Songfacts®:

• "The Farmer Is The Man" is a genuine American folk song. The title varies: "The Farmer Is The Man That Feeds Them All," "The Farmer Is The Man That Feeds Us All," etc., but the sentiment is the same. It can be dated to at least the 1890s, and makes the point that ultimately, everyone lives off the farmer, because without him nobody eats, so why is it that the farmer fares extremely badly while the lawyer simply shuffles paper around, and even the preacher has a relatively easy life?
  
  The song has been widely recorded and occasionally parodied; it was recorded by Fiddlin' John Carson, the first old-time country musician to broadcast genuine old-time country music over a radio station, and later, perhaps most thematically, by Pete Seeger, who makes it sound like the protest song it really is. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England