【走，去做个农民】 一个农民走在田埂上

　　你也许会问我为什么做农民？我有很多答案等着你。但最真实的原因也是最难以启齿的，因为我什么都不在行。不过，栖息在东山农场安静的一隅，日出而作，日落而息，我在耕种中收获了意外的自信和欣喜。也许你还在繁华的城市中疲于奔波，也许你厌倦了现在喧嚣的生活，也许你像我一样，觉得自己什么都不在行，那么不妨换个方式过日子——去做个农民吧。

　　Sometimes people ask me why I farm. I tell them different things. To some I say that, biologically, we are meant to be farmers. “We’ve been farming for thousands of years. Why stop now?” I say.

　　To others (seeing an opportunity to shorten or end the conversation as quickly as possible), I say that I farm because I like good food. “Can’t argue with that1),” they say, thankfully.

　　To a third group of people, usually those most interested in farming, I explain that when I was younger ……此处隐藏641个字…… 0) to drink. I got sick almost immediately. He told me I had an HFCS allergy11) and “probably irritable12) bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease13)” or something. It seemed that most of the food I was encouraged to eat was poison to my body. I was frustrated by my stomach and, though I didn’t realize it then, by the food system I was trapped in.

　　Being sick showed me that there’s a lot wrong with the way things are set up and maybe, I thought, if we do things differently, there’s a chance we could get it right. I discovered subculture14). I learned that there are alternative ways to eat, which, it turns out, is how most people in history have eaten. Sometimes I wished I’d been born 100 years earlier.