The Next Top Farmer? Farmers Becoming Like Celebrity Chefs

Celebrity chefs are so last year or at least according to an interesting post on Nutrition Unplugged. As a result of programs like the USDA Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Program, farmers are becoming the face of their products. And this is a good thing. If you're producing an excellent local product then you should get credit for it. Local farmers are popping up in the media more than ever before.

"The phenomenon is exemplified in books by Michael Pollan and Adam Gollner, and in the Slow Food movement," said University of Illinois sociologist Gary Fine, who has studied chefs working in professional kitchens. "As with chefs, what the advent of the celebrity farmer brings up is the question of authenticity. The ideal farmer is the self-taught farmer, the naive farmer, the man of the soil," Fine explained. "Are we going to see in 10 or 15 years farmers who, like Jean-Georges [Vongerichten] and other celebrity chefs, have 20 different farms that specialize in different produce? I think that is altogether possible."

Whole Foods now shows the face of the farmers that produce their foods in black and white photos next to their product.

More and more commercials are featuring farmers like Ocean Spray and Lays Potato Chips. But don't confuse small local farmers with the Ocean Sprays and Lays Potato Chips of the world. While both show the source of the product, these larger more corporate farms give the illusion of an idyllic farm when in reality these are factories mass producing foods which are often laden with pesticides and herbicides. But whether or not it is actually the farmer that is producing your food, the point is clear, farming is cool.

Check out the chicest celebrity farmers of them all. Watch as The Fabulous Beekman Boys take on the adventures on their farm when Season 2 premiers this spring.

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