintain the farm. Sadly, through a series of misadventures, John Peterson, the last in the family line, loses all but 22 acres when the bank forecloses—one of the first of many casualties in the American farm community.

Later, Peterson gets much of the farm back. Woven among the years and film frames in between is footage of lively gatherings and various friends and ex-girlfriends—one who debuts as a “Bubble Bee” and another who invents a Pig Newton cookie to sell to pay off the farm’s debts.

We get to know his aunts, uncles and 83-year-old mom, and we travel with him to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico on a life-affirming journey inspired by writer Henry Miller. We even meet narrow-minded neighbors who plot his downfall by spreading rumors of satanic worship and ritual killings.

What’s more, we see the traditional social fabric of the Midwest unravel. And, as history plays itself out, we witness other farmers lose or sell their farms and subdivisions grow to replace them. We see grown men cry over lost dirt.
Farmer John confronts his fears and the prejudices of neighbors and, in the end, he prevails.

“It’s a film that cuts through all boundaries, Peterson told me in a phone call from Amsterdam. “There are so many themes that feel universal. No one feels alienated. The mission was not to tell people how to think or feel. It was just to tell a story.”

The real dirt is this: Peterson prevails by changing direction from chemical-dependent monoculture farming—based on set government prices and subsidies—to an organic, biodynamic model with direct links to the customer.

He wins by gaining the respect of most of his neighbors by showing them a way to resurrect their lost connection to the land. Peterson’s Angelic Organics is now one of the largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the U.S., with more than 1,250 shareholders who support his work and eat his produce.

When the lights of the Castro Theater slowly came up, John walked to the stage to answer questions. In a manifestation of “community-supported filmmaking,” members of Farmer John’s human harvest sprouted from the velvet seats: friends, ex-girlfriends, former employees and interns rose to say hello. Even the ex-Bubble Bee.

This is Andrea Blum’s first story for Seattle Conscious Choice.

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