"Eating is an Agricultural Act"

It has been about 20 years since I first tried my hand at growing. I was 22 at the time, and had moved on from college and living at home with my parents. I began at an Americorps community garden in Poughkeepsie, NY, helping to grow food for a local soup kitchen. The gentleman who was running the CSA farm next door took a liking to me, and I went on to work with him for 5 or 6 years. At the same time, I was living with a girlfriend and surrounded by friends and a community that celebrated a lifestyle of conscious eating. So it seemed somewhat serendipitous that my movement towards agriculture coincided with a new consciousness for cooking and eating.

This year at Restoration Farm, we have been lucky to bear witness to many new and/or more serious gardeners. It is always great for our farm family to have others around us who share a passion for nurturing soil, tending to crops, and experiencing all the difficulties of this very meaningful work. Equally as important, it is great for us to be among conscious eaters. Not everyone gardens, not everyone farms, but everyone eats. Wendell Berry famously said, “Eating is an agricultural act,” and so it is great to engage the folks who are interested in the nuts-and-bolts aspects of our operation, as we’ve always tried to keep it transparent. We are very proud of our work, our food, our form of agriculture. We aim to nourish positive, healthy, happy people with whom we can build a community. Feel free to let us know what you think and thanks for being part of it.