Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Came across something we've been saying for months:
"For any farming system to be sustainable, the first thing that must be 
sustained is the farmer."

But we could certainly add to what he calls sustainable.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
------------------------------------------

CSA farmer Jay Martin on Sustainable Food Systems
http://globalpublicmedia.com/csa_farmer_jay_martin_on_sustainable_food_systems
09 Mar 2005
Presentation to the Assateague Coastal Trust by Jay Martin


I have been asked to speak to you this evening about sustainable agriculture, 
but first I would like to tell you a story.

The seed I am holding is from a Fish pepper plant.

The origins of the Fish pepper are obscure, but it is believed its ancestors 
were brought to this country from West Africa during the slave trade by way 
of the Caribbean Islands. It is known that the Fish pepper was an 
African-American heirloom that began as a mutation of a common Serrano 
pepper. The plant is very attractive, with green and white mottled foliage 
and slightly curved fruit that turn from white with green stripes to orange 
with brown stripes as it matures.

Fish peppers were raised almost exclusively in the black community and used 
in oyster and crab dishes, and especially when cooking terrapin. By the early 
1900’s, fruits from this hot pepper had found their way into the markets of 
Baltimore and Philadelphia, where they were discovered by chefs and used as a 
secret ingredient to spike seafood dishes. It has since become popular with 
home and market gardeners.

The seed was first made available by Seed Savers Exchange, a network of seed 
growers dedicated to preserving the heritage of our seed supply. It is now 
available commercially through small seed companies thanks to the efforts of 
seed savers, one of whom lives in Delmar, Delaware.

We can scratch an opening in the soil, place a seed there and it will 
sequester carbon, fix nitrogen, retain moisture, purify air, prevent soil 
erosion, provide nourishment for thousands of species of soil dwelling 
organisms, feed animals and people, make compost and self replicate. That is 
a highly intelligent life form, perhaps more intelligent than humans. Michael 
Pollen, in his book “The Botany of Desire” contends that humans are arrogant 
to think that we have cultivated plants for our use, because, in fact, plants 
have actually cultivated humans to do their bidding. As I watch plants unfold 
their mysteries through a growing season, I find it difficult to disagree 
with his contention.

I stand in awe of the power of a seed.

Seeds contain the wisdom of hundreds of generations of gardeners and farmers, 
and that wisdom belongs to you. It should not belong to a multi-national 
corporation whose myopic vision aims to manipulate this wisdom, these 
capabilities, purely for profit. That is a form of prostitution which can 
only hurt society.

You may be asking yourselves, “What does this story have to do with 
sustainable agriculture”?

It has everything to do with it.

This fish pepper seed is absolutely local, historically connected to this 
area and preserved by someone just up the road from here. It is not a generic 
vegetable seen on every supermarket shelf and it did not travel hundreds of 
miles to my field and from there to local dinner plates.

The path to a sustainable food system passes through the people it feeds, and 
it must be built on the local level. For this reason, a sustainable 
agricultural system cannot be considered separately from a sustainable 
society.

It makes absolutely no sense to truck food for humans or any other creature 
from thousands of miles away. The average meal in the U.S. travels 1500 miles 
from farmgate to plate, through a myriad of processors, packagers, handlers, 
truckers, warehouses and chain stores. By the time it reaches the consumer up 
to 75% of the nutritional value is gone.

In 1984 Americans were spending 8% of their disposable income on healthcare 
and 15% on food, today those numbers are reversed because we are eating food 
that has been stripped of most of its sustenance. Furthermore, the farmer who 
grows the food that should be sustaining you is not sustaining himself - 
typically he or she receives 10% of the food dollar; while at the turn of the 
century that farmer could count on 50%.  For any farming system to be 
sustainable, the first thing that must be sustained is the farmer.

In his essay titled “The Pleasures of Eating”, Wendell Berry says that eating 
is an agricultural act. If we extrapolate that statement to its logical 
conclusion we arrive at the understanding that we are all farmers, either by 
occupation or by proxy. According to the 2000 census, farmers, those who 
actually do work the land, account for less than 2% of the population, … for 
policy makers that makes us statistically irrelevant. Think about that fact 
for a moment, more than a moment…

the people that feed you are statistically irrelevant.

If you do not grow your own food, then you have given that responsibility to 
someone or something else. But you still have the right and more importantly, 
the responsibility to decide how your food is grown and where it comes from. 
Most of us have forgotten this right and abdicated this responsibility, 
leaving these decisions to be juggled with profit motives in corporate 
boardrooms under the precarious supervision of the USDA, the FDA, the EPA and 
the various political interests which manipulate them.

So the next question that arises is “Why have we given up such important 
rights and responsibilities”? I will offer three possible answers for your 
consideration.

One possible answer can be found in a study done by a group of biologists for 
The American Institute of Biological Sciences. They tried to understand the 
possible effects on humans of a disturbing global trend: the tendency of 
populations to concentrate in urban areas with distinctly low levels of 
species diversity. Why do we all live with pigeons, sparrows and Norway 
maples when our environment should, by nature, offer so much more?
Their answer?

They suggested that being surrounded by pale imitations of what nature could 
be diminished one's expectations of what nature should be. We are forgetting, 
and losing, what we have!

They offered 2 solutions: we could move nature to the people, or move the 
people to nature. The researchers preferred bringing nature to people because 
the alternative could cause serious disruption of ecosystems. I believe both 
solutions have merit. There are some wonderful success stories about 
reclaiming blighted areas of our inner cities with urban gardening projects 
that connect people to their food supply.  We can bring some experience of 
the natural world into our urban centers. We can also, carefully, move people 
closer to the natural world.

If people can be made to understand that nature is not something external to 
them, but that they are an integral part of the web of life, I believe that 
awareness would evolve into a respect and perhaps even a reverence for our 
home. Earl Butz, the former Secretary of Agriculture, said “Soon the American 
people will be relieved of the drudgery of growing their own food.”  I am 
convinced he was thinking with that portion of his anatomy that his name 
describes, because I have found quite the contrary to be true.  On our farm, 
we have volunteers who come on harvest days to help pick and prepare the 
produce for delivery. I am always amazed at how much they enjoy themselves. 
Many of them have told me that they never realized the amount of work that 
goes into growing food, but they truly enjoy being a part of the process.

The second possible answer can be found in our flawed accounting practices. 
The American Empire was built on three false assumptions.

1.      That we were blessed with an inexhaustible supply of natural 
resources.
2.      That we could always import a necessary workforce cheaply.
3.      That our transportation costs would remain low and stable.

We are now coming to terms with the reality that these assumptions are, in 
fact, false but we are unwilling to sacrifice the level of comfort they 
provide. The present biased structure of subsidies and incentives that reward 
bad behavior has fostered a dangerous misconception. We suffer from an 
illusion of unprecedented prosperity and economic growth while we live in a 
land of degraded farms, forests, ecosystems and watersheds; polluted air, 
failing families and perishing communities. We must bring the security of our 
planet’s ecological capital into the calculations of the marketplace.

Cheap food is not cheap;

when you pay $1.25 for chicken in the supermarket you do not pay the cost of 
cleaning up the rivers polluted by the poultry industry. In its 2004 Living 
Planet Report, the World Wildlife Fund revealed the shocking news that our 
ecological footprint, that is, the impact of humanity on the Earth, has 
increased two and a half fold since 1961.  The report showed that the average 
footprint is 5.4 acres per person.  There is a problem here - that footprint 
is 20% greater than the 4.4 acres of land that each person on the planet 
needs to provide the necessary natural resources to sustain life. The average 
footprint of a North American is not only double that of a European, but 
seven times that of the average Asian or African.

The third possible answer to this question is one that has intrigued me for 
years. We have, quite simply, lost our reverence for Creation. I used to 
blame this on Eve for making that uninformed pact with the serpent. As a 
result of that poor decision, we were kicked out of the Garden and told we 
must toil for our food. I believed that this drove a wedge between humanity 
and the natural world, creating an antagonistic relationship, and that we 
have suffered the consequences ever since. But after taking a couple of 
courses at SU and doing quite a bit of independent reading, I have come to 
the conclusion that we were not kicked out of the Garden, we are still in the 
Garden, but we are operating on the wrong principles. I now hold the fathers 
of the scientific revolution responsible. I should never have blamed a woman 
and I should have known that men with their “get a bigger hammer approach” to 
a problem were responsible.

The Scientific Revolution started a gradual transformation of society that 
has caused us to devalue the natural world and to destroy its resources for 
utilitarian ends. In his keynote address at the Pennsylvania Association for 
Sustainable Agriculture’s conference in 1999, Wm. McDonough pointed out that 
the question posed in Genesis regarding dominion versus stewardship is 
actually moot: how can we have dominion over what we have destroyed?

In the same address, McDonough, a designer, told the audience that he sees 
design as the first signal of human intention.  If the systems we design 
prove to have faults as they are applied, it is not by regulations that will 
only further encumber the application that we will solve the problems of that 
poor design, but by re-design.  Certainly we did not intend to design a 
system of agriculture that pollutes our water, air and soil, enslaves 
farmers, compromises our health and ultimately tyrannizes future generations. 
These are the unintended consequences of our poor design. I see no purpose in 
bashing the industrial agriculture model other than to inform us about the 
perils we face if we continue on this course. I prefer to heed the advice of 
Buckminster Fuller when he said, “You never change anything by fighting the 
existing. To change something, build a new model and make the existing 
obsolete”.

It is to that end that I, along with a dedicated group of hard working folks, 
have been working for the past 5 years. We are working toward a regionally 
based, safe, just and sustainable food system in the Community Supported 
Agriculture farming model, known as CSA farms.

The CSA model emphasizes mutual, shared responsibility: a committed group of 
consumers accepts the financial responsibility for the farm and the farmer 
returns his commitment by growing the highest quality of food he is able to 
produce for them. The essence of the relationship is mutual commitment: the 
farmer is motivated by the needs of the shareholders and the shareholders are 
motivated by the needs of the farmer. The roots of the CSA movement can be 
traced to what are called Teikei farms in Japan. Teikei translates to “food 
with the farmer's face on it”.

After the second world war, when chemical inputs were introduced to increase 
the yields on Japanese farms and the population became increasingly 
urbanized, both farmers and their customers were concerned about the 
degradation of the land and the poor quality and availability of food. 
Cooperative arrangements were established to deliver food to the urban 
population. The concept spread through Europe where farmers sought market 
stabilization and consumers sought fresh, nutritious food.
In 1983, Robyn van En, a Massachusetts farmer was approached by a local food 
co-op seeking someone to grow winter storage crops. This arrangement was 
successful and with a group of dedicated people, Indian Line Farm became the 
first consumer-driven CSA farm in this country. She began writing the book 
“Sharing the Harvest” but died of asthma before its completion. Elizabeth 
Henderson completed the book, which has become an important source of 
guidance for start-up CSA’s. The term Community Supported Agriculture was 
chosen by Robyn because it can be transposed into Agriculture Supported 
Communities, which defined her dream.

CSA’s spread throughout the northeast, mostly in university communities, but 
also among group homes for the handicapped that recognized the therapeutic 
value of gardening. Emergency food banks have also discovered the benefits of 
growing their own food.

At The Food Bank Farm in western Massachusetts, 50% of the food is 
distributed to the local food bank and 50% is distributed to the 
shareholders. The entire cost of operating the farm is borne by the 
shareholders. Because food distribution costs are minimized by eliminating 
middlemen, the shareholders receive more for their food dollar than if the 
same produce were purchased at the local supermarket.

Most CSA’s require a work commitment, either on or off the farm. Tasks such 
as bookkeeping, budgeting, recruiting new members, publishing a weekly 
newsletter and coordinating farm events such as potluck dinners and 
activities for children are available to the members not interested in 
getting their hands dirty. For those who like to play in the dirt we have 
transplanting parties, mulching extravaganzas, lessons on how to drive tomato 
stakes and tie tomatoes and the twice weekly picking parties. I am 
particularly blessed with a member who loves hand-weeding.  All of this 
relieves the farmer of these chores so he or she can focus on growing the 
crops and practicing good stewardship of the land. Member involvement enables 
the CSA to fit itself to the community it serves. The success rate of CSA’s 
is directly proportional to the level of member involvement.

I first learned about CSA farms at a conference in Virginia in 1985 where 
Trauger Groh, a German farmer who had started a CSA in New Hampshire, spoke 
on the topic. After listening to Mr. Groh, I believed the CSA model had the 
potential to save struggling family farms from almost certain extinction. At 
that time I was in the greenhouse business providing transplants to local 
vegetable farmers and seeking to expand my market. I attempted to identify 
CSA farms and offer my service. Within a few years, I was custom-growing 
transplants for about 25 CSA’s. I watched them grow and prosper and decided 
to sell my greenhouse business and start a CSA here. In 2001 I sold Silver 
Seed Greenhouses to a local couple and started Provident Organic Farm based 
on the CSA model in 2002.

If you recall, 2002 was one of the worst drought years on record and our 
harvest was just as poor as the rainfall. Typical retention rate for a first 
year CSA is 35%, miraculously, we retained 65% of the members for the second 
year and we went into 2003 with 100 members. You may recall that 2003 was one 
of the wettest years on record and our harvest reflected that. Once again, 
the members honored their commitment and we went into 2004 with high hopes.

Last year was the great year we were hoping for. By the 25th week of our 30 
week season the membership had received dollar value for their share cost. 
The shares they received for the balance of the season were essentially free.

In the three years we have been in existence, we have trained a young man in 
organic vegetable farming who is now working in Detroit on a community food 
project that enables poor families to grow their own food.

We have established an alliance with Go-Getters in Salisbury to help with 
distributing the shares.
We started the Lower Eastern Shore Sustainable Organic Network, known as 
LESSON, a non-profit organization with the mission of identifying local 
farmers interested in making the transition to sustainable practices and 
helping them to do so by providing technical and marketing assistance.

We created the Medora Harvest Fund to honor the memory of a young woman who, 
prior to her tragic death at the age of 23, had dedicated herself to organic 
farming. This fund accepts tax-deductible donations to distribute food shares 
to families in need of assistance.

This year we are cooperating with an international organization that brings 
interns to this country to study sustainable agriculture so they can return 
to their homes with an expanded knowledge base to share with other farmers.

We also have a documentary film crew interested in helping us create a video 
about the farm that, I hope, can be used in classrooms.

This is just the beginning. I see food as a powerful unifying force in 
society, it has been so throughout our history.  I look forward to the future 
when we can assist in establishing micro enterprises that grow high value 
crops, perhaps this can be done by a group of young women struggling to raise 
their fatherless children and in need of skills to set them free. I would 
like to establish handicapped accessible gardens around a children’s garden 
to reconnect the elders with our young people. I would like to restock the 
soda and junk food machines in our schools with organic fruit juices and 
nutritious snacks.

Impossible?

Only if you think it is, if you can imagine it, you can do it.

Food is the vehicle, community is the destination.

I look forward to the day when farmers claim their rightful place in society 
as the first line of defense in our health care system and are properly 
compensated for their work.

In closing, I will tell you another story.  A few years ago I went to Salina, 
Kansas for the Prairie Festival at the Land Institute.  After two days of 
inspiring talks given by Wendell Berry, David Korten, Winona LaDuke and 
others, the crowd gathered on Sunday morning for the closing address from Wes 
Jackson.  His talk titled “Life on the Farm, 100 Years Hence”, described his 
hopeful vision for agriculture in the 22nd century:

When perennial polycultures have replaced annual monocultures and, as a 
result the soils are weatherproof.

When the farm grows its own fuel.

When farmers are no longer like gamblers betting against the house.

When we are no longer trying to subdue nature, but realize that nature 
provides the model for us to follow.

When the land grant universities return to their original mission of 
conducting publicly funded research for the public interest rather than 
corporate funded research in the corporate interest.

When ecological impact dictates agricultural policy.

At the end of his address, Wes offered to take a few questions from the 
audience. A young woman who had come with a group of graduate students stood 
up and asked him, "Do you really think we can get there". Wes' reply was 
quick and direct. "If you think you will finish your life's work in your 
lifetime, you're not thinking big enough".