FIELDS OF INFLUENCE

Well, I’ve seen some pretty strange ideas in my time, but the “MyFarm” experiment which I heard about recently (http://www.my-farm.org.uk) doesn’t strike me as being one of the better ones. Whilst the concept itself is very laudable, an attempt to ‘reconnect’ people with where their food comes from, I tend to believe that, like many other things, such a pro-active element probably only appeals in a positive way to a certain segment of the population to whom that sort of thing already naturally appeals anyway. It’s a bit like elections (or indeed referendums), in that the person’s most interested are those who are most motivated to vote, whereas a lot of the electorate can remain ambivalent about much of the process.

There’s a theory in the USA that real interest in politics ends at the Washington Beltway, and over here, and admittedly only to a certain extent, real interest in the actual processes of way we vote pretty much ends at the borders of the metropolitan areas which, given the proportion of constituencies that lie within the urban centres, tends to skew the results one way or another. This means, of course, that certain individuals’ votes tend to be more powerful than others no matter what system you pick, although I still tend to think that tinkering with any system that has worked to create a stable system for hundreds of years, just to achieve some short term gain, is not something to be considered lightly.

However, it will still be interesting to see how motivated we are as a nation to actually turn out for this vote given that I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the prime motivations during general elections is that need to be amongst the ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ camp, but historically, fewer people are committed to local elections and referenda than to general elections. Maybe if there is a push today for people to try to be amongst the ‘winners’ (whichever side of that fence you fall on) the turnout will be greater, but we shall have to see. Perhaps politicians should try to appeal more directly to the ‘blind fanaticism’ gene that so motivates sports fans.

Meanwhile, back to the farm. Basically, the idea of the “MyFarm” project is that, with the backing of the National Trust, the owner of a farm that has an annual turnover of £300,000 has decided, in his infinite wisdom, to make it an interactive experience so that ordinary idiots like you and me can enjoy the ‘real farming experience’ of, er, clicking a mouse several hundred miles away, quite possibly whilst sitting comfortably at home in the heart of a city. Apparently any decisions made by mad finger-clicking fools like me who know very little about how to run a farm and keep livestock will be implemented on the real genuine actual farm and have a real life actual bearing upon the running of the business.

It sounds like a true recipe for disaster to me, but I suppose we should leave each to their own. I guess that it’s just symptomatic of this ridiculous modern-day need we seem to have nowadays to ‘involve’ people who know nothing of what they’re doing rather than just letting the experts in their field (Ho! Ho!) get on with things, because sometimes they really do know better, despite what we might prefer to think.

Ah well, I saw an item about this on television and one or two of the rather earnest looking young family folk they interviewed seemed quite keen on it all, and eager for the project to succeed as they spent a family day out visiting the actual farm, so it might all turn out to be fine, and, because you do have to commit thirty of your own hard-earned pounds (or blag it onto your parent’s credit card… stop it right now with all the cynicism…) to sign up for the deal maybe that will make the finger-clicking idiots put a bit more thought and caution into the decision process.

However, I rather suspect that the whole experiment might be quietly shelved once the profits start to plummet, assuming of course that they will, but maybe I’m being overtly cynical and the whole thing will be a roaring success although with what people like me know about how to run a farm I doubt it.

“It’s not a video game, it’s a real-life farm”, said the gentleman whose farm (and presumably brainstorm) this appeared to be, and hopefully that is what subscribers will remember. However, the problem I have with it is that (if you’ve ever visited any forum ever where your opinions are sought, you’ll already know this of course), so many internetters can be utterly spiteful, wicked and idiotic for a lot of the time with very little comeback and therefore can wield a great deal of power without having to suffer any of the consequences. It’s not beyond the wit of imagination to consider that a few dozen twelve-year-olds might just decide to hijack the project for “a bit of a laugh” and drive the whole enterprise into wrack and ruin.

Hopefully the ‘nice people’ will prevail and cynics like me will be proved wrong. Their faith in human nature is obviously much greater than mine and I can only wish them well, and all the good luck in the world, although I will disappear off into the ether muttering to myself that they’re probably going to need it.