Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
With great thoroughness, balance, and painstaking research Chris Smaje makes a compelling case for a return to, or revival of, the smaller, more diverse, farm culture, in order that we might feed ourselves well into the future as a nation, and even as a planet.
I have been thinking about that time in this current crisis: What does the future post-COVID-19 hold for small farms? Where will the small farm fit into the economy, or, more to the point, which economy will the small farm fit into? Because, like history, an economy ain’t static.
They are creating a relationship between farmer and customer. “It’s what a farm should be doing, feeding local people surrounding the farm,” says Gerald, “if every farmer did that, we wouldn’t need supermarkets. It’s therapy for the farmer and for the community.”
Olive oil may well have been recommended for health reasons – it is a monosaturated fat and, in its cold-pressed extra virgin form, can help lower risk of a heart attack, stroke and heart disease – but what about the supply chain and the economies in the countries it is affecting? A critical look at the supply chain will help to answer these important questions.
Ours is a particular kind of small farm. It’s been called diverse, traditional, insignificant, wonderful, productive, inefficient, and a subdivision waiting to happen. We call it home, of course.
When a young person talks to me about his dreams for a good life, my first instinct is to interrupt, to tell him the planet has determined that our good life is no longer viable, dreams or not. Instead, I tell him about lambs. The promise of birth and death and birth again. I believe in both narratives, and I don’t want to burst his bubble, so I tell only the one story.
Don’t expect a whole lot of taste when you sit down to a plateful of commodities. That might be a fitting but unintended lesson for foodies who work through the new book by Eric Holt-Giménez. A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism will reward a careful reader with lots of insights – but it won’t do much for the taste buds. While A Foodie’s Guide is lacking in recipes or menu ideas, it shines in helping us to understand the struggles of the men and women who work in the farms and packing plants.
The sun hovers on the western horizon, an hour left on its time clock, as I walk out the back door and up the wooded lane beyond the pasture gates. The walk is quiet, muffled by deep leaves of countless seasons on this land. My destination, as it often is, a pile of boulders at the base of a half-dozen oaks. I climb onto the largest and use a smaller, four-foot stone as a footrest.
