Organic in Seoul Korea

Just arrived in Seoul, Korea and now live at the Green Scent Farm, a peri-urban organic farm with vegetable production and farm exposure programs for children and consumers from Seoul.

On my first night on the farm I was treated to a large traditional Korean barbecue with the whole family. Complete with a few different species of native plants and some heavy Korean schnapps.

I am here working for the Korean Federation of Sustainable Agriculture Organizations (KFSA) one of the many organizers of the IFOAM Organic World Congress (IFOAM OWC).

The IFOAM OWC (titled: 'Organic is Life') will take place in Gyeonggi Paldang in early October. The organizers are several government institutes and non-profit organizations.

The event will also be the 3rd Scientific Conference of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR) looking at the development of the Organic Sector in Korea and other Asian countries.

For now I am working on getting rid of my jet-lag and getting into the swing of life in Seoul.

For balance, here is a Poem from Wendell Berry's Farming: A Handbook

The Man Born to Farming

The Grower of Trees, the gardener,

the man born to farming,

whose hands reach into the ground and sprout to him the soil is a divine drug.

He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing.

He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.

His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.

What miraculous seed has he swallowed

That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth

Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water

Descending in the dark.

Wild Collection, Over-use, and Kim-Chi

When the season is right I get about half of my food from the wild. A lot of the greens, roots, fruits and berries go into salads but the bulk of it gets fermented. I have learned a special technique for Kim-Chi fermentation of wild greens with fish sauce, garlic, ginger and chili. I am told that my Kim Chi tastes like south coast Korean Kim-Chi.

As I was on my way out to do some wild collection the other day I had an argument with a friend who, half jokingly, said 'you are going out to practice deforestation again'. She was dubious of my going out and collecting so much of my food from the woods. 'Yes' she said 'it is ok that you do it but what if everyone did it?' I responded that if everyone did it then maybe the farmer would not have to drive his tractor with the hedge cutter along the roads up on the Warteburg every few weeks. In one pass on the road that farmer cuts down more edible vegetation than all of Witzenhausen would use in a summer.

In her argument the forest should be left alone and allowed to grow unmolested by wild harvesting. My argument is that a focus on over-utilization in wild collection is wrong headed. Utilization of natural resources is exactly the opposite of waste and destruction of natural resources. If I see a use for that forest and the resources it holds within I am less likely to burn it down or allow it to be developed into a condominium. If my food comes from that forest I am not likely to cut it down and turn it into agricultural land. 

The relationship between nature and culture is a delicate balance of give and take. I need to get something out of a relationship for it to mean something to me. 


Kim-Chi Recipe (adapted from David Lebovitz).
2 1/2 pounds (roughly 1 kilo ) of wild greens (whichever is in season)
1/2 cup (100g) coarse salt
2 heads of garlic, peeled and finely minced
Finger sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
1/4 cup (60ml) fish sauce (fish paste is also ok)
1 large handful of spicy spicy chili powder
Directions:
1. Slice the greens into chunks. Cut away the tough stems etc.
2. Mix and mash greens and other ingredients in a large bowl. (Some recipes advise wearing rubber gloves since the chili paste can stain your hands or burn.)
3. Pack the Kim-Chi in a clean jar large enough to hold it all (leave some space) and cover it tightly.
4. Check the Kim-Chi after 1-2 days.up to a few weeks If it’s bubbling and smelly, it’s ready to be eaten
Storage: Many advise to eat the Kim-Chi within 3 weeks. After that, it can get too fermented. I have eaten Kim-Chi that was much much older than that and it was delicious (3 year old jjigae). This is largely dependent on the wild greens that you use. Springtime greens tend to turn to mush after three or four weeks of fermentation, autumn wild greens are heartier and can be fermented through the winter or longer. 
 

Ca' Penelope: Agritourismo

The Organic Agritourismo farm Ca' Penelope, in Maranello, Italy, has become my second home. It is also the home of many animals, several wwoofers and a host of hard working, inspiring, and friendly Italians http://www.capenelope.it/.

The Farmers of  Cà Penelope and I on the new label for their own organic lambrusco wine 

Walking around in these hills I have been noticing, once again, the stark difference between the plowed fields and the fresh edible greens of the forests and fields of springtime... It makes me think of wild collecting and the words of Walt Whitman:

These, I, Singing in Spring. by Walt Whitman

THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick’d from the
fields,
have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover
them—Beyond
these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd,
and I
in the
middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in Florida, as it
hung
trailing
down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate
from
me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.

Game Drive in the Masai Mara

This blog post should start with the caveat that it is written as a critique of the Masai Mara. The establishment of a reserve or a park for the preservation of native species through tourism is a questionable undertaking which may not yield the intended results for people and native species.

No alternative suggestions are given in the blog. It is simply a critique of the Masai Mara based on the experience of the author with no basis more reliable than my own impressions, some grey literature and a few papers.

Overview of the Masai Mara:

The Masai Mara National Reserve covers an area of 1,510 square kilometers. The reserve belongs to the Masai people. It is named for the Maasai, original inhabitants of the area and the Maasai word 'Maa' which means spotted (as it is spotted with patches of shrubs and shadows of passing clouds). The Masai Mara acts as a kind of continuation of the Serengeti National Park game reserve in Tanzania and as a through-way for animals in the Great Migration from July to October.

The altitude of the Masai Mara ranges from 1,500 to 2,170 meters and temperatures range from 30 to 15 degrees celsius. December and January are the warmest times of the year; June and July are the coldest. The rainy season 'long rains' generally happen in April and May and 'short rains' are in November. The dry season is usually from July to October. The dry season is the time when the majority of the tourism happens in the area.

Questions remaining from the experience:

The first question: Is the Masai Mara Reserve effective? Does it act as a mechanism for preservation of wildlife and for the betterment of the people of the area? i.e. does creation of wildlife reserves act as a mechanism for the meeting of the millennium development goals?

A study funded by WWF and conducted by ILRI from 1989 - 2003 looked at several ungulate species populations in the Masai Mara finding losses of 95% for giraffes, 80% for warthogs, 76% for hartebeest, and 67% for impala. Increased human settlement in and around the reserve was cited as the mechanism for the loss (Ogutu et. al. 2010). This means that people were eating them and sending the meat off for black markets as 'bush meat' which comprises a part of the diet for many Kenyans (Kiringe et. al. 2007)

These negative anthropogenic effects are not just felt for the ungulate species. The Spotted Hyenas of the Masai Mara are also experiencing stress and increased death rates. The proportion of deaths caused by humans has been dramatically increasing for this species since 1985 (Pangle & Holekamp 2010). Cheetahs have also experienced a negative effect of the anthropogenic factors in the area. The population has been declining from 30- 50% since 1966 (Isaboke 2004-2005).

Second question: Is the establishment of a reserve job creation for the Maasai? The Masaai we saw were living in slum like conditions on the outskirts of the Masai Mara and selling lion tooth necklaces, knives etc. Creating a reserve in this case seems to have caused them to be sedentary.

Job creation is a complicated economic outcome of a number of events. If the markets are allowed to openly choose the mechanisms and standards of work then little chance exists for the Maasai to get jobs in the Masai Mara. Free market creation of jobs often means that industry will choose experienced workers from the existing pool; people who already work in the industry. One example of this that we witnessed is that the drivers of the busses in the park were mostly Kikuyu. One Maasai I met told me that he really wanted to become a driver. He wrote me later that to learn to be a driver "i must travel to the city and go and learn there." He said it will take two years to complete the school and "in kenya everything u do need money..."

Finally our experience begs the question: How wild are the animals that live in the Masai Mara? They live like celebrities surrounded by paparazzi at every move. The Cheetah we saw eating an impala was surrounded by backcountry tourism vans full of tourists. The lions resting in a patch of Acacia were seen by hundreds of tourists in whose drivers drove right up to them. Literally we were a few meters away from the resting pride. The Gnu and Zebra walking near the roads were running away from the speeding tourism vans who were on the way to go and look at the cheetah.

References

Isaboke W., Kahiu M., ROSS M.W., Wambua C. 2004-2005. Cheetah census in Kenya; Priority 1: South Western Kenya, East African Wildlife Society Cheetah Conservation Fund, Kenya

Kiringe J.W., Okelloa M.M., Ekajula S.W. 2007. Managers’ perceptions of threats to the protected areas of Kenya: prioritization for effective management, Oryx. 41:314-321

Ogutu J. O., Piepho H.P., Dublin H.T, Bhola N., Reid R. S. 2009. Dynamics of Mara-Serengeti ungulates in relation to land use changes, Journal of Zoology. 278(1): 1–14

Pangle W.M., Holekamp K.E. 2010. Lethal and nonlethal anthropogenic effects on spotted hyenas in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Journal of Mammology. 91(1):154-164

Your exact errors make a music

Listening to the San Francisco Zen Center podcast I heard Ryushin Paul Haller read this poem today by William Stafford. It has inspired me to get away from Masters Thesis writing and go for a good long run.

Your exact errors make a music

that nobody hears.

Your straying feet find the great dance,

walking alone.

And you live on a world where stumbling

always leads home.

Year after year fits over your face—

when there was youth, your talent

was youth;

later, you find your way by touch

where moss redeems the stone;

and you discover where music begins

before it makes any sound,

far in the mountains where canyons go

still as the always-falling, ever-new flakes of snow.

—William Stafford, from You Must Revise Your Life

Feeding the world without destroying it.

The University of Minnesota just put out a new video on one of the greatest ecological issues of our times: Agriculture.

In the video 'Big Question: Feast or famine?' the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment talks about rising populations, growing land area for agricultural production and gives a generally rousing call to action for agronomists, policy makers and farmers.

We are currently experiencing the 6th great extinction of the world and agriculture is playing a central role. It is important to make sure that agriculture is on the table in talks about how to solve the climate crises and the crises of ecological destruction. However, I'd like to point out a mistake they making in this question: You might remember from statistics class that correlation does not imply causation. This conversation points out a correlation between population growth and ecological decline as a central part of the argument. This correlation does not mean that population growth causes the ecological decline. If you look at the Gapminder Graph of countries with the highest GHG emissions you will see that the rate of population growth of these places is decreasing while the ecological impacts of those populations is increasing. The problems that we need to address are hidden behind this veil of misinterpreted data.

Armed with this knowledge we might start looking for real solutions to the problem. We need radical transformations of the way we interact with the natural world. Rather than looking at the staggering numbers of people being born every day into poverty and despair as the problem we should spread the resources equitably to all those people as a solution. We should also find a way to include the rest of the species in our equitable distribution.

We need radical shifts of economic paradigms e.g. ecological debt reparations where wealthy nations and multinational corporations have to pay for the damage they have caused.

If you are not familiar with Gapminder organization recommend checking them out and watching Prof. Hans Roslings talks on TED.com. See FAO STAT for the populations and Our écological footprint: reducing human impact on the earth By Mathis Wackernagel, William E. Rees for the rest.

Check out 350.org to help come up with real solutions.

The Right To Choose Healthy Food In the US

These are sad and difficult times for small-scale farmers and local food in the US. - Senate bill S 510 was passed last week, with support from agricultural giants, making it illegal to save seeds, give produce to neighbors or sell at farmer's markets without meeting stringent criteria. Now another bill S3767 will expand FDA regulations on all persons who manufacture, process, pack, distribute, receive, hold or import food to the US. This bill puts new enforcement provisions into FDA law, offenders could be fined or imprisoned for up to 10 years. It gives FDA expansive rule-making capability over the way food is produced and creates compliance burdens for small farmers; it will govern how farmers can grow and harvest their crops and make safety controls for all farms and facilities that process foods. 

What can we do? We can Vote Track S 510 to see who voted where and send them a letter accordingly.

Vote track S3767 and make sure that your representatives are voting for small-scale local food. We can contact our representatives and contact our senators. We can read the Agriculture Society and take part in Action Alerts. Finally we can get inspired to take action by watching the Farmageddon trailer on the Richmond Food Collective Blog.