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Rating

6/10 It’s an important book with a catchy title - but it’s also an opinion piece that largely lacks nuance and reads as one angry guy yelling at the clouds guys from USDA. I’m a fan of solutions, not complaints, hence why I haven’t finished the book. At two thirds in I decided that I have acquired enough information about the dire state of affairs and it’s time to look elsewhere for actual solutions rather this never ending pile of petty remarks.

I think the pettiness of his writing might be why the book hasn’t reached, nor is going to reach, a truly wide audience. He himself describes in the book how the hippies in the 60s managed to create an environment where small farmers thrived and local artisanal food was sought after. (Re-) achieving this today is thus in theory possible through shifting consumer preferences and demands, by creating a movement. But a petty book full of complaints and I’m-the-smart-one-here-ya’ll-dumbasses kind of rhetoric is, at least in my opinion, never gonna reach the masses.

Masses need a story of urgency but also hope, they need an enemy but also a savior. This book offered a lot of enemies, but not much hope or alternatives. Of course it offers some alternatives, but not in a practical sense of the word - rather wouldn’t it be nice if the system worked like this instead of like that? Yes it would! So how do we get there?

Synopsis

A small farmer in rural America writes about his struggles to just do the honest work. He describes how laws, regulations, and those writing them are completely out of touch with reality on the ground. This creates a farming environment that makes small farms unprofitable because they generally fall under the same regulatory pressures as large scale 21st century agriculture. The book calls for change by mobilizing the consumers to voice their preferences for better food. It exposes how current laws generate produce of much inferior quality than what we could be getting if the system favored better farm management practices - instead of just profit.

Notes

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