For me, one of the best things of 2012 was seeing so many people, especially young people, like Joshua D. Rumschlag and Brittany Aukett Hickman and Tanja Vidovic beginning to embrace food self sufficiency as a central life theme vs. "hobby gardening". I especially admire young self taught botanists like Josh Jamison and Marabou Thomas for plunging headlong into passionate research about new and alternative crops for many uses. I also admire omnivores like Nate Chetelat and Charlei Scott for wholeheartedly owning where their meat comes from by raising their own meat animals vs. buying factory farm meat. How can I help but be optimistic about 2013?!