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What does a genuinely sustainable society look like? Wendell Berry's answer in The Unsettling of America is grounded in a single principle: that land is not a resource to be extracted, but a living entity that sustains us and that we are responsible for sustaining in return.
Berry contrasts two orientations toward the land — the exploiter and the nurturer. The exploiter treats land as a financial asset, measuring its value in present returns and moving on when those returns diminish. The nurturer treats land as a relationship, investing in its long-term health even when that investment is not immediately profitable.
Central to Berry's vision is community — the close-knit, place-based relationships between people and land that industrial agriculture has systematically dismantled. Rebuilding those relationships is not nostalgic. It is practical. A food system built on local knowledge, local investment, and local accountability is more resilient than one built on global supply chains and corporate efficiency.
