A Nation of Farmers

1. I was curious about Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton's new book A Nation of Farmers because my recent foray into the world of gardening has left me curious about the potential of many small-scale efforts like my own to change the way we eat.

According to these folks, a revolution in the way we grow and source our food is not only possible, but downright necessary. The limited supply of oil, growing global population, and ailing economy are all pushing us towards a new--or old--approach to food production, one which relies less on fossil fuels and more on human energy.

Foot for foot organic, small-scale agriculture is considerably more productive than farming large tracts of land using energy intensive machinery. And there is plenty of unused land available, from city lots to suburban lawns. Newton and Astyk make a compelling case for each and every one of us getting out there, digging some ground, and building skills that will serve us well in the future.

Having just read Joel Berg's How Hungry is America, I repeatedly found myself internally objecting that spare ground for gardening is a middle class luxury, and many people don't have the time and space to make it happen. The authors acknowledge this, at the same time that they reference all the successful projects in recent years bringing urban farming to poor inner city neighborhoods. Both perspectives need to be heard: it's not easy to grow food if you don't have the resources, but disadvantaged people have been contributing to meeting their own basic needs by growing their own food for as long as there have been inequities in social status and income level.