Letter to a Young Farmer — Gene Logsdon
About the Book
- Author
- Gene Logsdon
- Rating
- 4.0
- Categories
- Non-fiction, Farming
My take
A strong collection of essays or stories targeted towards the next generations of farmers, where Gene looks to push them towards a better model of farming away from the "get big or get out" agricultural model and towards what he describes as a "contrary farmer" looking for a better way of life producing better food at a smaller scale that's not defined by the accumulation of wealth as the end-all goal.
Quotes
To succeed, it first of all helps to be stubborn to a fault. Bullheadedness is the common denominator of successful farmers.
You must believe that happy farming is about putting love of the land before love of getting rich.
If you read voraciously all your life, that is about as good an education as four years spent frenetically in a college. Learn how to farm by doing it.
As Eliot Coleman says, 'Over centuries both the communist and the capitalist systems have tried to destroy small farms because [they] are a threat to the consolidation of absolute power'
Maybe farming isn’t an economic process that is supposed to make money. What if food production should be an activity that nearly everyone has to be involved in, like cooking or taking a bath?
The first commandment of agriculture states that you must put back into the soil the fertility you take out of it. If that admonition is truly followed, where is the profit, other than the joy of eating and thereby sustaining health and well-being?