Corn, Community, and Public Health

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

And so it is with us. Each individual is part of a community; and each community is part of a larger region. And at each level, what we share gets spread and magnified. If we share a virus, it can become a pandemic. If we share resources and active caring, we can all be healthier. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We are caught in an inescapable web of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Let’s work to make sure that the “garment of destiny” is woven of equity, justice, and caring for each other and our lands.