 We don’t mean those words of the title in an elegiac, metaphorical sense, though there is an element of that in what we will be discussing. It is in reference rather to a hard, empirical truth, that deaths are rising in farm communities, and specifically a certain kind of death: from cancer. News stories about exploding cancer rates in agricultural areas are beginning to pile up. Here is an excerpt from the latest, reporting on Missouri farming counties: ‘Nestled in Missouri’s Bootheel is the small town of Kennett, the Dunklin County seat. With just over 10,000 residents, it’s a close-knit community where good-natured teasing is a common show of affection. ‘Once a sprawling swampland, it has since been transformed into an expanse of flat, fertile fields where agriculture stands as the backbone of the region’s economy. ‘Kennett’s houses don’t get much taller than one story, and as visitors stroll down the main street, they’re welcomed by a mix of restaurants, boutiques and a cozy hair salon. ‘These buildings are dwarfed in size by a silent, boarded-up hospital, its vacancy a remembrance of what the community has lost. ‘It’s the kind of community where if something tragic happens, everyone finds out. ‘Bobbi Bibbs found this out the hard way. She discovered she had cancer in her colon in December 2023, which then metastasized to her liver, making it a stage four diagnosis. ‘Bibbs isn’t alone. Dunklin County is among the 10 counties with the highest rates of that type of cancer in the state.’ The reason for this is now coming to light, mainly, the heavy use of toxic agricultural chemicals. The news story continues: ‘In Dunklin County, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of crops — and most of that land is blanketed by pesticides. ‘Estimates suggest that thousands of kilograms of pesticides are sprayed over Missouri cropland each year. In some places, wastewater sludge containing “forever chemicals” — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — is applied on farmland as fertilizer. ‘Multiple scientific studies have explored a connection between pesticide use and cancer, pointing to a silent public health crisis hitting rural communities particularly hard. ‘The University of Missouri, in partnership with Investigate Midwest, conducted a county-by-county analysis of cancer rates and pesticide use, using the most recently available data for pesticides that are repeatedly cited in research as likely to be associated with cancer risk. ‘The six counties with the highest use of these pesticides per square mile are all located in the Bootheel, including Dunklin. Four of those counties are in the top 15 for overall cancer rates in Missouri. All counties with the highest rates of cancer are rural.’ If we cast a wider net and look at all the States, the data appear to confirm that those with the heaviest use of agri-chemical pesticides and herbicides have the highest cancer rates. Many of them are Southern States. This is an existential threat to the Southern identity. Agriculture is one of the most defining marks of Dixie’s culture. Pecans, rice, corn, black-eyed peas, okra, mayhaws, peaches – the list could go on much further. Without the fruits of the land, the South would be a much different place. And if our farmers are too sick to bring forth those fruits, then a central part of Southern culture will die with them. This is not all by accident. The giant agribusiness cartels want centralized control of the food supply; monopolies in their hands secure them the largest possible profits. Independent farmers, on the other hand, using heirloom seeds, non-toxic pest control, and fertilizer from livestock manure and other natural sources, are their death knell. The goal of the cartels is to make the farmers dependent on them for all their inputs. Patented, genetically modified crop seeds were a big step to securing monopoly control of agriculture. Along with the patented plants came all the chemicals like glyphosate/Roundup that were to be used together with them, which had to be bought from the same cartels. This industrial model of agriculture is largely what is practiced here at the South today, and it is this which has destroyed the traditional family farm, and ruined the health of farming communities and of the wider environment of which they are a part. But this model is alien to our people. Dixie’s approach to farming is quite the opposite of it: It is based on the idea of the independence of the farming family and on increasing the health of people and land and animals. John Taylor of Caroline County, Virginia, wrote some wonderful lines articulating the Southern vision of agriculture in his book Arator (first published in 1814). Reading only a few passages from his book offers strong inspiration to reject the present model and reacquire the Southern agricultural ethos. On improving the land, he writes:
The Dixian way of agriculture not only improves man and his environment physically, but it also improves him spiritually:
These and other passages show the old Southern model of agriculture to be superior to the modern industrial model, bestowing health and plenty and virtue in abundance. But the latter still holds out a grave temptation to contemporary Dixians, the desire for work without effort. This has been mankind’s temptation since the Fall, to find some way of undoing the effects of his sin in Eden in defiance of what God requires of him. The Lord proclaimed it, that we should labor in the sweat of our brow all the days of our life (Genesis 3:17-19), but mankind, at the instigation of the devil and his demons, tries to annul the curse via the magic of technology. Paul Kingsnorth captures this brilliantly in a passage from his novel Alexandria:
But again, this is base, black-hearted defiance. The Lord Jesus was particularly clear on this. It is not worldly ease and self-indulgence that will undo the curse of the Fall, but self-denial: ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it’ (St Mark’s Gospel 8:34-5). Church history confirms the truth of this. Those who denied themselves for Christ’s sake regained what the Church Fathers call the ‘aroma of Paradise’ – holy men and women to whose bidding the creation listened, like it once did for Adam before the dreadful Fall: dead plants become alive again and fruitful, the elements obey their directions, and animals become tame and friendly around them. If we follow the wide path of magi-technical industrialism, which includes modern agriculture, with its smooth, greased path of ease and comfort, the door to Paradise will be closed. But if we put forth effort, walking the narrow path, as the Lord commanded, it will be open to us (St Matthew’s Gospel 7:13-14). The latter is normative here at the South, the ‘hard pastoral’ vision described by Mel Bradford and other Southern Agrarian writers. The narrow path seems to be in the Southern future, one way or the other. If we stay on the easy industrial path, all of our factory farms are going to fail for lack of healthy farmers to operate them, by necessity making us a people of small, independent farming homesteads again. It would be prudent, therefore, for us to begin the transition voluntarily. Chris Smaje, in his book A Small Farm Future, though marred in some places with shibboleths like carbon dioxide causes catastrophic climate change (research actually shows that CO2 concentrations rise in response to rising temperatures, not the other way around) – his book shows that it is possible for a family to live a good life by intensively farming only a few acres of land. Christian, agrarian voices guided Dixie well in the past. We must heed them once again if there is to be much hope for a pleasant future.
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 The monk-martyr Kosmas of Aitolia (+1779) may appear at first glance to be an unlikely source of inspiration for Dixie, but a closer look reveals him to be a radiant source of hope. He was born in 1714 in a rustic mountain village named Mega Dendron (Great Tree) to good Christian parents. When he came of age, he left his home in search of deeper knowledge and wisdom. We still have his own words about his education:
His desire for God became so great at one point that he left the world and became a monk on the holy mountain of Athos:
But love for God overflows and becomes also love of neighbor. This is what happened with St Kosmas; his heart broke for his fellow Greeks, who struggled under the heavy Turkish yoke. Since the fall of Constantinople/New Rome in 1453, the Greeks had been ruled by the Muslim Turks, who did what they could to suffocate the Christian Faith amongst the Greeks and convert them to Islam. Southerners should understand this tactic very well and sympathize with the Greeks, for the Yankees have done the same to Dixie: They conquered our people in 1865 and have slowly tried to kill our love for Christ, to eradicate our Christian culture, and to replace them with the idol of Yankee Americanism (thanks to Fr Peter Heers for mentioning this similarity in a talk he gave recently). Father Kosmas saw all that was happening to his fellow Greeks, and the Lord called him to act:
The superabundant humility of St Kosmas attracted the Grace of God to him, which endowed his preaching with great power:
Effects on the broader culture of the Greek lands were seen as results of those events:
The devil and the demons hate to see the liberation of mankind from the bondage of sin and evil, and so unsurprisingly they stirred up persecutors to oppose St Kosmas:
Thus did a little monk for a backwoods mountain village renew the Christian Faith and traditional Greek culture amongst his fellow Greeks. In truth it may be said that without his zealous missionary work (four long journeys in all), the Greek War for Independence from the Turks in 1821 would not have happened:
For us as Southerners, for whom Greek culture is dear (just look at the older architecture, for starters, and one will see that such is the case), we are able to see how we ought to proceed if we want to escape the Yankee/American prison. The main emphasis must not be on politics initially but on the souls of our fellow Dixians. The rebirth of Southern souls in Christian churches must take precedence over any other goals. Following close behind that will be the teaching of our history and folkways to our families and neighbors. As all of that progresses, we will need to create networks to encourage and support one another in whatever ways we can, so that Southern renewal can gain strength and not wither away by the divide and conquer tactics of the Regime. Given enough time and with God’s Grace assisting us, the growth of re-baptized and re-traditioned Dixie would reach critical mass, and independence from Yankeedom would be a fait accompli. But a good leader is invaluable in any situation, especially an undertaking as difficult and perilous as the awakening and liberation of an entire people like the South. It is imperative, then, that we also beseech the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is ever merciful and loving, to raise up amongst us an exceptional leader like St Kosmas to bring us out of spiritual and physical captivity. May we have the help and prayers of St Kosmas himself in our labors, who stands before the Throne of the Holy Trinity in a place of glory and honor. As proof of his close union with God, and of what a good friend and strong supporter he could be for a Christ-seeking Dixie, we append this account of the attempted desecration of his tomb in Albania by militant atheists in the 20th century:
May God be glorified in the Southland!
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