 the family farm is a family effort and if you're so blessed to have kids that are willing to help you on the farm or spouses that are willing to get involved in your passion to help you keep your love of agriculture going that's a wonderful thing. And so here the 20th year Ron's done the trade show pulled all these speakers together and I'm going to have the pleasure to introduce one of the speakers who and I hope he doesn't mind was just thinking out of the box a little bit in agriculture and this year our trade show theme and I came up with it myself so I don't know what it is but it's succeed on your place without of the box farming and so it's trying to find a way to make a living on the farm and staying with living out in the country which we love staying with a connection to the land which we happen to love and livestock and plants we do some gardening and I'm going into John Eichert's introduction he is our keynote speaker and John has been connected with University of Missouri he's a professor emeritus now and he started years ago doing kind of out of the box thinking for agriculture and it wasn't just corn wheat and beans that he was thinking of but it was more of some of these other concepts John has been a tremendous contributor to Ron's magazine and over the years has had a department in the magazine where he's continually written one article after another article and enlightened people in a way that for sure I wouldn't have the intellect expertise to be able to contribute but his depth of knowledge of agriculture in the traditional sense as well in new way of thinking about agriculture is tremendous we're fortunate to have him here and thank you so much for coming down from Iowa to be with us John has written several books sustainable capitalism return to common sense small forms are real forms crisis in opportunity sustainability in American agriculture a revolution in the middle in his latest book is economic stability so John approaches things from higher intellect that I could ever do and really helps connect that type of thinking with what people might be doing on their farm and how to approach it and I want to thank you again so much for coming to our trade show this year and welcome John Ikerd thanks John I appreciate the opportunity to be back here if I recall right Ron I spoke at the first conference 20 years ago out at the Expo Center that's a long time ago I was trying to think back at what I might have talked about at that conference I didn't most of the time nowadays I write a paper I can go back and look but back then I had just come back to the University of Missouri after being gone from Missouri for 20 years I came back in late 89 and I think probably what I talked about because I was talking about at that time was the definition of sustainable agriculture you know here 20 years later we're still arguing about the definition of sustainable agriculture but I suspect I said something to the effect that a sustainable agriculture is an agriculture that's capable of maintaining its productivity and its usefulness to society indefinitely forever that's what sustainability is about it's about permanence when I talk about it now in terms of the issues of sustainability I talk more in terms of sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without diminishing opportunities for the future and I think that's that's really what it means it means meeting the basic needs of all people not everything that everybody much might want but the basic needs of everybody today but doing it in such a way that it doesn't diminish the opportunities of those people of future generations to meet their needs as well and I think that applies to agriculture and I think it applies across the board now like many of us had hoped the sustainable agriculture as a movement has not become the dominant kind of paradigm or the dominant model of agriculture we're still in the midst of a of an industrial agriculture that continues to to move in different forms and we're corporatization of agriculture as I call it today on top of industrialization but unlike a lot of people had thought sustainable agriculture wasn't just a passing fad it wasn't just one of these flashing a pan that's going to be here for a few years and then nobody will remember what it is it's still there and the issue of sustainability grows stronger every year in fact if you go on the internet for any major corporation or any major organization you'll find that they all have sustainability initiatives of one kind or another many of those won't fit my definition of sustainability because where we are now we're in the process of where the largest corporations the industrial corporations have come to the realization that they can no longer ignore the rising questions of sustainability because the public opinion is forcing them to address this issue in one way or another and what they're trying to do now is what we would call co-opt or redefine sustainability so that they can pretend to create a sustainable operation without really changing anything much from what they've been doing in the past but I think that sustainability question is the defining question of the 20th 21st century and eventually they all have to address authentic sustainability when I was thinking about what I might talk about here 20 years later you know I went back over the years I've spoken at this conference many times not every year but probably more than half of them maybe three courses fours of the year so trying to come up with something different something new instead of doing that I think what I'm going to deal with are some of the big questions the big issues the fundamental principles the fundamental process concepts of sustainability that permeates sustainable agriculture economic sustainability social sustainability ecological sustainability and I'm going to leave it mainly up to you to figure out how that fits on your particular farming operation so if you're here interested in how to make compost or the best breeds for free-range chickens then you need to go somewhere else because that's not what I'm going to talk about those things are critically important and I but I think that's individual information that you have to determine for your particular farm what I'm going to talk about are the big questions and I tell students and anyone else that you know the fundamental purpose of all education not just formal education but our education as adults seeking information on the internet or reading books or whatever the fundamental purpose of education is to try to gain a better understanding of how the world works and where we fit within it so we can decide individually how we want to live our life day by day and that's the big questions that I'm going to talk about today and when I speak that I say many times and I'll say it again today that that what I say is my truth I speak my truth with conviction because I know why I believe what I believe but if your truth is different from mine that's all right with me because I don't think any of us should be so egotistical as to think that only we know the truth I think we're all looking for the truth my truth is that we're in the process of recreating the food system because our current food system quite simply is not sustainable from the retail level the process level down to the farm level the dominant food system today is not sustainable that's my truth and what I think it means is that that creates new opportunities as we recreate the food system there's opportunities for small farmers medium-sized farmers other people that simply did not exist in the past and what I want to do is try to give you a concept of this big picture and the big changes and then you decide how your farm fits in it and how you want to live your life day by day let me start with the broadest scale the current financial crisis the global financial crisis you know they say the recession is over but you and I both know that it's not maybe it's over for a few people at the top end because the stock market continues to grow but for the rest of the people it's not over I think the financial crisis that began in in 2008 and lingers hit still today has raised serious questions among people all around the world about the strength and stability of the global economic system but I think that the crisis may in fact turn out to be a blessing in disguise because I think it may finally drive home to many people that we have created an unsustainable economy an unsustainable global economy but an unsustainable economy in this country as well as I said before a sustainable economy would be an economy that's capable of meeting the needs of people today without diminishing opportunities for those of the future and when we ask the questions of sustainability seriously about today's economy we come to the realization that our economic system today is not meeting the needs of many people today even in the united states but certainly around the globe and we are not leaving equal or better opportunities for those of future generations because we are destroying the natural resource base and the human resource base upon which agricultural all productivity agriculture and economic productivity in general come from now we've been told over the years that we said we can't really address these environmental issues that we've known are there the conservation issues or we can't really address the social equity issues because it would get in the way of economic growth so we roll back much of the environmental registration we basically forgot about social equity in the country and as a consequence we find that the economy quit growing anyway the basic problem was is we failed to realize that all economic value comes from nature by way of society there's no place else to get anything of economic value there's no place else to get anything of any use to us it all comes from from the soil from the air from the water from the energy it all comes from the earth and if we move beyond self sufficiency in other words feeding ourselves from the earth then we have to depend upon society when we start to trade and when we create markets then we have to depend upon the integrity of society and what we're seeing today are the consequences of degrading the productivity of nature and degrading the productivity of society to the point where we can no longer sustain the economic growth that we've become accustomed to in the past the same thing is true of agriculture we've created an unsustainable agriculture we destroyed or degraded the natural productivity of the soil we become reliant on the fossil energy inputs to the fertilizers and the pesticides now we see that those supplies are are going to be running short and increasingly expensive as we go into the future we force the families off the farm we've destroyed the rural communities and we've destroyed the capacity and the the will of the people to farm the land in a way that maintains the health of the land and the health of the people and we're seeing the consequences today of an agriculture that may appear to be prosperous but it's propped up by government programs that if those government programs like the biofuel programs was pulled out american agriculture would drop like a rock we've got to return to the basic ideas that all productivity all economic value comes from the earth it comes from the land it comes from people and the only way to have a sustainable agriculture is to regenerate the productivity of the land and restore the productivity of people in rural communities and people on family farms when the fossil inputs are gone or become increasingly expensive that's where we have to get back to now when economists most of the economists will say well all we really need to do to fix the economy including agriculture is to get the prices right they they recognize that that the pursuit of economic interest the way we're doing it today particularly industrial economy degrades the land it pollutes the soil it it it degrades the productivity you end up with erosion and various other things that degrade the productivity the natural productivity of the land and they understand that there's negative social impacts of the things that we do in a pursuit of economic self-interest but they say if you would simply put a dollar and cent price on the damage that we do to nature a dollar and cent price on the damage that we do to society then the markets would be perfectly capable of allocating our resources so that we would have long-run sustainability but we have to do more than getting the prices right simply internalizing the externalities ignores the fact that there are social values that have no dollar and cent price they are fundamentally different from economic values and they're ecological values that have no dollar and cent price we have to do more than get the prices right it's this blind faith in markets that's not the that's not the solution to the problem is to run everything through the markets that that is the basic source of the problem not the solution if we're going to create sustainability within our economy society within agriculture we have to fundamentally change our way of thinking abert einstein said one day that you can't solve a problem using the same thinking you were using when you created it and that's what we're trying to do when we simply try to run everything through the markets and tinker around with the existing system we're going to have to fundamentally change our concept of how the world works and where we fit within it you see the economic world view is that there's a little part of society that's impacted by by the economy and there's a little part of nature that's impacted by the economy and if we just tinker with those little parts then everything will be all right but i would argue my truth my reality i think it makes common sense is that the whole of society is contained within nature we are another species human is another species among many species that populate this earth it's not a small overlap between society and nature we're a part of that natural ecosystem we're a part of that living system and we're integrally related with all of those living and non-living elements within within that system and the economy is a creation of society and the whole of the economy is contained within society so everything that we do in terms of pursuing our economic self-interest has an impact on society it has an impact on nature because the whole of the economy is contained within it's not a matter of these overlapping pieces we're a part of the whole and the economy is a part within and i think the important part is is that we need to recognize that within these in these hierarchies being a part of nature we're we're subject to the basic principles the basic laws of nature and our economy has to be subjected to the basic laws or the basic principles by which healthy societies must function i think probably this idea is is much more clear in agriculture than it is about anyplace else because if you think about it in agriculture you realize that the whole of that farm is dependent upon the earth it's dependent upon the land and all of the life comes from the land and all of the value comes from the land and getting the things that have economic values from that land depend upon the people the farmers that farm land land that that nurture the living things within the soil and the living things above the soil and so all economic value then arises from the land by way of people that's that that's it's the same as true everywhere it's just more obvious when we look at it in agriculture and we realize too that that agriculture is the basic source of all human life we're biological beings we can't eat the electricity that we gather by windmills or waterfalls or something of that nature we're dependent upon this living system we're a part of this living system we're interconnected with that we're no less dependent upon on the land and the life that comes from the land today than we were when we were a species of hunters and gatherers or subsistence farmers the connections are less direct and more complex but they're still there the important thing about this hierarchy as i said is the the purpose is defined at a higher level if we think about the the purpose of society is defined as humans within within nature you may say well i don't think there's any purpose for human life and that that's okay if that's your truth but i don't think life makes any sense unless there's some purpose for us being here what difference does it make what we do if there's nothing in particular we're supposed to do why why why should we get up in the morning you know if there's nothing in particular we need to do today but then why not you know so like none of it just makes any sense but that purpose is a part of something bigger than us and so our purpose as people is derived as being a part of nature and the purpose of the economy then is to serve specific needs of people within society but the lower levels are also important because the potentials or possibilities of the lower higher levels are determined by the lower levels in other words we have to be able to meet our needs economic needs as individuals if we're to contribute to the greater good of society and then society then can either impact positively or negatively up on nature there was many decades centuries whenever humans were not powerful enough to do any damage to nature but i think those days are long past so nature is also dependent upon us so we have to bring all of this together the same thing is true in the agricultural economy the purpose of the agricultural economy comes from the broader society and the purposes we as individuals as farmers comes from the higher level we can have this hierarchy of sustainability as i call it the we can ignore this basic hierarchy but we can't avoid the consequences of you see there's fundamental principles that are determined as basic functioning of nature and we're not quite sure what those are but we can't redefine them we can only discover them and we can ignore them for example we can deny the the law of gravity and we can say i don't believe in the law of gravity but i tell you even if you don't believe in gravity if you drop something heavy on your foot it's still going to hurt and it's the same way with any of the other principles if you look at basic principles of nature of natural healthy ecosystems they're holistic everything is interconnected the whole is something more than the sum of its parts the relationships among the pieces matter i mean if we're only dealing with pieces of things without looking at the whole then we're going to realize the inevitable negative consequences of our failure to respect the principle of wholism healthy natural ecosystems of diverse you have to have a diversity of things that fit together that relate to each other and if you ignore the principle of diversity on your farm eventually you're going to realize the consequences a third principle of natural ecosystems is interdependence the relationships among those diverse parts within the whole to be healthy have to be mutually beneficial not destructive not exploitive but each benefiting the other these are fundamental principles of nature and we're a part of nature our society our economy is a part of nature which means those apply at all levels i would argue there's fundamental social principles that are just as important as those physical principles that i've talked about if you want to have positive relationships with other people there's you know we may disagree on a lot of different values but there's certain things i think we agree on that you have to be honest and fair and responsible and respectful and compassionate if you violate those principles you're going to degrade your relationships if you put honesty and fairness responsibility together you have relationships of trust and trustworthiness and if you fulfill it prove to be trustworthy then the relationships grow stronger if you violate a trust they grow weaker these are fundamental principles fundamental laws principle of kindness or caring we all make mistakes we need to be forgiven you can't sustain positive human relationships without kindness forgiveness and compassion that comes with it we have to have the courage to be kind and to be compassionate and to be trusting and trustworthy in a world that considers those things naive and idealistic they're fundamental principles of economics the economist didn't make these things up they're the characteristics as individual meeting our individual interests that such as scarcity economic value depends upon scarcity not necessity you only pay for things that there's not enough of to go around economic efficiency you getting the most that we can out of whatever we have to work with applies across the board it's a fundamental principle sovereignty the ability to make our own choices make our own decisions everything else depends upon that these are fundamental principles of how the world works and if we're to be successful in our life and achieve whatever our purpose is we have to learn to respect those things and i think that's not what we're doing today with sustainability we're still tinkering around the edges as i talked about here at the conference last year everything doesn't eventually boil down to a matter of economics regardless of what the economist said social values and ethical values are fundamentally different than economic values economic values are individual they recruit to the individual an aggregate economy is just a collection of individual enterprises the relationships don't really matter economic value is instrumental it's always a means to an end there's an expectation you're going to get something back of greater value whenever you give something away or trade something away economic values are impersonal the person doesn't matter for something to have economic value have to be able to trade it you have to be able to buy it and sell it if it's related to a specific individual you can't trade it away you can't buy it and sell it it has no economic value if the particular person involves matters that brings us to social values and the basic differences social value is interpersonal it occurs between two people or within a group of people that know each other that are connected to each other social values are instrumental our relationships are instrumental there's an expectation of getting something out of it but it's not precise at what you get or when you get it but if you want to have a friend you got to be a friend it's reciprocity there's something involved but the difference is social value is inherently personal it applies to a particular person it's connected to that person it can't be traded it can't be bought or sold you know you can't trade your friend you got a friendship you can't trade your friend to someone else you can't trade that friendship you can quit being a friend with one person start with another but the friendship you have is unique between the person you can't trade your spouse you can get a divorce and get remarried but you can't trade the relationship with one spouse to somebody else so it has no economic value these things that we know are critically important to our quality of life have absolutely no economic value an important thing about social value it evolves into ethical values as we relate to people in a personal way we learn that what's right and good in our relationship with people that we know is also right and good with people that we don't know we should treat everybody as we treat our friends and we treat our neighbors and that's when social values evolve into into cultural values or ethical values and the important part of that is that that that ethical values are are not individual or impersonal ethical values are communal they apply to everybody everywhere society as a whole they're not instrumental which is critically important you don't do it because the expectation of getting something back in return you do it because it's the right and good thing to do it's non-instrumental it's it's communal and that's the important part when we talk about sustainability because you have no economic value in doing anything for someone of future generations in addition to doing anything for society as a whole there's no social value in doing something for those of future generations you won't know anybody there you won't be there you only do it if you feel an ethical or moral responsibility for the future of humanity and the well-being of society as a whole this is a reality this is a truth that the corporations will never face because you see a large corporation has no capacity for social relationships or social value because it's not really a human regardless of what the supreme court says it's only a collection of people that are pursuing their economic interest the only common value the shareholders of these large multinational corporations have the only common value that they have being many nationalities in many different countries is the desire to increase their wealth they will never value social relationships they will never value ethical relationships we have to have real people making decisions for sustainability now of course there's some social value there's some economic value in doing things that are socially responsible because there's a lot of people you know people economists call about reducing transactions cost it's easier to deal with people that you trust and things of that nature and there's economic value in doing things that are ethical you know green marketing things like that people value those things but ultimately we have to realize that they're important social and ethical values that have no economic values and we have to make decisions based on our social and ethical values where we're talking about farming what I think we're talking about what is family farming was always about it was a way of life it wasn't just a business it wasn't just the economics it was the social it was the family it was the neighbors and it was stewardship it was taking care of the land it was the ethic of farming that's the kind of farming that we'll have to have again if it's going to be sustainable you know when we make decisions we not only have to get the principles right but we have to get the priorities right as well because the the basic ethical values that I'm talking about are the overarching values of the principles our interpretation of the principles of how the world works and where we fit that's where we start from within that we can have societies that have different social values and this sort of thing as long as it doesn't violate the fundamental principles of nature the fundamental so ethical values from which societies have to be based and then the economy has to function within the bounds of society as a part of society in accordance with the basic principles of nature and the values of the society within which is created and the economy is important to meet our individual instrumental impersonal needs but that's not everything the priorities have to be the ethical the social and the economic what we've done is we've turned it upside down we give the highest priority to the economic in this presidential campaign what what are you hearing it's about the economy it's about jobs you know that that's just one reflection of this overall thing we will do things that are that are right for our neighbors and right for societies as long as it doesn't get in the way of economic growth the economy takes priority we will do things that we know are ethically and morally right as long as it doesn't compromise our social status or get in the way of economic growth we have to get our priorities right we have to put the fundamental principles the basic ethical moral principles of how nature works and where we fit at the highest and then we social value and then the economy to function sustainably must function within the bounds there's a basic function that society has to fill in a sustainable economy and we have to fill it through the processes of government a lot of people want to do away with government today well i agree government isn't working but we have to make it work we have to realize that we have to come together as people within our communities and once we get beyond the bounds of friendship and family we have to function at the local regional national level in some means to constrain the economic exploitation of the natural and human resources if we're to create a sustainable economy and i'm not defending government the way it is but i'm saying we have to come together as a people and establish the social and ethical bounds within which our economy must function or it's not going to function sustainably we see the same things i'm talking about here within our food system as well we see all of the things that i've talked about we have we have focused our farming system our total food system on the on the single criteria of greater productivity and greater efficiency we have we have put profitability we have put the pursuit of profits on the farm pursuit of economic well being ahead of the people of rural communities ahead of family farms and we've put it ahead of the stewardship of the land and the protection of the land and the conservation of the natural fertility of the land for benefit of future generations and we're seeing the consequences now of having that priority upside down and if we're going to farm sustainably we've got to get our priorities right on the farm we got to go back and realize that that all productivity eventually arises from the land it arises from the soil and the water and the air and we're going just to have a sustainable agriculture we have to sustain the productivity and the integrity of the natural resource system and we have to focus again on maintaining the integrity of the human resource system the farmers the farmers on the land the communities within which those farmers function and we have to value those ethical and social principles if we're going to sustain the economic viability of agriculture as well we have to realign the priorities but first I think we have to start when all of these things is we have to start at a deeper level and go back and rethink and redefine what we think is the fundamental purpose of us being here on earth what's the basic purpose of our life is it is it to get wealthy to have income to get rich you know people throughout human history the ancient philosophers religions and of all kinds have have realized up until fairly recently that the economy or the economics was was just a means to an end it wasn't an end in itself to get wealthier to make money that was so we could do things that made us happy and there was a realization that that certainly that we are material beings that we need food clothing shelter we need those things that are necessary for our physical life but that we're also social beings that we need to relate to other people in positive ways we need to we need to care for others and we need to be cared for we need to love and we need to be loved and it's a basic human need and when whenever we sacrifice the quality of those social relationships in our pursuit of greater economic wealth or income we don't enhance our quality of life or our happiness we diminish it and we're also ethical and moral beings we we need to believe that our our life is significant that it matters that we amount to something that there's some purpose that we're pursuing that's what lets us define what we think is right and what's wrong for us and we need that and whenever we compromise our ethics or morality in the pursuit of either social prestige or economic well-being we don't improve our quality of life we diminish it people throughout human history have realized that that what life is about is the pursuit of happiness the pursuit of overall well-being not just the pursuit of wealth economic individual well-being is is one dimension of that but the social dimension and the ethical dimension are just as important and a life of happiness is a life of balance and harmony among the hierarchies of nature among the hierarchies of intentionality that I've talked about before this is where we need to return to if we're going to achieve a sustainable society and it's totally in tune with what we need to do the principles of happiness are totally in tune with where the principles of sustainability and I would argue that as we address these issues of sustainability and as we redefine what it means or a purposeful life is about or a life of happiness is about it's going to create new opportunities for farmers and now I'm getting back to the farm because I think we see this already I think this is what has driven the organic food movement this is what is driving the local food movement an increasing number of people are coming back and saying it's not just about the cheapest most convenient quickest food that I can get I want food that has ecological social and economic integrity they're looking for something fundamentally different that fits their values as whole people not just economic beings but social beings and ethical beings as well the things where we see this evolving not just in the organic and local food movement but you see it most most clearly when you go to the farmer's market you're seeing people there because they're not just there to get cheap food they're there to connect with people they want to connect with the farmer they want to know where their food comes from they want to look someone in the eye that's been out here growing the food and make some judgment is this a person of integrity and talk to that person and say is this person taking care of the land does this person care about community and they're willing to pay a higher price for the products if they trust the person if they believe that they're dealing with a person of integrity it gives them a way to to connect and people are looking for opportunities to reconnect with other people because this competitive society that or economy that we've created in the pursuit of our economic well being has destroyed that sense of connectedness we've become a splintered society and they want to reconnect people reconnect through csa's through community supported agriculture where they support a particular farmer and pay for a share for the whole year it's a way to get closer to the land you see there's a realization within us somewhere that we're connected to that earth and we've destroyed that sense of connectedness that's the reason people like to be out in nature that's the reason we like to have natural parks and walk along streams but that's the reason people are buying from from people that they know they want to get reconnected to the land they want to go out to the farm they want to see what's going on out here i'm saying these things that that we look at and say well we're just tinkering around the edges of the food system we're creating a philosophically different food system it's driven by a whole new set of values that haven't been there before our relationship our dependence upon the land is is still as as critical as it's ever been it's just become so disconnected and some people are looking for ways to reconnect sustainable farmers true sustainable farmers whether they call themselves organic or biodynamic or holistic or natural or whatever they are true far sustainable farmers have have always recognized these basic principles that i've talked about they know that a farm is not a collection of enterprises it's a whole it's a living system they're interconnected with that system the farmer is a part of that living organization that's out there functioning on the farm they realize the importance of the principle of diversity that you have to have these different pieces that all fit together and they realize the relationships have to be mutually beneficial interdependent relations these are fundamental principles of nature that you see reflected on these farms they recognize also that that if you're going to create a local food system if you're going to have a csa or build your customers at the farmers market you have to build relationships of trust the social principle that i've talked about you have to be trustworthy with your customers and they they learn the trust and when if you ever violate that trust you're going to destroy the relationship and going to destroy the customer has to be based on kindness we all make mistakes there's times when you're in a csa for example that the crop doesn't turn out the way you expected it to and you have to have to have some forgiveness at times and a basic principle is there and you have to have the courage to step out of the mainstream and do something fundamentally different than your neighbors are doing and it's pumping in the overall food system these are the fundamental principles that i've talked about that the sustainability of the local food system depends upon and the farmers within the local food system know that they're supporting the local economy the principle of scarcity you have to produce something that people value that's something that people will pay for if you expect to make an economic living you have to be efficient you have to use what resources you have your time your energy your land in a way to produce something that has economic value and you have to maintain your ability your sovereignty to make the choices and to accept responsibility for the choices that you make the most practical things that you do on a farm are linked back to these most general principles of how the world works and define our relationship within it the local food economy that we talk about today cannot be sustained solely by economic value if you simply want to go out and create the most efficient most productive food system from the standpoint of peer economics you end up right where we are today that's how we got here focusing on bottom line economics you'll end up exploiting the land exploiting your neighbors destroying rural communities destroying the integrity of the earth in the pursuit of short-run economic well-being if we want a sustainable food system it has to be fundamentally different from that certainly the food has to be affordable the customer has to be able to buy it but the sustains is going to be sustained in the local food system by shared social and ethical values i talked last year about vertical cooperation i still think that's important i'm not going to dwell on it but we got to move away from competition we've had a vertically coordinated system in the past that was coordinated by competition competitive markets where we are today we have a vertically integrated food system that's dominated by large corporations if we're going to break away from that if we're going to make what we see in the local and organic and sustainable food movement the food system of the future it has to be based on vertical cooperation which means that we bring the customer the end consumer and the producer and the processors and retailers all in the system together and we don't allow you know the strongest within that system to take all of the profits or all of the benefits we come together and decide together what's going to be produced how it's going to be produced what the ethical and moral values are that underlies that which means it's going to be relatively small groups of people and smaller farmers that are involved in it and we decide together what's fair and what's not responsible and what's reasonable within that overall system I think we're going to have to totally rethink this whole thing we're going to have to go back to the issues of sustainability and we're going to have to get our our principles right our priorities right and if we do that we can align the hierarchy of sustainability with a hierarchy of intentionality and create a sustainable food system if we go from the kind of conceptual that I've talked about here down to the the really practical you know people are always asking me well what can I do to move toward a more sustainable lifestyle if my answer had been in the past for a long time I said you know we need to realize that everybody lives in a watershed and one time nobody nobody really knew much about what watersheds are but I think almost everybody realizes now you know you live in a watershed and everything that happens in that land that's higher than you are where you are eventually affects you because whatever's put in the water higher in the watershed eventually is going to come down to your level in the watershed and so you have a responsibility and a stake in protecting your watershed well more recently I've come around to the point of view and say okay let's let's talk about everybody lives in a food shed now what's a food shed a food shed is the area within which your food comes from or the food for a given community comes from and you know what our food shed is today for most people it's the whole world we live in a global food shed because you go down to the grocery store and you've got stuff coming in from all over the world do you realize what the consequences are of that global food shed of continuing to live in that global food shed it's all of the negative things that I've talked about that's that's what created this global food shed this this search for the cheapest place in the world to produce the stuff that we can bring in here and put in your supermarket and and unless we work at changing our food shed and unless we're willing to change our food shed and and to put ethical and social principles ahead of just getting the cheapest stuff in the world we're not going to create a sustainable food system or a sustainable agriculture so I say let's get to work in our food shed that's something everybody can do you can join a csa you can go to the farmers market you can you can plant a garden in your backyard and start raising some of this stuff yourself you can interrelate with people within your community and you can help begin to put together local food systems you can talk to other farmers or talk to your customers or someone else about creating a cooperative relationship a cooperative organization that's not just based on economic values but it's based on shared social and ethical values this is something you can do to create a food shed I think we there's tons of things that we can do and and we can start within our local communities by doing those things that make sense to us and finally it goes back to this basic idea again I have people ask me all the time well what what is the single most important thing to do or what is it that I should do it goes back to the idea that I've come to the realization or come to the conclusion my truth in my old age that we each have a purpose in life I don't think it's a specific goal or objective that we're supposed to achieve but it's it's a path that we're to walk it's something that we do today it's something that gives purpose and meaning to our life you can't prove that life has purpose it's it's that thing that comes to us that says this is right for me and this isn't because without purpose there's no way of making that distinction and what I think is the most important thing that you can do is decide what your purpose is in life I I think a true farmer today is someone that feels that they were put here on earth to be a farmer that that's their purpose they're here to take care of the land they're here to be a good neighbor they're here to produce food for people they feel that that's their purpose in fact I tell people that ask me should I get involved in agriculture should I be a farmer I said don't even think about it unless you feel a calling you know we used to talk about out in the country the preacher would feel a calling you know to go to the pulpit I think that's what we should all feel that we should all feel a calling not to go to the pulpit not necessarily be farmers but we've all got a calling we've got something that we're supposed to do and we need to open our minds and open our hearts and be led in the direction that we know ethically socially and individually that we need to go I think a life a purpose a life lived in such a way no matter a purpose is we will have made the greatest contribution that we possibly have could have made toward the good of humanity regardless of how small our purpose may seem relative to the others and regardless of how great someone's purpose may seem relative to ours I don't believe anyone is any more important than anyone else so what can we do to create a sustainable economy a sustainable society a sustainable agriculture we can begin really close to home and say what is it that I feel led to do what do I need to do what do I need to find the courage to do to help recreate the food system and create new opportunities for myself and for people in my community and for society as a whole it all boils down to the pursuit of purpose and the important part is if we live a life of purpose I think we will have lived the happiest life that we possibly could have lived the highest quality of life that we possibly could have lived so I'll leave you with this thought let's just go out and do whatever we feel is really consistent with what we're put here on earth to do thank you very much