They say you are what you eat. Some farmers are taking this logic beyond its people-centric focus, and applying it in innovative ways to their crops.

Enter the nutrient-dense farming movement — a start-at-the-soil approach to growing food that proponents say is much better for you, in the form of plants that are healthier themselves.

"In the nature versus nurture debate ... we are falling short on nurture," said Dan Kittredge, director of the Real Food Campaign, who will give a free lecture about nutrient-dense farming Tuesday at Friends Academy in Dartmouth. "Simply by addressing the nurture deficiencies, our plants begin to express more of their full genetic potential."

That plants don't always hit this mark is evident in a 2004 study by University of Texas at Austin biochemist Donald Davis, charting a nutritional drop in garden crops over the past 50 years. Using U.S. Department of Agriculture data, Davis found the crops had suffered "apparently reliable declines" of protein, calcium, iron, phosphorous, riboflavin and ascorbic acid, ranging from 6 percent to 38 percent.

Beginning in the 1950s, America's farmers were told to get big, or get out. It wasn't just a slogan, it was USDA policy, a mantra recited by several secretaries of agriculture.

That mindset, combined with a post-WWII explosion in chemical fertilizer use, made our farms larger and more productive than ever – but at a high price, with many small farmers vanishing and the introduction of new kinds of environmental challenges.

Today, growing numbers of Americans believe there is another casualty: The quality of food produced by modern farming methods. Perhaps the most dissatisfied are farmers who got neither big, nor out, and who turned to traditional methods of producing crops.