Visit thefieldtrip.wordpress.com to follow my new adventures around the good ol’ U.S. of A., with a camper van and a cat.
The Field Trip is set to begin in November
I will visit farms, intentional communities, and all-around awesome places in search of hope!
At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel takes a longer range view.
“Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning,” said the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings will be published next month in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology.
Among his findings:
* An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel’s analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
* The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline.
* Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 Btu are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 Btu. “Put another way,” Pimentel said, “about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 Btu.”
* Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. “That helps explain why fossil fuels — not ethanol — are used to produce ethanol,” Pimentel said. “The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price.”
* Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. “Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol,” Pimentel said.
* The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel said, noting: “In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace.”
Nickels and dimes aside, some drivers still would rather see their cars fueled by farms in the Midwest than by oil wells in the Middle East, Pimentel acknowledges, so he calculated the amount of corn needed to power an automobile:
* The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix), would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.
* If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.
Counterpulse, an event space in San Francisco for arts and culture, held a discussion panel Wednesday evening entitled “Local Remanufacturing Our Way out of the Depression.” The panel and discussion were a breath of fresh air in an atmosphere of fear of catastrophe. These are the people who are preparing for continuing economic breakdown and developing positive methods to build local economies.
Peter Berg of the Planet Drum Foundation, Neil Seldman of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and Kevin Drew of the City of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment served as speakers for the panel.
Berg began by discussing the export of recyclable materials versus remanufacturing recyclables locally. Local remanufacture is not only better on the environment, but also better on the local human economy. When we achieve a high level of recycling—say 75%—we’re actually achieving a high level of garbage separation. We are merely separating it so that it can be sold off to another country.
Seldman later made the point that some believe much of the low-grade plastic actually ends up in an incinerator. Although to me, this would mean a reversal of the monetary exchange. Waste Management would be paying them to take the plastic versus them paying WM. Either way, we are recycling, but into a cycle that was bad to begin with.
Seldman also argued that we have in the United States a waste oligopoly. Allied and Waste Management are separate but in cahoots, because if they did merge, “someone might say something about it.” This oligopoly works to control recycling and build incinerators, to which Seldman is opposed. There are new forms of waste disposal being developed, he said, but these are essentially incineration in disguise. Plastics will be melted and the gas thus released is then burned, for example.
Seldman also proposed positive changes like a national tax on garbage, deconstruction rather than demolition, and the building of repair skills, such as in electronics. If there were local recycling, he argued, more jobs would be created: there are more jobs in recycling than in waste.
One proposal he rejected was that of requiring companies to deal with their own waste created by the consumers of their products. He claimed that this would eliminate unions, although did not explain why.
Kevin Drew’s comments concluded the panel. He spoke of the possibilities of local glass recycling, and even a revisiting of the returnable bottle. “I lived in a returnable world,” he stated, speaking of his experience with waste as a child. The One-Way Bottle, as he called it, is a new phenomenon.
Discussion was impassioned and pertinent, with questions being raised about reaching those outside the Bay Area Bubble, as well as the problematics of pollution caused by recycling facilities.
I give Counterpulse high marks for a timely and relevant topic, and engaging, smart speakers. I hope venues around the Bay Area continue to discuss and debate methods of rebuilding our local economy.
Check out Counterpulse.org
Also On:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/03/12/18576369.php
I just came across the personal statement that I wrote in application to the Green String Institute. It is important to look back on things that you have written some time ago, in order to track and stay focused on what you believe in and what inspires you…
I am motivated to participate in Green String’s Internship position because I foresee a future in which people will need to be knowledgeable on sustainable food production in order to subsist. Drastic changes in agriculture need to occur in order to avoid a complete breakdown of our food economy. I hope to make those changes happen, or at least prepare for that breakdown through my own personal enrichment.
My fieldwork on houseless train-hoppers while at UC Berkeley left a deep impression on my views of the world. My subjects’ critiques of housing, land, food, and politics were elegant and enlightening. They essentially abandoned all the social systems they deemed corrupt, instead choosing to live off the waste of an over-consuming society. Many of them had dreams to live on their own self-sufficient farms, although life on the streets seemed to me to make that dream far out of reach.
After graduating from the Anthropology Department, I continued study in housing and agriculture, researching sprawl, slums, and industrial crop production. I have been particularly influenced by the writings of Wendell Berry. His essays speak a wealth of truth for the present day, even though he was writing 30-40 years ago. Had more people heard his call to change, what would the world look like now? His writings are more pertinent than ever, providing guidelines for a synergistic relationship with the land and arguments against the destruction that industrial agriculture reaps on our most precious home.
I find myself swaying between extreme pessimism and excited optimism on these issues, for although the situation on our planet seems dire, I feel a seed of hope sprouting in the form of awareness and recognition of the seriousness of the need to reform our economies. Now, instead of environmentalists being perceived as “hippies” or “tree-huggers,” we are in a position to work together to literally save our planet.
A long-time friend of mine has been living in Hawaii for the past eight months, living and working on farms, and we often speak together about the growing feeling of apocalypse. There are many farms in Hawaii owned and inhabited by people who feel similarly about the possibility of an erosion of our food economy, and this belief intrigues me. I hope to eventually move to Hawaii in order to research the apocalypse communities that have formed there. What do these communities have to teach the rest of the country and world?
Sustainability defines a system that can regenerate and renew itself constantly and consistently. Human systems can be sustainable by learning from and harnessing natural regenerative systems. Places with a strong sense of community have a greater ability to be sustainable. Berry writes about transient professionals who, in order to be successful in their field, must never form a sense of community and must never consider a place their home, because that would prevent them from performing their various exploitative jobs. This was a stark contrast from my past research subjects who considered every place their home– hence they were not “homeless.” Knowledge of and participation in one’s community makes for sustainability because members can be aware of what products are available immediately around them.
One of my greatest concerns about human interaction with their surrounding community/environment is our disconnection from the sources of our commodities. In fact, most people do not even wish to know where their commodities come from, because the truth is too painful. Instead, people choose to blindly purchase and consume. For example, my aunt and uncle live in El Dorado Hills, a relatively rural area outside of Sacramento. My uncle purchased a side of beef from a neighbor who had slaughtered their own cow. My aunt found this disgusting, and regretted her husband’s newly acquired meat’s presence in the freezer. Why has it become easier to eat a dinosaur-shaped ‘chicken nugget’ than a side of beef from the cow down the street? Why are the nuggets not shaped like chickens, but instead an almost mythical and fantastical creature? Do we prefer our food to remain in the sphere of fantasy?
The issue of disconnection led to my decision to cease eating animal flesh and, as much as possible, all animal products. It is bad enough to have little to no control over the treatment of the horticultural products I consume, I do not desire the torture of animals in my belly. A stronger community would allow me to have knowledge about what is happening to the soil because of my need to eat, as well as what is happening to the animals who provide dairy, eggs, and meat. If people were forced to awareness of where these products originate, perhaps we would not be consuming so much meat and creating the issues of waste, land use, and hunger we have now.
I have strong commitment and motivation regarding agricultural issues, but I have much to learn, and am in need of a space in which to learn. Traditional schooling is possible, but also costly, and lacks the hands-on experience I desire. Currently, I am single and have no family or dependents of any kind. Now is the time to commit myself fully and deeply into a program such as this. I have a tremendous ability to get immersed in my course of study, but also need a community of peers with which to collaborate. Among the talents and traits I would bring to Green String are a keen and critical insight, an interdisciplinary sensibility, and a strong desire to contribute to and engage in a course of instruction.
Although not a religious person in the mainstream sense, I do believe that we are ‘all God’s children’ in that each one of us is always learning if we choose to harness it, and so always in a state of dependence. I feel that every experience I have and person I meet is an opportunity to become fuller and more engaged as a person. Participating in the Green String Institute would bring me closer to the person that I hope to be and to succeed in what I hope to accomplish.
I was on chicken duty this morning with Julia, and she found a dead chicken inside the coop. I went inside and placed it into a bin. It looked like maybe it fell from the roost and broke its neck. Jeff was going to help us deal with it. I wanted to put it in the compost pile, but he said that we should cut it open. I wanted to do no such thing, and he looked upset about the endeavor as a whole, so Julia and I went alone to bury it. We dug a nice hole, about a foot and a half deep. We said a prayer as we put the hen in and covered it. I said that I hope it had a good chicken life and that it ate lots of good food. Julia said, “I hope you’re in chicken heaven now, with all the worms you can eat.”
I said, “The worms will be eating you now!… you will be completing the circle.” We covered the grave with a large rock, and left to get ready to go harvest at Bob’s. I picked apples and bay leaves for myself, and then fig leaves and tomatoes for the Chez Panisse order.
After harvesting, Bob lessoned us. I was quite unprepared. I had forgotten the voice recorder and my notebook.
Bob looked at some weeds we had brought from an abandoned garden at Melissa’s church (that we plan to rehab), and analyzed them. One weed, a brassica, had several seeking roots and almost no secondary roots. He could tell from this that it was not happy where it was, because it kept sending out new seeking roots. It was a very determined plant, he said, determined to make seeds. It’s a kind of plant that blooms over and over and over, making new seeds all the way. If someone were to need motivation and determination in life, if they had been hurt as a child, and were now listless, he would give them a tea with a few of the blossoms, so that the determination for life of the plant would enter into the person. The characteristics of a plant can be absorbed by other life forms according to this view.
Bob also talked about planting seeds based on the lunar cycle. He plants seeds at the full moon in order to be organized, ordered, patterned, and grounded in nature.. I asked him if that’s all that is planned and he said yes, but if you plant seeds at the full moon, then all the other things you must do, like preparing soil, transplanting, and fertilizing, are scheduled naturally as a result. I develops a systematic cycle of nutritional establishment of garden, so you have food all the time. Organize your garden into twelve plots and plant one per moon– any moon will do.
Recognize character of this full moon: Nov 12, look around at the plants. This is the next to last of this year’s full moons. Look at the weather, soil temperature, the peach leaves (yellow, but lots of green), the hills are grassy. This way, you have three data points: the moon, the human calendar, and the circumstances.
Last year, Bob said, there was a very late frost in May, and some tomato plants were frost-bitten, which is akin to childhood abuse.
“If I poked your baby with a cattle prod when still a baby, it tenses the cells, and it loses its relaxation. Just like birthing babies in the hospital with male doctors and they grab it by it’s hind legs and hold it upside down and whack it on its ass to get it to breathe. Oh my god, this poor baby’s already breathing, I mean, let it lay upon its mother’s chest with its umbilical cord still attached for a moment, and let it feel—continue to feel the breath of the mother and let the mother squeeze it and release it, squeeze it and release it and develop that union that it’s gonna have for a few months if it’s lucky while it’s nursing. It doesn’t need to be jerked out and whacked on the ass or anything else, but you know, that’s what they do, somebody dreamed that up. You’re in a world where some puritan said, ‘You’re in a world of suffering, so let’s start ya out right!’”
I said, “And they wanna do that ‘cause they got whacked in the ass when they were a baby.”
“Of course, and that’s the human mindset and how do we change these paradigms, and the influences upon human culture and upon society, so that generations later we have an announcement of the more capacity of humanity, but we don’t do that, but excuse me I’m getting sidetracked when we’re talking about another issue. We’re looking at lunar planting…”
When I got up this morning, I did not know that today would be the day. I knew we were to have a lesson. I went for a bike ride at 9 a.m. Jeff called and said that Bob was coming before noon and that we were to kill the extra roosters.
“Oh,” I said, and inhaled deeply. I still didn’t know what to think about the whole dilemma. I rode home and arrived just as Ross was driving up in his truck. Melissa, Ross, Jeff and I all sat for several minutes, talking. I asked Ross if he was sad.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’m not particularly happy, but I’m also not sad… It has to be done.”
Bob arrived in his truck and pulled up right next to the chicken coop, unloading a butchering block with two nails stuck into it, a propane tank, a tall, large gas range, and a large pot. He filled the pot with water and turned on the range. I asked, “What’s the pot for?”
“For boiling the roosters to get the feathers off,” Bob said.
“Are we going to kill them away from the coop?”
“No, we’re going to do it right here.”
“I don’t think it’s good to do it right where their brethren can see them killed.”
“Why not? I’ve seen that.”
And he walked off. I said (to the air, really), “Well, that must have sucked.”
Ross and I moved the butchering block and the pot to where Bob’s truck would block it. I was very relieved. I really don’t see why we would have wanted to freak out the chickens by beheading the roosters in front of them.
I was crying. I couldn’t help it. I was turning my face away so no one would see how twisted it was into a frown. Jeff left the scene. He was not cool with the killing of the roosters. Ross and Bob went into the coop and grabbed several roosters. The first to be caught and have his feet tied together was a shiny brown one. All the others were an orangey-blond. It was set on the ground after being tied, and it kept getting up and hopping. It hopped close to the range, so I walked over and restrained it. I held it down and pet it. It calmed down. It was looking around, its little eyes blinking. What a beautiful color it was. I picked it up and held it on my side, like I do with my cat. I held it for a long time while six others were caught, tied, and set on the ground underneath a tarp (To keep the sun off? To keep them contained?).
As the last ones were getting their legs tied, everyone was kneeling around the rooster-filled tarp. Mostly, they were calm, although every five or ten minutes, one would squawk and make a ruckus. Bob was talking about how tasty old rooster meat was, and how he, Ross, and Marius (his other son) shoot glass bottles with a 22. Marius is the best shot, but when it comes to shooting a rabbit, he always misses. For the killing of a chicken, he is never around, but when the liver pate is on the table, Bob said, Marius is right there.
The brown one I held was the first to go. Bob said that it was the oldest, two years old. I asked how long they live if you don’t kill them and he said two to three years, and that these roosters were nearing the end of their lives anyways. That’s a short lifespan, no?
Bob took the rooster, wedged its neck between the two nails on the block, and beheaded it with one swing of the ax. Then, he put the headless body into an empty trashcan, and the body jumped and flailed, making a great noise jerking the can around, and its throat making a dull clucking sound. I looked at the rooster’s severed head. Its mouth was opening and closing for about ten seconds after it was debodied, although its eyes were closed. It made me think of how connected the body and head are. When does life end in that context? Is the movement of the body really “just nerves,” or is the body still alive?
The blood had splattered onto my shoes. On the block, it was such a bright, rich red.
Aurelio came and spoke with us, talking of his experiences with chickens in France as a child. He spoke of how some people would cut their tongues and let them bleed to death upside down, and how he thought that was torture. A man who is working on the grape harvest also came over during, and was talking about how tasty roosters are. (Afterwards, Melissa said he was making her want to hurl). He asked twice if we wanted anything for lunch. Duh.
It continued in this way, I would hold and pet a rooster, trying to calm it, and then it would go to the block. Bob would chop its head off, flailing would ensue, and Ross and Melissa would do the defeathering…until the very last rooster. Bob handed the ax to me. I got up and took hold of it. Bob said, “Now, you hold its legs, and put its head between the nails—actually, I’ll hold it for you. Just give it one good clean whack right here.”
I did it. I gave it one good whack. I did well. I hope the rooster did not suffer too much.
Bob butchered the roosters right there, taking out their heart, liver, gizzard, and tossing their other entrails into a trash bucket. It was really nasty, really nasty. I think it made meat even less appetizing than it already is to me. It was good, though, to participate in that process. I think everyone should, particularly meat eaters. One of my biggest qualms with meat-eating is our disconnection with the origins of the animal and the process whereby it became meat on our table. It’s incredibly mystified, and I feel the industrialization of meat-production and its resulting mystification leads to a total lack of respect for the animal. It’s quite analogous to the lack of respect for the soil itself that Bob talks about.
That whole experience was intense, emotional, and draining. I was very upset at first, but when it comes down to it, to live is to die. Some of those roosters may have even been party to the roostericide that occurred on two occasions in the last month. Yes, there is death, but there is also rebirth and regeneration. Those roosters were immediately food for flies and yellowjackets that were all over the carcasses right away, and will be food for humans as well. Their internals are now in our compost pile, and will probably be dug up by a coyote, but also may make it to nourish the soil as well.
One rooster that Melissa had buried in the ground must have been dug up, because Jeff discovered a head in the garden. Interesting: a reemergence of the dead rooster. Rooster zombie, Jeff said. I hope that my body decomposes into the earth one day.
I collected the few good feathers of the brown rooster I could find, and sewed them onto my hat.
On the 22nd of September, Bob gave us a lesson on using the Junior Seeder he uses to sow seeds. He says they’re a few hundred bucks, and are much better quality and more reliable than the big, fancy, gas-powered machines available for thousands. Particularly, if you are running a manageable farm, you should have no problem with this mechanical device.
It’s not for very big or very small seeds. You wouldn’t use it for very valuable seeds, either.
M and I both pushed it for a few rows. It was pretty hard work, but not too difficult. It requires a lot of calculation to decide what diameter of hole to use for the seeds. It depends on how many plants you want, what the germination rate is, and the frequency of seed dispersal.
You can use a vacuum planter with pulletized seeds (made into pullets by covering with clay, but they’re expensive, and only really useful for industrial agriculture.
The next day, we had a lesson on transplanting sprouted seeds.
First, you broadcast seeds throughout an 8 by 8 inch nursery tray (Bob says they used to be available made with wood, but now only come in plastic). Once the cotyledons have reached a few inches, you transplant the sprouts to give them space, a group of two to three for every square inch of tray space. If you water them the night before, the sprouts will be dry and easy to transplant.
You must take a small handful of sprouts in your left hand and disentangle the roots of a few with your right hand. Pinch the stems in your hand left hand, while you use your right hand to make a hole in the soil. Place the group of sprouts in the hole, and cover with dirt. Don’t worry about making them stand straight up or anything. They’ll stand on their own after a watering. Actually, it’s nice to have them leaning away from you, to give you more room to work.
Sowing seeds in a nursery is good for sensitive plants, and for time-space sharing. If you have something growing in the field that will be done with harvesting in a month, you can start growing another plant in the nursery. When the first plant is mowed down at the end of its cycle, you can have the other crop ready to transplant into the ground. Then, you’ve saved a month of field-space.
You can use three different data-points from which to cycle your garden or farm: the moon, the human calendar, and the conditions of nature around you. Bob always plants seeds at the full moon, but you can use any other lunar formation. Also, note the actual date. Then, look around you and see what the other plants are doing. Then, you’ll know, for example, that when you planted the summer squash that did so well, it was a late april full moon, and the catkins of the willow tree were out. No matter where you move, you will know that when the catkins are out on the willow tree, it’s time to plant the squash.
The latter data point helps because the seasons are always different. This year’s winter will be different than next year’s winter. The plants, though, are very attuned to the weather, and know when the first frost will be. If it will be early, they will go to seed early– if late, they will go to seed late, etc… It’s pretty amazing that plants are able to prepare themselves ahead of time. They are that connected to the dirt and the air. Sometimes, they get confused, but you have to really work at it, like spray a bunch of weed-killer at their trunks. Pretty funny that we put orange fences around the old oaks to mark them off from the other vegetation being mowed over and paved over for development, but then we use so much chemical crap on our lawns, it ends up killing much of those trees anyways.
Sunday was the annual party for Chez Panisse and Green String staff. It was held in and around a large barn on Green String. Hay bales had been set outside for use as benches. A brick oven had been built and an iron door made from Aurelio’s forge expressly for the purpose of the party. Pizzas were made in the oven and two sheep roasted on large metal skewers over an open fire. There were beans, tortillas, and salads, and for dessert, homemade chocolate chip ice cream with biscotti and tarts from the oven.
There was much wine and all was drunk. Two large tour buses arrived with the Chez Panisse staff. There were many people with kids and dogs, baseballs and soccer balls, instruments and voices. I saw a few people I knew from Berkeley. And, of course, Alice Waters was in attendance. I regret not getting a chance to meet her, although she did wink at me. By that time, I was too wasted and exhausted to want to have an intelligent conversation with anyone. There was so much stimulation, I was drained, drained.
I met one of the head chefs from Chez, who suggested us interns come to the restaurant and see “the other side.” See the food prepared and eaten! When we fill their orders on Mondays and Thursdays, I sometimes think what will come of that bean or berry, and sometimes what comes of it is that it goes in my belly.
Monday was the usual morning order filling harvest for the restaurant, followed by a long lunch at Ross’ house, and fig picking. You must pick figs when they are at their full ripeness. Any green is too much. If they are not yet ripe, a milky substance leaks from their stem, which is irritating to the skin. Also, their stem nubbin must come off the tree intact to keep the fig preserved. It was Ross, his friend, M, and I picking. The picking turned into a fig-fight, with us all sneaking and hiding behind and up trees, throwing. Tired from our battle, we all sat down on the hillside, looking down over the grapevines far below. Ross’ friend, Colin, said, “This is so fun. It’s like being a kid again.”
I contemplated this the next day during our lesson with Bob. We learned how to use a seeder, which is a contraption with two wheels, a seed holder, and handles. You push it up and down the rows, and it sows the seeds into the ground at the desired depth and frequency. Bob discussed the economics of choosing the frequency: how much the seed costs, its germination rate, how old it is. We also hand-sowed seeds that Bob broadcast on another plot. Again, economics: Bob broadcast them because it was important that it was done right with this expensive seed and important plot—a crop of kale that is expected to produce five thousand dollars.
Being a farmer would not be like being a kid again. Being an intern, however, is.
Tuesday morning brought a lesson with Bob’s father (also named Bob). Bob Sr. is the local poultry expert. He is in his eighties, but is very much active. He is good to talk to, and has a great wealth of knowledge. He tells us that we are the ones who are able to make a difference; that he doesn’t have the time any more— it’s us.
Here’s the lesson:
The wild jungle fowl of Malaysia were domesticated into what we now know as chickens. The domesticated fowl were moved west to India, the Middle East, and Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were very talented domesticators, hatching many chicks in sand incubators and developing what is now known as one of the Mediterranean breeds, which have white eggs.
From Malaysia, the chicken also moved east to China, where it was developed for meat rather than eggs. The eggs of these Asian breeds are brown.
The chicken also moved north into Germany, France, and England. These breeds, such as the Dorking and Sussex, are small and produce many eggs.
In the U.S., “dual-purpose” breeds were developed– good for eggs as well as meat– and has now formed into a worldwide industry. These, of course, are big. Breeds include the Light Bromma, the Rhode Island Red, the Dominic, and the Jersey Giant. These breeds are also high in fat content. For example, Foster Farms chickens are 20% body fat. Bob Sr. said that he has developed chickens of only 6% body fat, and if their testes are removed, they can attain a weight of up to 16 pounds, the size of a small turkey.
This is also about efficiency: how well a chicken can convert feed into carcass weight. At Foster Farms, they don’t want the chickens to be active, nor get any sunlight. If they do not move and do not get any sunlight, their flesh will be very tender. I thought about those chicken commercials Foster Farms used to (still does?) do, where the chicken puppets are trying to escape. Jesus.
It takes 21 days, almost exactly, to incubate eggs of any breed. For the Mediterranean breeds, a higher temperature of incubation is needed (like the Leghorns), but for the most part, you need 99.5 degrees of circulated heat or 101 degrees of static heat for an egg to hatch. Also, a high amount of humidity is needed. You can make a home incubator, with a light bulb to produce heat, and a dish of water to evaporate into humidity. You must turn the eggs a couple times a day, or the fetus will stick to the side of the egg and cause it to abort. Bob Sr. says he puts them on a flat cookie sheet in the incubator, and runs his hands over them to turn them. If you buy an incubator, always keep the eggs pointed-side down. The gives the fetus room to grow in.
To find a fertile egg, you do a method called “candling.” You can buy a candler, or make one by poking a hole in the top of a tin can, placing a light bulb in through the bottom, and placing an egg on top of the hole, so the light shines just through the egg. If you see the little white sperm, then you know it’s fertile (you’ve all seen that funny white stringy thing in your eggs before, right? That’s the sperm! What would the anti-abortionists say?).
The Mediterranean breeds have become very bad at incubating their own eggs, because they have been hatched for them for so long, but the Asian breeds can hatch their own.
Don’t have many different breeds or different aged chicks together– they’ll fight.
Soybean meal is good protein for them.
Leave their poop on the ground in the winter and just cover with straw. When it decomposes, it provides warmth for the chickens.
You can free-range chickens, but you have to put them in at night to protect them from predators. To catch a chicken, pretend you’re walking one way, then walk the other way– you must trick them. Whatever you do, don’t chase them. You’ll never win.
They really like lightly cooked veggies, and they also like their own egg shells smashed up– it’s a good source of calcium. Things like cantaloupe must be cut open so they can eat the soft flesh. They are great garbage disposers!
They like grain spread on the ground. It’s good for scratching and finding. Give them a little at night, because it digests slowly. Give them standard feed in the morning. Veggies all day. Their feed (mash) must be 16-18% protein. If they’re not getting enough protein, they’ll want to eat each other.
Hen to rooster ratio should be 10:1 max for Mediterranean breeds, and 15:1 max for Asian breeds. If it’s more, the hens will peck at each other. They can be very mean.
Melissa and I want to hatch some chicks. Bob Sr. thinks everyone should keep at least a couple of hens. They’re so easy to take care of, they provide the satisfaction and economy of growing your own food, and they produce fresh (and maybe organic and free-range) eggs right in your backyard. What’s not to like?
On Saturday, students from the UC Santa Cruz agricultural program visited Bob’s Farm, and M and I attended his tour. This group of students were much less shy about picking something off a plant and eating it, and asked very good questions.
Bob believes that poor quality nutrition is the basis of disease, which is an idea I have encountered elsewhere— for example, in a book I am currently reading entitled, Consuming Passions: An Anthropology of Eating. In this book, the author discusses how instances of TB and other diseases decreased dramatically many years prior to their identification and vaccine development. A malnourished person is much more likely to contract and die from an illness, and in impoverished countries even with medical care, diseases like TB, measles, pneumonia, and influenza are major problems.
This has made me question the existence of so many systems of aid based on medical care. Have we overlooked the even closer and more fundamental necessity of good nutrition? Are we treating cancer, heart attacks, and diabetes at points far from their causation? Would it be better to ensure that people can glean food subsistence independently than to provide vaccinations?
When discussing the quality of soil at his farm, Bob said that it was a less productive soil than places in the Sacramento Valley, for example. He chose the land for this very reason, he said, because a very fertile soil will continue to be fertile for some time even if you’re farming it in an extractive manner. However, if you begin on tough soil, it will be more responsive and you will know quite easily whether you are doing things correctly or incorrectly. What drove Bob to be a farmer in this way was his observation that plants seemed to grow so well and fully naturally and without any external inputs, but human crops seemed to need so much to get them to grow.
It made me disappointed and angry to think about the productive and fertile soil of the Sacramento Valley, of which Roseville (my hometown), is a part. All of that precious ground was built on and covered with concrete as if it were disposable, and all landscaping by policy homogenous and not including anything for subsistence, or even for nature for that matter. Nice, clean, green grass injected with weed killers, and a tree in the middle of the street every 15 feet that can’t even hold itself up. What will happen if and when the land is once again needed for food production? Will we have the fuel necessary to tear the concrete back up again?
Our history of growing has allowed us to sap land of its nutrients and move on to the next plot. Sooner or later, we will reach a point when there is no next plot. Bob talked a lot about the ecological changes in Sebastopol. It used to be a temperate rainforest, and is now only suitable for the agricultural growth of grapevines. Initially, Sebastopol’s redwood trees were cut down and raspberries were grown. The summer rains stopped without the redwood trees there, and topsoil was lost in massive quantities as a result of the loss of flora. In one recorded instance, 18” of topsoil was lost in one torrential winter downpour. When the climate was too dry in the summer for raspberries, apples were grown. Now, grapevines are the main crop, able to withstand much dryness and low-nutritive soils. Soon, only something like buckwheat will grow, and then, desert-like conditions will prevent agriculture viability.
When we grow all for humanity and nothing for nature, nature cannot continue to produce, which is why at Green String, there is always one crop for nature for every human crop. Weeds will be allowed to grow or seeds actually sown between crops to provide ground cover, soil support, and structural support. The food crops grow with the weeds, and when the weeds become bigger than the food crop, they are cut down to size, but never pulled. Their root system is important in soil nutrient building and aeration, and it takes much less energy to merely suppress their growth vs. pulling them. A ‘clean cultivated’ farm, with nothing growing between crops, is not “under control,” but selfishly sucking all nutrients for human consumption only.
Bare? Fallow? Never.
Rico Berto
09/19/08
Today was the day for the Sonoma Farmer’s Market, which goes from 9 am to noon. M and I left at 7:30 to go pick eggplants at another property. They have free-range chickens and a pregnant sow. There were so many eggplants, I picked them quickly. Then, we drove to Bob’s farm to pick up broccoli.
We met Ross at the market and set up shop. A lot of people there knew Ross. Next to us was Walter the Plant Guy, as Ross and M call him, who sells succulents and drives a beautiful vw bus. The sellers at the market barter a lot. Walter gave Ross a succulent in exchange for some veggies.
Afterwards, Ross gave us mula for lunch out, and we ate in the park from a French-style café. The tourists stuck out like sore thumbs. We certainly looked the part of farm-chicas, as I had on overalls and we both had muddy, dirty boots.
After yummy garden and Portobello burgers, we drove to the Jacuzzi vineyard and winery to use the kitchen. The Clines own the winery as well as Green String. A sign stating “Green String Certified” was donned on the side of the road near the property. Bob’s farm and, of course, Green String Farm, are also certified ‘green string.’ Bob does not agree with the current organic certification process, and believes it to serve only industrial-style agriculture. I agree. In order to go beyond ‘organic,’ Bob began the term ‘green string’ to label a kind of agriculture which adheres not only to the non-use of certain chemicals, but all chemicals, and generally a way of growing food that sustains nature as well as humans.
Jacuzzi has a gorgeous building at its entrance. I told M it reminded me of a plant that shows off its colorful blossoms so all the bees will come to it. Here, it’s the tourists who come to it. The building looks like a castle, made of stone with big heavy wooden doors and wrought iron hardware. The kitchen in the back is also amazing. The stove has twelve ranges. The cooking supplies are giant—giant bowls, pots, pans. The plan was to use the large amount of raspberries that were going to go bad if we didn’t make a product out of them soon. The product was to be raspberry soda. We spent the next hour and a half cooking down the berries ($80 worth) and straining their juice into a big pot. M and I took a break in the middle to check out the winery. We tasted a couple of wines at the tasting counter and chatted with the man working there. We also tasted various kinds of olive oils made and sold at the winery.
So much that is available in Sonoma is made locally. Everyone makes something; everyone is a creator of something, an artisan. When M and I got back in the kitchen, a man with orange hair and beard was unloading things and bringing them inside, including a toolbox. I assumed it was someone preparing for an event that was to happen later on. Then, he took out several very large cheeses: wheels and blocks, and opened up his toolbox, which was filled with an amazing variety of cheese-cutting knives. He cut a big chunk of cheese off the wheel, wrapped it in plastic, and gave it to Ross. “Here, Ross, this is for you.” It must have been a pound of cheese, it was so big.
Turns out this is Gary the Cheese Guy. He gave M and I a couple tastes of cheese. One a lovely parmesan. I said, “I like the little crunchies.” He said, “Yes, those are calcium crystals.” The other we tastes was a soft, white sheep’s milk cheese. Yum!
Outside, Ross gave up grocery money and the huge chunk of cheese. “Wow, thanks,” I said. I don’t think I have ever been in possession of such a large chunk of cheese. Amazing. Amazing how food is so bountiful and passed around so freely. There are very intricate connections of people giving gifts of food, kitchen use, land….
When M and I got back to the house, we collected the chicken eggs, and went to go talk to Bob, who was in the forge across from our house. We met Aurelio, who rents out the forge from Bob. We all talked for quite some time, about food, about work, about life and land and economy. Aurelio had forged a door for a brick oven specially made for a party to be held on Sunday. You see? Everyone makes things. And they’re very good at it. After Bob left, Aurelio showed us around the forge and showed us his portfolio photos. His brothers, who work with him, live in a house near us on the farm. They are very good at what they do. They are artists and craftspeople. They are artisans.
We have a fly problem in our house, so I thought we should get a fly swatter, or maybe sticky fly tape. We found a flytrap to use. It was a sticky roll with images of flies on it. The flies are attracted to the image and then get stuck. I wasn’t thinking, though, that the flies would be alive when they got stuck and would be tortured until they starved to death. What a trick! Imagine seeing your buddies, and going to hang out with them, only to find that they are dummies and you’re now stuck! I said to M, “Let’s not use this after all.”
“Okay,” she said, “let’s toss it.”
I blew on it and discovered that one of the flies was still alive. I was going to take it outside and try to get the fly off. As I carried it, the fly flapped its wings with great effort. I took a little stick and put it under the fly’s body. Then, I gently lifted it up, attempting to free the fly from the glue. I watched as the fly’s mouth opened wide. I tried once more, and again, its mouth opened wide. It was screaming! It was screaming. I put the trap in the trash, disturbed, and tried to squash it with a piece of paper M had retrieved for the purpose. I hope I did squash it.
Oh! The image of the flies little mouth opening wide as I tried to help it free kept coming back into my head. Later, I tried to stop thinking about it, but then I realized that maybe I should think about it. What was that? Why did that bother me so much?
It bothered me because for that moment, the fly and I were consanguine. I was witness to its pain. I could see it. I had been looking closely. That fly screamed. I could not hear its scream, but that fly screamed. We are flies. We are small compared to those things that are large, we scream, we suffer, we die. We are consanguine with the flies, because we are also beings. It’s high time we realized that.
As I thoroughly described in my last post, I was in attendance at Slow Food Nation’s “Food For Thought” speaker series on Saturday, August 30th. Following are my notes as well as some thoughts of the discussion on Climate Change and Food, which included Wes Jackson, Carl Pope, Ari Bernstein, Patrick Holden, and Anna Lappe, and was moderated by Mark Hertsgaard.
The talk began on a somber note, as projections of drastic decreases in crop yields as a result of climate change was discussed, as well as potential future problems with water availability for those crops.
Wes Jackson countered that the actual changes that will take place as a result of climate change are unpredictable, and Carl Pope stated that it is that very unpredictability which may lead to our demise. “We are a weedy species,” Pope said, “we adapt– but we cannot adapt to uncertainty.” Just one degree celsius increase in temperature in our prairie land, Jackson said, may turn the prairie to a dry, hot, sandy terrain, or, some say, could even create the exact opposite effect of a wetter (but still hotter, of course) environment.
Anna Lappe spoke of her “sleuthing” at food industry conferences and what those industries are or are not doing to counter global warming. While the Grocery Manufacturers Organization held its first ever Sustainability Summit, the Meat Manufacturers Conference was void of any inquiry on the topic– this when meat production creates 18% of greenhouse emissions globally!
Monsanto, according to Lappe, puts forward the rationale that the increase of small, organic farms would take up so much space that we will be sacrificing our forests for farms. Proponents of biotech farming dispense this information to the public, creating a false impression of the real consequences of organic farming vs. chemical farming. It is true that organic farming can result in lower yields in the short term, but if we concern ourselves with the future of the human species, land that is sapped of its ability to support plant life as a result of irresponsible farming becomes the obvious loser in the production-race. Indeed, Lappe said, the inefficiency of chemical agriculture is not accounted for in many calculations (for example, the oil used to ship fertilizer across the globe).
And, anyways, hunger is not even about scarcity, it’s about democracy! We do not have a lack of food, we have unequal access and distribution. (Berry discusses democratic land distribution in Home Economics.)
Speaking of food democracy, Lappe touched on the growing consumption of meat, and how it is held that humans naturally desire meat. She asks, is this really autonomous desire? In South Korea, she recounted, she had witnessed boycott demonstrations against U.S. imported beef. They felt the beef to be unsafe and a possible carrier of mad cow disease and were critical of ad campaigns which they felt had created a demand for meat. I think of advertisements I have seen for U.S. beef. They show lean steak at very close range, so that it appears to be a landscape. Herbs appear to be trees and bushes. If eating meat is such a natural inclination, what is the use for millions of dollars spent on ad campaigns? People should just naturally seek out flesh, no? Hence, the market for meat is created through ads and through cultural ideals on the performance of wealth.
There was also much discussion on the U.S. Farm Bill signed by Mr. Bush. Pope made the argument that the farm bill is not about food for the poor at all, but is rather about the most food from the least labor. This, of course, creates unemployment, and even a permanent unemployable class. Jackson agreed, and stated that the greatest source of untapped energy on this planet is in fact, human energy.
Patrick Holden put it succinctly that “a lot needs to happen in a terrible hurry.” I firmly believe it does, and the hurry will be terrible if we don’t hurry now. However, solutions made to work in the short term, said Carl Pope, must also work for the long term.
A rich point in the conversation was reached when, following this comment, Jackson spoke of the need to de-emphasize growth as the dominant economic ideology. This sounded to me like Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy. Jackson certainly had a good point with this comment– our country in particular suffers from the Frontier Illness, which contributes to the tacit understanding that there is always space to grow into. This is what creates sprawling suburbs and decrepit inner cities; growing out leaves everything shallow.
Pope raised issue with this idea, stating that we cannot stop thinking about growth when “three hundred million people in India want electricity.” Jackson diffused the tension by raising above his head a swatch of prairie grass he had traveled with from Kansas. The grass itself measured about 18″ long, but the thin, intertwined, knit-like roots stretched 8 ft. down. Talk about deep economy!
After getting a bit frustrated walking all over Manhattan without meeting anyone who I would like to interview for two days, I decided to relax a bit and let my body rest. That just so happened to be the day that I finally met some people. I saw a man who I recognized from Berkeley, of all places, and he agreed to be interviewed. He says I interviewed him before, but I cannot recall that. I hung out with him and a large group of people for the rest of the day, taking pictures and chatting with other houseless people as well as some young punk kids who live with parents. I was getting a bit of stigma for the picture-taking from a couple of people, but the first guy I met, Swig, was backing me up— “She’s cool. I met her in Berkeley.” I made a mistake and photographed someone without asking. She had a black eye from a fight and I suppose I just knew she really wouldn’t want her picture taken. But all these thoughts of making such things that are often concealed or turned away from into things that are strikingly visible swirled through my head. She didn’t notice me taking her picture, but later on asked me not to. “I feel ugly right now,” she said. “You haven’t taken any already have you?” On the spot and feeling guilty, I lied and said, “No. I ask people before I take their picture.” Swig, again backing me up said, “She was taking pictures of me.” That makes me feel even worse, violating his trust. I cannot in good conscience keep that photo. I got some ’stigma’ from a couple of others as well. One guy asked, “Out of curiosity, what’s with the camera?” and went on to tell me about how a friend of his had their photo taken for an “art project” that ended up in the newspaper. I assured him I was not a journalist and the only places the photos may be shown is in a gallery in Berkeley. I had similar concerns from another person as well.
I have been thinking of getting my senior thesis printed so that it can be available for my current informants to read. It may build more trust and understanding if they see the results of my Berkeley venture. Other than that, I think it is only time which can build trust. That being said, I go now to walk around the East Village and into Tompkins Square Park to hang out some more.
