Connect the Dots: Wetlands and Agriculture

My extended family gets together on all the big holidays. Lately, my relatives on a farm southeast of where I live have been hosting. My cousins are thoughtful folks and I enjoy talking with them about farming - and I was gifted with some homegrown lentils, homeground flour, and some borage seed.

My one cousin is sitting on his RM's advisory board for a pilot project focusing on environmental stewardship. It's an area pocked with sloughs, and he was telling me about the benefits of leaving and/or aggregating the wetland areas in fields: increased biodiversity including pollinators and predatory insects, and less water erosion immediately spring to mind. He and his family also like to have cook-outs near one picturesque slough on their land. But lots of farmers like to drain wetlands and seed them, because driving around them takes more time and they want every bit of their land to yield a crop. My cousin figures this is a bit silly - often, the drained bits are still too wet to seed when the rest of the field is ready, then they get all weedy, and you have to spray more. Despite the benefits of maintaining the wetlands, my cousin estimated that maybe ten to twenty percent of farmers in his area would take up the practice.

Flooding in Yellowgrass in 2011, picture courtesy of CBC Sask.

The spring of 2011 saw unprecedented torrential rains and flooding in a vast area of southern Saskatchewan. I don't think I'm crazy for suggesting that wetlands could have helped mitigate the damage, but apparently dams, dikes, and disaster assistance are the Saskatchewan answers. Manitobans probably don't think I'm crazy, either. Many of them have connected the dots and realized the importance of wetlands What will it take before Saskatchewan does too? 

Turns there's something else that provides the service of water retention and can reduce flood risk. Unfortunately, it also gets in the way of being able to drive a tractor in a straight line for miles. That's right - shelterbelts - which are going to become even more of an endangered species since the federal government cut funding to the PFRA shelterbelt program.

Jill-of-all-trades.

Recently, I heard about the value of being a generalist from two different places. First, I attended a workshop on permaculture by Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture. He suggested that being a generalist was valuable for permaculture because you need to be able to see whole systems and integrate a lot of different parts. You can, of course, specialize in mycellium or straw bale building, but you need to be able to put that together with a working knowledge of botany, climatology, animal husbandry, energy flows, nutrient cycling, etc. in order to create a permaculture system.

On her science blog, Sharon Astyk reviews some homesteading/small farming how-to books and says,

Agriculture requires a wide-ranging set of skills vaster than almost any field I can imagine, and while one becomes deeply expert in some parts of the work, it is still necessary, even imperative, to constantly be gaining some superficial understanding of a host of new things. The generalist is jack of many trades, but master of few. That's not a criticism.

This is good news if you're a person who's highly curious, who likes to see how things fit together, or who has a five year old who asks 'why' and 'how' a lot. In a way, it's what attracted me to my first career, teaching. A mentor told me, "You will never be bored." It was true, except for during staff meetings.


I also think there's danger in our becoming a world of specialists. For one, it results in certain metaphors being transposed where this may not be appropriate - so that, for example, everything is a business. To a businessperson, this seems axiomatic. Post-secondary education must produce workers trained for a specific career, and must pay for itself. I am expected to do a financial cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to take a job in another city, and if I decide to turn it down for family reasons then I am not a serious candidate. If I sell vegetables with business profits foremost, then I must try to achieve a premium price and lower my costs, which may mean that my produce is only available to the rich, or that I use free municipal waste, replete with pharmaceutical residue, to fertilize my crops. If I sell vegetables with the goal of increasing food security, biodiversity, and community engagement, my practices will look quite different and I may use a different metaphor to guide my practices - perhaps the metaphor of an ecosystem.

It's at this point that Gregory Bateson weighs in with the suggestion that

"whenever we pride ourselves upon finding a newer, stricter way of thought or exposition; whenever we start insisting too hard upon "operationalism" or symbolic logic or any other of these very essential systems of tramlines, we lose something of the ability to think new thoughts. And equally, of course, whenever we rebel against the sterile rigidity of formal thought and exposition and let our ideas run wild, we likewise lose. As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a combination of loose and strict thinking" *

In other words, a wide experience helps us to think of new ideas, to see new things, which can then be refined and tested. Perhaps all the things that I am learning, seemingly dissociated, will be used in ways I can't yet foresee. Learning many ways to learn may be the best strategy.

* Bateson, G. (1941). Experiments in Thinking about Observed Ethnological Material, Philosophy of Science, 8(1): 53-68.

My Absence Explained

On March 19, I was offered a job.

Not just any job. A kick-butt job. A job that combines my academic studies, my favourite hobby, and my teaching and volunteer experience.

I am planning, coordinating, publicizing, recruiting volunteers for, and implementing, a 5400 square foot vegetable garden at a public institution in town.

It's been a bit crazy! We launch the project in three days. Other than the launch, my tasks this week include planning what and where to plant, creating specs for compost bins to be built, liaising with local artists to possibly procure trellises, sculpture, and planters, ordering seeds and seedlings, creating a production timeline and duty rosters, preparing posters and handbills, deciding on tools to buy, and exploring possibilities for various classes to make use of the garden.

It's gonna be a ride!

Inspiration

from Frances Moore Lappe writing in The Nation:

"[T]he global food movement challenges a failing frame: one that defines successful agriculture and the solution to hunger as better technologies increasing yields of specific crops. This is typically called “industrial agriculture,” but a better description might be “productivist,” because it fixates on production, or “reductivist,” because it narrows our focus to a single element.

"This rising global food movement taps universal human sensibilities—expressed in Hindu farmers in India saving seeds, Muslim farmers in Niger turning back the desert and Christian farmers in the United States practicing biblically inspired Creation Care. In these movements lies the revolutionary power of the food movement: its capacity to upend a life-destroying belief system that has brought us power-concentrating corporatism.

"Corporatism, after all, depends on our belief in the fairy tale that market “magic” (Ronald Reagan’s unforgettable term) works on its own without us.

"Food can break that spell. For the food movement’s power is that it can shift our sense of self: from passive, disconnected consumers in a magical market to active, richly connected co-producers in societies we are creating—as share owners in a CSA farm or purchasers of fair-trade products or actors in public life shaping the next farm bill.

"The food movement’s power is connection itself. Corporatism distances us from one another, from the earth—and even from our own bodies, tricking them to crave that which destroys them—while the food movement celebrates our reconnection.

"As the food movement stirs, as well as meets, deep human needs for connection, power and fairness, let’s shed any notion that it’s simply “nice” and seize its true potential to break the spell of our disempowerment."

Food Sovereignty In Motion

La Via Campesina in Movement... Food Sovereignty now! from La Via Campesina on Vimeo.

"According to the FAO, 800 million people suffered from hunger in 1976. Nowadays that figure exceeds 1000 million. Why? Because the system doesn't want to solve the issue of hunger." - Carlos Marentes, UTAF, USA

"A production model that has turned food into financial speculation and land into financial speculation. The Green Revolution and the transgenic revolution don't aim to eradicate the hunger of thousands of millions of human beings. They want profits for the few owners of those large companies. - Angel Strapazzone, MOCASE, Argentina

"This agriculture is an agriculture without people. It's an agriculture that doesn't accommodate nature and human beings."
- Itelvina Masioli, MST, Brazil


"It is essential to reclaim the importance of agricultural work in the world and the importance of people who dedicate themselves to agriculture and who feed humanity." - Luis Andrango, FENOCIN, Ecuador

"It's the strength of the organization that produces change into practice. Being in La Via Campesina and being organized gives me the hope I can change the world and create a new society."
- Dayana Mezzonato, MST, Brazil

Earthiness

For me, the deep satisfaction I find in gardening and food preparation occurs because it is a combination of what Kropotkin called "brain work and manual work". If I sit in front of a computer too long, or read for hours, I start to feel detached from the world around me, not to mention headachey and restless. But I can't be happy running on a track or treadmill; I need meaningful exercise that accomplishes something and gets my mind to work as well.

Working with food also connects me to the earth. It grounds me; I am in the present when I am working, not daydreaming of the future or dwelling on the past. My senses are attuned to the smell of newly-turned dirt, to the moment when the bread dough becomes smooth and elastic under my hands, to the buzz of a heat-dazed fly emerging from hibernation.

These experiences were a part of my childhood, and have become kinetic memories for me. I realized this three years ago, when I was helping my father plant a garden, and picked up a rake to tamp down the earth over a row of beans. I hadn't gardened in years, but my arms and hands knew how much pressure to put on the rake, at what angle to hold it, and how to move efficiently down the row.

Discussing the deskilling of the consumer, JoAnn Jaffe and Michael Gertler* put it like this:

"Food production has traditionally been learned through apprenticeship, with children learning first-hand while their mothers cook. These skills are sentient, practical, and in some senses non-discursive forms of consciousness, with the learner acquiring a knack, or a feel, that comes with the continual engagement with the physical and sensual qualities of food. (This is exemplified in the experienced cook’s instructions to add a pinch of this or a smidgen of that, or to knead until the dough is elastic.) It requires a fine-tuning of all the senses – a good cook knows how things ought to taste, smell, look, feel, and sometimes even sound through different stages of the cooking process. She recognizes off-notes and textures. Cooking involves body knowledge, such as the movement required to whip an egg, knead biscuit dough, or skillfully cut a chicken. Putting together a meal involves juggling several tasks at once."

I didn't remember that it was Earth Day today until half way through the afternoon. Unconsciously, however, I chose an activity for Earth Day that, for me, connects me to my history, my environment, the production of farmers in my region, and my family - my future. I am using my mother's recipe to bake bread.

Happy Earth Day.

*Jaffe, J. & Gertler, M. (2006). Victual vicissitudes: Consumer deskilling and the (gendered)

transformation of food systems. Agriculture and Human Values, 23, 143–162.

A Democratic Food Policy

Everyone likes democracy, right? I admit there are days when I think I'd make an excellent benevolent despot -  preventative health care would be a priority and your neighbour down the street wouldn't be allowed to rattle your windows with the bass from his car speakers if I were in charge. But I'll choose democracy over corporatocracy* any day. That's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of the People's Food Policy Project.

"Things are clearly cooking in food policy, and citizens, often left out of key processes or afforded token consultation roles, are not content with last minute seats at pre-set policy tables. It is time for strong citizen and civil society involvement in the construction of a new food policy for Canada – a policy which places the well-being of the majority and the health of our planet at the centre of all decisions. It is time to reset thetable." (Resetting the Table, p. 7)

The Project just released the outcome of two years' work with over 3500 Canadians through three hundred and fifty Kitchen Table Talks, hundreds of policy submissions, dozens of tele-conferences, ongoing online discussions, three cross-Canada conferences, and support from organizations including Dietitians of Canada, Food Secure Canada, and Food Banks Canada.

"Resetting the Table: A People's Food Policy for Canada" ties together health and nutrition, food security, sustainable livelihoods for farmers and food workers, the environment, international relations, and many other aspects of our food system, comprehensively uniting them in recommendations for a food sovereign food system. However, it is also an ongoing participatory process, providing a model for collaboration, fora for discussion, support for initiatives, and connections between groups and individuals.

They also seem to be having fun. What more could you ask for?

*Corporations and global capital have undue influence and control over the food system, operating beyond the reach of government or public oversight. Rather than being recognized as a biological requirement of life, this has turned food into a volatile commodity. (Resetting the Table, p. 6)

Food. Did you guess it?

Canadian food guru Wayne Roberts has been credited with the characterization of food as "the point of a million connections." Food concerns everyone, and not just because we all eat. It connects with nutrition and health, with gastronomy, gardening, animal husbandry, global trade, development models, genetics, botany, education, Canadian history, social movements, elitism, human rights, religion, whackos of every stripe, and your grandmother. I've been studying food issues for a while now as I pursue a masters degree,  and getting more interested in the issues the more I read, discuss, and see.

This blog will be a smorgasbord of food topics. Please join me at the table.