Intentional Communities

Hello friends - I hope everyone is doing well this Monday.

For my part of this Wednesday’s class, we will be discussing some aspects of intentional farming communities! 

In our collective process of learning about farming practices, responsible and reciprocal relationship to land, and indigenous and westernized food ways, I have been thinking about how the principles of honorable harvest, sustainable farming and living, and, of course, capitalism relate to one another and might apply themselves to potential future lifestyles and practices. In this, communal living, intentional communities, and sustainable communities - several names for similar ideas - are all very easily romanticized yet interesting to me in their practical application, benefits, drawbacks, and potential functions as part of anti- or peri-capitalist ways of living and sustainably producing food in community. 

From my brief research, there is surprisingly little material on intentional farming communities, and apparently no material on ties they might have to indigenous ways of living, indigenous food ways, and indigenous resistance to capitalistic colonialism. While this is an issue for many reasons, I would also like to take it as an opportunity to discuss intentional communities in terms of what we understand them to be as well as what they could be - imagining new alternatives.

While there are some intentional farming communities which do not promote themselves as contradictory to, or outside of, capitalism (such as co-housing communities) there are some which promote themselves as - and to an extent operate - outside of the capitalist system. Many of these surviving communities originated in ‘back-to-the-land’ movements of the 60’s and 70’s.  Here ( https://youtu.be/351TKxYg7M4 ) is the link to a short video about one such community and its relationship to the ‘mainstream’ world. 

I also find interesting the ways in which these communes affect human-human relationships (if we can pretend it’s that simple). Here ( https://youtu.be/EusOgAAlFG0 ) is the link to a Ted Talk by Bianca Heyming and her story of founding and living in an intentional community. And here ( https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/07/commune-farm-sustainability-mineral-virginia/ ) is a photo-essay and brief article about life inside another community. 

Some discussion questions: Pick one.

1. What relationship do you have to intentional farming communities or communes? How have they been represented in your exposure to them or the idea of them? 

1. Do you think that intentional farming communities are a viable way of living? Why or why not?

1. Do you see connections between the ways in which intentional farming communities live and indigenous ways of life and resistance?

Food Positivity!

Hi Farm Friends!

This week, as we continue to consider various issues surrounding food, I wanted to turn our attention to a discussion about food messaging. We have obviously all have grown up in different households with different relationships to food, I wanted to share a few things that might allow us to think about what our experiences have had in common. Though these articles touch on different things, they all address different ways in which food is being talked about in our society. I know that our relationships to food are highly complex and ever-changing, as well as profoundly personal, so as you think about these questions, please take care of yourself and share only what you’re comfortable with. In class, I would like to discuss what we have read here, but also maybe talk a little more about our perceptions of, and relationships with food both as they relate to these sources and stray from them.

So, I am issuing a trigger warning at this time. We will be thinking about and reflecting on our own food journeys, so I want to offer a few things. First, one of the things I’ll be doing will be to give us time to free write some ideas in class, and then to ask those who are willing to share some thoughts. DO NOT feel pressure to share these if you are not comfortable doing so. Also, if you find you need space during our discussion, please feel free to leave the group at any point because I totally understand and support you. Again, I have struggled a lot with food in my own life, and therefore will do my best not to ask terribly probing questions, but I want to acknowledge that everyone has different levels of comfort with this topic.

As far as our discussion, I am excited to hear your thoughts and will leave room for us to take it in many directions! All my love and I hope you all are taking moments to reflect amidst the busy time that is 8th week of senior spring!

Now for a little reading:

Here are a few things on the Museum of Disgusting Foods, which had/has locations in Mälmo, Sweden and Los Angeles. Check out the website and then head over to this interview with the museum’s creator, Samuel West on the intended purpose of these exhibitions.

https://disgustingfoodmuseum.com

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/4/17934242/disgusting-food-museum-psychology-samuel-west

Food criticism is an interesting and highly subjective topic… so let’s look at these. First, have you ever wondered what it takes to earn a michelin star? And then, read this food critic’s thoughts on what it takes to be like him (lol).

https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/illinois/chicago/article/news-and-views/how-to-get-michelin-stars

https://www.foodnetwork.ca/dining-out/blog/what-it-takes-to-become-a-1-2-or-3-michelin-star-restaurant/

https://www.businessinsider.com/jay-rayner-how-to-become-a-food-critic-2016-4

And here’s just a brief history of the emergence of “calorie” into American food vernacular. Nationalism, Hollywood, and Dr. Lulu Hunt Peters!

https://dailyhistory.org/index.php?title=When_did_Americans_begin_to_get_obsessed_with_weight_loss%3F&mobileaction=toggle_view_mobile

Here are some questions to respond to:

1. Okay so how are we feeling about the Museum of Disgusting Foods? Is West’s interview in keeping with your impressions of the exhibitions from the website?
2. What have been your experiences consuming food criticism-related media? Have these opinions influenced yours in any way?
3. Where and when in your life have you learned about “nutrition” and how do you define it? Do you feel that your definition is in keeping with a national or cultural narrative, or does it feel more distinctly yours?

Week 8 on the Farm: Transplanting

Weather Forecast: Tuesday, cloudy, mid-60s. Friday, possible storms, mid-80s.

Hi ya'll! Whew, it's been a full weekend on the farm. We are harvesting asparagus, finishing up the last of our soil blocking, potting up transplants for sale, and transplanting into the garden beds. And fencing. And weeding. And finishing pruning. And chasing the ducks out of the road.

This week is going to be a big push to get plants into the ground, so that's probably what we'll have you help us with. As you help us plant the seeds and plants that will fill our gardens during the coming season and we draw our time together to a close over the next few weeks, I want to make space for you to think more about where you (as an embodied person whose body is sustained by food) are located within the web of human and nonhuman relationships that involve food. And I want to share stories of resistance and inspiration about the good food work that folks are doing across the globe.

Leah Penniman is one such inspirational model. She runs Soul Fire Farm in New York. Check out her farm's website and some of their videos to learn more about what she does: http://www.soulfirefarm.org/

Then, watch this short documentary video in which Leah talks a little about her personal path to this farm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPaoepZj-yI&feature=youtu.be

Finally, check out this 50 minute talk in which Leah discusses how her farm is rooted in 3 "stones" or principles as they work at their mission of ending racism and injustice in the food system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5TPTxllBjI

This week in the comments section, I invite you to reflect on the questions that Leah poses to her audience in her talk: 

1) Where are your ancestors in this history of racial injustice in the food system? How are your people connected to the events she describes?

2) What can you do next to advance racial justice in the food system? (As you answer this question, think about what Leah said in the documentary about how all parts of herself and her experience are relevant on her farm. What gifts, talents, skills, and experiences do you bring to your work in the world and how might they all come together to make positive change in whatever community you end up living in post-graduation?)

Urban Foraging: Learning How to Look and Listen Again

Hello, sweet, sweet friends. Welcome back to the blog!


For part of this week's presentation, we will be focusing on Urban Foraging! Woo!

This past week we all got a taste of what foraging is like, and how to identify a few plants that are from the area. How exciting!

 I know after learning bits and pieces on the farm, my whole view of the seemingly random  weeds and un-nameable plants that I grew up with shifted entirely (thanks for the weeds segway, Amy!). Shortly after, on my various walks about the Vine neighborhood, I took on a renewed interest in the strange ruffled leaves of this plant, and the long tendrils of another. What's its name? How did it get here? Can I eat it? (very important)

I felt the faintest sense of pride when I could finally identify the early spring growth of Motherwort in someone's front yard, or when I found wild garlic hidden in the tall grasses bordering the sidewalk of Davis. Look at me-- a real forager! (ha) 

Aside from jokes though-- this was a poignant moment. It was one of the first times that I had been able to see beyond the blur of green in the city and understand that within that blur exist individual plants with various uses and special powers. These plants weren't out of place, nuisances, or only useful as ornamentals, but live thrive here as much as we do. 

And thus, we come to the presentation.

In a more technical sounding definition: "We regard urban foraging as the practice of harvesting or gathering raw biological resources (fungi, plants, parts of plants, invertebrate and vertebrate animals, and fish) within urban and peri-urban settings primarily for direct consumption, decoration, crafts, barter, or small-scale sale. Following Poe et al. [11], urban foraging can include wild or domesticated species in managed or unmanaged and private or public spaces." (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1884/htm)

Urban foraging takes on a variety of forms and is done all over the world for an innumerable about of reasons-- ranging from sustenance, commercial activity, or crafting. And it's all right there, under our noses! Here's a fun, short video to prime you all, and check out the varying reasons why people are embracing the practice:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7k3P5CUtrU 

Even though all of this is made to sound cool and fun, there are some profound issues that come up with the practice of urban foraging. Specifically around the issue of legislation. Many of the rules and regulations that guide foraging of any kind are seeped in White Supremacy and Capitalism. Here's an online article that speaks on the issue of National Parks 'allowing' Indigenous peoples to collect traditional plants: https://reason.com/2019/04/06/complicated-rules-for-foraging-arent-hel/

And if you're interested, this is an article that outlines the impact of legislation on non-white bodies in the US, and details the other detrimental ways the law is used to regulate people, 'nature', and the food we eat. 

https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2740&context=ulj

If you're looking for a more local twist on legislation, here's a new one on morel hunting in Michigan:  https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2015/04/holdholdstate_puts_ok_stamp_on.html

Secondly, urban foraging is a difficult endeavor. There are so many things you need to stay attuned to in order to safely, and sustainably forage. You have to know the story of the land that you're on, you have to know if the plants get sprayed with chemicals, you have to be cognizant of where you find plants and how to take it. You have to make sure you leave some for others, or enough so that it can continue to propagate. 

Here is an article reviewing some rules surrounding a good practice of foraging: https://chestnutherbs.com/foraging-for-wild-edibles-and-herbs-sustainable-and-safe-gathering-practices/

Finally, I know I've shared this piece, or read this piece with many of you, but it is a favorite of mine: 
http://whereareyouquetzalcoatl.com/mesofigurineproject/EthnicAndIndigenousStudiesArticles/Simpson2014.pdf 

In this, Simpson shares with us the understanding that the land keeps us as much as we keep it. Foraging in all spaces is privy to these kinds of understandings. As I mentioned before, understanding the green in the city was a weird, cognitive shift for me. It is so important for us to realize that all land spaces are connected and need to be stewarded. We can't just ignore one once it is 'too far gone' (too developed), we have to take care of all that is around us. Urban foraging is a part of this process of getting to know the land around us, and understanding how we can take care of it and the people on it.

For class, please take a look at the links I provided above and answer the following questions:

 1)  Before this class, did you ever hear about or practice foraging? Share your experiences, if you want!! 

2) What is your relationship to green spaces in cities? How do you feel as though you can interact with them, what are some of the rules you know that guide how you treat green spaces at home?

3) Of the above readings/ videos, what do you want to learn more about? What intrigued you? What disturbed you? 

4) How do we feel we can apply Simpson's lessons to practice better relationships with the land-- especially in urban spaces? 

Also, barring bad weather, I would like us to all go on a little 'scavenger hunt' around campus to figure out what's here, what it's called, and what it can be used for. Stay tuned, and dress for the weather!

Practices and Possibilities on the Urban Farm

Happy seventh week slow farmers!

To lead discussion this week, I’d love to talk more about urban farming. Let me start by talking about my own connection to this topic and why it interests me:

I grew up in a densely populated suburb in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. In order to see farms, I had to drive about 30 minutes away from the city, so I did not have the same Midwest experience that I’ve noticed here in Michigan, where city and farm seem to exist right next to each other. Despite rarely seeing farms, I was surrounded by agriculture and the joys of growing your own food. While most of my neighbors planted flowers in their front lawn gardens and built fire pits and patios in their backyards, my parents kept a terraced garden in our back yard where we grew summer vegetables and herbs, as well as planting pepper plants among the flowers in our front yard. While we did not grow enough to sustain our needs throughout the entire year, some of the most exciting meals came in the summertime from our harvested veggies, and we were always giving away fresh tomatoes and rhubarb stalks to friends and neighbors because we had too many to eat ourselves. While I hated doing chores like composting and tending to the garden, I’m very appreciative of the values it taught me, and I’m excited to (hopefully) own my own house and vegetable garden someday and grow my own crops.

This got me thinking: what if I turn my entire yard into vegetable beds so that I could grow more varieties of vegetables and have them throughout the year instead of just the summer? In addition to growing more food, turning my lawn into a garden would have the potential added benefit of diversifying the physical suburban space for the habitation of wild species. In this Ted Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF3fWdwhEhw), Sam Droege discusses how the main threat to wild native bee populations is the destruction of their habitat. I think of all the rows of perfectly green lawns that surround my neighborhood, and I try to imagine what one yard planted with vegetables and wildflowers would look like to a bee flying through this grassy desert. However, I also know that my township has strict codes for homeowners to follow, so I looked at some of these regulations to see if my plan would break any of them:

mtlebanon.org/DocumentCenter/View/3873/VII?bidId=

In section 201, I found this: “No person owning or occupying any property containing a structure within the Municipality shall permit any grass or weeds or any vegetation whatsoever, not edible or planted for some useful or ornamental purpose, to grow or remain upon such premises so as to exceed a height of six (6) inches, or to throw off any unpleasant or noxious order, or to conceal any filthy deposit, or to create or produce pollen.” This was the most specific information I could find about lawn and garden maintenance, and it seems the only thing not allowed are plants that are untended to and/or serve no "purpose." This obviously can be scrutinized for its wording, especially knowing the plants that are considered unwanted are the plants that provide habitat and food for the wild insects and animals native to Pennsylvania. However, the regulation has no problem with plants planted and tended for strategically, so I could plant native wildflowers alongside my vegetables. Since I am apparently not limited to the amount of space allocated to gardening, I could go through with my plan on turning my entire backyard into a garden, as long as I take measures to keep soil from running into my neighbors’ yards as explained in section 402.2.

In addition to talking about urban farming possibilities in my hometown, I would also like to share a documentary made by Kalamazoo College student Justin Wesley-Johnson and starring our very own classmate Cam! It talks about the Vine Neighborhood Community Garden, and I had the opportunity to see it at a showing this weekend at the KIA. I have permission from Justin to share it with yinz, but I am still in the process of getting accesses from his professor to share it. I’m hoping to do that soon and send it out in an email, but for the time being you can have a look at their website to learn a bit about their mission and the work they do: https://communitygarden.org/find-a-garden/gardens/vine-neighborhood-community-garden/ On my way home from the KIA, I passed on my street a condemned building sitting right next to an empty lot and this thought came to me: what if we took the many condemned buildings and empty lots around this city and transformed them into community gardens and shelter spaces designated specifically for individuals living with food and housing insecurity? What would that look like? I’m not sure I know the answer, I just thought it would be something to consider when thinking about the possibilities urban farming offers us.

For this week, I would like you all to reflect on these questions and do some of your own research on aspects of urban farming that interest you:

1. What kind of environment did you first learn about farming/gardening/urban farming/etc. in, and how did this shape your engagement with the practice?
2. What are your reactions to Sam Droege’s ted talk? Things that you found especially interesting/concerning/surprising/problematic/etc.?
3. (assuming I get access to Justin’s documentary and share it via email with you all in time for class) What did you think about the documentary? What are the kinds of opportunities and/or limitations of a community garden?
4. I want you to do your own research on urban farming opportunities in a community of your choosing. It can be a place you grew up in, a place you want to live one day, a place that interests you, etc. See if you can find possibilities for urban farming in this community, as I did for my hometown suburban neighborhood, whether it’s already established organizations (like the Vine Community Garden) or individual techniques for growing food with limited resources (like Amy’s potato-in-a-bucket method for those with little space). You can talk about something you have experience doing, or something that you’d like to try sometime in the future, whatever interests you the most, so you can be as creative as you want! I’d like to start class talking about the things we found and sharing this knowledge with each other so we can all continue to be growers no matter where life may take us :)

Week 7 on the Farm: Weeds

Weather Forecast: Tuesday, highs in the 60s, sunny. Friday, highs around 70, partly sunny.

My grandmother used to say that a weed is just a plant growing where you don't want it to. And that's true--the designation of a plant as a "weed" is solely based on whether humans want it to be growing in a particular spot. Dandelions are a great example of this. For me, dandelions are a more valuable plant to have growing around my house than grass, since they provide food for bees and food for me! But on K's campus, they are considered a weed that requires eradication through both mechanical and chemical means.

A big part of farming and gardening on any scale is encouraging the plants that you want to grow while discouraging the plants you don't want from over-growing and out-competing them. This week, we'll have you help us with weed-management in our gardens and strawberry patch. (And also, for those of you who haven't yet had a chance to soil-block, we'll be doing some of that too.) We manage weeds through cultivation practices such as hand-weeding, mulching, and cover cropping. "Conventional" farms use herbicides to deal with weeds and it's big business. According to the latest publicly available EPA report on pesticide use, glyphosate (the active ingredient in the weedkiller RoundUp) was the most highly used herbicide in 2012, with over 270 million pounds applied to US crop fields. The reason that so much glyphosate is being used is, as you have already learned, that many commodity crops such as corn, cotton, and soybeans have been genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate and so farmers can spray the weedkiller on these crops without killing them.


There has been a lot of concern and controversy in the past few years about the effects of having so much of this chemical in our soil, water, and food, and there have even been some relatively high-profile lawsuits brought against RoundUp's manufacturer: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707439575/jury-awards-80-million-in-damages-in-roundup-weed-killer-cancer-trial. Besides the concern about human health, there are also concerns about glyphosate's long-term detrimental effects on soil chemistry and microbiology. On our farm, we are dealing with some of those long-term effects as we are trying to remediate the soil in one of the asparagus patches we inherited from my Dad, who sprayed it with RoundUp every year to kill the weeds. At some point before the end of the quarter, we'll take you to that patch and we can show you some of the residual effects of even minimal regular use of this chemical.

But the bad news about herbicides doesn't stop there because, as we know, nature adapts and evolves under pressure and the pressure from all of this glyphosate in farm fields has facilitated the development of resistance in several species of weeds that are now immune to RoundUp. If you are a science geek, you'll find the mechanism of this resistance fascinating: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/04/24/superweeds-how-pigweed-palmer-amaranth-developed-resistance-herbicide-glyphosate-and-why-the-news-isnt-all-bad/.

If genetics doesn't fascinate you, you might skip the article above--but you will want to know about the solutions that agribusiness is coming up with in order to deal with these "super-weeds." If you remember back to the beginning of this class when we talked about how the majority of conventional seed companies are owned by chemical companies, it won't surprise you to learn that the solutions involve genetically engineering crop varieties for resistance to stronger herbicides sold by these companies. One of these herbicides, dicamba, has caused a lot of controversy in the past several years because of its propensity to drift from the fields that it is applied to and to affect neighboring fields and ecosystems: https://civileats.com/2018/11/08/beyond-damaging-crops-dicamba-is-dividing-communities/. The conflict this creates between neighboring farmers even led to a murder in 2016: https://modernfarmer.com/2016/11/pesticide-drift-leads-alleged-murder/

Another herbicide in play right now with drift concerns is 2,4-D, one of the active ingredients in Agent Orange, which you may be familiar with as a defoliant used as a weapon during the Vietnam War. There's a question about whether 2,4-D resistant crops will also be resistant to dicamba and vice versa and what that will mean for farmers planting them near each other: https://www.apnews.com/9eaf78c201294db38f4483e64108189e

What I'd like to focus on, though, is what the Center for Food Safety scientist Bill Freese expressed at the end of the above article---that focusing on creating the next herbicide is a "poor answer to a complex situation." Managing farms and gardens without herbicides does require more complex understanding of ecological interactions and strategies for intervening in those interactions, for sure, and it's something we are continually working to get better at on our farm. While you are out this week, we'll show you some of the methods we use to manage "weeds" and how the "side effects" of those weed-control strategies can enhance rather than deplete the health of our ecosystem.

And since we'll be working with strawberries this week, I also want to mention that many of the farmworkers that medical anthropologist Seth Holmes was working with while he was writing his book "Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies" that Ayla referenced last week were working in strawberry fields. Embedded in this article is a 3 1/2 minute video that describes some of the challenges faced by workers in strawberry fields: http://civileats.com/2015/03/26/is-the-strawberry-field-the-next-farmworkers-rights-battleground/. 

Please watch the video, and if you didn't listen to the full interview with Holmes last week, I encourage you to do so. It's only an hour long: https://archive.org/details/RagRadio2013-10-11-SethHolmes. The reality is that if you truly want an understanding of where your food comes from and who is impacted in its production, you have to spend some time self-educating, because it is in the interests of agribusiness to keep the true ecological and humanitarian costs of food hidden from you. Lots of people ask me "what can I do?" to change the food system. One thing you can do is to take the time to critically understand the food web (human and non-human) that delivers the nourishment that sustains your life, whether that nourishment is in the form of dandelion greens, strawberries, or Big Macs. With that critical understanding, you can then sit with Robin Wall Kimmerer's idea of the Honorable Harvest and ponder what it means for you, personally, to live in good relationship not just to the ecosystems that produce your food, but also to the people who produce, process, and transport your food to you.

For your blog comments this week, I have a challenge for you. Pick one ingredient from a food that you currently have in your house or have eaten recently. Do some research into the plant or animal that this ingredient comes from. Where in the world was it likely to have been produced? What are the likely ecological effects of its production? What people are impacted by its production, processing, and/or transport and what are the effects of those impacts?

As you research these questions, evaluate your sources with a critical eye. The website for Driscoll's berries (https://www.driscolls.com/), for example, paints a very different picture of strawberry production from the video I linked to earlier. When there is so much conflicting and sometimes even deliberately misleading information on the web, how can you tell what's true, what's half-true, and what's just plain wrong? 

Finally, once you've found some information about your food, write a few sentences about how you might apply the principles of the Honorable Harvest to your relationship with that food.