The Wind Is At Our Backs

From what I have already posted on this blog you will understand that sustainable food is very important to me. I also think it is directly related to the experience of middle class Americans attempting to subsist in today’s economy. With that in mind I am reposting Zachery Adam Cohen’s (with his permission) recent call to action.

The Wind Is At Our Backs

The community of people brought together by their commitment and passion for local sustainable food has matured in ways I could not have imagined in the past months. I think it has surprised all of us frankly. On Twitter, on Facebook, on FriendFeed, on LinkedIn. In countless phone conversations and late night emails. This community is so alive, it is so real. And with each passing day we gain strength.

New voices have emerged, new partnerships have been forged, new friendships made. Many differences have already been overcome.

And it’s time to take it to the next level.

Which is why today I am calling on the local sustainable food movement to join me in starting something new. It’s an idea I, along with others, have been kicking around for a few weeks. I want to start a new website that will conglomerate all of our voices, all of our stories and all of the wonderful content that people all over this country have been unearthing. Essays, Podcasts, Video, Recipes, Narratives, Photos, Live Forums…Farmers, chefs, entrepreneurs, foodies, home cooks, moms, dads, children. All of us.

The only way for us to break through to the next level is to join together. Banding together will make our sum far greater than our individual parts.

I’ll tell you what I am willing to do.

I am willing to walk away from the Farm to Table blog, and I am willing to take my amazing audience with me. I am willing to start from scratch in order to make a difference.

Why? Why would I walk away from a personal project that has given me a purpose in life far beyond anything I could have imagined? Why would I walk away from something successful and which holds the potential for personal profit?

Because I want to write and publish alongside the people who make up this community. The people who have shown me that together we can effect the changes we all know this country needs to make. I want my name alongside all of you. I want to be your partner.

So what am I asking for?

I am asking this community to consider the greater good, something I know that each and everyone of us is capable of. We know that improving American food will improve the lives of countless people, of countless communities. It will make us healthier as a society, it will heal the land, it will enrich the brave farmers among us, it will create new jobs, and it will put us on a path to prosperity for the next hundred years. The best way for us to bring about this better society is to band together. We need to create a tribe.

The funny thing is, we already are a tribe. We already are a disparate band of brothers and sisters out in the scary wilderness. Well I want us to take that next big step together and create something lasting, something that will be remembered as a starting point.

I am asking this community to contributing their amazing content to this new site. We want to take all of our amazing readers and wrap them up in one big package. This is how we’re going to evolve, by working together, by using the tools of social media to break through into the mainstream. I want every non-professional blogger and content creator to join me in this project. We’ll create a brand new website where all of us will have the same rights and permissions as any others. It will be completely transparent. Because that is a hallmark of the social world in which we live. We will all manage it. We will all share in its successes.

At the end of the day, we are the ones that are going to take this movement into the mainstream. And we are so close. WE ARE THE AVANT GARDE.

The local sustainable food world is a people powered bottom up community.

And there is an incalculable source of power in this kind of community. I want to unleash it. We all want to unleash it.

So will you join me? Will you put aside your own personal projects to join something different, something new, something experimental? Will you put aside your ego in order to do the heavy lifting that our country needs?

I AM! If you are willing to join me, and the others who have already expressed their support, let us know! It’s a tall order. It’s a risk. But I think we all know that without risks, there are no rewards.

The only question is what do we call the darned thing?