An almost forgotten means of economic self-reliance is the home

Host: The field stretched out beneath a wide, burnt-orange sunset, the earth dark and damp, breathing the scent of rain and roots. Crickets had begun their quiet orchestra. In the distance, an old barn stood faded but proud, its wood silvered with years. Rows of vegetables — beans, lettuce, tomatoes, squash — lay in soft, uneven lines, the result of love, not industry.

The air felt honest here — full of effort, sweat, and slow satisfaction.

Jack knelt by a raised bed, dirt under his fingernails, the last of the day’s harvest resting in a wooden crate beside him. Jeeny sat on the porch steps, sipping from a tin cup, watching him with a half-smile — the kind that comes from both affection and quiet amusement.

Jeeny: reading from a folded piece of paper “Ezra Taft Benson once said, ‘An almost forgotten means of economic self-reliance is the home production of food. We are too accustomed to going to stores and purchasing what we need.’”
She looked up, her eyes catching the golden light. “You think he was talking about vegetables, or something bigger?”

Jack: chuckling softly “You don’t get philosophical about lettuce unless you mean something bigger.”

Host: The wind carried the faint rustle of corn stalks, whispering secrets of the soil.

Jack: “He was talking about dependence — how we’ve traded skill for convenience. We’ve forgotten how to make, how to mend, how to grow. We’ve outsourced our survival.”

Jeeny: “And our patience.”

Jack: smiling faintly “Especially that.”

Host: He wiped his hands on his jeans, stood, and looked around the field — his field — small, imperfect, but his own.

Jeeny: “You think it’s possible to go back? To the kind of self-reliance he meant?”

Jack: “Not all the way. But maybe it’s not about going back — it’s about remembering what we lost on the way forward.”

Jeeny: “And what did we lose, exactly?”

Jack: “The intimacy between effort and reward.”

Host: Her eyes softened, the fading sunlight wrapping her face in a glow that made the moment look eternal.

Jeeny: “You sound like my grandfather,” she said. “He used to say every meal tasted different when it came from your own hands.”

Jack: “He was right. You can’t taste ownership in plastic.”

Jeeny: “Or gratitude.”

Jack: “Or humility.”

Host: The crickets grew louder, and a single light flickered on in the barn, yellow and warm.

Jeeny: “You know,” she said softly, “it’s funny — we call people ‘poor’ if they live off their land now. But maybe they’re the richest ones left.”

Jack: “Because they still know what real wealth feels like — sweat drying on your back and something alive growing under your care.”

Jeeny: “And no receipt attached.”

Host: He smiled, walking over to her, setting the crate down on the porch. Inside, the vegetables gleamed like jewels under the light — the honest kind of treasure, unpolished but earned.

Jack: “When I was a kid,” he said, “we used to have a garden behind the house. Not big, just enough for tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes. My dad made me dig trenches for the water to run through. I hated it.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I’d give anything to dig them again.”

Host: His voice softened, caught between nostalgia and quiet revelation.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what Benson meant too — that food was just the symbol. What he really mourned was connection. We stopped knowing our land, our labor, our limits.”

Jack: “And once you lose touch with that, you start to believe everything can be bought.”

Jeeny: “Even peace.”

Host: The stars began to emerge — faint at first, then brighter as the world darkened around them.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think,” she said quietly, “that self-reliance isn’t just about economics, but about dignity?”

Jack: “It is. There’s pride in knowing you can feed yourself — that your survival isn’t rented from a corporation.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound almost sacred.”

Jack: “Maybe it is. The act of growing something is as close as we get to prayer without words.”

Host: The night air deepened — cool, full of the earth’s slow exhale. The two sat in silence, the kind that didn’t need filling. Somewhere a dog barked, and the sound of an owl rose from the woods.

Jeeny: “You know,” she said after a while, “my mother used to say the first tomato of summer was proof the world forgives us again.”

Jack: smiling faintly “Then the world must be patient beyond measure.”

Jeeny: “And generous.”

Host: The moonlight spilled across the porch now, painting the wooden boards silver. Jack reached into the crate, picked up a small tomato, and rolled it in his hand like a relic.

Jack: “You can buy this in a store for a dollar. But this one — this one took soil, water, time, and a bit of faith.”

Jeeny: “Faith tastes better than fertilizer.”

Jack: “Always.”

Host: She leaned back, her gaze on the field — the furrows, the faint gleam of leaves in the moonlight. “So maybe Benson wasn’t just warning us about dependency,” she said. “Maybe he was asking us to slow down. To remember that production and peace are the same rhythm.”

Jack: “And that sustenance isn’t a transaction — it’s a relationship.”

Jeeny: “Between hands and earth.”

Jack: “Between patience and grace.”

Host: The camera would linger on them — two silhouettes framed by moonlight and memory, surrounded by the quiet hum of nature still alive with meaning.

The wind moved softly through the crops, and the earth seemed to breathe along with them.

And as the scene faded into the stillness of night, Ezra Taft Benson’s words would echo through the darkness — gentle but unyielding, like wisdom rediscovered:

“An almost forgotten means of economic self-reliance is the home production of food. We are too accustomed to going to stores and purchasing what we need.”

Because the truest form of wealth
is not what we buy —
but what we grow.

Every seed is a lesson in humility,
every harvest a hymn of gratitude.

To produce is to belong,
to labor is to pray,
and to eat what your own hands have raised
is to remember
that life — even now —
is still beautifully reciprocal.