This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family

In This Blessed Earth, Ted Genoways details a year in the life of a small, family-owned and operated Nebraska farm. Through the highs - successful bids on livestock at auction, or successful replacement of machinery parts without waiting for a technician - to the lows - the vagaries of weather and markets - Genoways recounts it all, while also shedding light on current agricultural practices and policy.

The family Genoways follows, the Hammonds, are fifth and sixth generation Nebraskans and farmers, with a decidedly political bent. Rick and his daughter Meghan (who together with her husband Kyle Galloway take on an increasing share of the farm) are referred to rather derisively by others in the community as the "local liberals." They vociferously opposed the Keystone pipeline, going as far as to give over one highly productive field to the construction of a solar powered barn and losing the right to farm other fields that they rented but did not own in a dispute with a neighbor. In these interactions and others, Genoways provides a glimpse of life in rural America.

This Blessed Earth also offers a cleared eyed view of the options facing the young people in towns like Clarks, Nebraska. The options aren't many, and largely consist of the military and the farm,  mostly, even for those who attend college. Genoways provides a similarly unvarnished view of the options facing farmers, which largely consist of candy-colored seeds so coated with various chemicals that the unearthly coloring is intended as a constant reminder that handling them can be hazardous and should be done with heavy gloves. Yum!

This Blessed Earth is good reading for anyone who wants to know a bit more about the origins of so much food in America today, from beef to beans, (Food of a Younger Land, the origins aren't) and should be required reading for those who want to understand more about how society has cleaved apart in recent decades. Genoways writes beautifully and the Hammonds - Rick, Meghan, and Kyle Galloway - make for sympathetic and nuanced protagonists whom the reader can't help but cheer on.

Five stars.