Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival

by John Klar, Joel Salatin (Foreword)

“I have read at least 20 books a year for the past 25 years and  Small Farm Republic  is absolutely one of the very best that I have ever read. . . A must-read not only for those involved in all facets of agriculture but policy makers and consumers as well.”―Gabe Brown, regenerative rancher, author of  Dirt to Soil From farmer, lawyer, and political activist John Klar comes a bold, solutions-based plan for Conservatives that gets beyond the fatuous pipe dreams and social-justice platitudes of the dominant, Liberal “Green” agenda―offering a healthy way forward for everyone. While many on the Left have taken up the mantle of creating a “green” future through climate alarmism, spurious new energy sources, and technocratic control, many on the Right continue to deny imminent environmental threats while pushing for unbridled deregulation of our most destructive industrial forces. Neither approach promises a bright future. In a time of soil degradation, runaway pollution, food insecurity, and declining human health, the stakes couldn’t be higher, and yet the dominant political voices too often overlook the last best hope for our planet―supporting small, regenerative farmers. In fact, politicians on all sides continue to sell out the interests of small farmers to the devastating power of Big Ag and failed “renewable energy” incentives.  It’s time for a new vision. It’s time for bold new agriculture policies that restore both ecosystems and rural communities. In Small Farm Republic , John Klar, an agrarian conservative in the mold of Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin, offers an alternative that puts small farmers, regenerative agriculture, and personal liberty at the center of an environmental revival―a message that everyone on the political spectrum needs to hear.

Genres: Gardening, Agriculture, Nutrition

240 pages, Paperback

Published June 7, 2023

Reviews

[Ricker Lamphier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although there are some very good points made throughout the book, this is clearly written by a politician. There is a lack of true depth in his persuasion, as he continuously defaults to placing blame on a few parties (the Green New Deal, Monsanto, etc.). The lack of development in the arguments along with his claims that Regenerative Agriculture is not based on environmental principles, despite constantly bringing up environmental policy, demonstrates his lack of understanding on the topics themselves. His points can be summed up in the following excerpt:

“The relatively recent fanatical obsession with carbon dioxide ignores these problems while exulting technological “progress“ as the techno-mystical solution. But there is no techno-industrial solution to the physical disruption and extermination of healthy soil, microbiomes and vital aquifers that has been in high gear for a century.”

I want to emphasize that there are great claims made throughout the book, but I think this book lacks the substantial foundation for a thorough argument, as almost every claim somehow is summarized to be opposed to one topic: the Green New Deal. It is almost as though the book was written and then each chapter ends with a “ChatGPT summarize my claim in opposition to the Green New Deal”… I mean seriously, was his point belabored?

[Garbanzo Beans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing groundbreaking, but it confirmed many things I already thought about the subject. For instance, the emphasis on managing carbon rather than regenerative agriculture is an innovation in the environmental movement, not a beneficial progression. The environmental movement started with proper land and resource management and a strong suspicion of chemicals. We haven't really addressed those issues, but rather moved on to worrying about non-existent problems like carbon and climate change. I love the triage between the bipartisan support for regenerative agriculture and the prioritization of abolishing policies that inhibit regenerative practices in our agricultural system. More regenerative agriculture, less climate alarmism and distracting environmental non-issues.

[Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every American (and North American) should read this book to grow a better future together.

I'm a socially liberal (I'm not at all bothered by who married whom or what gender a person chooses), EV-driving, former Musk investor, and star-trek-as-a-best-case-human-future fan. I've just finished listening to Small Farm Republic (among others, from First Nations authors to soil ecologists), and I agree wholeheartedly with nearly everything written in Small Farm Republic. I was wondering if he has also read Elinor Ostrom's Nodel Memorial Prize-winning Governing the Commons, which illustrates the superior wisdom of farmers over an external regional or national authority. She documents how local economies can develop and employ policies endorsed and enforced over the long-haul of many generations to sustainably share the use of "common pool resources," such as water for farming; and they can do this better than (and often despite the counterproductive influence of) government.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up after hearing the author on the Doomer Optimism podcast. I’m not in the primary target audience (American conservatives/Republicans), but I enjoyed Small Farm Republic with some reservations.

Klar’s thesis is that, on issues of climate and the environment, conservatives need to stake out their territory both literally - by returning to the land, learning to farm, and fighting for localised food production and decentralised power - and figuratively, by outmanoeuvring the Left with their own strong, positive environmental vision that rejects the centralised tyranny of the Green New Deal. He gets a lot right, but the book is let down poor sourcing and weak argumentation.

To take just one example: Klar thinks that solar panels are far less green than lefties would have you believe, given the high environmental costs involved in their production. That’s plausible, but I’ll need to see the data: what exactly are those environmental costs and how do they compare to the costs of fossil fuel infrastructure? Klar doesn’t elaborate; he just asserts his conclusion and moves on. I’m not saying he’s wrong, but if you’re unconvinced then he won’t convince you.

Klar, unsurprisingly, downplays the importance of reducing fossil fuel emissions, although I can’t tell if he genuinely doesn’t care or if he’s just trying to avoid scaring the Trump voters away. He contends that if we embrace regenerative agriculture then it will sequester enough carbon in the soil to render the issue moot. Whether or not that’s true, it’s another assertion that he doesn’t make nearly enough effort to back up.

Small Farm Republic quotes from the same few sources again and again and again, notably Chris Smaje’s A Small Farm Future, which I’ve read and is excellent, but my Spidey-sense tingled at some other citations - such as The Truth About Covid-19 by one Dr. Joseph Mercola. I don’t know much about Mercola, but let’s just say that what I do know isn’t great. Likewise for another questionable source, Dr. Robert Malone (a name familiar to anyone who followed Joe Rogan’s pandemic controversies). Maybe I’m misjudging these men, but I doubt it, and it doesn’t fill me with confidence to see Klar approvingly citing these quacks.

At the end of the day though, I’d rather live among people who believe stupid things about vaccines than among people who don’t value freedom or sovereignty. And this is a point where Klar can surely find common ground with those who don’t share his conservatism: Big Ag is not your friend, and if you’re counting on the globalist corporatocratic Davos-Monsanto axis of evil to keep your belly full, you might as well snap the shackles directly onto your own ankles. I’d love to live in a small farm republic, because the only alternative is to let current trends continue: we’ll all keep getting fatter, sicker, poorer and more locked down while the same old neoliberal bastards entrench their power even further by tightening their control over the supply of life’s most basic essentials. As Henry Kissinger said: “control the food and you control the people”. (Actually, there’s no evidence that Kissinger ever said this, but Klar still attributes the quote to him - another example of his dodgy scholarship.)

Small Farm Republic is correct in its most basic conceit: the global system of food production is hopelessly corrupt and broken, and we’re not going to fix it on its own terms - we’re better off opting out entirely. It does feel a bit like pissing into the wind though. Did Klar spend 2020 in a coma? Most people don’t care about liberty and will prostrate themselves in a heartbeat to the first tyrant who promises them comfort and convenience. Are the masses really going to embrace an agrarian lifestyle of hard work and responsibility when they could just sit around letting daddy government shovel junk food down their throats? Fat chance.

The realistic best case scenario, I think, is that those of us who don’t enjoy enslavement can retreat to our own self-sufficient enclaves and be left alone. It’ll be a precarious existence requiring eternal vigilance against the totalitarian impulses of the majority, but maybe we’ll pull through. Or maybe it’ll be like all those other times in the history books - read up on how well “wanting to be left alone” worked out for the Soviet kulaks.

I don’t know how we can avoid the coming cliff edge, but I’m sure it’ll take something far more radical than what Small Farm Republic is brave enough to propose. Klar doesn’t have the answers, but he’s gesturing vaguely in the right direction. If anyone remembers this book fifty years from now it will be for paving the first few stones on the long road to the eventual solution.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Questionable Sources Mar Intriguing Premise. This book's general premise - a strategy for the American Right to lean in to its traditional principles, ignore "Climate Change", and yet still manage to out-green the American Left - is a truly intriguing idea, one Klar has clearly put quite a bit of thought into. His general plan does in fact read like a Republican was trying to put together exactly that type of plan, but in a fairly realistic, "this is actually politically viable" manner. (Rather than the "pie in the sky" so many demagogues of all stripes generally propose.)

What calls this book into question are the sources it uses - two, in fact, that I've reviewed before and which have proven to be questionable themselves (Chris Smaje's October 2020 book A Small Farm Future and Shanna Swan and Stacey Colino's February 2021 book Count Down). Citing either one as what the author considers to be legitimate evidence would be enough for a star deduction on its own, and thus the two star deduction here.

But even with the questionable sources, read this book. If you're on the American Right, it does in fact lay out a solid plan for you, one you may wish to consider. If you're on the American Left, it will prepare you for these arguments down the road. And if you're somewhere in the middle, it may just prove to be an idea whose time may have truly come - in general, if not in the exact particulars Klar lays out here. Overall a book that adds to the conversation in meaningful if imperfect ways, and thus very much recommended.

[Devan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conservatives: This is it. If you want to become winners on the environmental issue instead of the reigning losers, this is the book you need to read, and these are the policies you need to implement.

John Klar is a conservative who failed in a primary to be Republican governor of Vermont. A small beef farmer, he ran primarily on agricultural issues and transfers many of his campaign ideas into the work. Overall, it is a masterful work.

I don't want to summarize his ideas, as I feel summaries would shortchange the book. However, the policies focus on localization of agriculture, combatting erosion through regenerative pasturing, and de-incentivizing production of corn and soy products that poison our people. Nowhere in this book will you find the typical environmental dogma of "the world is going to burn in ten years" or "solar and wind are are only way out." Indeed, though Klar believes in climate change, he criticizes its proponents in this book and he is anything but a fan of so-called "renewable energy."

If I was a Republican politician trying to make environment one of my issues, this is what I would run on.

[Alix St Amant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute must read! Despite the title, this book is not just for conservatives. If you like eating, if you don’t want to live in a starving country, and if you care about the environment, this book IS FOR YOU.

[Emma Minck · Rating 2 out of 5]

The content is solid, but it felt quite repetitive to the point of being redundant. There weren’t as many specific examples and proofs for the claims made as I’d hoped for (although one could go looking for these by delving into the expansive cited sources).

[Cynthia Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Audiobook intro by Joel Salatin and I will always be open to his ideas. The book was a little more political than I expected but it was a good listen.