COMMENTARY

Greetings from Edinburgh, Scotland! It so happens that my trip to Great Britain coincided with a historic referendum that has thrown the future of this nation (or should I say, these nations) into a haze of uncertainty. Welcome to the age of Brexit, and a political tableau that appears to be a mirror image of this unpredictable electoral season back home in the good old USA. The organic community has also recently become caught up in another political wrangle. The blogosphere

A couple of years ago I got a call from Dave Chapman, an excellent organic grower of greenhouse tomatoes here in Vermont. He wanted me to endorse his campaign to ban organic certification of hydroponics, figuring that the author of The Soul of Soil would be all about “keep the soil in organic.” I had to tell him, with due respect, that I couldn’t support this campaign, which has since become a rallying cry of Vermont’s organic farmers. It’s not that I don’t sympathize, but it