By Zoë Bradbury

March 31, 2008

I was on the tractor at dusk today, prepping beds for the asparagus and raspberry rootstock that I’ll plant out later this month, when I was struck by the realization that the reason I am able to come home and do this, and hopefully make a living at it, is in large part thanks to the local food movement.

Twenty years ago, I would have been laughed out of town for trying to hawk strawberries and golden beets to the restaurants and retail stores in town. Now they’re hungry for it. It’s also taking a heap of planning, investment, sweat, and a little blood to manifest this farm start-up, but were it not for the groundswell of interest in homegrown, farm-direct, good, fresh food, I’d be dead in the water.

Being able to rent my sister’s shiny, orange 32-horsepower tractor helps, too.

It was long after sunset that I finally took my last pass and cut the engine. There were the sounds of the creek playing over the gravel bar and a hoot owl calling across the valley. There’s something about that spot on the property — where the river comes out of the canyon and begins to meander along the bottomland and the steep timbered coast range gives way to pastured hills — something that feels good and calm and centered. My fiancée, Danny, practices Chinese medicine and he says it’s the way the qi flows there: not too fast, not too slow, just right. And you can tell. It’s easier to take deep breaths.

Looking out at my fields and the valley, I took one and then mouthed a slow, silent thank you.

Zoë Bradbury is a Kellogg Food & Society Policy Fellow. She lives, writes, and farms on Oregon’s southern coast.