Since there has been a lot of back and forth about our lemons, on Facebook, on our blog and in e-mails to us, we thought we should clarify/consolidate, and carry on the conversation.

If a solution was required to our personal lemon problem, then e-commerce or organic marmalade would have provided one. Even so, we strongly feel that surely these lemons should be consumed locally, by our neighbours and others from nearby who need lemons to pickle or juice or...

But the problem is not a personal one but rather a systemic one: which is that primary producers of all hues seem to be trapped by a broker mafia into becoming sweat shops for faraway customers who outsource their every requirement (and responsibility).

So perhaps, I need to say, with Wendell Berry, All you who eat; eat thoughtfully. Eating is a political act. Where you get your food, where it is cooked and who cooks it, and how you eat it: all of this contributes to the solution.

Farmers need every encouragement to grow food, not cash. As things stand, what Wendell Berry writes about 60's America is true for India now: If you can get into a profession; why, then you must not be a farmer. If you can move to the city, why,then you must leave the country. If you can work the "miracle" of industrial progress, then you must do so, even if it means the theft of energy from posterity. (Posterity can't complain!)

The countryside is no longer a place to come home to; it is a place to leave. That needs to be turned around.