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Jim Gerritsen lives a far piece from New York City, in a remote part of northern Maine that what was once known as the Potato Empire. But there he was on Sunday – at age 56 making his first trip to the city – to speak at the Farmers March on Wall Street.

Mr. Gerritsen, who grows potatoes, corn and wheat, is president of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, a national organization that supports (among other ideas) resistance to big agriculture’s control of seeds for farming. The march, from the East Village to Zuccotti Park, was a co-production of Occupy Wall Street’s food justice committee and Food Democracy Now.

I first met Mr. Gerritsen in 2006, when he and his wife, Megan, drove 13 hours to deliver ingredients for an all-potato dinner at a restaurant in Portland, Me. (And after dinner, they turned around and drove back, because they couldn’t leave the farm for any longer.) For this trip, he flew, while Mrs. Gerritsen tended the farm.

In an interview on Monday as he prepared to get on the plane home, he explained why he had made the journey: “I have not spoken to one farmer who doesn’t understand the message of Occupy Wall Street, the message that so many people keep saying is nebulous. It’s very clear. Because of business and corporate participation in agriculture, farmers are losing their livelihoods.”