by Dennis Kornbluh
Tune in to Blog Talk Live this Tuesday, November 17 at 6pm on KZUM 89.3 FM to hear Steven McFadden discuss his new book "The Call of the Land", published this month by NorLightsPress.
Globally, one in six of us is urgently hungry or starving, according to the United Nations. Yet obesity afflicts two-thirds of Americans and costs $147 billion in annual medical bills, Time Magazine reports. Industrial agriculture produces cheap food but erodes soil, poisons the environment with chemical inputs, and consumes 19% of U.S. fossil fuels. Peak oil, climate change, and wobbling economies further jeopardize our ability to feed ourselves.
“Food and farms are involved in a blitzkrieg of changes,” writes veteran journalist Steven McFadden in The Call of the Land. The book joins a growing chorus voicing a new vision for food and agriculture. Picking up where Food Inc., the recent documentary on industrial agriculture, leaves off, the volume presents dozens of creative responses to the crisis.
Dubbed “An Agrarian Primer for the 21st Century,” the sourcebook documents a wide range of proven, positive pathways to food security, economic stability, environmental health, and cultural renewal. To McFadden and others, the call of the land now is an SOS. The responses —from individuals, communities, cities, schools, churches, and businesses and — are both imaginative and practical.
Audio for the broadcast is provided in two parts below:
BTL_STEVEN_MCFADDEN_PART1 28:46
BTL_STEVEN_MCFADDEN_PART2 24:52
