HAPPY EARTH DAY 2017
FROM THE BERRY CENTER

Mary Berry, Executive Director

Dear Friends,
 
          In this time of "alternative facts" and meaningless words we must remember that there are some truths that are absolute. We depend on the fertility that has built up for thousands of years in our soil to nourish us. We are still a land-based economy whether we acknowledge it or not. The inescapable dependence even of our present economy upon nature and the natural world cannot go on being ignored for the sake of the highest possible profit to a few. We must see and respect our inescapable dependence upon the economies of farming, ranching, forestry, and fishing by which the goods of nature are made serviceable to human need. How can this be done?
 
          The challenge of our time is to become a culture that reconnects cities with their surrounding rural landscapes. This effort relies upon the recognition of human limits and the necessity of human scale. An economy genuinely local and neighborly will, more surely than any national or global economy, bring to localities a measure of security that nothing else can insure. We are living now with the results of an economy that is controlled by people with no local affections or commitments.
 
          John Berry, Jr. said this in a speech given in 1989: "The devastation suffered by rural America is not an accident; it is not the result of changing times or technological development; it is not the result of uncontrollable economic circumstances; it is a crisis by design." That devastation has gone on, unchecked, since then in spite of the hard work of many good people over the ensuing 28 years. While awareness of the problems of health and the demand for locally grown has risen and the sale of organic food has increased some one billion in 1990 to 43 billion in 2017, the number of farmers has fallen to less than one percent and our rural landscapes and communities have been decimated. We cannot continue to measure the success of the local food movement by what we  think is happening in rural places.
 
          The Berry Center's advocacy is for small farmers, farmers in the middle, and land conserving economies. Our problem is the conflict between nature and human interests. The only way to solve this problem that approaches any kind of "sustainability" is to become a culture that will support good land use. To do this we must have, as our friend Wes Jackson says, "more eyes to acres." More people on the land who understand good land use and who can afford to use the land well.
 
          If the destruction of land conserving communities has been by design then the restoration and building of those communities will need to be designed. And this time, they should be designed with good land users 

economy must be put under good farming or the number of farmers will continue to shrink.   

          Entrepreneurial farming has been a good starting place for a local food movement but we can't leave it there. It is not changing the culture of farming. After some initial excitement about local production for local markets in Kentucky most farmers have given up on an unpredictable market that they don't understand and don't trust. They need an organization in the middle to move product, consider parity pricing, protect them from overproduction, and take good husbandry into account.
 
          And that is the work we have undertaken at The Berry Center.  The Local Beef Initiative is working with young farmers and our local processor Trackside Butcher Shoppe, to change the way cattle are raised and processed here. Katie Ellis, our managing director, has taken on the directorship of this program and is doing groundbreaking work on the economics of cattle production. We are most encouraged by the response to our work from the farming community that remains and from the markets in Louisville and Lexington who are working with us.
 
          Dr. Leah Bayens is working on the curriculum for the  Berry Farming Program and we expect to announce the next home for our program in the next few months.
While Katie works on an economy to support young farmers, Leah is working on what they need to know to farm well.
 
          Our work to strengthen the culture of our own place is headed up by Virginia Berry Aguilar with her work at  The Bookstore at The Berry Center. Wendell Berry says, "If you're going to be neighborly, you have to know your neighbors. You can't be neighborly in a convocation of strangers." She is bringing members of our community together to share a common interest that allows dialogue, advocates for sustainable farming practices, encourages agrarian leadership, and extolls the singular history of this place.
 
          Michele Guthrie, our archivist, is acquiring, preserving and making available to the public unique materials of enduring historic and research value from the Berry family.  Her work is the foundation of everything we do here.
 
All our programs are available in detail at  www.berrycenter.org.
 
          I keep in mind everyday the difference between the problem of an industrial economy and the symptoms of the problem. Of course, the symptoms must be addressed by people of good intention everyday but the problem itself must be as fully understood as possible for any of our efforts to last. I am proud of our fine staff at The Berry Center for their indefatigable hope that we can improve agriculture starting in Kentucky.
 
          Please consider   supporting the work of The Berry Center to put Wendell Berry's work to work in the world. As he says, "We don't win but we don't lose either, we just keep on."
 
Sincerely,
Mary Berry
Executive Director





"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do."  

- Wendell Berry
An endorsement statement for 
"The Dying of Trees"