We’ve got one more year to save the first decade of the 21st century from what has so far been a dismal record.

Ten years ago, we were all worried that our computers would crash over a couple of zeros. Since then, we’ve had two wars, an obesity epidemic, citizens in panic over germs and terrorists, the burst of a housing bubble and the crash of a consumption-driven economy, a banking system on a rampage and, most recently, feeble efforts to reform the health care system or agree on how to address global climate change.

The big change of the decade is that we can now all chatter about these things, mindlessly and endlessly, using all kinds of modern communications technology.

I plan to start this new year with a wish and a resolution.

My wish is that we will lay the groundwork for the truly transformational changes that we all know we need to make but are, currently, not making as we mostly mill around waiting for leadership.

My resolution is to do more on the ground to make the wish come true.

We need to quit talking about green jobs and start hiring people to manufacture and install windmills and solar panels on our own properties.

We need to take steps to transform cherry pits and old apple trees into fuel. We need to capture green energy from stuff we grow that now goes to waste.

We have to give serious attention to sustainable agriculture and its role in a sustainable economic and social system for the future. Food people need to be professionals dedicated to the welfare of their customers.

Of course, as a member of the media, I feel a responsibility to give people the kind of information they can use to make meaningful and transformational change.

I am a serious person, not given to idle chatter, and the last decade has been frustrating because the noise level has risen to a roar. It has been a decade where every person is a reporter but the editors have been off the job. We need clean information, just as we need clean air and clean water.

We can’t monitor every tweet from every twitterer, every writing on the Facebook wall. We don’t need our e-mails full of irrelevant messages.

My mission, it would seem, is to find ways to tame this rising tide of “information,” to find the messages within the noise.

Jack Brown Produce
John Schaefer

Events Calendar

Jan. 3-5, 2010
Wisconsin Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Conference
Chula Vista Resort, Wisconsin Dells, Wis.
Phone: 920-478-3852
Web Site: www.waga.org

Jan. 4-5, 2010
Kentucky Fruit and Vegetable Conference and Trade Show
Embassy Suites Hotel, Lexington, Ky.
Contact: John Strang
Phone: 859-257-5685

Jan. 6-8, 2010
Illinois Specialty Crop, Agritourism and Organic Conference
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Springfield, Ill.
Contact: Diane Handley
Phone: 309-557-2107
Email: handley@ilfb.org

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