When author and homesteader Nicole Faires decided to retrofit an old school bus and tour America’s small farms with her husband and two small children, she expected to learn a lot, be inspired, and have some fun. But what she found disturbed her. Mismanaged small farms; clueless urbanites setting up shop to “get back to the land”; a mindless devotion to organic farming; and, ultimately, the discovery of just how dependent we are on corporations for our food.
She began to understand how dangerous and fragile our food system really is. Climate change. Farmers retiring or going out of business. Corporations controlling our food distribution system while being protected from the consequences when they endanger our health. Skyrocketing food prices. Outsourced food production. With this admittedly bleak assessment of the current state of affairs, Nicole and her family decided to abandon the bus trip and instead start a farm. “I couldn’t tell people the solutions to our food crisis while I was traipsing around America taking photos. I had to live it,” Nicole says. And so the seeds for Food Confidential were sown.
Our basic right to healthy food is at risk.
What can we do? Written in an astute, engaging style, armed with examples from her own homesteading lifestyle, small farmer Nicole Faires’s Food Confidential gives you the tools to fight the intangible battles, as well as the practical ones.
Interesting book that covers wide range of topics related to current food related issues post-modern society has landed itself into. These complex issues are result of number of factors like industrialization, globalization etc. The author does not simplify these issues by suggesting simple “back to nature” kind of solution. Though the book lacks rigors of scientific references, it is backed by sincere first hand experiential knowledge of author herself. The side notes on her experience with living in a mobile house to survey many farms in US and Canada is interesting. Case studies on permaculture, farming possibilities in urban homes, related civic disputes and DIY kind of summary information on farming is very useful.