Hi Everyone,
In this update:
1. Winter Session starts Wednesday, February 1st. Why sign up?
Most of us begin to think about eating fresh vegetables when the weather warms up, and the greens start growing. But if we wait until then, are we missing something?
The holidays are over. Many of us have eaten too much and not eaten “well enough.” I think you know what I mean. The colds, sore throats, and other winter bugs are circulating, and we are . . . waiting it out until good weather arrives? We don’t have to.
It’s easy to get out of the habit of eating good, nutritious food in the dead of winter. But maybe this is the most important time of all to be getting all those easily-assimilated vitamins and minerals in the most natural way: in our food.
Winter fare, of course, is different than what is available in spring and summer. And choosing to eat a locovore diet of vegetables in the winter when you live in the PNW means eating some crops that require a little more, well, “ingenuity” to prepare. But remember Michael Pollen’s point about how we as a species have co-evolved with our food supply. For those of us who are descendents of people who didn’t live in the tropics, our bodies are programmed to a diet of hardy winter vegetables, root crops and other food that can be stored. So it makes sense to give our bodies what they are evolutionarily predisposed to utilize to provide health during the winter months.
I know it’s not glamorous food—it may not compete with fresh, off-the-vine heirloom tomatoes, or a ripe watermelon or cantaloupe in August—but eating seasonally makes nutritional sense. It also allows us to appreciate some foods we don’t usually eat, and it enhances our enjoyment of those special summer vegetables when they come.
So we invite you to join us in what we sometimes call the “discipline” of winter-time nutritional eating. We’re confident that as you follow through with your good intentions by getting a box of seasonal food that arrives each week, you will feel better, be healthie, and come to enjoy the art of eating seasonally.
Signing up for the Winter Share is easy. Just go to our web page, www.jubileefarm.org. If you have any questions, drop us a note at jubileefarm@hotmail.com. The first boxes will be delivered next Wednesday, February 1st.
2. Beef available
We have a couple of quarters of quality beef available. If you have an interest in purchasing a quarter of beef, or would like to share in the purchase of a quarter, or if you’d just like more information about how we sell our beef, please drop us a note at jubileefarm@hotmail.com.
3. Jubilee 2012 seed order: not exactly “business as usual”
Lester Brown, author of scores of books on environmental issues, often speaks of “business as usual” as being the mode of continuing on in the same old practices that have gotten us into the ecological problems we’re now trying to solve. Sometimes those old practices are hard to give up. At the very least it is often hard or impossible to change everything at once.
This year we’re taking a step in following through on a commitment to change another of our farming practices that we’ve wanted to change for some time. It’s not, perhaps, something all farmers can do, and certainly not something that new farmers could or probably should even try to do. But eventually in the life of a farm, someone stops and asks the question: why do we buy seeds every year? If our goal is to eliminate as many off-farm inputs as possible, why do we not just grow our own seeds?
January is the time of year that we compile our seed order. As all farmers and gardeners know, looking through seed catalogs is an extremely pleasurable pastime! But this year our seed selection has focused on an important criterion. The vast majority of the seeds we’re getting this year are open-pollinated, non-proprietary seeds. Unlike hybrids, open-pollinated seeds will produce crops whose seeds are viable. By allowing some of these crops to “go to seed,” we can produce the seed we need for the following year.
Many of the open-pollinated seeds we’re getting this year will be trials. We usually like to grow out a crop in a test plot before we plant it for production. This year we’ll have many test plots to grow open-pollinated varieties of vegetables. We will evaluate each variety to see how they produce, and then save seeds from the ones that are promising.
Like the endeavor to “grow your own fertility,” this too will be a long-term project. This year we will plant some crops from seed we gathered last year. We expect the amount of our own seed that we use to increase each year. We are under way!
4. First call for Summer Session Work Share interest
With February just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about work share opportunities for 2012. If you have an interest in this program and would like more information, send us a note indicating that.
A lot of last year’s work share members asked about doing a work share in the spring. This year we are going to try that. If you have been a work share member in the past and would like to be a spring work share member, please let us know.
5. Aldo Leopold and the land ethic
Near or at the top of almost anyone’s list of environmental “heroes” in the US is Aldo Leopold. His well-known, well-read and deeply cherished book, A Sand County Almanac, published the year after his death, is universally recognized as a landmark development in conservation consciousness in our country. Most of the text is a seductively simple expose by a gifted naturalist describing the progression of the seasons through the year in his beloved Sand County, Wisconsin. The last chapter is an arresting call for the need to develop a “land ethic,” and a powerfully conceived defense for why we need it.
Leopold notes that there was a time when human beings were held as slaves, and treated as property. Slavery still existed in our country when the founders of our nation proclaimed “we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
At the time these words were penned, this equality and the attending unalienable rights were understood to extend only to males of European descent who owned land. That certainly left most people out, but it was a start. In a hundred years a civil war would be fought that would extend those rights, in principle (if not in practice) to men of African descent. In sixty more years those rights would be extended, again “in principle,” to women. Forty-five years later, at a time some of us still remember, the civil rights movement established laws that attempted to guarantee to people of all races and creeds those same unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In the last few decades we have seen an effort to extend these rights to people regardless of their sexual orientation, physical or mental limitations, or age.
Of course Leopold, who died in 1949, did not witness either the civil rights movement of the 1960s, or the recent extensions of civil rights. But he was quite aware of the movement of liberty: the rights of a larger and larger portion of the community were being recognized, respected, and protected.
Just how inclusive might that “community” be? Leopold’s answer to this question was bold and without equivocation. He considered plants, insects, animals, birds and the land itself to be members of the “biotic community.” As members of the biotic community, he believed each to be entitled to the right of continued existence.
When speaking of the land we often, even today, find ourselves having to say to folks, “it’s not dirt, it’s soil!” Leopold went further:
Land, then is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward; death and decay return it to the soil. The circuit is not closed; some energy is dissipated by decay, some is added by absorption from the air, some is stored in soils, peats, and long-lived forests; but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life.
Leopold was keenly aware that the land ethic he called for was not held by people in his time: “There is no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.”
It’s now more than sixty years since Leopold penned these words. In many ways our land-relation is still strictly economic. We strip the land of its resources—soil, fertility, trees, oil, and minerals—and while giving lip-service to conservation, many if not most of those who own land still, I believe, expect privileges and are unwilling to acknowledge obligations.
We now are facing the dramatic consequences of the squandering of the resources of the earth for the sake of short-term profit. We impotently watch the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere continue to climb, and with it the warming of our globe. The experience of climactic upheaval is evident, but rather than take needful action, we are still rushing headlong to exploit the earth in new ways.
When I think about our situation I’m reminded of the parable attributed in the New Testament to Jesus about the prodigal son. You may know the story: the son is tired of life on the farm. He wants his share of the family wealth, and convinces his father to give it to him. With money in hand, he enjoys the life of pleasure and gratification. But eventually the money runs out, and with it the high living. He finds himself destitute, without hope and alone. At that point, as the story goes, he “comes to his senses,” and returns to his father, begging forgiveness.
Will we come to our senses before it’s too late? I believe we will, because I believe the next generation will see the insanity of what we have done, and are going to do to what is, quite literally, the ground of our being. But I also believe we will be humbled, and that even people of my generation will live to recognize the undeniable impacts of our ecological waywardness. When we get to the point, and perhaps only when we get to that point, we will be able to comprehend the prophets like Aldo Leopold, and his call to establish a land ethic.
6. Rental home available
Here’s your chance to live a short commute to the city but feel like you’re deep in the country. We have a home for rent here on the farm! It’s the house just south of our place, where my daughter and Ian (who worked here last year) lived. It’s three bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and has a new wood-burning fireplace. The rent is $1400/month. If you’re interested, let us know.
7. GMOs as a solution to world hunger
I read with interest and concern the column in Wednesday’s Seattle Times by the world’s wealthiest human, a person whose vision, intelligence, determination and persistence has changed the way the entire world carries on its daily affairs. With the impact of the life and work of Bill Gates having radiated from our own back yard to every nook and cranny of the globe, it’s hard to overstate how our community, the place where it all began and continues to operate, has benefited from the innovations and successes of man behind so much of the technological revolution.
Currently Mr. Gates is devoting his time, energy, a lot of his own money and his influence to try to marshal the technological resources that will improve the health and living conditions of people on this planet. It’s hard to be critical of such an effort. Certainly no one could or would question the motives behind such a humanitarian goal. Nevertheless, in the spirit of constructive dialog, many have questioned, and continue to question, the appropriateness of what they see to be the Gates Foundations’ insistence that the solution of the problem of world hunger is a new “green revolution” based on the best available technology.
I’d like to share some reflections from another great man, an eminently qualified scientist who is challenging the direction of the Gates Foundation and is gaining the attention of many who have heard him. This man is Dr. Hans Herren, an internationally recognized and highly respected scientist who specializes in sustainable agriculture. He is the president of the Millennium Institute, a non-profit development research and service organization dedicated to sustainable development.
Dr. Herren co-chaired the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, & Technology (IAASTD), an initiative sponsored by the World Bank and United Nations in partnership with the World Health Organization. The task of the IAASTD investigation was to assess global agriculture. Dr. Herren’s work in agroecology in Africa has been credited with saving millions of lives by enabling African people to produce more food. He was awarded the 2002 Brandenberg Preis for improving the living standards of Africa’s rural population, and the 1995 World Food Prize for his work developing a successful biological control program that saved the African cassava crop, and averted what many say would have been Africa’s worst-ever food crisis.
The following quotations come from an interview of Dr. Herren by Ken Roseboro, published less than a month ago:
Question: Some agricultural “experts” are calling for another Green Revolution. What are your thoughts on this?
Dr. Herren: What we need least is another Green Revolution. What is needed now is to move forward with the lessons learned from the Green Revolution, taking forward what has worked and leave behind most of it, since the Green Revolution has left agriculture dependent on external inputs that are non-sustainable and are becoming more and more expensive since they are based on oil, a finite resource, and also synthetic fertilizers, also based on finite natural resources.
Question: There is much discussion today about the need to “feed the world” because of the growing global population. What do you think needs to be done in order to ensure there is adequate food for everyone in the world?
Dr. Herren: The issue is less on how to feed the world than how to nourish the poor and hungry. Today we produce 4600 calories per person per day, so there is enough food to feed twice the population. The problem is that we produce mostly cheap commodities rather than quality food. These cheap products, in addition to being of low nutritional value, are based on a few crops that carry a large ecological, social, and economic footprint. What is needed is to support farmers in developing countries to grow their own healthy food by providing information, know-how, financial support for inputs, and support them to access markets, among others.
Question: There is a push now to grow GM crops in Africa. The Gates Foundation is funding research on GM crops in Africa and other nations. What are your thoughts on this?
Dr. Herren: We do not need GMOs in Africa nor anywhere else. To promote GMOs in Africa is wrongheaded, will make farmers dependent on input suppliers in the medium and long term, and contribute to the loss of important local landraces (plant species).
Question: What is your opinion of genetically modified crops?
Dr. Herren: This is a technology that addresses symptoms rather than cause, so it’s of little use in sustainable systems. Also, GM crops create dependencies that are not in the interest of the farmers or consumers in the medium and long term.
We have now already seen the problems that arise from resistance build-up of weeds as well as insects, which are no long affected by the killer chemicals that accompany the herbicide tolerant crops and also the insect resistant ones.
GMOs are a reductionist approach used in a complex system; no wonder they already fail just as the pesticides failed. Furthermore, GMOs promote the wrong type of production system: few different crops in the rotation and monocrop practices that go against the wisdom of sustainable agriculture which uses a large number of different crops to increase diversity and resilience.
In brief, GMOs do not provide any substantial medium or long term benefit, either for the farmer or the consumer.
Question: Proponents of GMOs like to claim they will help feed the world. What do you think?
Dr. Herren: The proof that this system does not work is confirmed by the fact that after 20 years of GMOs the global situation has not improved. Why continue and emphasize further a system that is failing to change food security?
Question: Do you think that organic/agroecological methods can help feed the world?
Dr. Herren: Agroecological, eco-efficient, and organic agriculture, which are among the several good agricultural practices under the label “sustainable agriculture,” cannot only nourish a world population of some 9 to 10 billion people, but are the only approaches that will be able to do it in the face of climate change, natural resource scarcity, and growing demand challenges.
So the solutions are at hand, there is evidence from the field for now over three decades that sustainable agriculture cannot only nourish the world, but can do so for the long haul.
We’re all familiar with the old story about the carpenter whose only tool was a hammer. For this carpenter, every problem looked a lot like a nail. It seems clear both from experience and reflection that handling of data, the collation and dissemination of information, and the expediting of communication are activities particularly well-suited, applicable and improved through technological innovation. It is not so clear that agriculture is well-suited to technological innovation.
For more than four decades Wendell Berry has argued that the problems of agriculture are not technological problems. The corporate, industrial model of agriculture is very efficient at producing large quantities of food-like commodities that neither preserve the soil nor nourish the people of the earth. According to Berry, it is this model that is the manifestation of the problem, not the solution, to meeting the needs of a growing world population.
Moreover, there is compelling empirical evidence already, and more on the near horizon soon to be published, that as Dr. Herren maintains, the GMO system does not work over the long haul. Many argue, as I would, that just as we have seen crises in the housing market, the automobile industry, and our financial institutions, we are on the verge of a crisis in the industrial model of agriculture.
Do we wish to export to countries in desperate need an agricultural system that, to those closest to this system and who know it best, is seen to be on the brink of collapse? A possible, short-term “food bubble” that results in the long-term degradation of soil and an accompanying food crisis is not a sustainable solution to the problem of world hunger.
Erick and Wendy