Santa Ynez Valley, California
“The Earth is what we all have in common.” – Wendell Berry
If you’re an avid reader of my posts, then you’ve read quotes by Wendell Berry. Berry died Monday at the age of 92. He was born in 1934 in a small farming community along the Kentucky River and was known as a farmer but also a poet, novelist, and essayist whose environmental writing changed the way we think of our connection with the natural world.
After studying and teaching literature in New York and Europe, he returned to Kentucky in the 1960s and bought a small farm. He built his life around farming, family, community, and writing. The decision to return home became central to his environmental philosophy. Rather than thinking of environmentalism as the protection of wilderness, Berry argued that humans belong within nature and have an obligation to care for the natural environment around them.
His Christian faith was woven into this view. Ideas of creation, responsibility, and the natural world ran throughout his work. The Earth was not simply a collection of resources for our use. It was something entrusted to our care.
In 1977, he published The Unsettling of America, one of the most influential modern critiques of industrial agriculture and the decline of American farming communities. He challenged the assumption that technological and economic growth automatically constitute progress by asking the simple questions: progress for whom, and at what cost?
A central theme running through The Unsettling of America is the transformation of the American farmer. Berry describes a countryside once populated by small farmers who knew their land and depended upon one another. Industrial agriculture promised greater efficiency, larger farms, fewer workers, and it delivered.
Farms consolidated, families left, and rural communities declined. Farming became dependent on corporations, chemical fertilizers, and debt. Berry’s point is that America increased farm production while unsettling the culture that had cared for them. Wendell Berry’s question was simple: If this is progress, why has so much been lost?
Berry’s books and essays helped provide the foundation for today’s farm-to-table movement and the revival of thousands of farmers’ markets. In addition to his many accomplishments and awards, in 2010, he received the National Humanities Medal, one of the highest honors in the US.
Berry helped us define what it means to be an environmentalist. Our connection with the natural world is more than just the wild places; it also includes our local park and even our own backyards. He showed us that we won’t save the natural world by hiding out in our houses and cities. We can begin by understanding that we’re a part of nature and by taking care of plants and animals that surround our homes.