This morning I’ve been emailing press releases with variations on this sentence leading the way: “In the context of an unstable economy, a storm-wracked environment, and accelerating food and fuel prices, many people will be inspired to practical action in the world by the 2nd edition of The Call of the Land: An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century.
Arising from my memory of observations expressed elsewhere, I feel the impulse this first day of December to repeat emphatically the following messages about the call of the land, and our opportunities to respond:
“The call of the land is exceedingly loud and urgent. In response to the call, we have the possibility of manifesting a renewed agrarian foundation for our global human culture that is rooted in experience, adapted to the specific, contemporary needs of our earth, oriented to the future, and capable of integrating high-tech, sustainable energy, tools, and practices. This is the basic vision articulated in The Call of the Land.
“The transition to a food system free of fossil fuels is in no way a utopian reverie. It is, rather, an immediate, immense, and unavoidable challenge that calls for unprecedented levels of creativity at all levels of society. While there is no single remedy for the many problems affecting our farms and our food, there are many positive paths and possibilities.”
