Small Farmers

Here in Boston, most of of know of at least one person in our circle of friends who has lost someone to Covid-19. Many of us have friends and family who have died from it. So the social distancing feels very real and has vividly reminded many of us how dependent we are on our health care workers and on our food chain.

So today, I want to take a moment to honor the original American environmentalist - the small farmer.

Before it became trendy, the small farmer lived a life that was built on "reduce, recycle, reuse." If you get emotional about baling wire, you know what I mean. If you don't, you can skip ahead to the next paragraph. We're having a bit of a moment here.

You want to talk about reducing consumption? Farmers produce what other use. And what we throw away...any farmer I know is shocked and dismayed to see how much food we waste in the US. And paying someone to take away your mulch, manure, and compost -- it's heretical. That is brown gold.

Reusing? Many small farmers use tractors older than they are. I have used hand tools owned by my great grandfather and kept in good repair and working condition.

I will grant you that recycling is harder -- but mostly because on a functioning farm, so little makes it into the greater waste stream to be recycled.

And how about the Cooperative Extension? This organization unites the observations of thousands of actual farmers with the scientists and experimenters of our universities. This is science, based in the real world, making lives better for all of us.

And of course, I would be remiss to leave out the original small American farmers - the ones who gave us the three sisters in the first place.

So I raise my glass to you -- the people who know as well as any other that our resources are finite, but our ingenuity is almost limitless