A Tribute to Wendell Berry (1934–2026)

Down In The Valley Where The Green Grass Grows.

By Hank Graddy

So many people have written so eloquently about the gifts they have received from Wendell Berry during his lifetime. I want to join that group even if I am less eloquent.

The Kentucky Conservation Committee tribute to Wendell noted that Wendell Berry and his bother, John Berry, Jr., were on a panel at the University of Kentucky in 1975 where they called for the formation of a new organization to lobby for the environment. I was a witness to that call to action, and I was part of the group that listened and then formed the Kentucky Conservation Committee.

I joined the Sierra Club in 1975, when Wendell was serving as the Chair of the Cumberland (Ky) Chapter. The 1975 Cumberland Chapter handbook opened with this quote:

Wendell Berry gave so much to so many grateful people. I want to focus on his 15 year gift to the Sierra Club and many fellow Kentuckians with his annual participation in the Healthy Foods, Local Farm conferences, sometimes referred to as the "Aloma Conference" based upon Aloma Dew's persistence. From 2000 through 2014, Wendell Berry attended and spoke at all of them. Importantly, because the conference planners could count on Wendell's participation, they (we) could the best advocates from across the country.

Our speakers included Barabara Kingsolver, Eric Schlosser, Alice Waters, Wes Jackson, Daniel Imhoff, Nicolette Hahn Niman, Jonathan Miller, Anne Lappe, Jim Embry, Colin Beaver, Brother Dave Andrews, Kyle Kramer, a Bill McKibben video, Goldman Prize winner Lynn Henning, Nancy Stoner, Barton Seaver, Will Harris, and many others.

One year, Wendell introduced the 50 Year Farm Bill. Another year, Randy Strobo led a panel on CAFOs – For Better or Worse with Tom FitzGerald, Don Stull, Karen Husson and Hank Graddy.

In 2006, Barabara Kingsolver attended with her daughter Lily, and they read from a book not yet published about Lily's chickens. The issue was whether Lily could make enough money from selling eggs to buy a horse. After much analysis, Lily finally decided that she would need some meat chickens. She announced, "Eggs and meat. We will only kill the mean ones."

You can find this passage on page 95 of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven Hopp and Camille Kingsolver.

Wendell Berry's gifts to us included inspired instruction, serious criticism and reasons for hope without much optimism. But they also included gentle good humor. This happened many times including his closing remarks at the end of the 2014 Healthy Foods, Local Farms conference when he read, "Down In The Valley Where The Green Grass Grows." This story is about the courtship of Big Ellis for Annie May, in 1930. Big Ellis, or "Big" wears pants without undergarments or suspenders. His strategy to win the heart of Annie May is to drive his sled with his new mules by her house in hopes that he will impress her. This goes as planned until the mules get spooked. Big's passenger – the narrator – grabs Big's pants to keep from falling off the sled and pulls them down while Big is holding the reins trying to control his mules as they pass Annie May who is waving and smiling. Later, Big finds the words to propose marriage. It appears Big's strategy worked.

Most of us, including me, were scratching our heads wondering what this had to do with Healthy Food, Local Farms. Wendell looked down and said in a very low voice, "Well, that ought to do it."

If you google, "Wendell Berry, Down In the Valley Where The Green Grass Grows," you can watch a 30 minute facebook speech on August 22, 2019, where Wendell gives the Cropp Cooperative fifteen minutes of instruction, concluding with hope but not optimism, and then he reads this story for that audience, and you can hear Annie May's response.

Wendell wrote an article titled "For Love of the Land" for Sierra Magazine, published in the May/June 2002 edition, with the following:

"My sorrow in having been for so long on two losing sides has been compounded by knowing that those two sides have been in conflict, not only with their common enemy, but also, and by now almost conventionally, with each other. And I am further aggrieved in understanding that everybody on my two sides is deeply implicated in the sins and in the fate of the self-destructive third side."

I have requested the Kentucky Chapter post the article on our website (see below).

On June 1, 2026, I nominated Wendell Berry to receive the Sierra Club Rachel Carson Award for Excellence in Environmental Writing or Journalism. The award recognizes journalists or authors whose work has contributed to a better understanding of environmental issues. On June 22, 2026, I supplemented the nomination with additional letters of support and three poems, including "Enriching the Earth.

My nomination included the following:

My nomination would be incomplete without reference to "A 50-Year Farm Bill." This 17 page publication in 2009 with Wes Jackson, The Land Institute and Fred Kirschenmann, Leopold Center calls for a fundamental reversal of how we farm. Where "modern" industrial agriculture is approximately 80% annual and 20% perennial, they proposed a strategy to reverse those percentages to get to 80% perennial and 20% annual. For anyone struggling with what a fully Regenerative Agriculture system would look like, I suggest "A 50-Year Farm Bill" provides the model. This short publication can be found on the Kentucky Sierra Club web page under Conservation and Healthy Food, Healthy Earth, at: www.sierraclub.org/kentucky/healthy-food-healthy-earth-resource-library

I am pleased to report that the Sierra Club agreed to give him this award prior to his death and the award will be made public on October 14, 2026, at 7:00 pm EST with proceedings accessible via zoom. Look for the invitation. The Chapter has agreed to put my nomination on the Chapter webpage.

Well, that ought to do it.
Hank Graddy