A wonderful article from Modern Farmer on another of our hippie parents. The food system owes so much to those who began to break ground on a new way of life and did so even while the status quo was still firmly in place. If you toddled through the 1980s or later and are one of those who seem to have a disdain for hippies, I wish you could have met the lovely people who made up the first wave in the 1970s. Bravely transforming themselves so that it was clear that they were outside of the comfort zone of middle-class privilege and willing to try anything to build a better future. They used all of it; from old ideas marked as “out of touch” to new and untested ones that brought the stigma of “hippy dippy” and with them, made great things happen.

The level of changes that have happened in the western world since the cultural revolution began in the early 1960s cannot be overstated. Food, housing, relationships, the body politic, environment, activism, education are just some of the areas that gained a new social contract because of these folks.

No doubt Chadwick was more combative than many, but his fierce allegiance to simple principles has held many of his students to the same all of these many years. Well worth the read.

“When people come to this place and see the beauty and magic and robustiousness, I don’t want them to attribute it to potions. The garden comes out of the soul of the gardener and that person’s obedience and reverence for the laws of nature.”

Meet Alan Chadwick, The High Priest of Hippie Horticulture – Modern Farmer.