Does the design & appearance of a farm/ranch matter?

October 1st, 2009 by Mike Knutson

Lindsey is out in Hill City, SD today leading the DesignSD team in a community design charrette, so the question about the design and appearance of farm/ranches is timely. It’s actually not my question; rather it’s Caleb Schultz’s at the America’s Great Divide blog.

Caleb’s blog is fresh off the press (just two days old). His goal for the blog is to bridge the gap between urban and rural people.

In his first post, he laments the negative attitudes he sees from many of his urban counterparts and asked what it will take to change their minds? In his second post, he connects the importance of a farm’s physical appearance with the growing local foods movement, noting the following:

“Part of connecting with consumers in the new local food market includes your business facility. Yep, your farm or ranch is now your place of business, your store front. If we want to connect to the urban society, there needs to be a touch of class and refinement. I’m not talking fake - dude ranch style, I’m talking nice respectable working facility style. A place to be proud of and a place to humbly show off when the city folk decide to see what agriculture is all about.”

Good point. Anything we can do to combat food from being a commodity is good in my book

But because Lindsey is working with the DesignSD team right now, Caleb’s comments caused me to wonder what impact the appearance of farms have on the small towns around them? We know that people judge a community solely on its appearance. We also know that good signage (and branding) that extend beyond the physical limits of a town’s boundaries has an impact as well. Do people see the farms they drive by as extensions of a community as well?

I’m really not sure of the answer here, but I suspect the answer lies in an adage that you’ve heard me say many times before - “it’s all connected.”

Photo credit: Whatleydude - Flickr

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