Gaia Made A Farmer...

Everyone's been talking about the Dodge Ram Super Bowl commercial, but no one's been saying what I'm thinking. The commercial actually aired during one of the few moments I was actually watching the TV, rather than hanging out in the kitchen talking to farmers. Although I couldn't hear all the words over the talking in the room, the imagery and soundtrack very much caught my attention.  Having just driven through Missouri, where an idealized "American farmer" billboard advertised Monsanto,  my first guess what that it was a Monsanto commercial. Realistically, though, Monsanto wouldn't advertise at the Super Bowl; it was obviously for a truck.

What I did hear of the commercial moved me, because it does represent the hardships of an agrarian lifestyle, and that there are people who choose to live that way, despite, if not because of, the struggles, and I recognized the commercial as a tribute to those people, amongst whose ranks I hope to join. I know some of my fellow farmers have been similarly moved. But among most urban/suburban liberals, the response has been criticism. The racial critique I agree with. "God made Mexican farm workers," I might say, tongue-in-cheek. And, as someone who initially linked the ad with Monsanto, I certainly see the validity of the factory farm critique. But none of the criticism that I have read resonates with me as much as the ad did, because it is too busy critiquing the system (as though the critic is not a contributor) to honor the individuals, who even in a conventional system dedicate their days and lives to feeding the rest of us.

My critique of the response to this ad is essentially the same as my critique of the response to the Chipotle ad at last year's Super Bowl: the consumers (myself included) need to take responsibility for their part in the system, rather than just criticizing it. At the same time, these two ads give me hope because they reveal national attention to the causes that move me, even if that attention comes in the form of dreaded greenwashing. These companies chose to advertize through tributes to farmers because they think it will sell, because they think the people care about these issues. And that's a good sign.

In Defense of Beauty

I just rediscovered this post that I had started writing but never finished last June. I'm not sure what else exactly I had been meaning to say, but rather than trying to flesh everything out, I deleted some unfinished sentences and am posting it now.



The entire maternal side of my family gathered together last weekend in celebration of my grandparent's 70th wedding anniversary. I hadn't seen most of them since February 2010, and a lot has changed since then. One of my aunts expressed how surprised she was by my current life path, considering that as a child I was such a picky eater and I was always very academic. I'll save my thoughts on how my sensitive palette relates to my current occupation; for now, I wanted to start this post by discussing the academic grounding to my gardening.

As a college student I deeply pursued questions of oppression and evil, from both a religious and historical perspective. I was fascinated by the civil rights movement, and liked to imagine that I would have been one of the northern white volunteers who went down to volunteer during Freedom Summer. But realistically, would I have been? Most likely I would have gone about my daily life like pretty much everyone else, looking down on the "backward South" but being totally complicit in the ongoing oppressions. Moving south definitely helped me realize this, and it helped me realize that I didn't want to be just another Northern liberal who votes for progressive change but isn't willing to change her lifestyle. The more I learn of history and of the world today, the more I realize just how much we are still so dependent upon the oppression of others to maintain our current system. And I don't like being a part of that.

This feeling is not unique, this desire to break free from the oppressive system and live more in tune with the natural world. I recently watched "Into the Wild" and saw it strongly in the hero. I also see it amongst many of the friends I have made in the last two years. But the problem with much of this thinking is the foundation in the negative, the escape from complicity in oppression and exploitation, the not wasting over the reclamation, etc...

The modern American society is so wasteful that when one realizes the magic and beauty of multiple uses, of composting, of mending clothes, it's eye-opening. I had that experience. But in the battle against waste there is a focus on use - how might this object be amended to continue its current use or to serve another, how might the value of this thing be reused. Ah, to realize that waste isn't waste, that shit isn't something gross to get rid of but rather a valuable resource. But the focus is still negative, on not wasting.

But somehow or another, there will always be waste.

What drove me to farming was freedom from complicity in oppression and exploitation of the earth and its people, and freedom from the wastefulness that characterizes most people's lives today. What keeps me in farming is the quality of life, one important aspect of which is beauty.

A bouquet of flowers does not necessarily have any practical use, besides perhaps to woo a cute girl, unlike a bunch of kale. And some might scowl at making a table at a dinner party look nicer by placing a fresh bouquet of flowers. Some might scowl at using flowers instead of kale to woo that mate! But not I, at least not anymore. Because what the flowers provide is beauty, simply for its own sake. And that, I think, is useful and valuable in its own way. A bouquet of flowers would probably say this more eloquently and powerfully than I can. Beauty brings joy.

Please Pay for your Pork

In the past week there's been a lot of attention to fast food companies adopting more "ethical" stances towards how the animals that provide their meat are raised. There was Chipotle's commercial that idealized the small, diversified farm over the agribusiness machine. And on the heels of Chipotle was McDonald's recent announcement that they are moving to stop buying pork with origins in gestation crates. I was hesitant to get excited about either of these things, which should seem like good news, but it took me a few days to understand why.

The movement of fast food restaurants towards more humanely-raised meat is good news in one respect. As it is clearly a PR move, it reflects a change in consumer demands, as people are becoming more aware of and caring more about where their food comes from and how it was raised. This, I believe, is a crucial cultural transformation. Of course, McDonald's change is like saying "I'm still going to beat you up, just not while you're pregnant," but that's not even why I find it problematic.

This op-ed article in the New York Times presents one conventional farmer's criticism these recent events. Now, I have a thing for happy, free-range pigs. But I respect this guy too. And I think he's correct when he suggests that these kinds of moves will force some small-scale producers out of the business for the benefit of larger corporate farms. McDonald's (and the consumers that influenced them) didn't say, "We're going to pay more for meat that was produced in a way we like better." Instead, this is one of the unfunded mandates of the corporatocracy. The desire for cheap meat was instrumental in the development of Confined Animal Feeding Operations. If McDonald's and other fast food chains are leading the move away from such practices, who's going to pay for it? I don't think McDonald's is willing to cut into its profits in the interest of doing the right thing, and I don't think the fast food consumer is willing to pay much more either. So the burden will fall on the farmers and unless they are big enough that they can afford to make the demanded changes, many will suffer or go under. If conscientious consumers want to be able to change the way animals are raised for meat (and eggs, and dairy), they ought to first try to respect the farmers and understand why they do things how they do. And then the consumers need to be willing to change themselves, and not just demand change of others. Everyone who eats in implicated in how our food is produced, and thus shares in the responsibility (financial and otherwise) in ensuring it corresponds with their values.

Seed Sovereignty

The question of who owns the seeds is one of the most important challenges faced today by sustainable farmers and anyone who believes that we ought to be able to feed ourselves. There are enough successful examples of leased or squatted land being farmed on to demonstrate that ownership of the land is not necessary. But what would happen if the world's biodiversity were patented and controlled by a few? In short, we would lose the ability to feed ourselves, or at least to control what we ate. Unlike plants, we lack the magical power of photosynthesis, so we are dependent on them, and their reproductive potential, seeds. Saving seeds is the root of agriculture - choosing to propagate the seeds of plants with desirable traits - and it allows farmers autonomy and independence that has been greatly encroached upon in recent years. One of the greatest threats to our independence has come from Monsanto. Not only is Monsanto genetically engineering seeds and then suing the farmers upon whose land their seeds have trespassed, but they are buying up seed companies so that Monsanto "owns" the genetics of much of the popular varieties of plants and can control their presence on the market. It would be simplistic to claim that everything Monsanto does is evil, but the effect of this action is certainly insidious.

I became aware of how great this threat was when I heard a rumor that Johnny's Seeds, a favorite amongst organic growers, had been bought by Monsanto. The rumor was false, as I suspected, because I knew that Johnny's is an employee-owned company and in my experience employee-owned companies occasionally compromise their principles but they don't sell out. However, the rumor was grounded in the fact that some of the seeds Johnny's carries come from Seminis, a seed company that was bought by Monsanto. Johnny's has been very transparent in addressing these rumors, and discuss it on their website. I recommend reading their statement here. They are phasing out all varieties they get from Seminis, and at this point are down to about 18 of them. I sent them an e-mail asking for a list of which varieties, and they quickly responded. While they are putting together the most up-to-date list for me, here is a list as of January 2010:

THE BELOW LIST IS OF SEED VARIETIES SOLD BY JOHNNY'S SEEDS WHICH THEY HAVE GOTTEN FROM SEMINIS, NOW A SUBSIDIARY OF MONSANTO.

103 SIERRA BLANCA onion
224 FREMONT cauliflower
240 HANSEL eggplan
241 GRETEL eggplant
568 BISCAYNE pepper
642 DULCE pepper
733 CELEBRITY tomatoes
2038 KING ARTHUR pepper
2063 BIG BEEF tomatoes
2212 PRIZEWINNER pumpkin
2260 FAIRY TALE eggplant
2309 X3R RED KNIGHT pepper
2365 ORANGE SMOOTHIE pumpkin
2368 PATTY GREEN TINT summer squash
2894 SERRANO DEL SOL pepper
2954 CHEDDAR cauliflower
2991 CANDY onion
122 BEAUFORT tomatoes
2794 GERONIMO tomatoes
2700 MAXIFORT tomatoes
2373 TRUST tomatoes

Given this information, how do you respond? I think the easiest response is to not buy these varieties. But what if you already did? Do you plant to the seeds and pledge to not again purchase them? Or do you chose to not grow them on principle, so that you do not encourage the consumption of varieties linked to Monsanto? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

For other blogs discussing this topic, check out:
http://eatclosetohome.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/monsanto-and-johnnys-seeds/
http://horticulturetalk.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/who-owns-who-where-and-how-monsanto-has-their-sticky-little-fingers-in-the-home-garden-seed-industry-3/

For more on seed sovereignty and seed saving, check out Seed Savers Exchange and Navdanya. I highly recommend the book Stolen Harvest, by Vandava Shiva, a compelling argument for seed sovereignty.

The Anti-Social Farmer and the Commodification of Food

Wendell Berry discusses this matter obliquely in Jayber Crow, but I've recently encountered it in real life. I've expressed to my boss that I think it would be valuable for him to know more Arkansas vegetable farmers, not just gardeners but people who are producing organically for a local market, since that's what he is trying to do. There is so much to learn from each other. Would it not be more valuable to discuss with other farmers how they produce compost than to have me share my anecdotal experience and read a book on it? I certainly can contribute, but community exchange of knowledge from people's varied experiences is so important, I think. I don't think it's possible to be better than people doing similar things as you without learning from them.

Which is not to say that P, my boss, doesn't know other farmers. He does, but the farmers he knows, and talks to, are cattle farmers, grass farmers. They work alone. The modern farmer's lifestyle is a solitary one, where he lives out in the country and has the equipment to be able to do everything on his own. (I use the male pronoun here because the farmers I've come across who fit this paradigm are all male; it would be interesting to explore the role of gender in farmers' connection to and involvement with community.) But farming has not always been this way, and I'm interested in exploring how this anti-social isolation came into being.

For obvious reasons, most farming has been done in rural areas. People needed ample space for their livestock, to grow any supplemental feed, and forests to supply them with fuel. But they also hoped to be within a day of somewhere they could acquire anything they couldn't produce themselves, as well as news and connection to the outside world. Economies of necessity made it so that farms were sufficiently large and spaced out, but not overly large or isolated. As specialization occurred, some farms and farmers started to focus on growing grains, for people and for animals, and others started growing animals for human consumption. Division of labor is valuable for many tasks, but here is one instance where it has proved ultimately unsustainable. As the various parts of the farm ecosystem were broken up, commodified, and specialized by different individuals, farmers became more dependent on each other yet less connected to each other. A farmer in Kansas would grow grain, that would be shipped by train to Arkansas, where a farmer would buy it as feed for his livestock. The farmer would still have to travel to town to get the feed, which he had to do anyway occasionally, but he could travel longer distances, thanks to the car, yet his farm could be smaller since he wasn't dependent on the grass he could grow. Or more likely, he would just keep more cows on the same amount of land, especially since he didn't have to set any apart for growing grains (for his own use or livestock's) or vegetables (also becoming easy to acquire year round in the town he could drive his truck to). Here you had Farmer Joe, now dependent on the farmers of Kansas and California, yet feeling like the only person he depended upon was his grocer. As for his own farming knowledge, only raising cattle made things simpler, right? He could easily master that, which he already did well, and pass that knowledge on to his children. With fewer variables at stake, or so it seemed, there was less need to compare notes with neighbors about how to grow the best tomatoes. Heck, the cows might seem to be getting sick more, but there are drugs for that now, so just a quick does of antibiotics, easily available from the store in town, and all is well again! This same kind of thing happened for the grain farmers and the vegetable farmers - emphasis on specialization, made possible thanks to easily available fertilizers and other inputs.

But ultimately, we've seen, this doesn't work. It's bad karma. Ultimately, we need to be able to support ourselves, with the help of our communities, and then we will be able to help our communities. We need to stop seeing commodities and start seeing vegetables, grains, animals, lumber, etc. as valuable and essential pieces of fragile ecosystems. Self-sufficient and subsistence farming does not mean that you can or might become completely isolated, because you don't need anyone or anything else. Rather, there is always room to do things better, easier. With some many variables in play, there are so many unique and creative approaches to anything. And there are always new pests or blights or droughts or floods or other challenges. And thus there is always a compulsion to talk to your neighbors, to learn and discuss and help each other improve.

On Life, Death, Kids, & the Passing of the Year

On October 30, 2010, I hit a metaphysical wall in South Dakota and the following day found myself driving south. I ended up on a farm in Iowa and haven't spent more than 3 consecutive days anywhere but a farm since. My All Hallow's Eve in Iowa turned in to a week, as I sorted things out in my mind, bought a WWOOF membership, and decided I wanted to spend the winter on a farm. The Burr Oak Center for Durable Culture in Turin, IA, is not yet all it could be, but it is where I finally found direction. The immediate direction was south, but the life direction was farming, and here, a year later, I find myself farming in Arkansas. The compass has occasionally wavered, but ultimately stays true, and on a different farm in Arkansas I decided I wanted to be a farmer, and fell in love with goats and pigs.

This evening I was closing up the greenhouse when I got a call from my boss. A goat was having trouble giving birth and he thought he would need my help if he had to pull it. I slowly made my way up the hill to the pasture, where the nanny had succeeded in giving birth to triplets, two giant kids and one teeny tiny one. They were all filthy and only the smallest was yet standing but they were all alive. Without bottle feeding it is unlikely for triplets to survive and all three of these may not even survive until tomorrow but for the time being mama and babies are all alive and well and that is a beautiful miracle, as all births are beautiful miracles.

Today, they tell us, is also the day the human population on earth has reached (and exceeded) 7 billion. And while there's lots of talk and discussion of what that means, particularly how on earth we can feed and fit that many and more, I am not too concerned, because while there have always been famines and hunger, the earth, in all her bountiful glory, has always provided a surplus. I don't know that it will be okay, but I know that it can be.

And today, of course, is Hallowe'en. It is a time to remember death, and the dead. People were born today but people have also died. And the veil between our two realms of being are thinnest. Let us learn from our ancestors, and those who have come before. In the spirit of Samhain we can burn away that which we want to leave behind in the past, and that which we want to make manifest in the year to come. I want more of this - kid goats and pigs and making things grow. When I grow up I still want to be a kid goat (and I almost was as a very individualistic lamb for Halloween), but for now my goal is still to help people and plants grow. And most of all, I want more love. I want to keep manifesting my love for humanity and the earth and all creatures, great and small.

A New Start

I think it's time for me to write again. There have been plenty of incredible views since last I wrote publicly - a whole world of them - but I guess I've just been more focused on living life than observing and reflecting. There are no words that adequately describe the joy of baby goats.

However, looking at what's going on in the world right now, and what I'm doing with myself, and where I want to be down the line, there is something to be said. At present Facebook is my only connection to the Occupy Wall Street movement, but I am excited by what I hear, particularly since this movement, of the many, has finally gotten the media attention and thus endorsement. With unclear demands and unclear ways to address those demands, I'm not sure what's going to happen on Wall Street, but I think (hope) there is too much momentum for the movement to just die. We are the ones that we've been waiting for, and we're finally taking a stand. I wholeheartedly agree with the orientation of this protest against corporate power and greed. From seeds to shops, from cars to kicks, Americans are continually denied the freedom of choice we believe we have. I will forever remember watching a documentary in college that included some C-SPAN footage in which a Congressman said that putting mileage limits on cars would limit the car companies' right to choose how they design cars. I couldn't help but wonder about my right to buy a car with good mileage. I can get over 30 mpg on my 1998 Honda Civic - it boggles my mind that I'm not seeing ads for gas-powered cars that get at least 40 mph these days. But so it is. Corporations got freed of their requirement to serve the public interest, and then gained all the rights of people with none of the responsibilities. I'm all for encouraging groups of people to do more than individuals could have done alone or independently, and at its simplest a corporation is really just a body of people. But one gone unhinged, too ambitious, too hubristic. I've had the opportunity to watch a few organizations grow, and time and again basic principles are compromised for growth, and that's where things go downhill.

So what we need out there are more idealistic dreamers, who are going to imagine our future and stick to their guns (or pitchforks) on bringing about that change. I like to imagine I'm one of those dreamers, a revolutionary, but not a fighter. I'm non-confrontational; I'd rather nurture the revolution than fight it (or for it). I'd like to emulate my idol, Ella Baker, and the countless other organizers who have provided the support and growth and encouragement that people have needed to stand up for what they believe in and what they want and need. I don't think I will follow in Baker's steps, directly, and certainly not as much as I once dreamed. But I'm still taking a page from her book. In an interview she once said: "[our family] had had the privilege of growing up where they’d raised a lot of food. They were never hungry. They could share their food with people. And so, you share your lives with people." Their garden empowered the family, and helped build their community, but fewer and fewer people have those gardens these days, and I want to change that.

When I try to imagine what I want to do when I grow up, I get caught up on the part where I'm supposed to make money, to cover my expenses and to support myself. My expenses are minimal but there are insurances, bills... I just want to serve. I want to grow food to support myself, my family, and my community. I want to grow food to build community. I'm the one who, when everyone is starting to get cranky, brings out the snacks. Now I'm just taking it one step further, trying to guarantee that those snacks, and everything else that my people are eating, are quality, by starting at the source, the root. I could probably design something where I took money from rich people (through purchases, donations) to be able to provide for the people who can't afford what I've got to offer. But I don't want to Robin Hood it because I don't want to be dependent on there being rich people. I want to create a system that tries to change the world as it is, and can continue to exist in the world as I want it to be. Unfortunately, that I want my system to engage with the world, to be of the world, rather than a commune apart from it, may, I fear, necessitate my participation in the capitalist economy.

Not that I ever have or could have completely checked out of the capitalist economy. But I have more than most people. I ran away from the "world," as it were, in February 2010, and I've kept running. Only now, instead of running away from an unfulfilling life, I'm running to a fulfilling life. At Heifer Ranch, I all but found what I was looking for, but ultimately that was just a chance to show me what is possible. I just have to dream it, and commit to building it. So here is where I shall muse about my dreams, while engaging with the events of the world. The interconnected web is beneath our feet and in our hands and in our minds.