I am standing in a chicken coop, on a small, organic farm off the coast of Washington. My nostrils fill with the scent of fresh hay, clean air, and… molasses? The chickens are busily squawking and milling about. They look healthy, glowing even. They move about the coop freely, pecking intermittently at their modern-looking feed contraptions. There is a steady flow of traffic through a sizable gate in the back of the coop where the chickens can come and go to the outside grazing pasture as they please. I laugh with my friend and informal tour guide, Lucía, over my giddiness at witnessing such a well-appointed hen house…

…I am at once pleased with and perplexed by what I am seeing on this small farm, owned and operated by Peter and Susan Corning, who once they retired from their lifelong careers, decided to invest the profit procured in their “prior lives,” as Susan describes, to build and maintain a biointensive organic farm together.

…Perhaps it is the increasing knowledge and awareness of the greed-inspired degradation of our food system that is fueling the back-to-the-land movement gradually sweeping the more industrialized regions of the world—of which Peter and Susan Corning are an integral part. Their belief that “our vast, complex system of industrial agriculture is unsustainable over the long term, in its present form” was the driving force behind their decision to become proactive in the organic farming movement…. In my opinion, they represent those who have managed to harness the notion of moral profit.