For the past ten years Lockie Gary, a former U.S. ranch manager and livestock reproductive specialist has been living in countries like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iraq, leading dairy training programs to help people establish local dairies in their war torn surroundings.

Supported by Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes, Inc. and protected by the U.S. Marines, Lockie is currently teaching Iraqi widows in Fallujah how to make their cows more comfortable in a war zone, and how to make a living by yielding higher quality milk, locally, writes Graeme Wood in the September issue of The Atlantic. He writes:

Somehow in a counterinsurgency where communicating with the civilian population has proved difficult, Gary’s cattle sounds and imitations of newborn calves, or calves in the late stages of Clostridial infection make immediate sense to his students. Gary squats a little when he pretends to be a calf with the scours (that’s calf diarrhea, for the uninitiated), and the veiled women of Fallujah nod in appreciation.

Image by eierea, licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: The Atlantic

Michael Pollan and the rest of the organic-food advocates should pipe down, according to farmer Blake Hurst in the American (the magazine of the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank). Hurst writes, “I’m so tired of people who wouldn’t visit a doctor who used a stethoscope instead of an MRI demanding that farmers like me use 1930s technology to raise food.”

In his screed against organics, Hurst scores a point or two for the industrial farming system. He writes, “the parts of farming that are the most ‘industrial’ are the most likely to be owned by the kind of family farmers that elicit such a positive response from the consumer.” He adds, “If we are about to require more expensive ways of producing food, the largest and most well-capitalized farms will have the least trouble adapting.”

Those large farms also would likely benefit from an economy based on genetically modified foods, which Hurst also advocates. He unfortunately neglects to mention that.

Source: The American

Image by  Vaarok , licensed under  Creative Commons .

The economic crisis taught many people not to trust the financial markets. Today, an increasing number of people are trying to rely more on themselves. After years of being written off as a unrealistic pastoral ideal, Phillip Longman writes for Foreign Policy that “the self-sufficient worker once again has a chance, whether as a farmer growing vegetables for local consumption or as an open-source software developer who makes a living in his basement office.” 

These new “yeomen,” as Longman calls them, are not just “starry-eyed yuppies yearning for a simpler life of heirloom tomatoes and muskmelons rooted in worm castings.” They’re productive workers who may be able to upend the industrial agricultural system and redefine work-life balance. This new breed of workers will be able to spend more time at home, giving their children the skills they need for the world. Longman writes, “The neo-yeomen won't only be more efficient laborers—they'll also be happier parents, giving their societies a clear Darwinian advantage.” But if the U.S. government wants to encourage this new breed of worker, it should probably guarantee them some health care first.

Source: Foreign Policy

Image by  jsmjr , licensed under  Creative Commons .

Environmentalists, especially of the veggie persuasion, are quick to point out that meat accounts for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing consumption, giving meat up even one day a week, is the easiest way to reduce your carbon footprint, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.’s panel on climate change, said last fall.

But not all meat is created equal, Lisa Hamilton writes for Audubon. Some methane production is unavoidable (file this fact under “cow burps”), but “animals reared on organic pasture have a different climate equation from those raised in confinement on imported feed,” asserts Hamilton, author of Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness.

In large-scale farming confinement systems, manure flows into (disgusting) lagoons, where its decomposition releases millions of tons of methane and nitrous oxide into the air every year. “On pasture, that same manure is simply assimilated back into the soil with a carbon cost close to zero,” Hamilton writes.

What’s more, grass-fed livestock can be an essential player in a sustainable set-up. Manure revitalizes soil (in lieu of chemical fertilizers or shipped-in compost), and grazing encourages plant growth. Hamilton also points to Holistic Management International, an organization that proposes managed, intensive grazing as part of a climate change solution.

“In order for pasture-based livestock to become a significant part of the meat industry, we need to eat more of its meat, not less,” Hamilton writes. “So if you want to use your food choices to impact climate change, by all means follow Dr. Pachauri’s suggestion for a meatless Monday. But on Tuesday, have a grass-fed burger—and feel good about it.”

Sources: Audubon, Holistic Management International

Image by pointnshoot, licensed under Creative Commons.

Visitors to the Rising Sun Farm in River Falls, Wisconsin, are greeted by a sign stating: “Our Farm is Clothing Optional. Welcome.” The farm, profiled by the online culinary magazine the Heavy Table, produces some 40 different items and 125 different plantings. It also features an unmanned store where shoppers use the honor system to pay and fill out their own hand-written receipts. The farm’s proprietor, Roger Browne, explained the benefits of nude farming:

Without clothes we can usually work comfortably in even the hottest weather. Practical advantages include absence of binding, sweat-soaked clothes, less laundry, and a lower risk of heat exhaustion. Even when hot, humid weather hits it can be quite joyful working nude when it would be miserable working clothed.

Source: The Heavy Table

Image courtesy of Judd Spicer / Heavy Table.

Michael Pollan’s a sharp writer, and we generally love his stuff here at Utne when we’re not printing mildly critical pieces like “The Food Police: Why Michael Pollan Makes Me Want to Eat Cheetos.” Anybody who can turn sustainable eating into a catchy seven-word slogan (“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”) and talk about agriculture without sounding like a Farm Report host has a rare talent. But I almost choked on my açaí bubble tea when I read a Q&A with Pollan on the great new website Yale Environment 360 and found him uttering these words:

“You know, eight percent of the American landmass we’ve kind of locked up and thrown away the key. That’s a wonderful achievement and has given us things like the wilderness park.”

Where do I start with this? I suppose by pointing out, as one commenter did, that less than 5 percent of the U.S. land mass is actually federally designated wilderness, and less than 3 percent if you’re talking about the contiguous U.S.

Then I’d point out that such wilderness isn’t “locked up” at all. It’s available for anyone to visit, even New York Times food writers. They can use it for activities ranging from hunting and fishing (the ultimate sustainable food sources) to hiking, camping, rafting, skiing, snowshoeing, birdwatching, and many other things. They could even use it simply to look at. To appreciate. To marvel at.

The other problem with the phrase “locked up” is that by employing it Pollan parrots the language of the extractive industries that consider every acre unavailable to them to be “locked up.” Pollan is a master of the soundbite, so it’s natural that he gravitates to catch phrases, but he ought to be aware that this one hits the ear of many environmentalists like an F-bomb and undercuts his credibility with anyone who really knows wilderness issues.

Geez, you’re probably thinking, settle down: He said setting aside wilderness was a “wonderful achievement.” But I read some sarcasm into that statement, especially because he went on to say:

“This is one of our great contributions to world culture, this idea of wilderness. On the other hand, it’s had nothing to say of any value for the ninety-two percent of the landscape that we cannot help but change because this is where we live. This is where we grow our food, this is where we work. Essentially the tendency of the wilderness ethic is to write that all off. Land is either virgin or raped. It’s an all or nothing ethic. It’s either in the realm of pristine, preserved wilderness, or it’s development — parking lot, lawn.”

Pollan has been airing this polarized critique of the wilderness ethic since writing his book Second Nature five years ago, and frankly it seems like it’s time for him to start seeing the nuance in the debate. Certainly there are wilderness lovers who oppose oil drilling in ANWR yet gladly till their yard to plant tomatoes. Certainly there are mall developers who take fly-fishing trips to remote wilderness destinations. To paint backcountry hikers and organic farmers as somehow locked in mortal battle is to vastly oversimplify a complex issue.

Besides, U.S. politicians of all stripes seem to disagree with Pollan that we’ve spent enough time on this silly wilderness designation stuff. Two weeks ago, the Washington Post reported that 12 bipartisan wilderness bills are expected to pass this year, adding as much as 2 million acres of land to the federal system. I suggest Pollan lace up his hiking boots, visit some of these parcels—remember, the door’s open—and from a distant mountaintop ponder just how much organic farmland has been lost to the misguided purveyors of the wilderness ethic.

Are you concerned about the environment, public health, alternative energy, local economies, corporate welfare, or domestic or global poverty? Ever buy, prepare, or eat food? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you have a significant stake in the farm bill.

In a recent piece in Vermont’s Seven Days, Ken Picard and Mike Ives ask a variety of Vermonters—farmers, activists, elected officials—for their thoughts on this far-reaching piece of legislation. The responses offer some fresh insight into the tangible effects of this terribly complicated, tremendously important bill. A couple examples, on subjects you might not have considered:

• The Vermont Farm Bureau’s Tim Buskey’s biggest complaint with the bill is its exclusion of an amendment creating a guest-worker program for year-round workers. Three-fourths of the state’s agricultural revenue comes from milk production, an industry for which existing seasonal guest-worker programs are unhelpful.
• Helm Nottermann raises Holsteins and sells burger patties at farmers markets. He has his eye on a possible provision that would allow him to sell his meat, which is certified by the state but not the USDA, across state lines. It’s not that he wants to start shipping it clear across the country, he tells to Picard and Ives. “You know, New Hampshire is pretty close to here,” he says.

Thanks to a deal reached last week, the long-stalled farm bill is moving again. The Senate is debating an agreed-upon number of amendments and may vote on the bill by the end of this week. But all signs indicate that the final version will at best include some modest steps away from the status quo. It looks like some of the people Picard and Ives talked to will have to wait another five years for a chance at meaningful change, and so will the rest of us.

(Thanks, AltWeeklies.com.)

—Steve Thorngate