Note: This is a sample summary written by a student who has given permission for it to be
shared. Occasionall I have inserted some comments, which are in blue and in brackets.
Overall, this is a very strong summary: It’s well and clearly organized, it covers Berry’s main
points, and it contains a good combination of paraphrase, quotation and summary.
However, I think some of the sentences could be tightened up and the closing paragraph
shortened; then maybe there would be more words available for more of Berry’s detail and
passion.
What Do We Know about Our Food?
The food industry is no longer the industry we knew decades ago. Wendell Berry, in the
“Farming” section of his book Bringing it to the Table, talks about the damage today’s food
industry has done to nature and gives his opinion on what the remedies might be. According to
Berry, the food industry now uses the standard of productivity instead of the standard of nature
and this is slowly destroying our land.
The farms we know today are different from what Berry saw 40 years ago (Berry 15).
Through technology, we now know ways to be more productive, and productivity has become
our main focus. Just as Berry says, “We have bought unconditionally the economists’ line that
competition and innovation would solve all problems, and that we would finally accomplish a
technological end-run around biological reality and the human condition” (16). With this, nature
is suffering, farming culture is diminishing, and our food quality is degrading. This productivityfocused mindset had also led our food production to an unnecessary surplus (12) that leads to
another problem in the health and sustainability of our food industry.
Berry also talks about how our industrial agricultural system is a waste of energy. We
shifted from man and horsepower to machines and tractors that consume petroleum. We are
wasting the energy of our farmers, animal energy, soil health and the free energy that nature has
provided for us such as the solar energy and many others (63-64). We have been consuming so
much energy to reduce the cost and overcome the problem of productivity. Turns out, our ways
of abusing the nature coss us more, and we are running out of the fossil fuel which we have been
depending on. We have been concentrating on the short-term economy and “accumulate large
‘externalized’ costs, which [we] charge to the future—that is, to the world and to everybody’s
grandchildren” (22). Soil erosion, air and water pollution, and diseases spread from animal waste
keep on increasing. The earth keeps on being damaged, and eventually it will not be able to
produce for future generations.
Today, not many traditional family farms are left. Many of those farms went out of
business, ran out of labor, and were replaced by factory farms. Tractors have replaced animal
forces, and humans no longer have to master farming skills to farm. With husbandry practices
being “reduced to science”(88), farming has been “oversimplified”(70) and “mechanized”(85).
Farms are now judged merely on efficiency and productivity. The only way to return to the old
practice of farming is by “unsimplifying what is in reality an extremely complex subject”(91). In
other words, we need to return to the reality of farming, which would mean more work for
farmers.
The acts of exploiting farms and making farming easier have changed the whole
agricultural industry, with nature being at stake. Berry proposes some solutions for this
agriculture quality issue. According to Berry, “You have got to farm with both plants and
animals in as great a diversity as possible, you have got to conserve fertility, recycle wastes, keep
the ground covered, and so on” (70). This way, there is hope for our farms to be recovered.
[In this last paragraph, the writer brings in her own thoughts in response to Berry.] In my
opinion, our generation tends to see things based on the convenience and everything is measured
by our output. [The previous sentence is too wordy.] Today, we no longer have time to care
about preserving the land. For now, we do not need to worry about having food shortage. But
will our grandchildren taste the same abundance that we do now? Will our land be able to sustain
itself without us humans caring for it? Wendell Berry brings a new perspective of our
agricultural options. As customers, we can affect the food demand that the industry cannot
ignore. If we know enough to make better choices, we can stop the damage that we have been
doing to our nature.
Works Cited
Berry, Wendell. Bringing It To The Table: On Farming and Food. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2009.
Nook file. [Note that the works cited entry uses a hanging indent, so that the author’s
name sticks out on the left. In a paper citing several sources, I would ask you to follow
MLA form by making a separate works cited page. However, since we are using just one
source, feel free to save paper by including your works cited on the same page as your
summary. Remember, you’ll find links for MLA format and requirements under “Useful
Links” on our course homepage.]