Episode Details

Backstory on Jesse Straight:

My wife and I are Catholic converts from evangelicalism (though my wife was baptized Orthodox, then raised Presbyterian). Easter Sunday 2009 my wife and I entered the church. On Easter Monday 2009 we started our farm. I am a suburban kid who started a sustainable farm (i.e., no farming experience) through the influence of Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin. Since 2012 our only source of income. My wife is at home with our 6 kids under 9--feel your pain Gomer.

Gomer, I have noted you have sometimes brought up Wendell Berry, distributivism, and issues about our modern food system. And you guys are interested in the anima technica vacua, which would be related to our alienation from the food, farming, and natural world that sustains us 3 times/day! You have touched on it, but you have not taken on the conversation of how Catholics ought to think about food and farming. And this could also fit nicely into your "don't put me in a Catholic box" theme of the show--thinking carefully about food and farming is not the sole territory of secular liberals--Catholics should be leading the charge!

You can see more about us here:
www.ncregister.com/daily-news/catholic-family-goes-back-to-nature-harvesting-gods-good-earth-and-faith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD5jnxhne7o&feature=youtu.be

And here is where I went head to head with R.R. Reno of First Things. (I have a lot of respect for Reno and think he is right on most things, but here I think I was dead right!)
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/inequality-and-agency
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/05/letters

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Links:

• Meet the Farmers | Pasture Raised | Whiffletree Farm | Internships | United States — Meet the Farmers - The Straights. Jesse Straight, farmer and founder of Whiffletree Farm, was born and raised in Fauquier County, graduating from Fauquier High School in 2000. After finishing studies in religion and pre-med at UVa, marrying his wife Liz, and working in Charlottesville, Jesse read a book by Wendell Berry that inspired him to learn more about farming through reading, visiting farmers, and making forays into small farming ventures. In April 2009 Jesse and Liz moved back to Warrenton to be near his family and old friends, and to start their farm business! They were happy to return to Warrenton but did not know all the ways in which they would be so well befriended and cared for here. By 2012 the business was in need of additional acreage and so the Straights moved to Whiffletree Farm, where they have been ever since.
• Why Organic, Sustainable Farming Matters | Portrait of a Farmer - YouTube — Most pro-organic documentaries make their point by taking stabs at the cruelty and other evils involved in the world of industrialized farming. In this short documentary portrait, Jesse Straight, owner of Whiffletree Farm, shows us a different approach. As he gestures to the beautiful landscapes that surround us he explains, "being a farmer is special because this is my office. You spend your