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,. , 000-'1CJ2 Robert Rodale at The Land, summer 1987. other states by diversifying their agricultural produc, tion. In this era of admiration for the CEO and MBA, few businessmen are what Bob was, an entrepreneur who applied his imagination in the realm of social im, provement. Not everything Bob tried worked. Even his most favorite term, "regenerative" which with body, soul and money he promoted as superior to "sustain- able," failed. Regenerative didn't roll around the mouth quite right and besides, sustainable was f"Irmly in the culture when Bob trotted out regenerative. He called once and lobbied me hard to start using the term, feeling that it captured more of the totality of what we were all striving for than sustainable, but in the end, I noticed, even Bob quit using the term. He seemed undaunted, nevertheless, and kept on gener- ating new ideas. Though I was shocked and profoundly sad, dened to learn he had been killed, I was not shocked to learn where. He was trying to get a magazine, Novii Fermer (The New Farmer) launched in the Soviet Union. Had someone told me his days on earth had ended while inspecting washtub.sized cabbages being grown by a paraplegic 200 miles northeast of Anchorage reachable only by snowmobile or dog sled, I would not have been surprised. That was the nature of his loopyness. Bob was forever telling me and others that I was too negative. I would tell him that he courted the rich and powerful too much and that he aban- doned too many good research projects at the Rodale Research Farm, projects that needed to be carried out ten years and more. I argued that you don't begin with either the government or the bastards or the bullies. He thought we should sit down with the power brokers. In fact, the last argument had Bob and Amory Lovins on the same side making the case for what I considered then, and still do, an absolutely absurd proposal. They thought that several of us should sit down with the major agrichemicaI company heads in order to work out some kind of compromise for the 1990 Farm Bill. As I remember the argument, I said that the agrichemicaI companies had capital assets that they wanted to amortize and could do so only by selling chemicals. They would just co'opt us, I felt. Amory and Bob insisted that the companies' material capital would depreciate and that their main assets were people with information that could help farmers. It was a stand,off. But let's look at what that spirit, that attitude, . has accomplished. Bob put his company's money where his mouth was and spent a considerable amount, I am told, to lobby for LISA (low input sustainable agriculture). LISA passed, and 4.5 million dollars per year has united scientists and farmers in a research effort that I could not have imagined would ever be likely. That tiny percentage of the USDA budget has altered consciousness. Finally, this leads me to what, in my view, is Robert Rodale's real legacy. He stood more or less alone while most of the rest of us carped about "fail- ure of culture," "power structures," and "capitalism," all the while wringing our hands and developing elegant language against the likes of the Reagan and Bush administrations. Our current major deflciency, in my view, is that most of us in the sustainability camp don't really see ourselves putting our ideas into practice or influencing the political and economic machinery. Bob did! And because he did, change has come. In fact, if through some sort of magic the government and the economic system should ever be turned over to our side, we would not know what to do, and near chaos would result. Were that magic to happen, and if Bob were still around, he would be the flrst one I would call; and soon thereafter, I suppose, the first one I would argue with and ultimately oppose on major issues. Meanwhile, he would quietly and cheerfully get a little something done. ~ ~ , , " , , ~.' .~ / ~ ~.. b ;~ ~~ ~ ~ ,. '. ~ :'\ if ~~ ;;~ ~y i:: :J:': {'.: .~ Harry Caudill 1922-1990 "I urge all who will listen to do as my wife and I have done. Find some jaded land and buy it.. .Plant it in trees and thin the stands as they grow or, if circumstances allow, turn it into a clover-rich meadow. Then watch the wild things discover it and make it their nesting and burrowing ground. In transforming itselffrom aridity to abundance it will provide a strong new bond between an Ameri, can family and the vast rich continent their ances- tors so precipitously cleared. " from "The Land as Therapy," reprinted with Hsrry Csudill's permis8ion in lAnd Report # 37. ~:~ ~ .(~ ~.;. I.; ,~~ "'; ,~;l &~ " j)~ :~ ;i ~ ~:f.~ ~) ~{ :.v. 28