You say you want a revolution? 

Happy belated Earth Day to you – a day that should remind us that not all revolutions are the result of bullets, bombs … or even ballots. Sometimes the most profound social changes take place through the germination of the seeds of an idea or a set of values that gain in cultural currency. And as we used to say in the ’60s, “the revolution will not be televised.” Sometimes it can be found in places as unlikely as an Idaho ranch.

That brings me to the story of Wilsey Ranch, just 25 miles south of Marsing on the road to the Jordan Valley.

Ed and Debby Wilsey run 300 “mother cows” on 11,000 acres of grass pasture. As sixth-generation cattle ranchers, they carry on a long tradition – with one important exception. Five years ago the Wilseys decided to raise cattle the way Ed’s granddad did: exclusively grass-fed, with no hormones or antibiotics. While it may not rise to the level of gravity of the Preamble to the Constitution, the first sentence in the Wilsey Ranch marketing brochure is nevertheless a declaration of independence from decades of industrial food production: Our cows are born on mother’s milk and raised in green grass pastures.

Far from being a radical, Ed Wilsey views himself as a “traditionalist.” After all, he represents only the second generation of ranchers in his family to have been lured away from raising cattle like his grandfather. “Back in granddad’s day, they’d sell big three-year-old steers straight off the grass for slaughter. When the industry went to grain feedlots, we were pretty much forced into going along to remain competitive. That was the way you had to go.”

If you are what you eat, Ed notes, the same is true for cattle. “You don’t just get the cow, you get what they ate – including the omega-6 fats that come with grain-fed beef. These are the kinds of fats that are more closely linked with obesity, diabetes, cancer and immune system disorders such as arthritis and asthma.” Economic imperatives aside, the nutritional implications of the feedlot industry troubled the Wilseys.

And as a growing number of American consumers were similarly troubled by the consequences of consuming red meat infused with hormones and antibiotics, Ed and Debby decided that the time was right to turn back the clock. To sustain his “back to grass” cattle ranch, Ed works part-time in the Alaskan oil fields. It’s a tough life that would be a lot easier for Ed and Debby if they just elected to “go with the flow.”

A couple of weeks ago, Ed (who would hardly be described as a New Age liberal), sent me a link to a blog that says a lot about his stubborn insistence on his chosen way of life. The blog post, which appeared on the Web site Uncensored was entitled “US: Goodbye farmers markets, CSAs, and Roadside Stands” and warned readers of pending bills in Washington (HR 875, HR 814, SR 425, and HR 759) that would, according to Uncensored, “require such a burdensome complexity of rules, inspections, licensing, fees, and penalties for each farmer who wishes to sell locally – a fruit stand, at a farmers market – no one could manage it.”

That, according to the blogger, is precisely the point, since this legislation is posing as “food safety” bills written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc. – all of which, the blogger notes “are associated with the opposite of food safety.”

And why would food industry giants align themselves against local food growers, you ask? The answer gets to the heart of not only why Ed Wilsey sent me the link to the Uncensored blog, but to the reason for his own “revolutionary” zeal: “In the simplest terms,” the blogger points out, “organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning – not in absolute numbers but in a deep and growing shift by the public toward understanding the connection between their food and their health, between good food and true social pleasures, between their own involvement in food and the improvement in their lives in general, between local food and a burgeoning local economy.”

In honor of Earth Day, and the courage of a couple of Idaho ranchers, we need to be mindful of legislative efforts to thwart our efforts to consume local foods from local producers. And it’s not only for our health, but for a more viable economic model for agriculture; we need a revolution in how our food gets to our tables.

When author Michael Pollan, author the bestselling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, can sell out a venue like Boise’s Egyptian Theatre to talk about the repercussions of our food choices on the future of the world, it’s pretty clear that more than a few of us are waking up to a revolution that may very well be just as profound as the development of non-fossil fuel energy sources: the fuel sources of our very bodies and souls.

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