This seems like an interesting book worth reading. Fellow growers have talked about some of the challenges inherent in organic farming, land (and access to it) being a huge hurdle. There's a joke about farming, and it goes like this: "How do you make a small fortune in farming? Start with a large one."
From what i've read so far, the book seems to be alluding to the fact that all our talk about consuming and producing organic stuff don't mean jack if the land ain't ours and it's priced out of our ability to work with it in a natural way. No time to cover crop, 'cause that mortgage has to be paid...because the banks gotta eat.
Another thing. By all the lists out on the interweb about young, white organic growers making headlines, you'd think that California's fields would be a english speakers paradise. I guess it makes sense, in light of the fact that these young, white farmers have access to capital that other minority farmers do not.
"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of land ...."
"la accion es la madre de la esperanza."
-Pablo Neruda
"la accion es la madre de la esperanza."
-Pablo Neruda
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