BOOK REVIEW

Listening to the land's story

EDITOR'S NOTE: As part of the Leopold Center's conference and workshop program, this inspiring and gifted California farmer, photographer, author and lecturer discussed sustainable and community-based agriculture last spring at the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls.

On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm
Michael Ableman, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998, 144 p.

On first appearance, Michael Ableman's book might seem typical of commercially slick offerings from major publishers that soothe the eye regardless of content. However, Ableman's On Good Land is a work that stands on its own as a monument, a testimony to an age when the urban landscape has finally buttressed itself against the proud and shrinking agricultural domain that once marked this country.

Ableman is a Renaissance man. Lecturing circuit aside, he has not shunned the requisite of all Renaissance men-to roll up one's sleeves and immerse oneself in an environment for the sake of enlightenment and education. Other self-purported experts could do well to follow his lead.

On Good Land simply charts that full immersion into Fairview Gardens, a 103-year-old farm near Santa Barbara. Here is where Ableman grows nearly 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables in a pocket surrounded by suburbia. The book jacket alerts the reader that "this is the story of Fairview's struggle for survival, and of the awakening of a community to the riches of a local farm."

Just as journalist-interviewer Studs Terkel attempted to capture the complete picture of any given historical period, so does Ableman pursue his subject. The reader meets inhabitants of Fairview Gardens who have witnessed the bittersweet changes since 1954. There are farmers, laborers, customers and people of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds within this community. Ableman doesn't name Fairview's enemies, instead casting blame only in subtle ways. For sure the various conflicts are real (issues of rezoning and pesticide use) but addressed without a vindictive sense of wrong versus right.

Like his first book, From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World (Harry Abrams 1993), Ableman reveals his philosophy in sumptuous, crystal-clear photographs. There also are random pages of "tips" for expert and layperson alike. Ableman's means of expressing his views can be categorized as gentle and objective, however, he places the onus on the reader to extrapolate any morals here. The overriding principle put forth is "sustainable agriculture," although his presentation of a microcosm speaks for so much more.

On Good Land, hopefully, will not one day be seen as a fleeting portrait of a diminishing agricultural community, but rather as a model that laid the groundwork for uniting the urban and rural landscapes without unjust compromise to either structure. Never pedantic and yet verging on the poetic, On Good Land stands alone as a book that everyone can enjoy regardless of urban or rural background.
---John Lane, Secretary