A couple weeks ago I posted the following on my Facebook page, “I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.” The reference is a quote from Fred Rodgers, known to many of us as Mr. Rogers, a person made famous for bringing us the PBS show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”. As indicated in a Wikipedia article he was a gentle, soft-spoken personality who was a symbol of compassion, patience, and morality.
Perhaps that is what is missing these days – a sense of neighborhood, a lack of compassion, a loss of what is “deep and simple”.
Today, I had the opportunity to visit a farm in Milford, New Jersey known as Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse. If you want some of the best artisanal cheese or even bread made from regionally grown organic grain in their wood-fired oven, go visit them. They also sell pasture raised, 100% grass fed beef.
I’m probably not the best to convey the idea of healthy and humanely grown food, the importance of supporting our local economy, all of which is incorporated in what is popularly known as sustainable farming. Perhaps you can read what the owners have to say in a section of their website titled “What We Care About”. They say it simply and deeply.
They believe in the following:
“Everyone should be able to enjoy full-flavor, well-made natural cheese, artisanal cheeses that are designed to nourish the body as well as the spirit, as opposed to industrial cheeses which are merely convenient to make and distribute.”
“Dairy farmers should be well rewarded for making the most healthful, natural milk possible, while improving their land for the next generation. To accomplish this, we believe that it is necessary to break the cycle of overproduction, where lower margins force farmers to “squeeze the cows” to produce more milk, thereby driving margins even lower, while degrading the environment, the health of the animals, and ultimately the health of the eaters.”
“Cows and other dairy animals should also live well: producing only as much milk as is healthful for them. This means that dairy animals should live out of doors, eating grass and being milked seasonally, and not indoors, being fed grain, animal by-products and hormones, and being milked to death.”
“We want to raise our children in a world where farming, and indeed all other human activity, is done thoughtfully and sustainably, with long-term well-being taking priority over immediate gain. This requires thoughtful cooperation between producers and consumers. It also requires all people to aspire to a deeper understanding of how their individual actions affect both their own future, as well as the future of all living things: enlightened self-interest.”
Amen.
Support local farming. Support your local economy. Keep it simple.
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