Daphne - Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing

This book is written to persons of imagination and dedicated to Ross, Arlen, and Emet

Im neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a dyed-in-the-wool possibilist! By this, I mean with an eco-mind, we see that everythings connected and change is the only constant.

Frances Moore Lapp, How to Think Like an Ecosystem,
Yes Magazine, April 10, 2012

PORT ROYAL , Kentucky, is a town so tiny that even the GPS in my rental car seemed unaware of its existence, since it kept offering me alternative locations with port or royal somewhere in their name. I quickly gave up on technology and dug around in the glove compartment for an old-school, paper map. And there it was, a tiny dot not far from the Indiana border, about sixty miles south of the Cincinnati airport. Leaving the rental lot, I headed along the interstate, passing Big Bone Lick State Park, the Kentucky Speedway, and countless Days Inns. It was not yet 1:30 P.M. local time, but my day had started ten hours earlier and three time zones away in Berkeley. I couldnt help thinking that this was a pretty elaborate pilgrimage for what was likely to be a short conversation. Truth be told, I wasnt even sure what wed talk about, but even so, I was excited and pushed down on the pedal a little harder.

I found my exit and turned onto a shady two-laner that snaked along, perfectly in sync with its neighbor, the Kentucky River. Although summer was almost over, the rolling pastures on either side remained an emerald greena jarring sight after the muted patchwork of tans that Id just flown over in Northern California. I spotted a couple of sagging, tin-roofed barns that I guessed must be defunct tobacco drying sheds and then, about a mile later, two churches, a farm supply store, and a cluster of weathered wooden houses, their wide front porches furnished with rocking chairs. Was this Port Royal? I couldnt be certain, because there was no sign. I bumped over train tracks, took a few more bends, and finally pulled over near a vegetable patch and next to the mailbox of Lanes Landing Farm.

Several months earlier Id written a letter on cream-colored paper that surely must have landed in this very same box. Id just finished reading The Unsettling of America, a book by writer, activist, and sixth-generation Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry. I left one particular chapter, The Body and the Earth, so riddled with notes and stars that I could barely read the original text. There were two sentences that I found especially inspiring:

While we live our bodies are moving particles of the earth, joined inextricably both to the soil and to the bodies of other living creatures. It is hardly surprising, then, that there should be some profound resemblances between our treatment of our bodies and our treatment of the earth.

This was exactly what I was looking for! A farmer who had given considerable thought to the links between agriculture and human health. I wrote to Mr. Berry immediately, introducing myself and asking if I might pay him a visit. To my delight, a week later he called me, an overture that I now understand to have been singularly generous, given that he handwrites everything and avoids even the most basic technologies. He explained that he receives many requests and has to be selective about visitors, but a doctor interested in having a conversation about medicine and farming could not be denied. So we set a date, and Wendell Berry told me to come at 2:00 P.M ., after midday chores. I should have left it at that, but so great was my excitement that I offered to come earlier and help out. His first response was silence, and then he said, in the politest of Kentucky drawls:

Maam.

No more was needed, as the message was clear: He would not dream of offering to help me do my job as a doctor. Why in the world should I presume that I could help him be a farmer? On my end, I winced with embarrassment and assured him I would not arrive a minute too early. Now here I was, at 2:01 P.M ., climbing the steps to the shaded veranda.

Just then, Wendell Berry emerged from behind the screen door. From where I stood, he appeared to be a very tall man, and he was holding a copy of my first book.

Dr. Miller? he asked. And silly as I sounded, I could not help but answer, Yes, and Wendell Berry, I presume? We both laughed.

You doctors who kicked over the traces interest me a lot, he said as he settled into one of the white rattan rockers on the porch and invited me to occupy the other. There are a lot of doctors who are suffering pretty badly, and it is because of that collision of technology with flesh.

In that instant I understood that Wendell Berry knew, better than I, why I was there.

AS WENDELL Berry gently reminded me, I am not a farmer.

In fact, when I visited Lanes Landing Farm, I would have been hard-pressed to tell you the difference between the humus in the soil and the hummus that goes with pita bread. I certainly could not have defined the term tilth. I had no idea that chickens prefer to drink cold water, that a dibbler and a squeeze chute are pieces of farm equipment, or that carrots do best when theyre grown after beans. But things have changed. I now understand that learning from farmers and experiencing agrarian life can make me a better doctor. Ive also discovered how farming, at its best, can offer a bounty of valuable secrets for transforming our personal health and the practice of medicine.

If you cant see the connection, dont worryyoure not alone. My medical colleagues wonder why Ive substituted farm time for the more traditional continuing medical education conferences. And when I tell friends and patients that Ive been writing a book exploring the links between farming and medicine, their typical response is a polite nod.

People ask if Im working on a doctors version of Silent Spring, Rachel Carsons game-changing book about the devastating effects of pesticides. They bring up their favorite farm-related health concern, such as the connection between antibiotic use in animals and drug-resistant infections in humans, the unknown health effects of eating GMO (genetically modified organism) foods, or the contamination of our drinking water by fertilizers and pesticides. Others simply say, Ah, yes, you mean the link between healthy food and healthy people? To these solicitous questioners I explain that while the book addresses all these topics, no single one of them is the main focus. Rather, Farmacology explores what the science and art of sustainable agriculture can teach us about health and healing.

My quest has led me in many directions. The journey started at a biodynamic farm in the state of Washington, where I came to understand the profound connection between healthy soil and a healthy body. Next, I traveled to a ranch in the Ozarks, where a crusty Missourians cattle-raising techniques shed light on the way to raise healthy children. Two chicken farms in Arkansas held lessons about one of the most powerful forces that affect us: stress. The pest management approach used by a winery in California offered a compelling new way to understand and treat cancer. A community garden in the Bronx showed me that food grown in the inner city offers health benefits far beyond the nutrient value of the produce itself. And finally, a visit to an aromatic herb farmer helped me unlock the secrets to healthy aging and sustainable beauty. Each of these stories, set on a different type of farm and in a different part of the country, offers a new paradigm for healing and farm-to-body lessons that hold immense value in everyday life.