Week 3 on the Farm: Soil!

Weather Forecast for Tuesday: 40% chance of rain, highs in the 60s
Weather Forecast for Friday: 40% chance of rain, highs in the 50s

The Common Living Dirt

The small ears prick on the bushes,
furry buds, shoots tender and pale.
The swamp maples blow scarlet.
Color teases the corner of the eye,
delicate gold, chartreuse, crimson,
mauve speckled, just dashed on.

The soil stretches naked. All winter
hidden under the down comforter of snow,
delicious now, rich in the hand
as chocolate cake: the fragrant busy
soil the worm passes through her gut
and the beetle swims in like a lake.

As I kneel to put the seeds in
careful as stitching, I am in love.
You are the bed we all sleep on.
You are the food we eat, the food
we ate, the food we will become.
We are walking trees rooted in you.

--Marge Piercy


This week we will explore the mysteries of the "living dirt," otherwise known as soil. Take a moment to think about the context in which you have used or heard these words: dirty, soiled. Is it a good thing for someone or something to be described in these terms?


Might there be a connection between the fact that we frequently use these adjectives in negative ways and the fact that we are actively destroying the complex web of life that exists within the soil through our agricultural practices?

What do you even know about the soil and its importance for your own life?

Before you come to the farm this week, please watch the documentary "Symphony of the Soil" on Kanopy and then reflect on the following questions in the comments section of this blog:

1) In what contexts have you used or heard the words "soiled" or "dirty" used? What associations do these words have for you? 

2) What did you know about soil before watching the film "Symphony of the Soil"? Where did you learn what you knew?

3)  What have you learned by watching the film that has changed how you think about soil?

4) What questions do you have now about soil and your relationship to it?

A Healthy Diet to Reduce Our Environmental Impact by Druanna M. Darling

The topic I have chosen is a healthy diet and possible changes we can make as a community to address the increasing negative impact the meat and dairy industry have on the environment. My personal relationship with food has changed considerably since middle school with the addition of new knowledge about the importance of reducing animal products in my own diet and the environmental impact that meat and dairy farms have on our planet. Within the past few months I have transitioned to a primarily raw-food vegan diet (devoid of all animal products, including meat, eggs and dairy). The solution to reducing the environmental impact of the meat and dairy industries doesn’t lie primarily with eliminating these foods completely from one’s diet, it is multifaceted and requires changes in Western food systems, governmental policies, and implementation of regulations on the meat and dairy industry.

According to a recent study, meat and dairy production account for roughly 83% of farmland use and produce 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. For example, beef cattle raised on deforested land result in 12 times more greenhouse gases and use 50 times more land than those grazing rich natural pasture. (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987.full?ijkey=ffyeW1F0oSl6k&keytype=ref&siteid=sci).

Current Nutritional Guidelines:

The USDA states that a healthy diet should consist of 6-11 servings (bread, cereal, rice, and pasta), 3-5 servings (vegetables), 2-4 servings (fruits), 2-3 servings (milk, yogurt, and cheese), 2-3 servings (meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs, and nuts), and 1 serving a week of fats, oils, and sweets (https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files /archived_projects/FGPPamphlet.pdf). This food pyramid advocates for both daily meat and dairy consumption. So how might dairy and meat made its way into daily nutritional guidelines? Due to mass marketing campaigns, such as the “Got Milk” advertisements, the dairy and meat industries have become a powerful force in influencing government nutritional guidelines. https://youtu.be/XRCj8LVTRyA

Studies Against Meat and Dairy Consumption:

A large study coming from researchers at the Uppsala University in Sweden specifically found that drinking milk led to an increased mortality rate and actually made bones more prone to fracturing, not less. Other studies have found that the long-term consumption of increasing amounts of red meat and processed meat is associated with an increased risk of total mortality, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer and type 2 diabetes, in both men and women (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26780279). In understanding the importance of a healthy diet, we must take into account the nutritional benefits and environmental impact of certain food groups, vegetables, fruits, grains, meats, and dairy, as well as, how we can become a part of the solution.

Two questions I would like you to consider before Wednesday:

What do you consider a healthy diet?

How might the environmental impact of certain food groups influence your current diet?

How to use this blog

We'll use this blog to support our class in two ways.

First, by Sunday of each week, John & Amy will post a "preview" of that week's farm practicum, along with materials for everyone to review in preparation for their time on the farm. Please review this material and post a question or comment in response to it prior to your weekly time on the farm.

Second, the facilitators of the coming week's class will each compose and publish a blog post by Sunday evening as well. These posts will relate to the food/farming related issue that the author would like us to explore during their hour of class time. These posts should contain:

1) a personal reflection about the author's interest in/relationship to/ideas about the problem at hand,
2) links to reference materials that will help the class understand the issue in some depth,
3) information about or links to materials that describe attempts to solve the problem,
and
4) questions that you would like the class to respond to in their comments on your posts.

Keep in mind that we want this course to be personal and solutions-oriented. In order to move toward real solutions, we need to understand the issues in all of their complexity. Your blog posts should contain lots of factual information to help us with this understanding (and please make sure your factual information is coming from sources you deem credible!). But they should also be written from a personal perspective. Why are you concerned about this problem? When did you first learn of it? How does it affect you personally? How are others attempting to solve this problem and how might you personally engage with its solutions?

Your blog posts should end with an open-ended question or two that you'd like the class to respond to by Tuesday evening. Everyone else in the class will respond to your post with a comment that addresses the question(s) you've posed. Commenters, please spend some time composing thoughtful responses--200+ words is a good length to shoot for, but quality is more important than quantity.

Imagining Solutions to Food Insecurity Beyond Charitable Food Services:

Hello class, I am so, so overjoyed to wake up to the sound of birds chirping and to be able to walk outside without my skin drying up and my nose chapping. Finally, Spring has Sprung and the whole campus can breathe again.

The topic I am working on is food insecurity and solutions that can work to meet the needs of food insecure people. The solutions we will think about aren't simply “band-aids” to a crisis that is very present in the Kalamazoo community, but they are long term goals that can put food banks out of business. I am taking what I learned at my internship at Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes and asking you guys to contribute the ways in which we can envision a community that has tangible long term solutions. 

What a Band-Aid Effect Looks Like:

The band-aid effect is an approach to societal issues that mask instead of solve the crisis at hand. The name stems from the purpose of a band-aid, to cover up a wound but not fix it. This effect is essentially how emergency food services began. The emergency food service model, which arose in the 1980’s, makes clear the structure of providing emergency food is self perpetuating food insecurity in communities throughout the country.

Using the band-aid approach to food insecurity temporarily satiates a hungry family, but when the band-aid peels off, the feeling of hunger will creep back with no long term solution in the making. This causes a system that keeps people living in a cyclical state of dependence. There is no simple answer or approach to the crisis of hunger in the community.

To begin, Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes (KLF) (http://kzoolf.org/) is West Michigan’s largest charitable food bank. I had an internship there in Summer 2018, and it left me feeling more confused than when I entered.

To preface, I will share a small story: It was August 2017. After moving out of my boyfriends parents house, leaving a full time summer job, paying first month's rent, paying tuition and being in between health insurances I was faced with the challenge of not being able to afford groceries. This is not an unusual place to be, and many have been in my shoes. Yet, it was a very embarrassing place to be, considering that I had for the most part been fully financially supporting myself, and at times, my parents since 16. I saw a flier for free groceries at a location that was not far from my new place of residency in Kalamazoo. Picking up the free groceries was fairly quick process, my first experience with KLF is similar to that of the majority of clients who utilize the free grocery services. They are people who are struggling to make ends meet, but the additional help with free groceries can pull people out of a place of struggle, or keep people afloat in periods of transition. I have not needed to utilize KLF since, but I have referred several friends who were in similar positions to the services that KLF provides.

-Report on Hunger on Campus: The study sample includes 3,765 students in 12 states attending eight community colleges and 26 four-year colleges and universities. https://studentsagainsthunger.org/hunger-on-campus/

However, in Summer of 2018, my experience was so positive with KLF that I decided to take a Community Building Internship and complete an experimental research SIP at KLF. Going into it, I had no personal quarrels with the concept of emergency charitable food services, but by the time I left I felt a complicated relationship to KLF and other charitable food services postionalities to communities. I will spend class time going over some models/ research I gathered at my internship at KLF. 

History of Emergency Charitable Food System’s:

Andrew Fisher the author of “Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups” highlights just how popular the charitable food system has become in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. In the book, he pinpoints actions and communications of groups and individuals involved in the anti-hunger field and how American society organizes to define and address a wicked social problem.

Three Legged Stool Model:

To Fisher, in order to combat hunger, there must be a mass reframing of the overall anti-hunger field. He suggest the concept of the three legged stool, which creates an integrated field in which the success of the anti-hunger field sits. Each leg stands for economic justice, healthy individuals, and democratic food systems. He believes that if the three legs model is integrated, then there is an ability to fully address food insecurity, but if one of the legs of the stool becomes weak, the stool will topple and the ability to resolve the root causes of hunger will collapse.

Here are some other ways that people are addressing food insecurity on their campus/ in their community: 


- This is a article about how Kalamazoo Valley Community College is addressing food insecurity on campus:  https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2019/03/new-program-to-provide-local-produce-grocery-items-to-students-at-kalamazoo-valley.html


Some questions to start our conversation on Wednesday:

1) There are many factors contributing to today’s food security crisis. For example, How is climate change having an impact? 

2) Might there be a connection between food prices and the rise or fall of of poverty?

3) https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RBYVDG6 I made a survey monkey with 8 brief questions... please take it as it will help guide the classroom conversation! :) The responses will be anonymous.  

Week 2 on the Farm: Seeds!

From John:

Always I have been fascinated by seeds--their vivid shapes and colors, their power and mystery. When I joined the Seed Savers Exchange (http://www.seedsavers.org/) in 1982, I fell in love with the stories attached to seeds gifted to me. Most of our culture at the time had not yet awakened to the "heirloom phenomenon" we see today. Matter of fact, most gardeners and farmers had come to believe as they were told by seed companies and university breeding programs that modern hybrids were far superior. These beautiful seeds that I had requested would arrive at my door accompanied by wonderful handwritten stories about the seeds like these:

"My family lost almost everything during the Great Depression, but these beans kept us alive."

"This was the only corn to make ears during the great drought of '34."

"My people carried these beans on the Trail of Tears."

I added my own stories when I sent seeds in return: "Midnight, late July, Aunt Mary's Sweet Corn in full tassel and silk--strong stalks and setting two ears--I feel such powerful ecstatic energy."

Seeds and culture intertwined. There is more encoded in seeds than their DNA. Seeds have stories to tell and they are still waiting for us to listen.

So, yes! I do think seeds have agency. They are my sisters, brothers, and teachers. Since it appears that climate change may encourage us to rethink agriculture, what kinds of questions should we consider that connote a relationship between us of mutuality and reciprocity? Here are a few that I have been pondering:

Have we misinterpreted our ancient ancestors' true motivations for selection of seeds for food crops? What about the seeds/species we did not select (such as perennials) and those we have chosen to leave behind?

How might a nurturing/stewarding seed culture emerge in our Great Lakes Bioregion?

What critical consciousness skills will we need to bring to the table when we consider genetically modified organisms?

What about all the seeds that sit in cold storage in seed vaults? Where are the gardeners to find out if these seeds could have a new "homeland"?

How might we re-vision our educational ethics so that seeds and our healthy relationship to the biotic community mean more than power and money?

~~~~~~~~

Before you come to the farm this week, please watch the documentary film "Seed: The Untold Story." It is available for streaming through your K College Kanopy account: https://kzoo.kanopy.com/

After you've watched it, please reflect on the film in the comments section of this blog post. We would like to know the following:

1) What did you know about seeds and the seed industry prior to watching this film? Where did you obtain this prior knowledge?

2) Does any of the information in the film challenge your ideas about your relationship to food and plants? If so, how so? Also, do parts of the film resonate with your experiences and beliefs? If so, tell us how!

3) Were there any parts of the film that made you feel uncomfortable or where you found the messaging of the film to be problematic in some way? If so, why?

4) Are there other questions that arise for you as you contemplate your relationship with the plants that sustain your life?

Also, please bring your seed catalogs and worksheets to the farm when you come out! We will talk about them and then we will plant some seeds!!

Introduction to the Harvest of Joy Farmers

Hello Slow Farmers 2019! We are looking forward to hosting you on the farm over the next 2+ months. So that you can come out with a little background about who we are, what we do, and why we do it, please read our reflections below and then visit our website to learn about our farming philosophy.



Amy's Reflection:

My first friends were farm animals. Cows, mostly, because my parents were dairy farmers and so I was surrounded by them. We had chickens too, but they pecked me when I tried to collect their eggs and the roosters flew at my head with their dusty wings and sharp talons whenever I entered the chicken yard. I preferred the cows. I remember one old cow who always chose the same stall in the middle of the barn. I liked to sit next to her and stroke the soft underside of her neck as she calmly chewed her cud and waited her turn to be milked. I was too young to be of much help in the barn then, but I loved being around the cows, touching them and smelling their sweet breath.

As soon as I was tall and strong enough, I was given chores. My first responsibilities were feeding the cows and young calves, then cleaning stalls and milking. In the summer there was field work as we grew and harvested the crops that would feed the cows through the winter. It was hard, physical work but I enjoyed it. I loved being outside, working with my family. We were a team, working together to take care of the cows, who in turn took care of us by giving us milk, meat, and money. Neither of my parents had off-farm jobs, so everything we had came from those cows. If they flourished, we flourished.

No childhood is perfect, but I loved growing up on the farm. I determined that I wanted to live on a farm forever and planned to marry a farmer when I grew up. (That it didn’t occur to me that I could be a farmer myself should give you an indication of the gender dynamics in my family.) It was when I was about twelve that I started to realize that something was amiss in the world of agriculture.

In the mid-80s, a decade after former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz (you can read about his legacy here: http://grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/) extorted farmers to “get big or get out,” the dairy industry hit a crisis. Production, bolstered in part by government price-supports and buy-ups of surplus product, rose to unsustainable levels. As part of an attempt to reduce the surplus milk flooding the market, the federal Dairy Termination Program offered a buyout option which paid farmers to stop milk production.

I imagine that a conversation similar to the one my family had one February evening took place across many farmhouse kitchen tables that year. My father explained the terms of program. We’d have to sell the cows and agree not to produce milk for a certain number of years, which meant we’d be done dairying, since it wasn’t feasible to get back into the business after being out for several years.

“Well, family, what do you think?” my father asked, looking from my mother to my brother to me. “Should we take it?”

“No!” I yelled, shaking my head vigorously, eyes wide, shocked that we would even consider such a thing. I couldn’t imagine life without the cows, without the farm. What would we do?

I don’t know how much my reaction actually figured into my father’s decision not to take the buyout. Many of the small dairies in our county did. And though my parents didn’t stop farming when I was a kid, they determined that they would be the last generation of my family to farm. “Go to college,” they told my brother and me. “Get a good job off the farm. You can’t make a living doing this on a small scale—it’s too hard.”

The agricultural policies promoted by Butz and others who shared his interests (and the fallout from these policies) have changed the landscape and ecosystem in which I live. Once my township and those surrounding it were dotted with small, diverse farms. My father remembers the days when every family had a garden, a pig, a cow, and some chickens. Now a few large farms dominate the area with corn, soybeans, and dairy herds which contain thousands of cattle (at its biggest, my parents’ herd was a couple of hundred).

“Plant fencerow to fencerow,” Butz said. Today, even the fencerows have been cut and plowed, destroying precious buffer zones and ecologically diverse habitats. In the effort to get maximum yields per acre, erodible land is tilled and soil washes into our rivers and streams. Chemical fertilizers and herbicides have destroyed the life in our soil and they also wash into our watershed, wreaking havoc in our aquatic ecosystems. Livestock, also, are pushed to the limits of production through breeding, feeding, and confinement practices that leave them with shortened and unpleasant lives. And farm workers share that same fate as they put in exhausting workdays which frequently include dangerous working conditions and exposures to toxic substances.

My re-entry into farming as a small-scale vegetable grower in 2010 was motivated by a desire to enter into a more intimate, conscious, and conscientious relationship with my local community. Over the past nine years of developing and working this business, I've experienced deep satisfactions and deep grief. I've moved from hope to discouragement and back to hope again. I've pulled myself back from the edge of burnout and bitterness, dug deep to recover the joy I find in working with the earth, and learned (am learning!) how to be increasingly honest about what I need in order to sustain this work. 

I suspect that in order to create a truly resilient, just, and joyful agricultural system, we have to change some of our fundamental cultural beliefs about who we are in relationship to the other beings of this earth (including humans!) and to the earth itself. My farming practices are an exploration of the possibilities for those changes in my own life and being. 

I titled this class “Slow Farming” after the “Slow Food” (https://www.slowfoodusa.org/about-us) and “Slow Money” (https://slowmoney.org/about/principles) movements, which emphasize the revitalization of local food traditions and investment in community food systems as means of resisting corporate control of food and farming systems. I think we need to extend these “slow” conversations to include the growing of food as well so that more people have the ability to access the deep pleasure and responsibility of growing their own food. I hope this class will contribute to that for each of you.

John's Reflection:
 

I have grown old in a society that promotes competition and condones violence in myriad forms. Much of my work and play in this life has been focused on restoring balance by encouraging and attempting to live in support of these principles: 

Cooperation and Collaboration

Respect for diversity

Justice, Justice, Justice

Nonviolence
 

After 40+ years of gardening and farming, I feel like a child again. Much of what I always "sensed" about these two potentially noble adventures are being confirmed. In the larger scheme of things, all parts of an ecosystem--animals, trees and plants, fungi, microbes, etc., are collaborating and cooperating to maintain balance and health. The greater the diversity present in all realms, the more healthy the system. In my love and affection for gardening and farming, the more I collaborate and cooperate with this process, the healthier I, we, become.

Read about our farming philosophy on our website: https://harvestofjoyfarm.wordpress.com/