WARNING: This post contains a few spoilers from Novella Carpenter's Farm City. I didn't go crazy but there are a few minor ones.
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| Novella Carpenter with fowl |
A few months ago, back when I was
still a college student and president of the Environmental Science Organization
(ESO). We (being ESO) brought Novella Carpenter to Northern Michigan
University’s campus. None of us had read her book at our decision making point
but hey she had written Farm City: The
Education of an Urban Farmer which was a National Best Seller so we were
interested in what she had to say. We were really lucky to have her because she
had just had a baby and her rep wasn’t so sure that she’d be willing to start
up again. So we bribed her with a little extra money that we petitioned the
Student Finance Committee for.
Farm
City is her personal narrative about her urban farm in the ghetto of
Oakland. She uses the anarchy of Oakland in order to create GhostTown Farm on
28th Street. Unfortunately I didn’t get around to reading it before
she came to campus, which I’ll admit was shameful. But I did read some of her
blog and going in semi-cold turkey gave me the opportunity to really pay
attention to her talk without any previous bias.
She read a bit out of Farm City, promoted her new How-To book
titled: The Essential Urban Farmer,
and stressed her view of eating meat. Which I understood to be that it’s
alright to eat meat, it’s alright to be a vegan/vegetarian but if you’re going
to eat meat it’s more important to know how that animal was treated before its
life was ended.
Upon meeting Novella, I liked her
instantly. She was easy going and really willing to talk to you. And not just
about her but what’s going on in the community that she was in. Novella told
this hilarious story about a drug bust from a warehouse across the street in
which the police left all of the plants there and it became a free for all with
the locals. This definitely shocked my friend Laura, but it’s one of the things
that just made the event so much less formal and enjoyable.
I
had been stressing all day about having to entertain Novella at dinner and not
knowing what to say or even worse just sitting at the table awkwardly without a
word being said. Not a problem. Novella was willing to talk and once we all got
going it was like we’d all done that a million times before.
One thing that seemed to be really
stressing Novella out was vegans/vegetarians who don’t agree with her views.
They chose to not eat meat for animal rights, boycotting the mass slaughterhouses
(where most often animals aren’t treated well) or whatever reason but condemn
her for choosing to raise her own farm animals to eat as way of not partaking
in the mass slaughterhouses. Now there are extremists in everything but to me
you have to be willing to recognize that your choices are a personal choice for
you (self-righteously written but really here people there’s not too many
options to solve the differencing of views here).
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| One of the most hilarious and informative nonfiction pieces I have ever read. |
In her book she talks about a vegan
who suggested on her blog that having a petting zoo instead of eating her farm
animals would essentially teach the community about the animals. But she
pointed out that she wants people (aka mostly children who come by) to know
where their meat comes from; to have a connection with their food. It’s not a
bad concept considering most meat you buy in a store today doesn’t even look
like it came off an animal.
Following dinner that night I
immediately bought both of her books through Amazon. And they cruelly came in
the week of finals/graduation.
But I have finally just finished Farm City and I recommend it to
everyone. Not only is it hilarious (literally laughing out loud and embarrassing
myself on the public transit to work) but it really shows her purpose and view
on food. It made me question my food choices. Questions like: should I eat meat
if I don’t have the guts to kill the animal myself? How much can I invest into
meat that was treated fairly while it was alive? What types of vegetables can I
grow in an apartment? Should I grow these in an apartment that I share? And
though I haven’t got any answers for my questions as of yet they’re viewpoints
that I definitely need to consider.
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