Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities

by Gary Paul Nabhan

"Informational and inspirational."  — Booklist

America has never felt more divided. But in the midst of all the acrimony comes one of the most promising movements in our country’s history. People of all races, faiths, and political persuasions are coming together to restore America's natural its ability to produce healthy foods.

In Food from the Radical Center , Gary Nabhan tells the stories of diverse communities who are getting their hands dirty and bringing back North America's unique bison, sturgeon, camas lilies, ancient grains, turkeys, and more. These efforts have united people from the left and right, rural and urban, faith-based and science-based, in game-changing collaborations. Their successes are extraordinary by any measure, whether economic, ecological, or social. In fact, the restoration of land and rare species has provided—dollar for dollar—one of the best returns on investment of any conservation initiative.

As a leading thinker and seasoned practitioner in biocultural conservation, Nabhan offers a truly unique perspective on the movement. He draws on fifty years of work with community-based projects around the nation, from the desert Southwest to the low country of the Southeast. Yet Nabhan’s most enduring legacy may be his message of a vision of a new environmentalism that is just and inclusive, allowing former adversaries to commune over delicious foods. 
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Agriculture, Audiobook, Environment

184 pages, Hardcover

Published September 27, 2018

About the author

Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally-celebrated nature writer, seed saver, conservation biologist and sustainable agriculture activist who has been called "the father of the local food movement" by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, Carleton College and Unity College. Gary is also an orchard-keeper, wild forager and Ecumenical Franciscan brother in his hometown of Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican border. For his writing and collaborative conservation work, he has been honored with a MacArthur "genius" award, a Southwest Book Award, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, the Vavilov Medal, and lifetime achievement awards from the Quivira Coalition and Society for Ethnobiology.

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much to love here, and it is definitely written to a mainstream audience as a plea to listen and collaborate, which I like. The ability to do so -- to actually listen, to build relationships and to work across difference -- is absolutely the key to long lasting and deep rooted change. It is something that in my experience many of those within the more mainstream environmental movement aren't perhaps quite so good at -- and he does call that out. I find it less powerful though, in that the environmental justice movement is only referenced in a handful of names. That Chester could be used as an example of healing rivers without a nod to the vile ecologies of incineration and waste poisoning that community for decades and the vibrant community struggle to transform and reclaim their neighborhoods. How did that feed into what happened there, and if it didn't, what does that mean? I think there is so much within the EJ and community organizing work for bottom up change of material conditions and beliefs to be drawn on here and they have long been discussing and arguing over the very real tensions between antagonism and cooperation with corporations and government. Still, there are some amazing and inspiring examples here of reclaiming land and healing communities that I loved.

[Curious Ecology · Rating 5 out of 5]

After disillusionment with many organizations in conservation movement due to their colonialist and even white supremecist / anti-immigrant mentality, this book was a breath of fresh air. It gave me the beginnings of a new way of thinking about land in a way that is positive and community-centered.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Especially valuable is the list of works cited at the end of this book...it will enable a reader whose interest is piqued by a specific chapter of the book to read further and wider.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very inspiring book on how we can work together on solutions to our food and land problems that will work for a wide range of stakeholders!! I love Nabhan's work and this was no exception.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gary Paul Nabhan writes a collection of essays exploring how collaborative, community-based, restoration work can effectively help repair both communities and the land. The book includes 13 chapters (each is an essay about different successful restoration projects), 1 manifesto (advocating for bottom-up community-based restoration--not top-down), a literature-cited bibliography, and an alphabetical subject index too. Given the author's advocacy for environmental work to be "bottom-up" from local communities, this book's intended audience might be environmentalist readers who tend to advocate for "top-down" national/state environmental regulations. While some lay environmentalist readers might find the breadth of environmental topic references to be overwhelming, and some non-American readers might also be overwhelmed by the US environmental policy history references, other readers seeking an enthusiastic tour of functioning grassroot environmental work in action should find sufficient content to consider and maybe inspire.

For Gary, Indiana readers, the author does include multiple brief vignettes about his formative childhood experiences in Gary and the Midwest.

[Emillie Ewing · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was extremely unrelatable at the start of every chapter, and for a college student in general. It also didn't offer any solutions, or ways that I felt like I could change my life to address the problem.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It's focused mostly on the desert southwest and Mexico so the specifics don't apply to the far northern Midwest where I am but the principles are universal and inspiring. I've been talking about it to everyone!