Gardening as an Act of Political
Independence, Ed Fallon, The Populist
Instead of moaning at yet another loss of political support for
small farmers, Iowa state representative Ed Fallon took up a shovel
and started his own small-scale means of food production. Writing
in The Populist, Fallon urges anyone else who craves
better food but whose attempts to buy it are thwarted by the
prevalence of mass distributors and producers to do the same. With
Mahatma Gandhi’s credo of ‘Be the change you wish to see in the
world’ as inspiration, Fallon set out to create what he terms his
‘own private version of Eden.’ ‘Those of us who garden for a living
know it can be a relaxing way to put good-quality, low-cost food on
the table,’ Fallon writes, ‘But gardening also makes a political
statement. . . . It serves as a sign of our independence. It puts
us, our children, and our neighbors in direct touch with the
all-important process of food production.’
–Julie
Madsen
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