The Lost Knowledge of "development"

I have been reading some of Wendell Berry's essays in "The Gift of Good Land." Berry inspired me to learn how to farm after I read "The Memory of Old Jack." I appreciate his critique on culture as it relates to agriculture. In one essay called "Three Ways of Farming in the Southwest" he describes the Papago culture of the Arizona desert:

"In response to their meager land, the Papago developed a culture that was one of the grand human achievements. It was intricately respectful of the means of life, surpassingly careful of all the possibilities of survival. Their ideal was 'survival, not triumph' -- so Charles Bowden writes of them in Killing the Hidden Waters. The Papago communities were at once austere and generous; giving and sharing were necessarily their first principles. The people needed each other too much to risk individualism and dissent. For, as Bowden says, 'The man who hoarded, who saved, who said he and his blood would make it on their own...such a man led his kin to extinction. In the Sonoran desert a man could get and edge, but never savor control. Power came from toil and could only  be stored in other human beings."

"The result was paradoxical: in these almost impossible circumstances, the Papago acieved what Bowden accurately cals a "society of abundance." THe poverty of our "affluent society" never existed among them. The old-time Papago lived close to the Christian morality that we profess, and far indeed from the morality that we practice. We could do worse than put ourselves to school them. "Having little," Boxedn says, "they shared all." And they lived in harmony with their place: they "lived the net yield of the desert's hydrologic budget."

"Contact with white people brought many changes, of which the most radical may have been wells drilled into the aquifers that underlay the desert. But this was a part of a government program that also included livestock production and education. Bowden notes the irony in this effort, which proposed to bring self-sufficiency to a people already marvelously self-sufficient. The opposite happened" 'Education devided the tribe between those who had seen the tractor and those who had not. Stimulation of the cattle industry resulted in the ruin of the rangelands. The wells...cut the ground from underneath the ancient mutual dependence and sharing. A half century after the commissioners' optimistic forecast, the Papago are not respected by their white neighbors and are not self-supporting. They now have a groundwater problem, an overgrazing problem, and an economic problem. The society of abundance is gone."

-Berry (1979)

For  me this loss of a culture mirrors what our culture has become today. We do not know how to support ourselves other than with money and we do not know how to use the land. 

The current face of agriculture

As a "city girl" many of the images that I saw of the country growing up were the rows of corn as I was driving on the interstate. Actually living in the country has allowed me to see what the country actually is today.  It has come a long way since "Little House on the Prairie" and not all of it is as magnificent as it may seem. As a group of interns we discuss these issues often. 

The drive into Alexandria offers just a small glimpse of what agriculture is. The following pictures are taken from my drives in and out of Alex. One Sunday I drove to Brainerd to visit family and took mainly the smaller county roads, and this was where I actually saw the face of agriculture. No longer are farms the small family farms, but they are large farms that grow mainly one or two different crops. Often times as interns we discuss what this has done to society and to our food (I'm interested in the society part, many of the other interns are concerned about the environment). One thing that sticks in my mind is the government policies that play a large role in the current system. They say that if a farmer grows a certain amount of a certain crop they will  receive a subsidy. So the farms continue to grow. Then, the farmer stops seeing his crop as food and it he/she perceives it as merely a product to be sold, and therefore the use of pesticides and chemicals do no worry the farmer. Some of the farmers in the area have gardens in their front yards, but they are  very small. They would never spray chemicals on these vegetables because they don't want to eat the stuff. They also become much more dependent on a grocery store, which is a really silly idea." Why would you buy your food from a store when you can produce a lot of it in the land that you own?" 

There are two things on the drive to Alexandria that are so juxtaposed and show the current system. The first is an abandoned small farm house, barn etc. that I like to imagine was a lively flourishing farm many years ago. 

The other is a large farm with two silohs and a grain machine that I can't recall the name of right now. They obviously have a lot of land and grow a lot of food. (Sorry that the picture is hard to see, I took it while driving)

This is not a one time site, I see properties like these all the time. And maybe the barn is falling apart and they are no longer farming, but the family is still living in a small house on the land. What's sad is that these small farms (and even large ones) are continuing to die. The younger generations are not interested in working in the kinds of job that the work is hard and the rewards are little. Not only is the pay low but you are not producing much to be proud of. Not only are the generations dying, but so is the knowledge that came with it. 

My 22nd Birthday!

Yesterday was my first birthday as a college graduate. Wow, I made it 22 years. Since I am living in a new place and living and working with people that I am only familiar with I was worried if it would be much of anything, but it turned out perfect...just the kind of birthday I would hope for. Another girl I work with had her 21st birthday on June 23rd, the day before mine, so we had been planning to celebrate together. We went to Zorbaz, a Minnesota pizza eatery (one of my favorites...yum) and ate nachos, had some "adult beverages,"and ate yummy oreo cake that Emy's mom bought for us. It was a lot of fun. I had to work on my birthday, which was a normal workday filled with its normal stresses and small moments of peace while picking peas in the morning hours. After work my new friends wanted to celebrate my birthday, which I was surprised by because I thought that the night before was the birthday celebration, but at my request we went to Dunn Brothers and drank coffee and played games and hung out. It was perfect, since coffeeshops are one of my favorite places to hang out. Also, on the way to Dunn Brothers we saw a rainbow in the sky, which I deemed my "birthday rainbow" and the sunset was beautiful, a gift from God for my birthday. I also was able to talk with friends and family from different parts of the country and received many birthday wishes on facebook. 

My Birthday sunset!

My Birthday Rainbow!

I am now one year older, and possibly one year wiser (we shall see), and am forever gracious to the Lord for his work in my life and to my parents, who gave me life and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. 

When the weeds keep growing

There are a couple key things that make organic growing different from other forms of agriculture. The biggest thing is that organic farmers don't use chemicals on their produce. So the question that I have run into is then "since you can't spray what do you do?," and that's why the organic farmer is valued. The care that goes into organic produce is more intensive. You have to watch your crop and look for all the faulty pieces about it. So instead of spraying the weeds, the weed control starts from the very beginning of the growing season before anything is planted by "tilling" the earth. Really, it is important to break up the soil. Then, when the plant is in the soil you can sometimes take heavy machinery through the crop, but on most occasions you spend your time hand-weeding, wheel-hoeing, and hoeing the crops. 

This is how I spend a lot of my time on the farm, or at least right now. When I first arrived I spent my first day hand-weeding a bed of carrots. One of the also recent arrivals told me that farming can become kind of dull and monotonous. This is very true. Last week a bed of beets took me and two other interns all morning to hand weed. The intern that told me that it was monotonous very shortly after brought out a radio and turned on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio). Other people listen to their ipods while they are working. At first I thought that it would be a good idea to bring my ipod into the field with me, but the other day when I was wheel-hoeing dandelion greens I decided that sometimes no-music isn't so bad. I enjoyed digging my toes into the soil and listening to the birds chirping, the cows grazing, and the wind moving the grass back and forth. It is almost freeing to be there, looking over the miles of fields that cover the land and think about the grand things of creation. 

Reflections of an amateur farmer

Well I have officially reached the one week mark of being on the organic farm. I didn't expect that the farm would  be so big. The farmer, Gary, is running quite the operation. He has 300 shareholders to feed everyweek so he has a lot of vegetables to grow. Everything here is new and different, but exciting at the same time. I harvested vegetables last week that I have never heard of before and I discovered foods that grow in the ground that I had never thought about (Garlic...who knew?). 

Sometimes the work is exciting and other times it can be rather monotonous. My first day I learned how to hand weed and thin carrots and parsnips. This took all afternoon and it took 4 of us to complete the task. Day two was harvesting day. I was surprised that they already had vegetables ready to harvest, but with a greenhouse available it makes growing vegetables available earlier in the season to eat, and with how dry it is the vegetables were ready to come out of the ground. We harvested radishes, salad greens, some bak choi, scallions, and spinach. One Wednesdays we pack all the vegetables to be ready for delivery the next day. This is an assembly line process that includes making boxes, weighing bags of lettuce, and packing the prewashed vegetables into the boxes and into the truck. The truck leaves at midnight and travels to Alexandria, The Twin Cities, and St. Cloud. On Thursday we had a crop walk which is something that all the interns do with the farmer once a week to catch each other up on the progress of the growth, planting, weeding, etc. When we finished I redgy weeded the rest of the day. This craft is a machine that attatches to the back of the tractor that has seats and round claws attatched to handles that dig the dirt up. It makes weeding later on much quicker and easier. On Friday I direct seeded squash and sunflowers into the beds and then I hoe weeded for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily we had Saturday off and I got a chance to see Alexandria and find some (already) favorite local coffeeshops. Today (Monday) I seeded in the greenhouse cabbage, bunched onions, and romaine lettuce. In the afternoon I transplanted watermelons into one of the beds. 

It is amazing how such a craft of farming has been lost on us. The simple task of hoeing was something that I had to be taught. Everything is new to me and the rest of the interns are patient with me as I learn. Luckily many of the skills are not that challenging to acquire. It will be perfecting them that will take time. 

As far as feeling comfortable with this new group of people, it can be challenging at times and other times I am so happy to be surrounded by people who have similar convictions as I do in terms of how our current society is structured. Many times I feel like an odd one out, being one of few, if any, practicing Christians, but it makes it all the more exciting. I am learning to navigate a world different than the Christian college that I just came out of and I am being challenged in my faith as well. But I also feel that I can fit right in with these people who see the world, society, politics, and many other controversial issues similarly to myself, which is a good change from the environment that I had been in previously. 

At nights we read, listen to folk music, cook, and sit around and chat. They are rather resourceful people. It is many a night where people are creating or eating foods that I have always purchased at the grocery stor. Just tonight a couple of my "co-workers" were making homemade pizza dough. Other things that have been made in the kitchen are crackers, ketchup, bagels, applesauce, and much more. I also enjoy purchasing my milk and eggs from the local farmer nearby and participating in the local community, which is one of the many reasons why I am here.  If you are interested in learning more about the farm that I am on go to www.ploughsharefarm.com and remember  to participate in your local community!