What is a romantic agrarian, you may ask? The phrase emerged several decades ago as a backlash to mechanization — the tractor — considered the disruptive technology driving change in agriculture. “Romantic,” in this case, refers to a nostalgic yearning for the past — a pastoral return to something safe.

agrarianism, in social and political philosophy, perspective that stresses the primacy of family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Agrarian ideas are typically justified in terms of how they serve to cultivate moral character and to develop a full and responsible person.

Thomas Jefferson envisioned an agrarian society where a farmer who owned land would raise his own subsistence without a need to depend on the caprice of customers.

18th- and 19th-century Europeans and Americans The political philosopher James Harrington influenced the development of explicit agrarian designs for the colonies of Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

The “ agrarian myth” refers to a nation of yeoman farmers who worked to produce abundance rather than to make money. The independent farmer as the backbone of democracy is an oft- repeated supposition. It has been the basis for countless government policies ranging from land tenure to food assistance programs.

Some scholars suggest that agrarianism values rural society as superior to urban society and the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values.

The diet of an agrarian society is based on large amount of seeds from grass such as cereals (e.g. wheat, rice, maize). Cereals are per definition rare or absent in a non-agrarian diet. Non-agrarian societies can be further divided into hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies.

Specifically, agricultural refers to the growing of crops or the rearing of animals; agrarian refers to the growing of crops.

See Article History Agrarianism, in social and political philosophy, perspective that stresses the primacy of family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Agrarian ideas are typically justified in terms of how they serve to cultivate moral character and to develop a full and responsible person.

That influenced European intellectuals like François Quesnay, an avid Confucianist and advocate of China’s agrarian policies, in forming the French agrarian philosophy of physiocracy. The physiocrats, along with the ideas of John Locke and the Romantic Era, formed the basis of modern European and American agrarianism.

On the other hand, in the distributist thought of the English writer and critic G.K. Chesterton, agrarian ideas were wedded to Roman Catholicism. The French-born poet and essayist Hilaire Belloc argued for a wide distribution of property and upheld the importance of the traditional household and local community.

Liberty Hyde Bailey, c. 1915. The most notable of the 20th-century agrarians were those of the U.S. South. The Southern Agrarians, a group of 12 American essayists and poets, developed an explicit and resonant defense of their views in I’ll Take My Stand (1930).