This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm
The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for forty years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife's fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their family farm--and their entire way of life--are under siege on many fronts, from shifting trade policies, to encroaching pipelines, to climate change. Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, Ted Genoways explores the rapidly changing world of small, traditional farming operations. He creates a vivid, nuanced portrait of a radical new landscape and one family's fight to preserve their legacy and the life they love.
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Ted Genoways served as the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review from 2003 to 2012, during which time the magazine won six National Magazine Awards. He is a contributing editor at Mother Jones and an editor-at-large at OnEarth, and is a winner of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. He is a fourth-generation Nebraskan and lives in Lincoln.
Clear-eyed and unsentimental.... [Genoways] writes with authority.... [and] comes from a long line of Nebraskans himself.--Arlo Crawford
Everyone who eats in America should read this lyrical and often heartbreaking book about life on a modern American farm. It will change the way you look at what is on your plate.--Ruth Reichl, New York Times best-selling author of My Kitchen Year
In an impressive and compelling work of literary journalism, Ted Genoways dives deep into the heart of an American farm family, illuminating critical issues troubling our complex food production system. But he also describes in intimate detail the very human struggles of the work--between husband and wife, parent and child, father-in-law and son-in-law--in one family committed to growing our food and passing the work on to the next generation.--Michael Ruhlman, author of Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food In America
It's not fair to claim that you are concerned about the country's food system unless you truly understand the millions of unsung conventional family farmers who produce our corn, soybeans, and beef. Genoways portrays just such a family in a book that is factual, rich in history, and filled with characters you will come to know as friends. He writes with an investigative journalist's mind and a poet's soul.--Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland and Pig Tales
Farming, family, and food all come together in this beautifully written story of what it takes to work this blessed earth.--Tom Colicchio, chef and cofounder of Food Policy Action
A real eye-opener. Genoways presents a very Steinbeckian story: Americans struggling heroically against forces outside their control.--Erin Grace
This Blessed Earth is a sort of universal story of family farmers and all they're up against in their efforts to take care of the land and make a living from it. It's also a crash course in the history that brought us to this place of corporate power, shrinking resources, and a changing climate. But it plants seeds of hope as the next generation prepares to inherit the family land and all of the joys and challenges that come with it. This book is an invitation to all who care about family farmers--which after all is all of us, since we all eat!--Willie Nelson, founder and president of Farm Aid
This Blessed Earth is both a concise exploration of the history of the American small farm and a vivid, nuanced portrait of one family's fight to preserve their legacy and the life they love.
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