Eatin' Local

August marks the half-way point of the apprenticeship. I've been reflecting in recent weeks on the import of working as we do on the farm. Wandering the air-conditioned aisles of a big grocery market chain, going to a restaurant where they proudly serve "organic" vegetables that nonetheless come from a gigantic industrial farm has prompted me to consider another benefit of eating local produce.  In western North Carolina, family farms have been disappearing at an alarming rate over the last thirty years, a pattern mirrored in much of our country. Losing access to fresh, delicious, healthy products doesn't begin, however, to make up the true cost of losing these farms.  Farms make a rural landscape stay rural. The more room farms take up, the less room for corporations to swallow. The town I grew up in has a seal that sports a fish and a proud ear of corn, but there's only a handful of farms left. We transitioned from agriculture to a culture of subdivisions, huge mansions, and a super-sized Stop and Shop with a pristine "natural foods" section.  The more I work on the farm, the more it seems that farming, on a small and hopefully chemical-free scale, constitutes a pretty radical, not to mention patriotic decision. I think often of the Woody Guthrie song, "This Land is Your Land." If we don't have farms, if we don't have farmers willing to sacrifice prestige, financial security, and leisure time, we don't have land. If we don't have land, we lose our country. Painting it in those starkest terms might be dramatic, but if you think so, look around the next time you take a country drive. If you like what you see, consider buying a tomato from your farmer, instead of from the organic section at Wal-Mart.