Amigo Bob Cantisano, a ninth-generation Californian, put his life’s work into the state’s very soil beginning, fittingly enough, on the first Earth Day in 1970.
At an event at San Francisco State he listened to a speaker decry what pesticides introduced after World War II were doing to the environment, farmworkers and food.
His course was set. Cantisano, a Bay Area native, joined a generation of largely urban youth who moved back to the land and began farming as a way to reform the food industry.
“He was the godfather of California organic farming,” said Tom Willey, a Madera farmer and another elder of the organic movement. “He had such knowledge and authority that he was responsible for taking organics beyond small farmers like ourselves. He was determined to remove as much toxins as he could.”
By Liz Kellar | Staff Writer
Amigo Bob Cantisano, 69, an early pioneer of the organic farming movement whose accomplishments have been featured in National Geographic and the New York Times, died Saturday after an eight-year battle with cancer.
“Amigo Bob was a powerhouse to be reckoned with,” said wife Jenifer Bliss. “His wisdom and inspiration will live on around the world.”
It should come as no surprise to those who knew Cantisano that the man who spent decades as a “fierce advocate for the earth” made plans for his remains to be turned into compost to feed the soil.
“Being an organic farmer, Amigo knew that compost is the foundation of all the best organic farming,” Bliss said. “It is only fit that he should be composted and become the living biology that will inoculate and nourish the composts, farms and gardens of others.”