My family’s background in farming, which ended with my father’s generation, is one of the reasons my ears perked up when Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, mentioned a farming documentary at this year’s International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo. He recommended that we all watch Farmland, as well as tell others about it. I'm taking that advice to heart. 

Tolman mentioned a Huffington Post film critic that recently gave the documentary a good review and said he thought it should win awards. After I got home I did a little research and now I’m excited to see it myself. The film features farmers in their 20s, including a poultry farmer from Georgia, beef rancher from Texas, a corn and soybean farmer from Nebraska, a farmer that grows onions, potatoes and other crops in California, a supported agriculture vegetable farmer in Pennsylvania (the only woman) and a Minnesota hog farmer.

Farmers are awesome people. My dad’s best friend, a lifelong farmer, is kind, hard working, funny and a lot of other nice descriptive words. And then there’s my dad, a farmer at heart who today works as a truck driver, who’s obviously very high on my list of people I love and admire. I wish more people knew farmers and this film is going to help with that.  

My family still lives on 40 acres of land near Grygla, Minn., which is part of the land homesteaded by my grandfather’s father when he came over to America from Norway. When I was a little girl, my dad farmed the land. I’m too young to remember it, but I remember pictures. Particularly one of him covered from head to toe in mud, including his face and beard, and one of him playfully hugging a cow that was particularly friendly.

Before I was too old, quite a bit of land had been sold off by my grandfather and he’d purchased two yellow Caterpillar bulldozers and gone into business for himself. My dad, who always loved farming, worked for him for years before transitioning to truck driving. Today, some of the land is in CRP and some is leased by a neighbor. So I grew up on a farm but my family didn’t farm it, at least not when I was old enough to remember. 

Thinking about farmers makes me feel proud and patriotic and emotional all at once. The HuffPost film critic got that, after seeing “Farmland” at a special screening of the film. “Being a farmer or a rancher looks to be hard work but to the person, these six individuals make it look like the greatest profession on earth,” he wrote. “They have a sense of mission in what they are doing and they convey this sense to the camera and thus to the audience.”

The film has been or will be shown in movie theaters in nearly 40 states. Most showings were in May. However, there’s still upcoming opportunities to see it in Colorado, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska and New York, according to the film website. 

I checked with Mark Lambert, senior communications manager with the NCGA, and the good news is, there’s still time to request a film showing at a theater in your community. The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, which provided funding for the film, is taking requests and will announce additional showings at a later date.  Another option is that the film can be shown at public events, big or small, Lambert said. For more information, contact USFRA.

The next stage is for individuals to be able to watch the film in their homes. Farmland will be released on Netflix, Hulu and Redbox, beginning Oct. 1 and will be out on DVD in time for Christmas.

What a cool way to introduce Americans to farmers in an interesting and positive way. As a quick side note, that’s why I cried when Dodge released its Super Bowl commercial featuring the voice of Paul Harvey, another example of farming featured in mainstream media. (I confess I cried again when I watched it again in preparation for this blog. Paul Harvey’s voice transports me back to my childhood in an instant.) So many people either have a completely messed up view of farmers or they don’t think about farmers at all, even though every time they open their cupboards or refrigerators the food they reach for is something raised or grown by a farmer. That Super Bowl commercial and, now, this new documentary are exciting steps toward changing that.