Quotes from Gary Paul Nabhan

If you send it halfway around the world before it is eaten, an organic food still may be 'good' for the consumer, but is it 'good' for the food system?

play has become too domesticated and regimented while playgrounds themselves have become more and more barren. May today are devoid of vegetation with which to form nests, shelters, wands, dolls, or other playthings...These concerns are best explored in a heterogeneous habitat, where several secret niches are harbored, the kinds that can no longer be found on prefabricated metal and plastic jungle gym.

The sentiment underlying this local possessiveness of distinctive crops, foods, and customs is known in Italy as campanilismo . It is somewhat negatively defined in dictionaries as 'an excessive attraction to one's own homeland or birthplace.' As it is derived from the word for bell, campana , a more literal definition might be 'belief or faith in what lies within earshot of the village bell.

This provincialism certainly has its detractors, but it is not the same as myopia. At its core is a heartfelt appreciation for local resources and traditions. This appreciation has fostered the rich cultural, agricultural, and culinary heritage that has characterized much of rural Italy, as well as many other peasant cultures around the world.

Eating chestnuts is a sign of poverty. Because wheat bread is eaten in the city, chestnut bread is associated with the poor country table.

It is clear that from an early age Vavilov was thinking about plant pathology in an evolutionary, geographic context, rather than assuming that plant diseases randomly crop up in some sort of vacuum.