The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality In Local Food by Ben Hewitt; published in 2009 by Rodale; 234 pages; hardbound; $24.99
Reviewed by Joseph Gresser
To the surprise of many Northeast Kingdom residents, Hardwick has become the flavor of the month for the national press. It boasts a collection of new food-based businesses, run by a group of articulate and photogenic young men.
To many it also appears to show a way to organize agriculture that has significant advantages when compared to the large-scale corporate model that, over the course of a generation, has come to dominate food production.
In his new book, Ben Hewitt, a writer who lives in Cabot, details the time he spent speaking with some of the people behind such businesses as High Mowing Seeds, Jasper Hill Farm, Vermont Soy, and Pete’s Greens, and his efforts to understand what they have accomplished and what their success (which, as he acknowledges, is still far from certain) might mean for the community and beyond.
Mr. Hewitt is a skillful writer who brings his subjects to life with humorous verve. As a reporter who has written about some of the businesses Mr. Hewitt has investigated, I can vouch for the accuracy of his portraits of a group of people who are engaged in a remarkable project.
Starting with his own experience as a homesteader, Mr. Hewitt uses investigation of the agricultural businesses that are springing up in the Hardwick area as a lens to examine the possibility of a future less reliant on cheap, industrially produced food. He is particularly interested in how such a future might be brought about and what effect the necessary changes might have on the world beyond Hardwick.
Mr. Hewitt’s book is centered on conversations with the core group of Hardwick-area men who are seeking to build a new model of the agricultural economy. (Mr. Hewitt has the unfortunate habit of calling their style of business “agripreneurial.”)
Several people interviewed by Mr. Hewitt have doubts about what is happening in the Hardwick area, but their critiques, while well thought out, tend to arise from a general opposition to the capitalist system as practiced in twenty-first century America.
Mr. Hewitt frequently wonders why most Hardwick residents do not appear to be excited by the prospect that a revolutionary renewal of the local economy could be generated by the new businesses and the nonprofits that partner with them.
Unfortunately, he never takes the obvious step of talking to other Hardwick business owners or community members. Their views might have added perspective to Mr. Hewitt’s picture.
For instance, Mr. Hewitt’s account of the history of Vermont’s agricultural economy is incomplete. The caves at Jasper Hill Farm could easily be viewed as throwbacks to an era that existed within the memory of many Vermonters. Cheddar cheese and butter were once products of creameries owned by the farmers who supplied them with milk.
He misses the irony implicit in the fact that the Jasper Hill caves exist largely due to funding from Cabot Cheese, now part of Agri-Mark, which is a giant descendant of one of those earlier community cooperatives.
In general Mr. Hewitt seems indifferent to the innovative ways these businesses have found to finance their growth. He plays for laughs a ride he took with potential investors, as he shows money people tiptoeing around the cow pies in a barnyard.
Had he taken a more careful look, he would have seen that a combination of socially responsible investors, family foundations, and federal and state granting agencies are creating new ways of providing capital to these business without pushing them down the path that led Ben and Jerry’s to sell out to a multinational giant.
Mr. Hewitt misses another important thing about the Hardwick area as he brushes past the story of a fire set by a careless teenage motorist, which he treats as an amusing Hardwick anecdote.
The fire at the Williams Block was contained by the combined work of firefighters from the very communities that host the new businesses. These volunteers also came together to save the Bemis Block, which now houses Claire’s Restaurant and The Center for an Agricultural Economy.
Many of these emergency responders may never cross the threshold of either establishment. But to speak of saving Hardwick without acknowledging the neighborliness demonstrated by their dedication is to miss the essence of the community. And to think that a plan to change the way Hardwick makes its living can succeed by planning over the heads of a major portion of its population is folly.
Mr. Hewitt’s book is an enjoyable and important look into a developing community, and it raises worthwhile questions about how we can and should live together.
But the answers proposed by the brilliant, dedicated and hardworking people portrayed in its pages will not save Hardwick, or any other town, unless they are ratified by their neighbors.
