As a culture, we seem to need to make our own mark in our own time, even if it's the wrong mark. Even if the picture is without flaws, the next generation feels the need to add their own signature, while the people sounding the alarm are considered crazy and foolish." - Frasier, The Orchard

I was not quite sure what to expect when I ventured into what I now believe to be a brilliant memoir. Originally I picked this book because I am someone who is absolutely fascinated by our food system. I want to understand it at a deeper level and on the surface, the reviews promised just that. The Orchard did not disappoint.

Even if it is not the author's main intention, she teaches a valuable lesson about food production through her experience. She touches not just on the food itself but on the growers. The best part, the lesson isn't preachy. She paints a balanced, very real picture about the dangers of pesticides, while at the same time remaining empathetic to conventional the farmers who are producing the vast majority of our food in this country.

The Orchard is as riveting as a novel. The book begins in the 70's and finds Frasier struggling with life in general. Abused by her mother, left by her father she finds herself sleeping in her uncle's bar. A bar best summed up by the moss growing in the toilet. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she is swept away to a place that will change her forever, The Orchard.

This memoir deals with love, abuse, life, death and a fight ultimately a fight against chemicals. It is simply enchanting. 

Frasier tackles the issues of pesticides and their prevalence in farming in a way that touches you to the core. Understanding the use of pesticides from an conventional grower's perspective is easy. I've heard it many times from farmers myself. The arguments that it is the only way to do it or pesticides are safe are the most common. And I am sure it all started innocently enough - let's try this chemical to protect crops. I am not sure anyone really knew or understood the dangers then. The issue today is - we do now. The evidence is clear, an increase in food allergies in kids, cancer rates in farmers and those around conventional agriculture, harm in the wildlife who live off the streams where pesticides run into. I think Frasier would agree, it is time to take the organic movement seriously.

Anne Frasier might not have intended to write a pro-organic book but she did and I thank her for sticking to her belief that it was a book important enough to write.