In his second book, Texas cotton farmer Eric Herm strikes a more hopeful note than he did in his first work, “Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth.”

He clearly aims to inspire young people to join him as farmers, to re-populate rural America with new families in sustainable farming operations and new small communities – despite all the forces of mega-agribusiness and federal policies that have long told farmers to, in effect, “get big or get out.”

While still passionately critical of worldwide commercial agriculture’s increasing reliance on genetically modified organisms and glyphosate-based pesticides such as Roundup, Herm returns to his strengths as a former journalist to tell the stories of organic farmers and programs for educating a new generation of farmers who are succeeding in their work.