Transcription Series, III: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Buying your goods from local businesses rather than national chains generates about three times as much money for your local economy. Studies from all over the country agree on that, even while consumers keep buying at chain stores, and fretting that the downtown blocks of cute mom-and-pop venues are turning into a ghost town. Today's bargain always seems to matter more. p. 149
In this section, Kingsolver writes about a diner she and her family visit in Vermont while on vacation. It's called the Farmers Diner, and all meat, vegetables and fruit are sourced from farms no more than an hour's drive from the restaurant. None of the meat comes from CAFOs. One of the owners is Tod Murphy. I like his philosophy:
Tod Murphy's background was farming. The greatest economic challenge he and his farming neighbors faced was finding a market for their good products. Opening this diner seemed to him like a red-blooded American kind of project. Thomas Jefferson, Tod points out, presumed on the basis of colonial experience that farming and democracy are intimately connected. Cultivation of land meets the needs of the farmer, the neighbors, and the community, and keeps people independent from domineering centralized powers. "In Jefferson's time," he says, "that was the king. In ours, it's multinational corporations." Tod didn't think he needed to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, just a good business plan. He found investors and opened the Farmers Diner, whose slogan is "Think Locally, Act Neighborly."
For a dreamer, he's a practical guy. "Thinking globally is an abstraction. What the world needs now isn't love sweet love -- that's a slogan." What the world needs now, he maintains, is more compassionate local actions: "Shopping at the hardware store owned by a family living in town. Buying locally raised tomatoes in the summer, and locally baked bread. Cooking meals at home. Those are all acts of love for a place." p. 150
On the next page, Kingsolver continues a bit more with Murphy's philosopy:
The Farmers Diner does not present itself as a classroom, a church service or a political rally. For many regional farmers it's a living, and for everybody else it's a place to eat. Tod feels that the agenda here transcends politics, in the sense of Republican or Democrat. "It's oligarchy vs. non-oligarchy," Tod says -- David vs. Goliath, in other words. Tom Jefferson against King George. It's people trying to keep work and homes together, versus conglomerates that scoop up a customer's money and move it out of town to a corporate bank account far away. Where I grew up, we used to call that "carpetbagging." Now it seems to be called the American way.
Marketing jingles from every angle lure patrons to turn our backs on our locally owned stores, restaurants, and farms. And nobody considers that unpatriotic. This appears to aggravate Tod Murphy. "We have the illusion of consumer freedom, but we've sacrificed our community life for the pleasure of purchasing lots of cheap stuff. Making and moving all that stuff can be so destructive: child labor in foreign lands, acid rain in the Northeast, depleted farmland, communities where the beg economic engine is crystal meth. We often have the form of liberty, but not the substance."
It does not seem exactly radical to want to turn this tide, starting with lunch from the neighborhood. Nor is it an all-or-nothing proposition. "If every restaurant got just ten percent of its food from local farmers," Tod boldly proposed, "the infrastructure of corporate food would collapse." pp. 151-153
In this section, Kingsolver writes about a diner she and her family visit in Vermont while on vacation. It's called the Farmers Diner, and all meat, vegetables and fruit are sourced from farms no more than an hour's drive from the restaurant. None of the meat comes from CAFOs. One of the owners is Tod Murphy. I like his philosophy:
Tod Murphy's background was farming. The greatest economic challenge he and his farming neighbors faced was finding a market for their good products. Opening this diner seemed to him like a red-blooded American kind of project. Thomas Jefferson, Tod points out, presumed on the basis of colonial experience that farming and democracy are intimately connected. Cultivation of land meets the needs of the farmer, the neighbors, and the community, and keeps people independent from domineering centralized powers. "In Jefferson's time," he says, "that was the king. In ours, it's multinational corporations." Tod didn't think he needed to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, just a good business plan. He found investors and opened the Farmers Diner, whose slogan is "Think Locally, Act Neighborly."
For a dreamer, he's a practical guy. "Thinking globally is an abstraction. What the world needs now isn't love sweet love -- that's a slogan." What the world needs now, he maintains, is more compassionate local actions: "Shopping at the hardware store owned by a family living in town. Buying locally raised tomatoes in the summer, and locally baked bread. Cooking meals at home. Those are all acts of love for a place." p. 150
On the next page, Kingsolver continues a bit more with Murphy's philosopy:
The Farmers Diner does not present itself as a classroom, a church service or a political rally. For many regional farmers it's a living, and for everybody else it's a place to eat. Tod feels that the agenda here transcends politics, in the sense of Republican or Democrat. "It's oligarchy vs. non-oligarchy," Tod says -- David vs. Goliath, in other words. Tom Jefferson against King George. It's people trying to keep work and homes together, versus conglomerates that scoop up a customer's money and move it out of town to a corporate bank account far away. Where I grew up, we used to call that "carpetbagging." Now it seems to be called the American way.
Marketing jingles from every angle lure patrons to turn our backs on our locally owned stores, restaurants, and farms. And nobody considers that unpatriotic. This appears to aggravate Tod Murphy. "We have the illusion of consumer freedom, but we've sacrificed our community life for the pleasure of purchasing lots of cheap stuff. Making and moving all that stuff can be so destructive: child labor in foreign lands, acid rain in the Northeast, depleted farmland, communities where the beg economic engine is crystal meth. We often have the form of liberty, but not the substance."
It does not seem exactly radical to want to turn this tide, starting with lunch from the neighborhood. Nor is it an all-or-nothing proposition. "If every restaurant got just ten percent of its food from local farmers," Tod boldly proposed, "the infrastructure of corporate food would collapse." pp. 151-153