One great train ride in New York City
In 2015, I went to New York City in an attempt to help the horse and carriage businesses stay afloat in Central Park. Five years later, they are still there, although not without serious challenges but that is not the topic for today. What happened, that I didn’t foresee until I got there, was that I made friends of several amazing New Yorkers on that trip.
Last week I received a note from one of them saying that she had met a person on the train that I really needed to talk to. Jane Phillbrick is an “artist and educator of ecological fashion design.” While you may have had the same first impression of that as I did when I thought, “Surely this will be at odds with my thinking, but I do love those conversations.” However, it turned out to be the exact opposite.
Jane agreed to join me on Rural Route Radio on Jan. 15, 2020, and the longer the conversation went, the more excited I got. She said that wool is the “fiber of the 21st Century” and I was humored because wool was once the fiber of choice but it was like in the 1st Century. But this time around Jane added that it is because grazing sheep benefit soil health. Whoa! What did I just hear?
I suggested that she had no idea how much time I have spent trying to explain to people how beneficial grazing is to the planet. Healthy grasses absorb more nutrients from the atmosphere—can you say carbon dioxide?—and the poop builds more organic matter in the soil so the truth is that animals improve both planet and human health. Jane said, “You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that because the fashion world is starting to clamour for these things.”
She shared so many one liners that are so relevant in today’s world but honestly the one that really sticks with me is this: “It is time to shorten the supply chain on the decision making tree!” Jane was also quick to share that we only have 1 sizeable commercial textile mill left in the United States and it is in South Carolina. Today, only 3% of the clothes sold in the U.S. are made in this country. Jane believes that we are in the midst of a “materials revolution” and with soil health as a driver, I must admit that I am suddenly quite excited about fashion.
I truly believe that is why there has been so much noise from the opposition about grazing animals. The few number of folks who don’t like our ownership and consumption of animals know the science is more clear than ever that the consumption of milk, meat and eggs is vital to good human health. Now even the fashion world has figured out that grazing animals are essential to planet health. All those factors have forced the loud squeaky wheel to really get to squealing in an attempt to drown out the truth.
I contend that if we are going to get the bigger message across, that being that the people closest to the resources need to manage the resources, then we must have discussions with folks we have never talked to before. Actually I am going to circle back to where I started. When I embarked on my journey to NYC in an attempt to help save the horse and carriage sector, I received an unexpected benefit in gaining friends for life in people whose daily lives don’t parallel mine in any way, shape or form to mine but yet we share so much that is similar.
The truth of the matter is that everybody wants a healthier planet and some folks have simply been led astray on which path to take to get there. I am going to place a ton of the blame for that on the fact that we are all very comfortable sitting in the local coffee shop talking to folks we know. Every once in while someone we don’t know walks in to that coffee shop and we have a choice; do we ask the strangers who they are and how they are doing or what brings them to our neck of the woods? Or do we just continue to assume the folks that call urban America home just don’t care about the things we care about?
One of the other movements Jane shared with me is called an “Artist driving for Urban Renewal.” What an awesome idea. Thanks to a stranger who got on a train in New York City with a friend of mine, I now want to be involved in that Urban Renewal because there are a lot of things about food and fiber production I would like to share with them and together we can all work toward enhancing life for all living populations on our earth.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].
