Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times
columnist and former farm boy, once wrote:
“[T]he central problem with modern industrial agriculture… [is] not just that
it produces unhealthy food, mishandles waste, and overuses antibiotics in ways
that harm us all. More fundamentally, it has no soul.”
That’s the driving ethic of the
thriving “good food movement.” It rebuts the insistence that agriculture is
nothing but a business.
Food certainly is a business, but
it’s a good business — literally producing goodness — because it’s a way of
life for hardworking people who practice the art and science of cooperating
with Mother Nature, rather than always trying to overwhelm her.
This spirit was summed up in one
word by Lee Jones, a sustainable farmer who was asked what he’d be if he wasn’t
a farmer. He replied: “disappointed.” To farmers like him, food embodies our
full “culture” — a word that is sculpted right into “agriculture” and is
essential to its organic meaning.
Although agriculture is now
flourishing throughout the land and has forestalled the total takeover of our
food by crass agribusiness, the corporate powers and their political hirelings
continue to press for the elimination of the food rebels and ultimately to
impose their vision of complete corporatization.
The Good Food movement is one of
today’s most important populist struggles. It’s literally a fight for control
of our dinner, and it certainly deserves a major focus as we sit down to holiday dinner this year.
To find small-scale farmers,
artisans, farmers markets, and other resources in your area for everything from
organic tomatoes, to pastured turkey, visit www.LocalHarvest.org.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org