Hightower at an early farmers’ market in 1980s Texas

Well, habemus papam—welcome, Pope Leo! Bless him… and us.

I hope no one thinks me blasphemous, but I go to a church nearly every Saturday that is not denominational, nor is it held in any sort of ornate cathedral, temple or mosque. It’s a plain wooden, open-air shed with a metal roof and a loose brick floor—but it’s filled with goodness, joy and a diversity of devotees who share in the bounty of nature. It’s the Boggy Creek Farmstand, one of more than a dozen farmers’ markets flourishing in my hometown of Austin, Texas.

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Indeed, thousands of these secular-but-soulful gathering places that nurture body and spirit have cropped up all across America. From big city neighborhoods, to rural towns, they provide a genuine grassroots alternative to factory food and monopoly megamarts.

The spread of this good food movement has been neither “miraculous” nor the product of some corporate conclave. Rather, it’s the organic result of hundreds of local coalitions—small farmers, consumer advocates, environmentalists, community officials, and others dedicated to real, lasting progress of, by and for workaday people.

When organizing a Texas network of these cooperative ventures in my years as state agriculture commissioner, we followed a path blazed by (shhhh, don’t tell anyone) New York City. There, a pragmatic visionary named Barry Benepe and his can-do cohort were showing that small farmers could bypass the corporate system and profit by selling directly to consumers in the city.

This is Jim Hightower saying… Our friend Barry passed away last month at 96, but what a legacy—45 Greenmarkets in New York City alone, and a national farm-to-table movement! To help extend its reach into your town, go to farmersmarketcoalition.org.

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