
The Truffula Tree.
It has come to my attention that not everyone is familiar with the term Truffula…which should not at all be surprising but to a person who is mildly obsessed with them, I have to admit I didn’t realize that practically no one knows.
If you have never read the book The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, or if it has been awhile since you last flipped through its pages, please take to time to read it. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the best books of all time. Somehow, the genius that is Dr. Seuss, is able to tell the story of how the industrial movement and capitalism has turned a blind eye to the depletion of our natural resources and polluting the Earth in the name of mass production. And he tells the story, not as a doomsday story, but a story of hope…that one person can make a difference. He also tells it in a way that is accessible to children, and on top of it all, he rhymes!
The story goes that a young man wants to make millions on his invention of a Thneed. A Thneed is made from the tufts of the truffula tree. Thneeds become extremely popular and in order to maximize profits, the young man increases efficiency and ramps up production by cutting down truffula trees instead of harvesting the tufts. He will not yield to the caution of The Lorax who “speaks for the trees for the trees have no tongues.” He builds a huge factory and is blinded by his greed until one day when the very last truffula tree is cut down and he is left with nothing but an empty factory with nothing to produce.
It’s an incredible story, and in farming in a healthy and sustainable way, we are trying to fight the tide of industrial agriculture which doesn’t think about the consequences of their methods until it is too late. We are trying to make a living off the land without destroying it for future generations. And it still seems unbelievable that people and corporations are so short sighted that they won’t look past immediate profits to see that the way we conduct our economy matters not only for the environment but also the well being of their own businesses. There is no such thing as a stable and profitable business without being a “green business” because some day, all others will cease to exist when resources dry up and there is nothing left to manufacture. We are seeking to help create a model that is not only environmentally conscientious but also helps perpetuate and sustain our local economy. Basically we are not in this because we are hippy tree-huggers, it just plain makes sense for us, our community, and as a business. We make the decisions we make to ensure that we will still be productive and prosperous in the future, with the added side benefit that our children and grandchildren will be, too. And who doesn’t want that?