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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Redeeming our adversaries
  • Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:49:21 -0600


Redeeming our adversaries

Welcome to the Rodale Institute web update newsletter.
Having trouble viewing this message? Go to
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/Newsletter for our latest edition.

Hello Paul: Speech about farming choices, like too many other things in our
culture, is being toxified by forces that really don’t want enlightened
discourse. Organic advocates, including J.I. and Robert Rodale, suffered
through decades of being dismissed for their claims about the obvious
connections between healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people.
Instead of becoming combative and bitter, however, Robert Rodale shaped his
outreach to farmers by emphasizing what worked for farmers who were willing
to try their version of agriculture that cooperated with natural systems
where they were. Through The New Farm magazine, he built up a print-based
virtual community of hardy souls who were often scorned in their communities,
at first, but who found incredible hope and support through stories of other
innovators around the country.
With two decades of science informed by an agroecological worldview and
multi-disciplinary research, practices within the regenerative organic fold
now have an academic legitimacy that can’t be dismissed. So how should
organic advocates deal with detractors who use public speech to defame the
truly good things about good farming?


Katie Olender’s experience dealing with young vandals at her school garden
has some lessons for us, I believe. She was able—just able—to overcome her
anger at the kids who uprooted plants, inviting them to help her protect the
horticultural space so many other kids were loving. They came, they
experienced something real that touched them despite themselves, and they
became joyful participants. Read more >>
Who knows why good things aggravate some people, young ones in challenging
neighborhoods and older ones running disinformation campaigns against
agricultural options that are healing the land, bringing greater health to
people, improving humane treatment for livestock and forming the basis for
renewing local economies?
Read deeply:
Check out scrutiny being given to farm-based carbon credits, rewarded as
offsets for greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere, for pre-existing agricultural
practices. Read more>>
The impact on U.S. farmers who visit the Mexican homes and communities of
migrant workers working in their area. Read more>>
Government proposal to water down the clarity of labels on most irradiated
food products. Read more>>
And a song in the reggae style protesting the human impact of spiking food
costs partially attributable to processing food crops for ethanol. Read more>>
So think boldly about inviting the organic and sustainable adversaries you
know to see hope in action at a farm, community garden or farmers’ market
near you. Stuff an heirloom tomato in their mouth, gently, and wait for
change to happen.
Greg Bowman and the
Rodale Institute editorial team





  • [Livingontheland] Redeeming our adversaries, Tradingpost, 08/29/2008

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