John & Amy's Post #2: Seeds & Their Stories

We want to spend some of our Thursday time talking about one of the foundations of agriculture: collaborations between plants and people through seed saving, trait selection, and plant breeding. As plant breeder Frank Morton says, "Without control of seeds, you're not farming; you're a hunter/gatherer."

Amy's Reflection:

Seed

Little flame of my life,

we have traveled through winter

with our hearts intact. Now we soften

with the soil to the spring rains. Little secret

given away by the ground, I will tell you

my secret:  I want my people to live.

Look, I have made a house for you

in the earth. Let’s live as sisters

again this summer. Your children

will be my children, and my children,

the songs we sing in our fullness,

remembering you.

This poem of mine attempts to capture my love for seeds, the wonder and miracle of them. Every year I am amazed--I put these little things in the ground, give them just a bit of care, and then they grow into these incredibly beautiful and delicious plants whose lives I take in order to sustain my life. They don't live without me; I don't live without them. Our lives are inextricably intertwined in this bargain: the plants give their lives so that I (and my community) can live and in return I help them reproduce so that their lives can continue. Generation after generation.


John's Reflection: 

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, I wonder what kinds of questions should we consider that connote a relationship between us of mutuality and reciprocity? 

Background Information:

What do you know about our agricultural genetics? Don't feel bad if your answer is "not much"! Why should you care? Cary Fowler has a few reasons in his TED talk "One Seed at a Time, Protecting the Future of Food". Check it out:  https://www.ted.com/talks cary_fowler_one_seed_at_a_time_protecting_the_future_of_food


The Svalbard Global Seed Vault might be one part of the solution to rescuing some of our dwindling agricultural diversity, but it's not the only answer. Despite the fact that certain old plant varieties are called "heirlooms," seeds aren't like antique jewelry or furniture--they are alive and in order to stay alive and vital, plant varieties need to be grown out, stewarded, and selected by attentive farmers and gardeners. 

Winona LaDuke offers another approach to reclaiming the genetics of our agricultural heritages in her talk "Seeds of our Ancestors, Seeds of Life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNlel72eQc.
At 11:47, she talks about the Bear Island Flint Corn that you all were shelling out at our house this week. What a gift that those seeds have been shared with us by the indigenous farmers of this continent!

There are several different ways that people have collaborated with plants to create new crops and varieties of crops. Plant Breeder Frank Morton describes these different processes and defines the terms "hybrid", "GMO", and "open-pollinated" in this article: https://www.wildgardenseed.com/articles/definitions-and-consequences-hybrids-gmos-and-open-pollinated-varieties. There's been a lot of confusion in the media lately about these terms, so please bring your questions about them to class so that we can clear up any confusion.

Winona LaDuke talks about threats to indigenous seed sovereignty as corporations attempt to patent and genetically engineer food crops that indigenous peoples have bred and stewarded for many, many generations. Patenting, genetic engineering, and consolidation in the seed industry affect all of us. They affect the foods that are available to us, their nutritional content, and the level of toxins that end up in our ecosystems and on our grocery shelves. They affect biodiversity, water quality, air quality, and our climate.

Independent plant breeders are pushing back against against corporate control, though. Here's one more recent initiative to "free the seed": check out Plant Breeder Carol Deppe's article "Open Source Success": http://osseeds.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Deppe-open-source-success-Acres-2017.pdf.


Questions for you:

After reading through this information and watching the videos, share your thoughts! We're especially interested in knowing about your previous understandings and experiences (if any) with agricultural genetics. What have you heard in other classes or the media about genetically modified crops, hybrids, open-pollinated varieties, or heirlooms? What do you know about plant patenting? Do you think that plant breeders and/or corporations should be able to patent living organisms? What about patenting specific genetic traits such as "pleasant taste" in melons (yes, there is an actual patent on this: http://www3.syngenta.com/global/e-licensing/en/e-licensing/Catalog/Pages/Sweetandsourmelon.aspx).

John & Amy's Post #1: Relationships to Food, Farming, Each Other

To kick off our series of Thursday conversations, we'd like to invite us all to reflect on our relationships to the food we eat and the systems (and people, plants, and animals) that produce it.

Here are ours:


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 pretty young then, too young to be of much help in the barn, 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 my first ten years were pretty satisfying. 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 seven 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 sustainable and resilient 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 and to the earth itself. My farming practices are an exploration of the possibilities for those changes in my own life and being.

In your comments, I would like to hear your own reflections about your relationships to food, farming, and community.

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.

Having shared my experience, I'm interested in what you "sense" and experience in relationship to the Earth.


Questions for you: 

What beliefs and knowledge about food and farming did you absorb through the circumstances of your childhoods and early adulthoods? When did you first begin to be aware that something was amiss within our agricultural systems? How have you responded to this awareness?


Have you ever found yourself in a landscape, ecosystem, or any place where you felt a sense inside yourself of "essential aliveness"? If so, what were the elements of that place that contributed to and sustained those feelings?

Blog Assignment Guidelines

Blog Assignment Guidelines

We'll use this blog in two ways.

First, each Sunday 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 in response to it prior to your weekly time on the farm.

Second, the facilitators of the coming week's Thursday 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 Thursday class. 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 Wednesday 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.

Week 1 on the Farm 2017: Seeds of Sustainability

Weather Forecast: Mid-to-high 50s, 10-20% chance of rain, winds around 10mph.

John and I are looking forward to getting to know you and introducing you to our farm this week! It sounds like we may escape the rain on both Tuesday and Wednesday, but the ground is quite wet, so please make sure you have footwear that can accommodate mud. Depending on the weather, we may do a short walkabout to give you a sense of the farmland, the farm's history, and the ecosystem within which all of this exists.

Our primary goal for our Week 1 practicum is to start to get to know you and to give you a sense of our farm and the context within which it exists. Before you come out to the farm, please take a look at our farm's website:

https://harvestofjoyfarm.wordpress.com/

The content of this class will be driven, in large part, by your questions and curiosities. So, after you've looked through our website, post a question in the comments section of this blog that you'd like us to answer for you about our farm or our experiences as farmers. We'll do our best to address your questions during the practicum.

If time permits, we'll also start to introduce you to one of our favorite parts of farming: seeds! We may even start doing some planting.

We will be giving each of you a small section of one of our garden beds to play with, so start thinking about what vegetable you might like to take responsibility for this quarter.

We'll see you soon on the farm!

Slow Farming Syllabus 2017: Resilient, Just, and Joyful Agriculture

Course Description

In this senior capstone course, students will explore solutions to problems created by our current food systems. We will critically examine recent movements in organic, local, and sustainable agriculture and discuss how we might engage in transforming our individual, institutional, community, and political relationships with food and farming. This course includes a practicum in “slow farming” at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC. Students should attend an informational meeting or speak individually with Professor Amy Newday prior to enrolling in this course.

Senior Capstone Programmatic Components

• Draw students from various majors together through collaborative engagement with critical issues facing the world today. 
• Encourage cross-disciplinary thinking and problem solving.
• Maximize student control of content, process, and knowledge generation.
• Encourage students to explore connections (and disconnections) among components of their K-Plan.
• Invite students to articulate a narrative of their education in anticipation of their lives after graduation.  

  

Course-Specific Objectives

• To discuss our responsibilities and relationships to the human and non-human beings who provide our food  
• To envision practical solutions to current agricultural crises
•  To explore different approaches to manifesting the changes we desire, including (but not limited to) personal lifestyle and career choices, community advocacy, and political activism 
• To examine the implications of the individual and cultural narratives that frame our relationships to food, farming, and ecology; to re-envision these stories in ways that enable healthier, more resilient and satisfying systems to emerge 
• To practice “living in resistance” through the development of food production skills and knowledge at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC 
• To practice collaborative, community-based action through a student-generated project centered in the Kalamazoo community

Course Framework

Shared teaching & learning: This class will meet on campus once each week for a two-hour class period. Harvest of Joy Farm LLC farmers Amy Newday and John Edgerton will use some of this time to provide background information about their farming practices and visions. The bulk of these class, periods, however, will be led by students. Each student will be responsible for facilitating (or co-facilitating) at least one class period in which they will engage the class in a solutions-based exploration of an issue related to agriculture and/or food systems. 

(These topics might include but are not limited to: food justice, access, and sovereignty; human health and nutrition; agro-ecology; genetics; climate change; farmworker justice; soil health; agricultural policy; agricultural economics; institutional food policies and purchasing; farming and law; animals and agriculture; agricultural technologies; fuel and energy; “conventional” vs “alternative” farming practices; culture and agriculture; agriculture and education; women and minorities in farming; indigenous agriculture; urban farming; community-based and/or cooperative farming; cooking and food preservation; and careers in farming and food systems.)

Students will provide the class with background information and multiple perspectives on the topic of their choice, present examples of attempts to solve problems related to that issue, and lead the class in an exploration of how we might personally engage with solutions to these problems. One week before the class period that they are to facilitate, they will post a reflection on our class blog that includes an exploration of their personal relationship with the issue they would like us to discuss, a list of materials they’d like the class to review (they should provide links to any of these that are online and hard copies of those that are not), and a question that they would like the class to reflect upon prior to our next class meeting. 

On-farm participation:  Students will spend three hours each week on the farm, participating in farm activities under the supervision of the farm’s owners. They will learn how these activities fit into the larger scope of the farm’s operations, how the farm fits in to the food-shed within which it operates, and how Amy & John address critical agricultural issues through their farming practices. Prior to coming to the farm each week, students will review materials posted to the course blog that provide context to help them better understand the significance of what they’ll be doing on the farm that week. 

Student-generated project:  As a group (or two), students will decide on a collaborative project they wish to undertake as a means of actively engaging in food systems transformation during the course of the quarter. This project will take place in the Kalamazoo community, on or near campus. 

Reflections: Each week students will be asked to write a reflection on our class blog in response to the question posed by the facilitator of our next on-campus meeting. At the end of the quarter, students will write a reflection on their overall experience in the course. 

Grading:  Since the success of this course depends on the efforts and investment of the students involved, this class will be graded on participation in each of these activities:

Class facilitation (providing matl. & reflection questions; leading discussion):  30%

On-farm participation (showing up on time each week prepared to dig in!):  30%

On-campus class participation, weekly reflections (thoughtful, in-depth engagement): 25%

Final reflection (thoughtful, in-depth engagement):  5%

Class-generated project (active participation in visioning and follow-through):  10%


Course Materials

Course materials will be determined primarily by the course participants. The facilitator of each class period will determine what information he or she would like the class to review prior to that class meeting. Amy and John will also provide informational materials to help the class better understand their farming practices. Most of this information will be conveyed via the class blog, but some may be in hard copy form. We may decide to read books or watch films together and there may be opportunities for students to attend food and farming events throughout the quarter.

For the on-farm classes, students should bring clothes, shoes, and gloves that can get wet, dirty, torn, and/or otherwise ruined. They should check the weather report prior to leaving campus and bring multiple layers of clothing in order to adapt to changing weather conditions. It is often much colder and windier on the farm than in town. Rain happens. This course offers students the opportunity to experience daily farm life, which includes working outdoors in less-than-wonderful weather.