I highly encourage everyone to watch the documentary HOME, by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It is free to everyone and can be found in its entirty on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

HOME reveals the incredible diversity of our planetary system from aerial shots that span astonishing earthly landscapes - and the unprecedented influence of human life, mostly within the past century, upon these landscapes. From colossal waterfalls pouring down among dense forests and hot springs colored with mineral deposits, to the massive tar sands of Canada and the deforestation of once biologically diverse rainforests now replanted solely with Palm oil or Eucalyptus, HOME portrays the immense diversity of life on earth and exposes how humanity has and is threatening this fragile ecological balance - most paradoxically, at our own peril.

I was deeply moved by such footage and the accompanying narrative - oftentimes from a place of profound reverence and admiration to feelings of blind frustration and anger… imagining, as I was, a clock on the wall ticking away the precious few ten years scientists predict we have until the Tundra’s permafrost beings to leak toxic methane into the already over-polluted atmosphere. With such binaries tugging at the reins of my consciousness, I find myself frozen in a state of paralysis… all too theoretically aware of the immensity of the situation while finding it so difficult to fully comprehend when my life seems to move on daily with such few fundamental changes.

It is here that I find myself drawn to the field of ecopsychology and the tools it offers for dealing with such feelings of the psyche. Easily, these deeply emotional feelings could bubble up in my life as conflicts - indeed, the sense of urgency that I was left with after this film made my nerves so short that I nearly screamed at everyone I met - “why are you not doing anything!?!” - and weep at the sophomoric headlines that graced my internet homepage - “Top Model contestant stumbles on runway” - while the world spins madly on.

But conflict, as history reveals all too clearly, is not the approach to aid in this, or any, catastrophe. We must learn this truth more quickly than ever and live it on a global scale - indeed, our existence depends upon it. Ecopsycology - or ecopsychotherapy - offers a break from the emotional binary I described above. It helps us to turn apathy into empowerment by asking us to identify with the world beyond the “self.” And it is here that we find the deep connections, both with other humans and with the more than human world (i.e. species and environmental landscapes) that helps us to relinquish the centuries old mechanistic view of reality that divorces “substance from process, self from other, thought from feeling” (Joanna Macy, 1998).

As we learn to cultivate what has been termed an “ecological identity” our consciousness will begin to widen and soon we see how deeply rooted are our feet in the earthly womb that birthed our existence. From this place of self-reflective consciousness, it is nearly impossible to make individual choices that are not to the benefit of the whole - of which the earth and all its planetary systems, including our social systems, depend.

While we must turn within to cultivate this shift in consciousness, we must simultaneously function as a support network for each other; recognizing our interconnection and interdependence we might more fully realize a global, holonic worldview within which notions of an ecological self can flourish.

A few weeks ago my Food Preservation and Seed Conservation class travelled to Cornville, AZ to visit Bill McDorman, owner of the alternative seed company Seeds Trust, at his home high up in the arid mountain region of Arizona.

Bill established Seeds Trust 25 years ago primarily because he wanted to teach people how to save their own seed and secondly, because he wanted to provide an alternative seed source for openly pollinated varieties – which would therefore be adapted to the high altitude gardens of his home and local community.

Bill stressed to us the importance of saving seed as small-scale farmers and gardeners. He wasted no time laying out the big picture of that state of agriculture today, estimating that within our generation the genetic diversity in our agricultural systems will be down to about six or eight percent. Part of this absurdity can be attributed to the fact that so few farmers and gardeners follow through the process of growing out some of their fruits and vegetables and saving their own seed. Instead, of FULLY closing the cycle of sustainability, we rely yearly on the input of new seed from an outside source – and oftentimes this seed supplier is highly controversial one. Bill jokingly called this practices of saving seed each year “walking the taco” because in this way we fully enact all of what we mean when we talk about “sustainable agriculture.”

In all seriousness, the fact that we can imagine having as little as 6% genetic diversity in our food supply is a tremendously frightening reality check when we consider that the strength of any ecosystem (and the soil that provides our precious veggies is no exception here!) IS its biodiversity – that is, it’s genetic diversity. We know that an ecosystem cannot sustain itself without the many complex inter-relationships constituted by the many different species that comprise it; yet, we have allowed the once stupendously diverse (and thereby also resilient) ecosystems upon which our food supply depends to become so narrow that 80% of the world now depends on just seven crop varieties - which are not locally adapted for low-input agricultural systems, but are universal, “one-size-fits-all” and depend upon supplemental inputs of fertilizers and pesticides as a result.

10,000 years ago (until pretty much the turn of the 20th century) humans in various and unique ecosystems selected and saved seed to plant the following year - each year selecting the best seeds from the yield to ensure the continuation of vital traits and, in turn, their food supply. These major crops (barley, wheat, maize, potatoes, tomatoes, and soybeans among a few others) existed in the form of locally adapted varieties of countless number, which extended over vastly different climates and geographic landscapes. How it is that barely can grow in Sweden and in Ethiopia is a testament to the incredible adaptability of agricultural crops because of the innovative seed saving techniques of farmers over the past thousands of years. Did you know, for example, that what we know today as a common carrot has in fact been derived from Queen Anne’s Lace over thousands of years of carefully breeding from generations of farmers?

So when for these thousands of years seeds were unquestionably a part of the commons, today, with the help of the 1970’s plant patent laws, four companies own 80-90% of the world’s seed. That translates to 80-90% of the world’s food… 80-90% of your food and of my food in the hands of four large companies…

Bioneers is an organization that aims to connect people and ideas in an effort to act as a “fertile source for the urgent transition to a restored world.” The following quote comes from the organization’s website:

From thousands of seed companies and public breeding institutions three decades ago, 10 companies now control more than two-thirds of global proprietary seed sales. The proprietary seed market (that is, brand-name seed subject to exclusive monopoly – i.e., intellectual property), now accounts for 82% of the commercial seed market worldwide.

Yet, as Bill pointed out, it is absurd to assume that we “own” (and can therefore patent as our own creation, and can therefore profit from) any part of the innovation inherent within the 10,000 years of collective human work that now constitutes our basic crop varieties. Yet we have and we continue to. And in the process we force more and more of the indigenous farmers who remain so crucial to building and maintaining the minimal genetic diversity that remains in our agricultural systems, into dependence upon the yearly purchasing of patented crops that cannot be saved and replanted and therefore, cannot evolve to changing environments - further stagnating our genetic diversity in agriculture and threatening our global food supply. When this happens, these farmers and local communities loose their food-sovereignty, as they rely on the input of seed each year from an outside source, and we all move a step closer to loosing our food security - as our pool of genetic diversity shrinks further still.

To find ourselves in such a place of fundamental vulnerability should serve as a shocking wake-up call for most. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Unfortunately, we are so far removed from our food and so few of us remain educated about all aspects of food and food production that this fact does not hold the necessary gravity for most. In order to protect the future of food and the continuation of the human species, we must reconnect ourselves with this most basic requirement to life. We must call upon the cultural practices of our ancestors and select and save our own seeds – and most importantly, openly share these seeds within our local communities in an effort to create resilient and genetically diverse agricultural systems that are capable of sustaining us in the future.

In the coming decades, as our dependence on oil continues to be threatened and with it our industrial food production system (which relies so heavily on fossil fuels at every stage), Bill believes that real “wealth” will come down to agriculture and how well a community can be self-sustaining. In order to get THERE from HERE, we must start to save seed today – start to walk the taco today!

A few days later, with the cold rain spitting at the soggy ground outside the open office door at Collings Hanger Farm, the group of us huddled over warm cups of English tea and milk and listened wide-eyed (for the second time) to John Letts as he told us of his history. From botany work at a chemical testing lab as a young impressionable, to realizing the potential of ancient varieties of wheat when thatching old English roofs, John told us of his passion and his political struggles as he started his work-efforts to get heritage wheat varieties onto the U.K.’s National Seed List.

To try to summarize John’s life, visions, and passions would do no one justice – therefore, I will give a reflection of my own insights and thoughts from what I garnered listening to this influential person!

John’s work began when he realized the market potential in England for old varieties of wheat, which boasted both strong, long stalks for thatching old English roofs and high-protein grains for artisan bread baking. He stumbled into the immense responsibility of [re]creating land races from hundreds of varieties of heritage grains and has since found an over-whelming demand and support for his work.

Because wheat was first a weed, growing in abundance in the harsh soils of the Middle East thousands of years ago, old varieties maintain incredible resilience. Therefore, using a vast genetic diversity ensures that the planted grains will self-adapt and evolve to their given environment. John, becoming a baker himself and having been an activist for political and social change since the 70s, saw the potential of this agricultural approach in terms of both current systemic change and the future security of our daily bread.

John is an incredible inspiration for young people like us struggling with our loyalties to our morals, values, and passions and with our allegiance to the certain political systems in place that dissuade, hinder, or completely inhibit our ideal work. John is well aware that half of what he does is illegal, but he is completely transparent and honest about his intentions (even to the extent of fore-warning the English government that he was about to break the law and sell heritage grain seeds that weren’t on the National List!).

Despite this seemingly radical approach, John insists it wouldn’t be so if it weren’t for the uncooperative nature of those in power who refuse to put any value on the significance of his work. Therefore, he skirts the system in whatever ways possible – and often times the outcome is far more holistic and the results more rapid then those that the system in place could produce.

For example, while he doesn’t own any land in England because it is so expensive and because access to allotments (essentially community garden space) is next to impossible to get, he instead has several partnerships with different farmers, businessmen, and landowners who support the work he is doing and are interested in learning more themselves. John has an approach to revolutionary change that any semi-radical can’t help but admire - believing as he does in the power of the people, freedom, cooperation and the public good.

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Finishing up the first leg of our course at ORC was powerfully informative - so much so that I feel drained just thinking, fuming, and wondering about the presentations given by such distinctly different players in the global food system.

Let’s take the examples of both heritage wheat fanatic and political activist John Letts, and humble, renowned baker Andrew Whitley – two phenomenal speakers whose presence and insights we were blessed with as part of this course…

Gentle, soft, but eloquently spoken, if Andrew is first a baker, he is second a storyteller. After filling our bellies with the most delicious breads that have ever graced my palate, Andrew began the story of his life as a baker and the dilemmas he sees personally with the industrialized baking process that today supplies the majority of our daily bread.

To begin, Andrew discussed what is, in his mind, the most ethically-corrupt issue of the industrial bread baking process – namely, the reduction of fermentation time of the dough from the traditional 12 hours to virtually 0 hours, thanks to the Chorleywood Bread Process. While this might not initially strike you as being too big a deal, and may even strike the more economically-minded as being a brilliant time, energy, and therefore money saving accomplishment - in fact, this bread baking atrocity has immense effects on the nutritional quality of the bread and increasingly linked ramifications on public health.

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As this food revolution gains momentum, we have started to hear a wide variety of “sustainability” jargon in the media. In my opinion, it is important to question and consider the significance that these words are intended to hold as we throw them around whilst discussing these very controversial topics. We must be careful not to let these words slip into cliché insignificance or to let them adapt inadequate or inaccurate definitions.

As it stands, there are no marketing regulations for the term “natural.” As non-organic companies plaster their products with “green-washing,” this lack of regulation is starting to undermine the integrity of the organic food movement – if it hasn’t done so already!

 If a product must pass certain standards in ordered to be labeled and marketed as “organic” (even if these standards are not as strong as they should be, in my opinion, and even if it seems backwards to force standards upon food that is “organically grown” and not on foods that are “conventionally grown” and are harmful to our health… but i guess that discussion should be part of another post…) then what distinctions, if indeed there are any, might consumers expect between something labeled as ‘natural’ vs. ‘organic’?

Lord Northbourne coined the term organic farmingin his book Look to the Land (1940), from his conception of the farm as organism and in an effort to evoke a holistic, ecologically-balanced approach to farming. This is in contrast to what he called chemical farming, which relies on imported fertility and, hence, “cannot be self-sufficient nor an organic whole.”

Today, the USDA hardly gives a straight definition for “organic”. Legally, the USDA defines organic production as a system that is managed in accordance with the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990 and regulations in Title 7, Part 205 of the Code of Federal Regulations to respond to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.

ok…? and that means what, exactly, to the average consumer?

In marketing, the USDA requires at least 95% of ingredients (excluding water and salt) to be organic in order for a product to be marketed as such. Why not require 100%? Additionally, processed products that contain at least 70% organic ingredients can use the phrase “made with organic ingredients” in marketing. In my opinion, these standards transform the TERM organic into a superficial fad (a marketing tool at best) and threaten the integrity of what the USDA’s definition of organic as a set of practices and principles attempts to outline…. however poorly…

If the expectation of a product that is “organic” is that it is produced by fostering a cycling of resources while promoting an ecological balance and conserving biodiversity, how might we define “natural” and regulate its use in marketing?

What would you trust to be true about your food (or anything!) if it is labeled as “all natural”?

This is a tricky question because, while ‘organic’ can represent a system of production or a set of principles (as Lord Northbourne first attempted to articulate), in contrast ‘natural’ is a much looser term – so loose in fact that the dictionary has 38 separate definitions and idioms!

Specifically pertaining to this discussion, however, the dictionary definitions of “natural” are as follows:

1. existing in or formed by nature;

2. based on the state of things in nature;

3. constituted by nature;

4. growing spontaneously, without being planted or tended by human hand;

5. having undergone little or no processing and containing no chemical additives”

I have bolded this last definition because most of the products on the market that make use of the word ´natural´do so in way that undermine this specific definition (i.e. they advertise ”natural flavor” on heavily processed foods that only later are given their ”flavor”)

Additionally, what should we make of these allusions to “nature” both as a changing, shaping force (as in the first definition) and, contrastingly, as a sort of static condition (as in the second definition)? And what is meant by “free from the influence of the human hand”? We have been on this earth, evolving with this earth, for an incredible amount of time and we best believe this earth is as much a part of us as we are of it.

Therefore, it seems that if we are discussing the implications of the term “natural” it would be good of us to first consider what we except of the word “nature.”

na·ture

–noun

1. the material world, esp. as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities.

2. the natural world as it exists without human beings or civilization.

3. the elements of the natural world, as mountains, trees, animals, or rivers.

…existing independently of human activities? … as the natural world exists without humans? But WITH animals?? … Since when where Homo sapiens considered aliens? (ok, don’t answer that…)

It seems that we as a collective society have established and religiously ascribe to a sort of god on a regular basis without even recognizing it! Nature – the untouched, eternal ground; the pure origin of existence; the representation of a divine realm of which we humans are excluded?

In the midst of all this environmental hoo-ha, we often refer to nature in this way: as something to return to; yet something that we humans have soiled/tarnished/ruined; and still yet, something that exists independently of us humans…? In this way we can see the paradoxes in our attitudes and perceptions toward Nature.

Being the ecologically-minded student that I am, I must argue that nothing exists independently of anything in this world and, while we could stand to CO-exists a bit more cohesively with our home if indeed we wish to preserve our existence, we have not succeeded (nor will we succeed) in destroying it!

And here it is that I arrive at Derrida!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand Derrida’s ramblings about grammatology, deconstructionism and the likes about as much as I understand a complex math equation – which is to say, not at all. HOWEVER, there is one thing I do dig about Derrida – and one thing that adds just the philosophical curve-ball I’d like to throw at some fundamental environmentalists that I may or may not know.

So let’s continue with this concept of nature as a pure origin. Derrida would argue that there is no such thing as a PURE origin… for an origin must be pre-structured in order for it to be the genesis of something – in order for it to operate as the beginning grounds, the creating force, for or of something. In this way we see that an origin can never be pure, for if something is pure it remains unmodified and hence, unchanging – which, in turn means nothing ever arises from it and so it could not be cited as a source.

What does this have to do with agriculture and food and USDA labeling standards? I’m so glad you asked!

These sorts of questions are critical as we struggle to define, regulate, and direct food and agricultural policies in the coming decades as we attempt to compensate for the difficult energy-supply shift that will inevitably occur… not to mention as we are forced to re-structure our values as society begins to look very different as a result of these energy-supply shifts…

If we return to the discussion at the beginning of this post, we remember that as it stands now there is much controversy over, not only the unregulated use of the word “natural” when marketing food stuffs, but also the legal definition and use of the word “organic” in the ongoing debates surrounding “sustainable” development and “eco-friendly” living.

This controversy extends to the challenge of imagining our agricultural and food systems in the coming half century. Will they all be organic? What does that look like in practice, on the shelves of supermarkets? Will there even be supermarkets!

Really, the umbrella question is: Is it possible to fit the values and principles of “organic” into a conventional system, which was established based upon very different principles? If not, why are we trying so hard to do so and at what costs? How can we envision a new system and make a successful transition? Indeed, is it even possible? (the answer is yes, pessimists!)

If the vision that pops into your mind when you attempt to imagine this new system is something like, “a more natural one,” than I challenge you to consider the significance of what that means … and how we might get there!

What are we citing as “natural” when we evoke that term? At which point throughout human history were we operating “according to nature” and in which respects? At which point did we stop?

I only say this because if we consider the evolution of society, technology, and domesticated crops and livestock in the past century, it is interesting to ask ourselves where nature fits? For example, I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the frustrating counter-argument that claims GM crops to be a natural extension of human innovation the same way selecting and re-planting corn seeds some 10,000 years ago was!

For the record, I am huge proponent of organic agriculture and operating in the images of nature by mimicking and synchronizing human’s existence on this earth with those of the ecosystems that surround and support us. Nonetheless, my education is making me all to well aware of the fact that, in order to fully attain this vision, we are looking at an incredible challenge of re-directing our entire operative systems – not just in terms of food, but in terms of society as a whole.

This is not an easy thing to argue, I have found, and this blog post has arisen out of an honest wondering about the language and visions I, and so many who feel similar to me, evoke when promoting our opinions. What sort of change are we really advocating for? How successful are we really in doing so? How can we be more so? … and how come Derrida is so sexy?!

As the eight of us COAers finished up the two day Kneading Conference, we felt a mix of awe and anxiety – awe in terms of the amount of knowledge and enthusiasm we encountered throughout the conference during workshops and in speaking with individuals; anxiety in terms of the complex challenges that were presenting themselves and the calamitous future they predicted.

I would like to return once again to Dr. Fred Kirschenmann’s speech and a phrase he quoted from Aldo Leopold - one of which I think sums up the paradigm fueling this rising food revolution.

The phrase is: “developing an ecological conscience” and Fred presented two paradigms in an effort to explain this concept, those being “industrial” eating vs. “ecological” eating.

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Dr. Fred Kirschenmann outlined the problems of our current agricultural model of industrial farming at the 2010 Kneading Conference in Skowhegan, ME and I summarized and reflected on his keynote address entitled “It all starts with the soil” in the previous post. This post will continue that discussion and reflect on Fred’s suggestions as to where to start in the face of such major challenges.

I should also mention who Dr. Fred Kirschenmann is and why his opinions are legitimate!

Fred is a long time leader of sustainable agriculture, Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at the Iowa State University and President of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. He also oversees management of his family’s 3,500 acre organic farm in North Dakota and is a professor in the ISU Department of Religion and Philosophy.

In my opinion, he should become president of COA because he is the walking epitome of a human ecologist!

But on to the good stuff! Briefly, I’d like to discuss a few of Fred’s suggested solutions to the challenges I outlined previously.

Like the good ecologist that he is, Fred stressed the importance of biodiversity and genetic diversity as solutions to our current agricultural system – diversity being both the key and controversial word here. As it stands now, we rely on a homogenized, global food system (both in terms of farming and distribution of food stuffs) and one that is heavily reliant on fossil fuels at every stage. This is a dangerous thing indeed because we can soon imagine a global famine without the resources to deal with it – it’s the old fatality of “putting your eggs all in one basket”.

There is still time and hope for shifting this reality by propagating information about a few important strategies.

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Kneading Conference 2010 // Skowhegan, ME

We awoke to warm sun through the east-facing mesh of our (well worn) tent to a little boy laughing giddily in the grassy field we shared with our fellow attendees at the Skowhegan fairgrounds. Today was the start of the fourth annual Kneading Conference – a gathering established to celebrate bread, grains, and wood fired ovens as they relate to the growing interest in restoring artisan breads (along with local foods in general) to communities. We didn’t yet know of the complexity of this agenda as we stretched our limbs outward to the warm, welcoming sun the first morning of the conference, but our human ecology skills would soon be put to the test as we would start to grapple with the complexity of the Maine grain food system - with all of its inter-related social, political, and environmental off-shoots. These complexities, as well as some suggestions for the future, were eloquently summed up in Dr. Fred Kirschenmann’s keynote address: “It All Starts with the Soil”

Fred addressed what he found to be the five major challenges facing food systems today. Although his talk related directly to bread, I found his points to be well made and quite relevant to any number of food items as they relate to the U.S. food system.

He spoke first of the most obvious elephant in the room: energy. He pointed out how heavily industrial agriculture depends on an input of cheap energy in the form of oil to function as “efficiently” as it does in its effort to deliver us cheap food. In every stage - from the research involved in the genetic modification of seeds, to the making and manufacturing of farm equipment as well as in both their maintenance and function, to transportation of food stuffs to various processing plants and then on to retail stores and finally to the home table to be cooked, served, and thrown away – agriculture (no less eating!) depends on a continual input of cheap and abundant oil.

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