This summer, I spent three weeks working on an organic vegetable farm in the charming region of Burgundy, France.
It sounds splendid, even like a utopia, but the initial romantic allure of working with my hands and watching something grow quickly turned to stiff determination bordering on disillusionment when I was confronted with the actual work to be done on the farm.
Much more hearty and prolific than any of the organic produce were the weeds, and on most days my job was to stoop down for hours in the hot sun with a small serrated knife and a worn-out glove and extract the stubborn mauvaises herbes from the vegetable fields, working fast enough to be efficient, but carefully enough to avoid destroying the carrots or chicory in the process.
I have always had mixed feelings about the merits of such alternative lifestyle choices. Choosing to eat organic and shop exclusively at stores like Whole Foods or Central Market has always sounded appealing until the grocer finished tallying the bill and I realized how much easier and more economical it would be to settle for conventionally-grown food.
This summer, though, seeing an opportunity to live the organic lifestyle without the organic bill, I ate as the French farmers ate – fresh, organic, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian for three weeks straight. Honestly, I felt and slept better than ever, even if the bed was a bit springy and there was a depressing lack of chocolate after dinner.
Although I have not converted to a strictly organic diet, I now buy organic whenever I have the chance. More than learning to weed around a parsnip patch or dig in the fresh earth for Belle de Fontenay potatoes, I learned why organically grown food costs so much more and why the quality is so superior.
It is not solely due to its trendy status but to the care and passion each farmer puts into his produce, spending hours cutting away weeds by hand when just a few cents worth of herbicide would have done the trick. Eating and growing organic is a philosophical choice that calls us to treat both the earth and our bodies well, despite the inconvenience it brings.
The first time I sold vegetables at the Montbard market with Luc, the owner of the farm, I was intimidated when asked why the prices of our vegetables were so much higher than those sold by other vendors. “Parce que c’est bio, because it’s organic,” was the only reply I could muster. As you can imagine, the disgruntled French woman huffed off, basket in hand.
Towards the end, however, my reply, if less grammatically correct, was always more confident-it’s simply the cost it takes to produce clean, beautiful, chemical-free produce and to harvest it by hand.
Next time you go to the supermarket, before you pass by the organic section, imagine a forlorn but philosophically staunch farmer (or, in this case, art history major) toiling away in the hot sun to bring these vegetables to your table. Perhaps you will reconsider.
Rebecca Quinn is a junior art history, French and Spanish triple major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
