Planting With Purpose

"""Growing and serving local food is perfectly rational – unless one limit one’s definition to economic rationality. Ellingson shows how moral and ethical rationality underpins the producers’ commitment to sustainability and seasonality, more broadly, to the earth itself and the creatures therein. While the influence of values on economic action goes back to Weber, Ellingson’s research on a contemporary manifestation dramatizes how structures of meaning can join the local with the planetary."" * Wendy Griswold, author of American Guides: The Federal Writers’ Project and the Casting of American Culture * ""Ellingson’s Planting with Purpose describes how individuals stay motivated to participate in New York’s local food markets during difficult financial times. The book explains how values connected to “a good life” shape participation in markets with high levels of risk and uncertainty. Planting with Purpose describes motivations for actions that do not make sense when looked at from a purely economic point of view. This is a great book showing the utility of a sociological perspective that challenges mainstream thinking about the economy. It points us towards a framework where culture and morality are central in helping us re-imagine sustainability in markets."" * Keith R. Brown, author of Buying into Fair Trade: Culture, Morality and Consumption * ""Farm-to-table eating and locavore diets are among the most popular food trends, but what exactly does ""eating local"" mean to those who produce the food? In Planting with Purpose, Stephen Ellingson explores these questions via the farmers who commit to small-scale and community-based food production models, detailing the stories they tell about what they do and why they do it. In clear and compelling prose, Ellingson reveals the ethical codes and ideals of the local food movement, how they embody a critique of industrialized food systems, and the communities of eaters and growers that emerge from that moral ground."" * Christopher R. Henke, author of Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California * ""In Planting with Purpose, Ellingson confirms that food is more than a capitalist commodity. Drawing from conversations with local food actors, the book masterfully uncovers the meaning and morals undergirding their long days of hard work producing high-quality food. Ellingson's empathetic storytelling allows producers’ voices to resonate throughout the pages, shedding light on their commitment to a sustainable life filled with rich connections to people and the earth. By emphasizing the morals anchoring local food projects, this book encourages us to think beyond ethical consumption at the grocery check-out -- and better appreciate the moral commitments of food producers. This book is an essential and timely contribution for scholars, students, and anyone interested in the sociology of food, culture and morality."" * Josée Johnston, co-author of Food and Femininity *"