FOREWORD

y first meeting with Charles and Perrine Herv-Gruyer a

few years ago seemed more like a reunion with old
friends than an initial encounter. Our shared passion for
feeding the world with elegantly simple systems based on a profound intellectual reverence for the soil was evident from the first moment.
Their farm brought to mind a quote I had read from Amory Lovins, the
energy guru. The writer of the article had trouble understanding Lovinss
confident answers to her questions. She seemed to expect long and complicated replies with him bemoaning the great difficulty and potential
insolubility of the problems. When she expressed this concern, his simple
reply was I dont do problems; I do solutions. Charles and Perrines farm
demonstrates that reply on every square inch. They do solutions. As a
result, La Ferme du Bec Hellouin is the finest example I have seen of truly
commercial permaculture/market gardening and goes far beyond the norm
with the inclusion of fruit and nut trees. It is like a United Nations of all the
best sustainable farming ideas.
Farmers like Charles and Perrine are among the beacons of light, autonomous independent examples of human beings who are not cogs in the
industrial machine and are thereby able to experience the self-fulfillment of
defining their own goal and working towards it. Their work allows the rest
of the world to see that there is another life, there is another way. Located
in Frances Normandy region, La Ferme du Bec Hellouin has achieved
widespread recognition. For their efforts to regenerate soil and land
which absorbs carbonand to farm without the aid of fossil fuels, Charles
and Perrine have been honored as Climate Heroes by the European group
of that name. They were also recently featured in the French documentary,
Demain, which had its debut at the COP21 conference in Paris. Demain
celebrates the individuals who are pursuing solutions for the future.
La Ferme du Bec Hellouin is in the tradition of the farms supported by
the Slow Food movement. Slow Food works to prevent the disappearance

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Miraculous Abundance
of traditional food products and the small farms that produce them. It is a
noble effort. However, sometimes even those who should understand what
is involved seem to miss the point. Slow Food is often criticized as elitist.
But that criticism is totally blind to the real issue. It is not important whether
you or I or anyone else in the United States ever gets to eat some specific
artisanal food. Whats important is that it exists, that there is one small
corner of the planet still unconquered by Kraft or Nabisco or Monsanto,
one little rural holdout inhabited by a few hardworking people who still
know what quality is and have a passion for producing it. But, thankfully,
La Bec Hellouin is not alone. All small farmers are that last unconquered
hamlet. We are the ones who understand that from our farms will come the
many new cheeses or tastier vegetables or unique grain products of the new
world food order. These are the products of our soils.
When soil is used to produce at its full potential, the soil on our own
farms can provide everything we need through efficient systems that take
advantage of the synergy inherent in all the diverse pieces of the biology of
the natural world. A fertile soil has the power to make the small farm ever
more independent of purchased inputs and, thus, ever more independent of
the corporate/industrial world. But the obvious question is this: if these
systems work so well now and were so clear to our predecessors, why have
they been ignored? Why have the benefits of increased soil organic matter
and composting and crop rotation and mixed farming not been taught to
farmers? Thats probably because those superior production techniques
cant be cheaply copied by industrial methods. Thus they are anathema to a
bigger-is-better world. But we know differently. In the eyes of those of us
who understand the benefits of producing food at the family-farm scale,
this is the way farms should be run and the way life should be.
Fortunately for the planet, the movement toward real food, toward
local food, toward food produced with care by farmers who care is the wave
of the future. And it cant be stopped as long as we understand our advantages in working with the natural forces of the earth. Rediscovering the
immutable value of the small farm is the first step toward a new agriculture
for the 21st century and, possibly, a new world of the 21st century. The social
and cultural influence of the productive family farm, celebrated for centuries by agrarian philosophers, can once again extend from the fertile soil
under the farmers feet far out beyond the boundaries of the farm itself.

Foreword
When I was first starting out many years ago, my skills and my agricultural philosophy were enormously influenced by the many competent
French vegetable growers I was fortunate to visit. They were still connected
to the age-old rhythms of the earth and were eager to share their knowledge. Miraculous Abundance continues that long tradition and will teach you
as I was taught. Is this important work? I cant think of anything more so.
Eliot Coleman

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