Farmland, Farming and Community

“If you have no land, you have nothing: no food, no shelter, no warmth, no freedom, no life. If we remember this, we know that all economies begin to lie as soon as they assign a fixed value to land. People who have been landless know that the land is invaluable; it is WORTH EVERYTHING. Pre-agricultural humans, of course, knew this too. And so, evidently, do the animals. It is a fearful thing to be without a “territory.” Whatever the market may say, the worth of the land is what it always was: It is worth what food, clothing, shelter, and freedom are worth; it is worth WHAT LIFE IS WORTH. This perception moved the settlers from the Old World into the New. Most of our [European] ancestors (The ‘European’ emphasis is mine. Berry used ‘American’) came here because they knew what it was to be landless; to be landless was to be threatened by want and also by enslavement. Coming here, they bore the ancestral memory of serfdom. Under feudalism, the few who owned the land owned also, by an inescapable political logic, the people who worked the land.” “Are these two things connected?” almost without any second thoughts, he quickly responded, “Of course they’re connected.” Then, he asked the interviewer, “What two things?” Thank you for reading, liking, commenting, restacking and sharing this dialogue with your friends. You’re helping to spread fresh thinking to create abundance, prosperity and resilience. Before you leave, I have a question for you: After listening to Cory Carman, what hidden connections of your own (if any) do you notice between farmland, farming and community?