How to Save an Economy? Start Growing Food
I can’t be the only one wondering what I’d do if the bottom really drops out of the economy and we’re all left to fend for ourselves. And the best answer I keep coming to is farming, as in growing my own — and others’ — food.
Well, it turns out farming has already come to the rescue of at least one local economy, as Marian Burros reports in a New York Times article titled, “Uniting Around Food to Save an Ailing Town.”
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Burros visits Hardwick, Vermont, a small town that once thrived but went into decline as its bread-and-butter industry — granite mining — did the same. She writes, “Facing a Main Street dotted with vacant stores, residents of this hardscrabble community of 3,000 are reaching into its past to secure its future, betting on farming to make Hardwick the town that was saved by food.”
And it seems to be working. The growth of local, farm-based businesses like Vermont Soy, Jasper Hill Farm and Pete’s Greens have added some 75 to 100 local jobs over the past few years, according to Hardwick’s town manager. Equally inspiring is the fact that many of the new ag entrepreneurs are well-educated young people … the very types who used to leave all-but-dying small towns to find a better living in a large city.
Big-city dweller or small, we might all find something to learn from the hopeful lessons of Hardwick, Vermont.
You can read Burros’ full article here.
