My buddy Josh Chittum’s piece in Vox on communal living in Missouri
Sandhill Farm's Greenhouse-Josh Chittum
My friend Josh is a fellow Journalism student at MU. He is graduating in May with me and has done some great pieces on agriculture and the environment. Here is one that he sent me, which was published in Vox Magazine: Living in community
Are we competitors, he and I? In the spirit of community I dont think so: if they’ll read yours, they’ll read mine. It’d be unlikely that we would read Tom Wolfe it weren’t for Gay Talese or Thoreau if it weren’t for Emmerson.
I think that in many respects farming, and farming communities in general, function based on a similar kind of competition. Granted, there are examples of cut-throat business practices, but people treat each other better in the country based on the plain fact that neighbors today will mostly be neighbors tomorrow and the year after next. The folks up the road might keep to themselves, but if my barn is burning, they’d be the first to help. We’d do likewise for them.
