Sales of apples dropped sharply, and so did those of other fruits and some vegetables. Reports on 60 Minutes and in a Newsweek cover story about the heightened risk of cancer from apples sprayed with daminozide (trade name, Alar) did what earlier stories about pesticides had failed to do. But not until this past spring did consumers begin to panic. This came to be known as the “green revolution.” Fears about possible health hazards from farm chemicals started to surface two decades ago. The use of chemicals to ward off pests and boost production began in earnest after World War II, thanks to an advertising campaign by Dow Chemical, Monsanto and other chemical companies. Secretary of Agriculture in the next Democratic administration. ”Most American consumers will not eat food they believe has been poisoned,” says Hightower, a leading candidate to become U.S. All believe that the Chemical Age of American Agriculture is on the decline. Schumacher and Nichols, along with Texas agricultural commissioner Jim Hightower, are among the country’s most respected and forward-looking farm officials. Only a year ago Sinclair was interviewing state agricultural commissioners such as Gus Schumacher of Massachusetts and Jim Nichols of Minnesota. He didn’t intend to be a crusader but now finds himself caught up in a national movement. ”You get fed up with rush hour,” he says. Sinclair left the big city for the sake of his sanity. The result is that ”old farming” is now being called ”new farming.” New, highly publicized studies linking farm chemicals to increased rates of cancer, birth defects and other health problems have brought the issue into public view. After many years of low-key debate, there is intensifying alarm in the United States and Europe about the application of chemicals to growing food. What’s different is that Sinclair and many other farmers are standing the word old-fashioned on its head. Indeed, Sinclair has become in his new career as old-fashioned as any Amish man of the soil. He said he got up early, worked all day and fought bugs and weeds with no help from chemicals. Sinclair told me that he had 65 acres and that he had given his farm a most un-Amish name–the Flickerville Mountain Farm and Groundhog Ranch–lest anyone confuse it with a place of biblical injunction. The lettuce, green beans and strawberries in his baskets were from his own farm in the Pennsylvania hill country. A number of people in the news business do their shopping there, and it took a while before I realized that Sinclair was not buying any produce. One Sunday morning early this summer, I ran into him at a farmer’s market in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington. He was too young, at the age of 55, for retirement and he appeared to have nothing else lined up. Last year, to the astonishment of everyone at the Post, Sinclair quit his job.

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