Barbara Kingsolver, Author

Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, chronicles her family’s year-long experience living off food grown only on their own land or raised by farmers in their southwestern Virginia community. The author of celebrated works of fiction including The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver, along with her family, is a member and supporter of American Farmland Trust. 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recounts her family’s days filled not only with the tasks of planting, weeding and harvesting, but also with the pleasures of meals cultivated by their own hands: from the first fresh asparagus patch of spring to the summer days-of-plenty when a surfeit of tomatoes and zucchini rains from their garden.

The family’s “experiment” of eating only local foods eventually becomes their way of life. Kingsolver calls the story “about finding a certain path home.” Co-written by her husband, biologist Steven Hopp, and daughter, Camille, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle encourages readers to question the environmental costs of their food choices. In an interview with AFT, Kingsolver talks about the importance of supporting local farmers and making sound food choices.

Have you been surprised by the success of your book? It’s on the bestseller lists, and its messages about the importance of local farms and food seem to really be resonating with people.

I’ve been absolutely astonished. It’s such a wonderful reassurance to me that Americans seem to care about where their food comes from. Every time I write a new book, I begin with the feeling that I am going to stretch my readers and their experience; I always set out to go somewhere new. In this case, the audience is not just the readers of my fiction, but the book is reaching other categories of readers. I’m hearing from people in the country and in cities all saying the same thing: I have been moved to eat in a different way. It’s so positive.

In the past decade, farmers’ markets have grown in popularity. Do you think people are starting to catch on to the nutritional, environmental and taste benefits of local food?

At the time I proposed this book to my publisher three and a half years ago, I did not see a trend coming. I never guess that I am going to be trendy [laughs]. There were people like Alice Waters and famous restaurants like Chez Panisse and the White Dog Café that were famous for their focus on local foods. But now, almost anywhere you go, you find awareness of the local food economy and a celebration of it—that’s what’s new and how widespread it is. With farmers’ markets there has definitely been a groundswell. It’s very exciting for organizations like AFT and others that have been doing this work for so many years.

Many people don’t have the ability to grow their own food, as your family did. To have the option of eating locally, they must have farms near their communities. Do you think that is one of the most important reasons for protecting farms and farmland?

Of course. And that option to have local food will continue to exist and expand only as we continue to take advantage of it. It’s a circle. I often hear the argument that not everyone can afford local food. That’s why those of us who can exercise these options to eat local have a moral obligation to do so, because by strengthening local food systems we help to make local food more available to everyone. We have a habit as Americans of being food cheapskates. We attempt to economize on our food in ways we don’t economize in other areas of our lives that are less important to our health and communities. It’s about reordering our priorities and helping to strengthen our local food economies for so many reasons: to keep green spaces around our communities, to keep that money in our school districts. The great thing about the food movement is that it involves simple solutions. Just look closer to home. Look at labels and try to find foods that come from your region.

Federal farm policy has a lot to do with people’s food choices. The 2007 Farm Bill is being debated right now. What types of changes would you like to see to help make more nutritious food available to everyone?

Everyplace I go, I talk about the farm bill. For the first time in recent history, people are realizing that the farm bill is not some obscure piece of legislation; it’s about what their kids will eat in school, or why organic foods cost more than fast foods. By rewriting our farm policy, we can get ourselves back to where we should be and we can preserve our farmland. I would like to see more of my tax dollars go to support sustainable agriculture and the production of healthy foods, and less to support commodity crops that will become junk food.

This issue contains a feature about farm-to-school programs that connect children to farms and help bring local produce into schools. Why do you think it’s so important to educate children early on about food choices?

In schools, we consider the history of the Roman Empire more important than the production of a loaf of bread from field to table. Which of those two things will matter more in the long run? We’ve raised a generation of kids who haven’t a clue where their food comes from. That’s not a wise thing. I would like for my kids to have the education and skills to make food in the normal way: the way humans have lived for most of our history. We do have choices now. We can begin eating in a different way with good results, or we can put it off until we have poor choices left, with our farmland gone and poor options for feeding ourselves.  

The food system, nationally and globally, is so large. What kind of difference can the average person make?

Every local food scene is different and unique to the region. What people can do is attend more closely to the sources of their food. That might mean choosing apples from your state rather than from New Zealand. Or concentrating on eating foods that are more environmentally sound in their production. For other people it may involve participation, such as joining a CSA farm. Food is the one consumer choice we have to make every day. When it comes to food, whether you’re rich or poor, urban or rural, you have to buy food. Shifting the focus of our food dollars into our local communities will make a difference. It will only happen one consumer at a time.    

We’re proud to have you as a member of AFT. Why did you decide to support us?

I grew up in a farming community. I have always understood the importance of farmland, farmers and farm communities. It has continued to amaze me that most people don’t think about the person who grew their food. The disappearance of farm culture is very important to me. For this reason, AFT is an organization I clearly support. I appreciate the work you all do.