Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

there's a lot more in this piece --

Excerpt from
Michael Pollan: The Mighty Rise of the Food Revolution
Michael Pollan / New York Review of Books
http://www.alternet.org/food/147661/michael_pollan%3A_the_mighty_rise_of_the_food_revolution/?page=entire

One can get a taste of this social space simply by hanging around a farmers’ 
market, an activity that a great many people enjoy today regardless of 
whether they’re in the market for a bunch of carrots or a head of lettuce. 
Farmers’ markets are thriving, more than five thousand strong, and there is a 
lot more going on in them than the exchange of money for food. Someone is 
collecting signatures on a petition. Someone else is playing music. Children 
are everywhere, sampling fresh produce, talking to farmers. Friends and 
acquaintances stop to chat. One sociologist calculated that people have ten 
times as many conversations at the farmers’ market than they do in the 
supermarket. Socially as well as sensually, the farmers’ market offers a 
remarkably rich and appealing environment. Someone buying food here may be 
acting not just as a consumer but also as a neighbor, a citizen, a parent, a 
cook. In many cities and towns, farmers’ markets have taken on (and not for 
the first time) the function of a lively new public square.
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paul tradingpost@lobo.net