Suddenly we're starting to dig farming, but is it genuine or just a fad?

After creating an avatar, a player is given six plots of land and the opportunity to cultivate various food products, some of which grow in a matter of hours and will wilt if not harvested on time (thus the need to get up in the middle of the night). Roaming animals such as a pink cow that produces strawberry milk and an ugly duckling that turns into a swan can be adopted and cultivated for profit (in a loving, free-range sort of way). Ribbons are awarded for such achievements as adding neighbors to your farm, putting decorations up on your farm and fertilizing your neighbors' crops. You know, just like in real farming.

There is, to put it mildly, a curious dichotomy in the fact that tens of millions of people are losing sleep over virtual crop rotation while the refrain about Americans' growing waistlines and junky diet grows louder by the day.

Are we to infer from the FarmVille phenomenon that people are finally switching their allegiances from Swiss rolls by Little Debbie to Swiss chard by Mother Earth? Or does FarmVille simply represent a subculture of Internet-savvy hipsters who, like the agri-hotties on the Huffington Post, say less about what is actually happening than about what some people think is cool at this particular moment?

Michelle Obama's organic garden may generate photo-ops, and in Los Angeles, community gardening and gleaners harvesting your fallen apricots may be all the rage, but it's hard to imagine that an organic vegetable patch in every yard will become the Obama administration's version of “a chicken in every pot.” (By the way, Herbert Hoover never actually used that slogan. It was drummed up by advertisers to sell the idea of prosperity.)

As refreshing as it is to see farmers glamorized in the media instead of, say, strippers, it's worth asking if games like FarmVille bode well for the future of the American diet or inadvertently contribute to its demise. After all, nothing goes better with Internet games than prepackaged food that doesn't require stepping away from the computer.

Meanwhile, a whole generation just might grow up believing that strawberry milk comes from pink cows. Hey, maybe agribusiness should start working on that.

Daum is an essayist and novelist in Los Angeles. E-mail Daum at mdaum@latimescolumnists.com.

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