april 1, 2008
letter from the editor
Despite childhood morality tales about George Washington, lies and cherry trees, let it be known that our first President did not go around chopping down fruit trees. In fact, it was just the opposite -- he grew them. At a mere 500 acres, Mount Vernon today is only a fraction of its former self – by the time Washington died in 1799 he had amassed almost 8,000 acres of land along the banks of the Potomac, and had divided the land into five working farms, managing them all himself, even throughout his American Revolutionary days as commanding general of the Continental Army.
Washington considered himself first and foremost a farmer, a trade that he believed to be the most noble, trumping even the title of Commander in Chief. Interestingly enough, it was Washington who understood just how inadequate 18th-century farming methods really were and for the rest of his life strived to create new methods of sustainability -- experimenting with crop rotation, natural fertilizers, plowing practices, and more. Sound familiar? These experiments were quite uncommon back then, even more uncommon than they are now. But if Washington can do it, so can we.
Let me just say this now: I’m not a farmer. Aside from eating mulberries off the tree behind Harper elementary school and plucking backyard crab apples for homemade jelly, I cannot recount a single farming moment in my life. I have nothing to claim in this category [unless you count my long gone ancestor, Baron Resolved Waldron, who owned a farm in Manhattan until 1705.] As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 1970s, a dark era of TV dinners and Jello molds, I sadly thought that having Betty Crocker Potato Buds, i.e., instant mashed potatoes, as an after-school snack was the bomb. Really. And I devoured Swanson’s specialties on a nightly basis, Salisbury Steak being my favorite. I loved pulling the gummy bits of flavorless corn from the sides of the aluminum tray and eating them one by one. No, really.
It wasn’t until way beyond my graduate school years of poverty that I was able to buy some heirloom tomatoes from New York City’s Greenmarket and discovered how different they tasted from the supermarket variety. It was then that it dawned on me how awful most food really was. So as a producer of a current event television show, I decided to turn my attention from 9/11 and the dismal state of the nation to reading up on the politics behind our food supply, how it arrived on our plate and why. That news was actually more dismal to me -- gmos, over-use of pesticides, disappearing farmland, elementary-school kids diagnosed with Type II diabetes. I was shocked. And angered. And selfishly, I wanted something better to eat.
The desire to get to know my food better led me to pursue a radio series with Ruth Reichl, editor in chief of Gourmet magazine on WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show. She knows how to wax lyrical over an apricot like no one else. Ruth and Leonard have tackled some pretty important issues over the past 5 years and during this time I have had the pleasure of encountering some fascinating people behind our food: the scientists, farmers, journalists, chefs, advocates and policy makers, people who give a hoot about how our food is grown and produced. I have been paying close attention lately to those intrepid adventurers in sustainable agriculture, to the farmers out there who not only farm but who are also innovators, pioneers, people who want to make our soil healthier, make our vegetables safer to eat, manage livestock more responsibly, and conserve what we have left of this earth. These folks have inspired me to follow their lead. I might not be out hoeing a field but instead am here at my computer, digging up the dirt this way, with the mission to get people to think more about their food supply, where it comes from and how, and what they would eat tomorrow if it weren’t for those dedicated souls who are planting and harvesting, milking and watering, from sun up 'till sun down. And to those fabulous farmers out there, I salute you.
keep farming,
Melissa Waldron Lehner
editor & publisher
fertile ground usa