Farmers’ Market Musings

Thank Wendell Berry
“Almost by force of will, and the force of the beauty of his words, Wendell Berry gave birth to something that is now one of the most beautiful things happening in America…a countercultural trend that’s on the edge of becoming a cultural one — that bears great promise, and offers us some examples of what we might do with energy (policy), and with finance, and with a lot of other broken systems in our society.”
— Bill McKibben
So often when I sit in front of a blank screen to begin this column, I turn to the books containing the words of poet, philosopher, and farmer Wendell Berry. His poetry, essays, works of fiction, and nonfiction, are dog-eared and never far from my writing desk. 2013 was the year I realized that I was not alone; there were many others out there who also value Mr. Berry’s works.
The connections mostly came via a Facebook link to “Bill Moyers and Company,” which contained interviews with Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry. http://billmoyers.com/content/love-your-farmers-market-bill-mckibben-says-thank-wendell-berry/. In the segment titled, “Love your Farmers’ Market?” Bill McKibben explains that we have Wendell Berry to thank for their resurgence. Social Media is helping to spread the word about Wendell Berry, sustainable agriculture, and farmers’ markets.
By nature, most farmers don’t like to toot their own horns, but now we have people like Michael Pollen, Bill McKibben, and Bill Moyers giving Mr. Berry the credit he deserves and amplifying his message. Often in the past, the shy poet seemed annoyed at having to appear at Toby’s Feed Barn or Herbst Theater or UC Berkeley for the enjoyment of people like me. He seemed to be thinking, “Why aren’t you and I back on the farms where there is real work to be done?” But I have seen a change in his public personality. This new Wendell Berry, older and more open and joyful, might be realizing that he doesn’t have too many years left on this Earth to do his important work. There is poetry to be shared and spirits to rekindle in the work of the resettling of American culture and agriculture.
His spirit seems lighter, maybe because he has accomplished so much and things look more hopeful, and he is more open to the necessities of social media. In the 36 years that I have followed the work of Wendell Berry, I never saw a picture of his wife, Tanya. Now, she, too, is there at his side in the spotlight, as well as their daughter, Mary Berry, who is the Executive Director of the Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky.
This is what Bill McKibben had to say in the interview:
“When he started writing about sustainable agriculture …about working with the land in a way that worked … when he started writing about that in the 1970’s there were no farmers’ markets in America. We were a long ways from where we are now. It was his writing that called into being so much of this idea about reinhabiting the land.”
It is so hard to believe it’s true, but it is a fact that by the 1970s, government regulations were written that prevented farmers from selling directly to consumers except from a farm stand on their own property. Farmers’ Markets were illegal in California until then-Governor Jerry Brown, under pressure from consumers, created the Direct Marketing Program and Guidelines for Certified Farmers’ Markets within the California Department of Food and Agriculture. People like the founders of our Healdsburg Market, including Tom Peterson, Paul Bernier, Grainger Brown, Doug Stout, Karen Tovani, and Wayne and Lee James, were ready to take those guidelines and establish one of the original twenty-two certified farmers’ Markets in California in 1978. Today, there are more than 700 farmers markets in this state.
McKibben goes on to say, “In a society that devoted itself … to a consumer ideal … where our only job was to consume things … Wendell Berry has been making exactly the opposite point — that our job is to produce things responsibly – things like food and families and communities, and to sustain and steward them.”
“We’ve spent the last hundred years in this country consolidating agriculture. We went from a world where 50% of Americans were on the farm, to a world where fewer than 1% are on the farm. And we have done it basically by substituting fossil fuel for human labor and human judgment.  And so we built these vast agribusiness farms, and its … kind … of … worked if you don’t mind the destruction of rural communities, if you don’t mind the destruction of topsoil, if you don’t mind the fact that we have turned the most fertile farmland in the world into a kind of machine for producing corn syrup and giving us diabetes … if you don’t mind a lot of things like that, I guess you can say it’s worked…it’s given us cheap food. What Wendell Berry figured out a long time ago was that it wasn’t working. There were lots and lots of drawbacks.”
“A farmers’ market is the most concrete manifestation of what Wendell Berry has accomplished …the fact that it has been the fastest growing part of our food economy for more than a decade is a remarkable tribute to him. A farmers’ market is a very different model than what we (had become) used to…lots of people (farmers) bringing (fresh produce) there, and lots of people taking it away.”
Thank you, Wendell Berry.
Mary Kelley is the Manager of the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market. The market will reopen on Saturday, May 3, 2014. For more information go to HealdsburgFarmersMarket.Org