“The longer I think about a food industry organized around an animal that cannot reproduce itself without technical assistance, the more I mistrust it. Poultry, a significant part of the modern diet, is emblematic of the whole dirty deal. Having no self-sustaining bloodlines to back up the industry is like having no gold standard to underpin paper currency. Maintaining a natural breeding poultry flock is a rebellion, at the most basic level, against the wholly artificial nature of how foods are produced.”

American novelist, essayist, and poet

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist, and poet. She is known for fiction and nonfiction that examine how people live within their communities and environments, with attention to social justice and biodiversity. Her best-known books include The Poisonwood Bible, about a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family’s effort to eat locally. In 2023, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Demon Copperhead.