The Culture of Agriculture by Wendell Berry

On July 1, 1974 Wendell Berry spoke at the "Agriculture for a Small Planet" symposium in Spokane, which was one of a series of environmental conferences hosted as part of Expo 74. Wendell's speech that day, and his subsequent letter to members of the symposium staff, inspired the Tilth movement in the Pacific Northwest.

Wendell had been invited to represent the "Labor Intensive Micro-Systems Viewpoint" on the panel and he was introduced by the moderator, Bob Stilger. Below is a transcript of Wendell's speech, followed by questions and answers. They were reprinted by permission of the author in the March and April, 1976 issues of "The Tilth Newsletter." It's significant to note that Wendell's talk, written in longhand on yellow legal pad, was the nucleus for his book, The Unsettling of America, published in 1977.