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I Believe in Good Food
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I can ride my bike from my house in Boulder to the farm. Most weeks I come early to help harvest for the farmers' market; we dig Colorado red potatoes, cut rainbow chard, and pick green beans. This food has never been touched by chemical pesticides or fertilizers, they were planted and watered by people (usually students) like me and they will most likely travel less than 50 miles before they are eaten. I spend a few of hours each week working on this farm because I believe that good food, by which I mean food that is local and organic, has the power to make a cleaner, healthier environment and to make happier, healthier people.

I n the last couple of decades Americans have become increasingly mentally and physically unhealthy. Rates of diabetes and obesity are at unprecedented levels, as aredepression and anxiety. It is not a coincidence that we are simultaneously becoming increasingly disconnected from the outdoors and our sources of food. People are spending more time inside living busy lives, they are farther from their farmers and are eating unhealthy, heavily processed food.

I have found spending time at the farm is meditative. I leave after a day’s work feeling unhurried, with a peaceful and present state of mind. A hard day of work outside has the power to ground a person. In general, most all people that work at the farm regularly are strangely calm and happy and usually very healthy. I dig and weed and plant side by side with members of my community. The food is sold at a farmers market, where shoppers meet their farmers while they buy food directly from them. In thisway, We help create local community as neighbors become invested in the health of the local environment and community that feeds them.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is becoming incredibly popular in the US. More people are growing weary of agriculture that is based on single crop, large scale, commodity farming. People are also becoming aware that modern agriculture depends on the modern science of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, as well as genetically modified seed and a huge amount of fossil fuels; all of which are dangerous to humans and poisonous to the soil and local wildlife. Our local farm has power in that we can abstaining from these modern practices and preserve the local and global ecosystem. For this reason, more people are volunteering at CSA's and shopping at farmers markets that ever before.

This weekend I will ride down to the farm and work the land with a couple of friends because I believe that small actions have the power to change the world. I will go because I believe in the personal power that is gained by saying you won’t participate in an unjust system. I will go because believe this planet and the life on it should be respected and protected. I will go because I believe in the power of good food.

Carter Squires is a third year student at the University of Colorado and continues to work on the Beyond Organic farm in Boulder.