The Farmer is the One Who feeds Us All

Organic cucumbers from Spain are off the hook (Organic cucumbers in the clearhttp://ning.it/jabYL3 - Cucumbers safe in the UK: safety watchdog reassures consumershttp://t.co/th7BjUs via @guardian). But organic and small scale farmers are still under fire.  This is an issue which has far reaching effects. It is hurting small and large scale vegetable producers around the world. 

That is a song from the Civil War, or maybe the populist movements of the 1890s - first recorded by Fiddlin' John Carson in 1923. I like the Pete Seeger version I heard at the Clearwater Festival back in 2003. on the farm bill from the Young armers http://www.youngfarmers.org/

I really like what those guys are doing. I have been a big fan of them and the greenhorns for a long time. 

Finally folks.. 

Why should farmers fight with farmers? 

If we work together we can build good soil and healthy food. If we keep fighting instead of getting organized it will all belong to fast moving venture capitalists on Wall Street and we will be left in a dustbowl with nothing to eat. 

Here is a song. 

THE FARMER IS THE MAN

Oh the farmer comes to town
With his wagon broken down,
Oh the farmer is the man who feeds us all;
If we'd only look and see, well I think that we'd agree
That the farmer is the man who feeds us all.
The farmer is the man,
The farmer is the man.
Lives on credit 'til the fall,
Then they take him by the hand,
And they lead him from the land,
And the middleman's the one who gets it all.

When the lawyer stands around
While the butcher cuts a pound,
He forgets that it's the farmer feeds 'em all.
And the preacher and the cook
Go a-strollin' by the brook,
They forget that its the farmer feeds' em all.
The farmer is the man,
The farmer is the man.
Lives on credit 'til the fall,
With the interest rate so high, its a wonder he don't die,
And the middleman's the one who gets it all.

When the banker says he's broke,
And the merchant's up in smoke,
They forget that it's the farmer feeds 'em all.
If he'd only take a rest,
He could put 'em to the test,
Cause the farmer is the man who feeds 'em all.
The farmer is the man,
The farmer is the man.
Lives on credit 'til the fall,
His condition it's a sin,Cause his pants are gettin' thin,
We forgot that he's the one who feeds us all.

Green Patriot Posters

www.greenpatriotposters.org This poster art is part of a series of designs in Michelle McEwan‘s propaganda campaign for new, American home-front values. Inspired by the “Garden for Victory” campaign of World War II and other 20th century events, these posters speak to the next generation in an artful, active voice.

IFOAM as a Laterally structured Organization

As a member of the international Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) I was recently asked to comment on proposed changes to the organizational structure. I was given a sheet with the old complicated hierarchical chart structure and the new proposed chart. The differences were clearly well thought out and significant but I was still not convinced. It seems to me that the organizational structures charts are used more for reporting and serve little role in the every-day running of an organization.

I proposed that IFOAM consider a team based lateral organizational structure. It puts everyone on the same employment level into teams that perform specific job functions, requires lower overhead, and little to no management. All the delays in decision-making and implementation due to chain of command would be eliminated. Responsibility would be shared, and decisions made among team members by a quorum. it seems everything would be better run, and more effectively implemented than through a hierarchy.

In my opinion the hierarchy model does not fit with IFOAM's mission or goals. The organization is supposed to be democratic and fair. Why not follow through with that right down tot he nitty gritty everyday practices. it seems only right.

Here is a part of a poem written by Walt Whitman in 1886 that captures my sentiment on this issue. it comes from the poem "Song of Myself" which is a perfect read to welcome the early summer with.


"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.
They do not make me sick discussiong their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world."
— Walt Whitman (Song of Myself)

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