Yes, Tom, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are an impressive group.  It is sad, that the spokesman reports that at conferences of activists working for agriculture reform, the concerns of the farm workers get little attention.  "How can food be sustainable, when the workers who grow it are not treated fairly?"

The photo of you with your friends did not much surprise me, though it is true that I pictured you as bigger and more grizzled.  The barn behind you, with its dramatic diagonally set woodwork, is stunning.  But that forested hollow looks as though it might get buggy at times ...  

And no doubt more than once you have had to tell people that, No, Maverick Farms is not the NC campaign headquarters for McCain/Palin.

Too bad your post on the article by Michael Pollan got over-trolled.  He has all kinds of great ideas; and it occurred to me that he was making it known, in this open letter to the next president (and he apparently has in mind the candidate who famously likes arugula, aka rocket) that he would not mind at all being picked for Secretary of Agriculture.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Lappe says:

"... livestock production alone is responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions -- a higher percentage than all forms of transportation."

Biodigestion of the waste stream and organic fertilizer production could offset the GHG from transportation.  But not only that.  It could even replace oil.

Biogas could provide the necessary backup for renewable energy and plugin hybrid transportation.

Happy farming Tom.  Maybe this looming depression will make back to the land trendy, like it did during the great depression?

And that might just keep the environmental movement going?  It seems the media focus has shifted to financial crisis and off of environmental crisis.

Can green manufacturing jobs save the eco-momentum?  A new deal, new wave of plugin cars, ground source heating/cooling, and solar systems?

Maybe a green farming/food movement would provide just as many green jobs?  It's possible.

High tech green energy and green food can be symbiotic, economy saving movements.  Even though technologists and farmers are not compatible.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin