The American farmer, novelist and poet Wendell Berry, died on August 31 2026, aged 92. Berry farmed in Port Royal, in his native Kentucky, for over 40 years. Through his writing and his farming, Berry emphasised the importance of both community and care for the planet, advocating for small-scale agriculture as key for both.
He criticised modern consumer culture, suggesting, in his poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, that instead of buying into the rat race, people should: “Love the world. Work for nothing […] / Say that your main crop is the forests / that you did not plant / that you will not live to harvest.”
