AND.... ACTION.
Photo of Jeff Poppen by Tim Harris.
As we mentioned yesterday, Jeff Poppen is closing down operations at Long Hungry Creek Farm––after 40 years of organic farming––because the pollution from a neighbor's chicken houses has started to leak into his farm, his water, his air, and the integrity of his vegetables.To a small farmer, this is horror story, and everything about it scares me––for Jeff, for us, for everyone.But there are plenty of things we can do to change it! First, we have to stop eating commercially-produced chicken. Period. There is no greater protest than eliminating demand. If there is no market for factory food, there will no longer be factory farms. If the market continues to grow, however, and millions of chickens are still processed every day, Jeff's story will become an increasingly more common one. Maybe become ours.Commercial farmers are generally not bad people either––quite the opposite really––but if the demand is there, they will work to meet it. We determine where the money is every time we eat.Next, share Jeff's story. I've already seen how galvanizing this story is and we need to sustain that momentum. Please blog it, Tweet it, Facebook THIS picture and get the word out. Make shirts with the photo, posters with catchy lines (my obligatory and free examples: "Chicken Little Meets Chicken Monster"; "Tyson KO'd my Farmer"; etc., etc., etc..), hand out fliers, postcards, and send letters to important publications and people. Make videos, make art, appeal to every possible personality. Anyone could care about this if presented in the right way––use every way you can think of.Those little things could make a world of difference. Those little things could simultaneously save the world, and one very special small farm.- Jesse.