Another big city radio station dropped its regular agricultural coverage. It’s not that the city is not still surrounded by agriculture and serving as the hub for many smaller towns intensely dependent on farming, it is. Nothing has changed outside the city limits.

This city grew to prominence by serving the surrounding community. Grain silos, railroad spurs, shipping yards, implement dealers, banks, an agriculturally strong university and allied industries were drawn to the city to support its strong expanding agricultural base.

It was a burgeoning community that looked outward beyond the edge of town. Like a new business, a new religion or a new country, it placed its faith in growth. It invested in itself and was optimistic about its future. But something happens as towns become cities. It’s psychological as well as physical. The independent spirit–help your neighbor–moral obligation to do your part for the benefit of the community is replaced by the herd mentality. As a small fish in a big school, your safety depends on another fish being eaten instead of you.

Instead of looking outward, the city begins to look inward. And it can’t help it. Almost every big city has an unhealthy core that is riddled with crime and poverty. It sucks the resources of the community. Instead of investing in the future, that money must be spent trying to fight the eternal flame of self-destruction that seems to be the painful dark heart of big cities.

In these cities people walk with their heads down scurrying from one safe haven to another. The radio station has 98 listeners like that, who could care less what the corn futures do, compared to the two people who are producing enough corn for everyone’s cornflakes. The 98 need to hear the sordid details of city crime and politics to count their blessings that for one more day it was another fish that got eaten.

Maybe you can’t blame city media for turning their backs on agriculture. It’s not relevant to the lives of their readers, listeners and watchers. Abundant safe food is not something they worry about. It is taken for granted.

They worry about their car being stolen, the house being burglarized, their taxes going up, their children’s safety and their MasterCard bill.

Nonetheless it is hard to watch a community achieve that critical mass where it no longer looks past the horizon with hope, but turns inward to a life of watching only your next step.

“Burn your cities, save your farms and your cities will grow back as if by magic. Burn your farms, and grass will grow in the streets of every city in America.”–Wm. Jennings Bryan, 1897