Lend $ to Horse Shoe Ranch
This week I’ll be switching egg suppliers over to Bryan and Brittany from Horse Shoe Ranch. Allow me explain.
The eggs that I’ve been getting thus far are distributed by Lancaster Farm Fresh (LFF), a fantastic company that has stellar quality food raised/grown the right way. It is also structured as a cooperative corporation, a business model that I find to be inspiring. The story of how they started is pretty great. Check it out by clicking here.
LFF is the single largest supplier of the products that you see when you visit Dave’s Backyard Farms (DBF ’cause I want an acronym too). Pretty much all of the veggies, much of the meat, and the eggs come from farmers that cooperatively belong to and own LFF.
The eggs we’ve been getting from them are great. But as the saying goes in chess, when you find a good move, look for a better one.
The main reason I got into farming was to reestablish a connection to the source of our food, something that most of the world’s population had intimately been tied to for thousands of year and something that has mostly been lost over the course of just a hundred. While I don’t farm anymore, what I try to do to the best of my ability is to get as close as I can to the people who do (um, not in a weird, creepy way…?). Maybe I do this because it allows me to live out my ideals vicariously through others. Who knows. Anyway, a major goal of mine when sourcing products is to minimize the degrees of separation between the farmer and your table.
Yes, the eggs from LFF are great, but I don’t have much of a connection to them; they get delivered after I respond to the list sent by the LFF sales reps. With Horse Shoe Ranch, I’ve had conversations with the farmers, we have mutual friends, and they go to farmers markets nearby in Philadelphia. These things are nice, but there is something more important that more closely ties me in. Bryan and Brittany are currently raising money to expand their business. They are not asking for donations. Rather, they are accepting loans from the public that they will pay back over the course of 5 years with 8% interest. You can click here to check out all the details and to lend.
Lending money to a good farm gives me a new level of satisfaction in carrying the product that they offer. I now have a personal, vested interest in the success of Horse Shoe Ranch, and I think that when I place financial responsibility upon something, I’m likely to better appreciate it, even something as seemingly inconsequential and ordinary as eggs. This is not because I’m concerned about receiving back my investment plus interest: I guess it’s similar to how if I were to built a chair I’d appreciate it more than if I were to purchase one from a store (not a perfect analogy exactly, but I think you know what I’m trying to say). If I build a chair, I’m more likely to think about how I sourced the wood, the proper tools to use, the years of training it took to gain carpentry skills, and the kindness and patience of the people who taught me, etc (purely hypothetical-I have no idea how to build anything). Similarly, if I have a financial interest in something, I’m probably more likely to think about how those hens are raised, how lending the money supports a young family reach their dreams, how much their toddler will learn from growing up on a farm, how much work it took to build out the fencing, and how their farming methods are improving their corner of the world,etc. And if I more greatly appreciate something via this route, I’m probably more likely to talk about it. Over time, the conversations that come out of all this create community and better solidifies what we all in the end so desperately need: more young farmers supplying their local populations with properly produced food. I think it’s best to ascribe as many layers of meaning on top of food production as we can: environmental, social, spiritual, emotional, and now, financial. It’s all quite different from buying a dozen eggs from any grocery store.
I encourage you to lend to Horse Shoe Ranch if you are able. You can do so by clicking here.
Ok, now the fun stuff. The eggs are colorful. Yup! each dozen has one or two blue or green eggs. If you have kids, they’re going to love them. And the eggs are going to have more colors once the farmers become established at their new location in Pottstown. The chickens are outside all day and they’re moved once a day so they eat as many bugs, worms, and brassicas as possible. This means deep orange yolks. And they follow cows, allowing them to spread nutrients across the soil. These hens are part of an integrative agricultural ecosystem, and this translates to what is best for the environment and what’s best for you.
Local food and the environment
This week’s post will be the first part of a three part series where I discuss the philosophy that makes up the core of my business.
Week 1: Protecting and enhancing the environment and human health
Week 2: Building a local economy
Week 3: Creating a community of entrepreneurs
Although these three points are interrelated and there will inevitably be some overlap, I’d like to begin this series with a discussion about the environmental impact of a global vs. local food system.
Before I get into it, I’d like to mention that this discussion is working under the assumption that climate change is real and that it is caused by humans. But, I need to say a little more about this topic before diving in: I don’t actually “know” that climate change is real and that it is caused by humans. I haven’t done the research, and I honestly can say that I don’t understand the science. This stuff is complex, and I don’t have the scientific mind for it. However, what I can do is apply Pascal’s wager to the whole thing. Pascal was a 17th century polymath who came up with a philosophical argument concerning the existence of God. But let’s apply his logic to climate change. There are four scenarios.
Scenario 1: We make no effort to do something about climate change, and climate change ends up being false. End result: nothing different
Scenario 2: We make an effort to do something about climate change, and climate change ends up being false. End result: we create a new industry, create new jobs, save people from air pollution deaths. It would be expensive to implement, but nothing really bad happens, and there will be mostly good that results in my opinion.
Scenario 3: We make no effort to do something about climate change, and climate change ends up being real. End result: we are doomed.
Scenario 4: We make an effort to do something about climate change, and climate change ends up being true. End result: we saved the world.
In the scenarios that involve taking action, the results are either positive or extremely positive. In the scenarios the involve not taking action, the results are either extremely negative or just neutral. I think that this logic is much more convincing than having absolute “knowledge” or “certainty” on the matter, and I think that if this logic were to be employed by more media outlets, the air surrounding climate change would be less controversial. Anyway, this is convincing enough for me to dedicate much of my life to addressing climate change.
So, having written this long preamble, I’ll now get into how a non local food system impacts the environment and human health.
Best to use a specific example. Over 60% of the garlic sold in the United States is grown in China. China is by far the largest producer of garlic in the world, accounting for 80% of sales worldwide. Before harvest, Chinese garlic is irrigated using untreated sewage water that contains lead and sulphites, fertilized using synthetic fertilizer, sprayed with dangerous pesticides/herbicides/fungicides. After harvest, it is soaked in bleach to remove blemishes and fumigated with methyl bromide (a known carcinogen and ozone depleter) to kill any bugs and to prevent sprouting. The garlic is then shipped via air or sea freight all over the world, eventually making its way to the shelves in a conventional grocery store, changing hands dozens of times in the process. Since it takes a long time to import, allicin, the major component of garlic that is responsible for its health benefits, depletes and is almost absent. And, when it finally gets onto your plate, it tastes metallic anyway.
Compare this to a local food system: last week I got garlic from my friend Max. He uses nothing but locally produced compost and some woodash from his wood-burning stove as fertilizer. These inputs aid the soil’s microbial life, which sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. We were going to hang out anyway that day, so he just brought along the garlic, which I now have on my stand. That’s all. It’s pretty simple. No chemicals, healthy, minimal fossil fuel burning (actually no fossil fuels, Max drives an EV which is powered by solar) and a net positive impact to the environment.
Chinese garlic is just one example. Similar things can be said of most non-local sources of food. Don’t even get me started on Atlantic salmon from Chile or some of the huge mono-cropped lettuce farms in California (ok I actually did start writing about them but realized I don’t have to write a book to get to the point…you can talk to me if interested).
From beginning to end, this is a continual process of compounding destruction: the agricultural practices kill the microbes in the soil that are responsible for carbon sequestration; the chemicals used on the farm and the fossil fuels used in transport get into the atmosphere where they contribute to air pollution and climate change. The resulting climate change makes it difficult to grow food in certain regions of the world, which then results in farmers clearing more land elsewhere and so on. It’s a chain reaction.
This is going a little bit into part two, but I’ll mention it briefly here: the only seeming advantage to nonlocal foods is lower prices. Chinese garlic costs around $1.49/lb, compared to $11.99/lb from me. Atlantic salmon costs around $10.99/lb in Acme, compared to $18.99/lb for wild Alaskan sockeye from me. Californian lettuce costs a dollar compared to $3 from me. While the costs for nonlocal food are not immediate, they are much more significant in the long run: healthcare costs, the costs of environmental degradation, etc. Instead of asking why local, organic food is so expensive, I try to ask myself, why is conventional, non-local food so cheap. The answer to this question in fact negates the question itself: it’s not so cheap after all.
Supporting businesses that are doing good things for the environment is central to my business philosophy: mushroom farmer Brian from Mycopolitan uses sawdust from a local saw mill, which, after it is broken down by the mushrooms, is returned to the soil where the tree was capturing carbon before it was cut for wood. Cheese maker Stefanie from Valley Milkhouse gives her whey, a byproduct of cheesemaking, to a local farmer who feeds it to his pigs, reducing the amount of higher footprint grain feed. When I harvest microgreens, I feed the roots and potting soil to earthworms and work in the resulting vermicompost into the garden. Small, local producers are much more likely to do environmentally positive things like this. And what’s best for the environment is also what’s also best for you and your family’s health. This is the type of food production that I will always support.
Thank you for reading!
Local Rice
I apprenticed on a farm in New Jersey for a season, Chickadee Creek Farm. Right next door was another organic farm, Blue Moon Acres. While weeding I’d often peek up to look at the rice fields across the street. I thought it was so interesting that they were growing rice without flooding their fields.
Traditionally, rice fields are flooded to control weeds. While rice can grow just fine in flooded conditions, weeds cannot. But, flooding fields comes at a cost. The problem is that ground water contains arsenic, and rice, for some reason, uptakes arsenic at much higher levels than most other plants. The result is that store-bought rice, either organic or non-organic, has levels of arsenic that far surpass what the EPA and WHO consider safe.
Fortunately, overnight soaking and washing store-bought rice before cooking removes most of the arsenic. Also, it’s always best to use more water than is needed when cooking. The rice should still be swimming in water when it’s ready to eat. Otherwise, the arsenic goes right back into the rice.
The rice from Blue Moon Acres, since the fields are not flooded, has very low, safe levels of arsenic. The rice is also fresh. It was freshly husked a couple weeks ago, making a big difference in flavor and nutrition. And of course, it’s local. Most rice eaten in the US is coming from the deep south or the Midwest (only about 4 percent comes from Asia). This rice is coming from 45 minutes away in Pennington, New Jersey from a fantastic farm that’s using great principles. You can read more about it here. I’m excited to be carrying it!
Meat or Plants?
This week let’s explore various diets within the context of agriculture alone. I am not going to make any health claims about a meat-based or plant-based diet. I’m no expert on nutrition. Experts always make opposite claims about cholesterol and saturated fat. Unfortunately they generally do not take into account how different forms of agriculture relate to human health. They treat both animal-based foods and plant-based foods homogeneously.
In today’s newsletter I’m going to argue that, first, it is not a great idea to treat human health independently from the nuances of agriculture. Diet and human health no matter what we each choose to eat is tied to the environment. In the long run they come back to effect politics, economics, and human health. Second, it is misleading to claim that a plant-based diet is what’s best for the environment. There’s a lot to consider.
I first want to discuss something that’s happening right now in the Netherlands. Tens of thousands of Dutch farmers are protesting, blocking roadways, intimidating governmental officials, and blocking supermarket distribution hubs across the country in response to legislation that requires them to cut emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonium by 50% by 2030.
The Netherlands is the largest meat exporter in the EU; 60% of its agricultural revenue comes from exports. It isn’t exactly one of the largest countries by land mass, either. So this means that their more than 100 million chickens, pigs, and cows are packed tightly in feedlots. Runoff from the animals’ waste goes into waterways (the Netherlands has got a lot of those), creating dead zones that negatively impact protected habitats, air quality, and water quality. After Dutch courts decided to halt construction and infrastructure projects due to fears that those projects would lead to excessive emissions, the legislature decided to take action on farmers knowing full well that “not all farmers will be able to continue their business.” The Netherland’s ambitious climate goals has had some far reaching implications.
While the pollution caused by industrial agriculture is noticeable and pronounced in the Netherlands since it’s a small, densely populated country, we have similar problems here. Please take a look at this map, which shows how much landmass is used for various purposes.
That huge block front and center for cow pasture looks alarming. So much land for animals that create so much pollution? The obvious solution is to eat less meat and dairy, right?
It’s not that simple. I’d like to divert your attention to the bottom right of that large block, to the smaller blocks labeled “livestock feed” and “feed exports” (and also “ethanol” and “corn syrup”). These smaller blocks are the problem and I believe that the “cow pasture” block could even be even larger.
Most beef cattle spend the first 10-14 months on that large block eating grass. Meanwhile on the “livestock feed” block conventional farmers grow GMO corn and soy. They put some bad synthetic fertilizer into the soil and they spray some bad chemicals on the plants and they purchase all that bad stuff from some bad companies. They till the soil twice a year, which is also bad. The harvested and processed corn and soy eventually meets those now older cattle in feedlots to be “finished” for the last 3-4 months before slaughter. Adding to the damage done by growing and processing the corn/soy, the feedlots result in waste runoff as I mentioned above. That’s the deal with beef cattle. Conventional dairy cattle never see pasture and never eat grass. This is because conventional dairy farmers would have to bring in the cows from pasture to milking barns twice a day. Not possible when you have an enormous herd.
Even though those 3-4 months are a small fraction of the bulls’ total lives, the finishing stage does immense environmental damage. It’s also psychologically and physically damaging to them. They can’t even properly digest grains so they immediately get sick and are thus pumped full of drugs.
Contrast this to 100% grass-fed cattle. The cows have plenty of space, are under the sun, and eat what their complex digestive systems and gut flora allow them to eat. Since they aren’t crowded in feedlots and since they don’t depend on high impact corn/soy, there are no detrimental environmental effects. In fact, it’s a net positive. The dung and urine that goes into the soil enhances a pasture’s microbial life, which sequesters carbon and traps it into the soil. A recent study showed that a 100% grass-fed operation has a carbon footprint 111% lower than conventional beef: that means that for every kilogram of beef produced, 3.5 kilograms of carbon is sequestered. That’s taking into account every aspect of the farm’s operations.
Now let’s compare ruminants (beef, bison, venison, elk, sheep, and goat) to poultry and pork. Chickens, turkeys, and pigs do not eat grass. They are still dependent on corn/soy feed. The chickens I get meat and eggs from are pastured, so there is the benefit of carbon sequestration, and they do eat bugs and worms as they naturally should. The pigs I get pork from are rotationally grazed in the woods, so there is also carbon sequestration and they eat plenty of tubers and nuts as they naturally should. But the diet of bugs, worms, tubers, and nuts is more of a bonus. The animals are still highly dependent on corn (less dependent on soy: the farmers use a feed that is low in soy): non-GMO corn and soy, but corn and soy nonetheless. That comes with the negative impacts of tillage and fertilizer. But this is A LOT better than feedlot poultry/pork that uses GMO corn/soy.
Next step: let’s compare and contrast livestock farming with produce farming. With produce farming we need to distinguish between annual foods (plants that live 1 year: most veggies) and perennial foods (plants that live longer: most fruit). For a deeper discussion of annual vs perennial agriculture, click on the link.
First annuals: vegetable growers generally till every year in order to incorporate fertilizer into the soil and also to get the ground into a workable state to allow for planting. Tillage is not a great thing. I discussed this in previous newsletters in depth so I won’t go into it, but just take my word for it for now. But the fertilizer used by organic vegetable farmers comes from factory farms with animals that eat corn/soy: feather meal, blood meal, bone char, liquid fish from fish farms, etc. There is a method of farming called “veganic” farming that uses leaf compost. In fact when I farmed I did so veganically. But this was only possible because I had access to Abington Township’s amazing leaf compost yard. Normally compost is not an ample source of nutrients. However if you add A LOT as I did it can be sufficient. But veganic farming is very rare. Most organic farmers use byproducts of feedlots (Biodyanmic farms are an exception too-too much to get into now). We can either choose organic produce with feedlot byproducts or conventional produce with synthetic fertilizers (also problematic) and sprays. Pick your poison. Veganic no-till or Biodynamic no-till are the crème de la crème for annual produce production. It requires municipalities to pick up leaves and compost them with sufficient aeration. Abington is incredible at this.
Now perennials: pretty simple here. Fruit trees do not require tillage and do not require fertilization. They’re pretty easy going. They are the ruminants of the plant kingdom. But the downside is the spray. It takes a lot to be an organic orchardist in this region. There aren’t many, and those who grow stone fruit and apples organically do not do so at any volume to wholesale. The fruit I offer is IPM (Integrated Pest Management) which means that the trees are monitored and sprayed only when necessary. I have also heard rumors that the organic fruit in grocery stores is coming from organic trees that are surrounded by conventional trees, creating a barrier. I haven’t been able to confirm this.
There are many things that I didn’t mention. The point that I’m trying to make is that the “eat less meat” argument from an environmental standpoint is somewhat simplistic. On the contrary out of each of the agricultural categories that I’ve discussed the only one that is without fault is grass-fed ruminants. Not only is it without fault but it’s the only category that’s a net positive for the environment when raised the right way. There are no external inputs needed: poultry and pork need externally grown corn/soy, annual produce needs tillage and externally produced fertilizer, and perennial produce needs sprays. Grass-fed ruminant farming is the least impactful form of agriculture today.
While a ruminant-based diet is the least impactful, I’m not advocating that we all eat nothing but rib eye and cheese. I’m only pointing out that any argument for or against a diet requires consideration of different agricultural methods. Also, it seems to me that those who pose solutions to the climate crisis are doing so solely within a “do less harm” (less emissions) frame of mind rather than a “do more good” (carbon sequestration) frame of mind. So in the Netherlands legislators give more emphasis to “doing less harm” via reducing herds within the existing feedlot system rather than “doing more good” via assisting farmers to transition to a pasture-based system. I think that we need a combination of both of these mindsets because most forms of agricultural are inherently destructive. This will always be the case in a modern world where most people are not growing their own food. Unless we start growing food in test tubes (over my dead body, Bill Gates). For those forms of agriculture that are inherently destructive (pretty much most of them besides raising ruminants), I think we should focus on less harm: less tillage, less sprays, less animal-based fertilizer, less corn/soy reliance. And at the same time I think we should focus more on those forms of agriculture that are “doing more good:” pastured ruminants, oyster farming (they filter water), mushrooms (which break down organic matter into stable carbon), veganic no-till, and Biodynamics (Biodynamics is Pandora’s box and I’m not opening it today).
It’s a messy situation in the Netherlands. Many farmers want to transition to a pastured system but need more time and financial assistance to pay off debts. Other farmers don’t want to change. Legislators say it’s time to make a difference no matter what even if it means many farmers go out of business. What got the Netherlands into this mess to begin with was their conscious decision to feed the world. They accomplished it temporarily but sacrificed a lot. A global food system that pushes the boundaries of what the environment can sustain does not work in the long run. It never will. Many Dutch farmers are worried that the entire industry will collapse. It might. I hope that the rest of the world learns from their mistake.
MLK Day
Yesterday was Dr. Martin Luther King Day, and today I’d like to write about civil rights within a context that we don’t hear about very often: agriculture. One hundred years ago there were nearly 1 million Black farmers in the US, comprising over 10 percent of total farmers at the time. Today there are less than 50,000, comprising around 1.4 percent. There are many causes for this, and one of them has to do with the USDA’s long history of racial discrimination against Black farmers. This culminated in the largest class-action civil rights suit in US history: the Pigford Case, where the federal government in 1999 admitted to racial discrimination and settled over one billion dollars to Black farmers who were denied farm loans and assistance (unlike White farmers) due to the color of their skin.
While the history of Black farming is tragic and unjust, from slavery, to neo-slavery in the form of restrictive sharecropping during reconstruction, to the New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 inadvertently driving Black farmers from the land, to the more modern-day, conscious discriminatory farm lending practices of the USDA, it is also rich and hugely influential: George Washington Carver developed and popularized crop rotation practices to prevent soil depletion; Booker T Whatley not only was one of the earliest developers in the United States of the CSA and pick-your-own models, but he also authored a book in 1987 entitled How To Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres. This book directly inspired contemporary “Rockstar farmers” (as we call them) J. M. Fortier and Ben Hartman to write similar books, which in turn inspired an entire new generation of young farmers, including myself. Finally, the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery would never have been possible were it not for Black farmers who owned farms along Highway 80 and who allowed marchers to sleep on their land, something that would never have been permitted by White farmers along the route. These same farmers also led fund raising efforts for racial justice for years leading up to Dr. King’s movement.
While my interest for this newsletter lies specifically with agriculture, I’d like to conclude by saying that racial discrimination pervades countless other segments of our lives, many of which remain hidden or not well known, similar to agriculture. Dr. Martin Luther King Day reminds us to unearth these injustices, to remember how members of marginalized groups have contributed immensely to the strength of our nation, and to use such knowledge to become better citizens.
My Time in Turkey
Normally I reserve this newsletter for topics concerning agriculture and local food. I’m going to make an exception this week because something of importance to the Armenian-American community, of which I am a member, happened on Saturday.
Every April 24th, Armenians all over the world commemorate the genocide perpetrated against the Ottoman Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915. On that day 106 years ago, the Ottoman government arrested and murdered over 200 intellectuals and leaders of the Istanbul Armenian community. What followed was a massive, organized campaign to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population. They were deported to the Syrian desert, were told that they were being relocated for their safety, were forced to march in no particular direction in the scorching heat, and massacred along the way in accordance with orders coming from the top levels of the Ottoman government. Approximately 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated.
The Turkish government, to this day, denies that this ever happened, although the vast majority of historians understand it to be undeniable. I’m not going to go into the specifics, but, considering the amount of evidence that we have, denying the Armenian genocide is akin to denying the Holocaust.
Up until this past Saturday, US presidents have not called the events that took place in 1915 a genocide. The last several presidents: Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior, Obama, and Trump all campaigned to label it genocide but reneged since they did not want to strain US-Turkish relations. On Saturday, President Biden was the first ever president to say the word.
There are so many more details that I can go into about this topic: what led up to the genocide, the reasons for denial, and the strategic importance of American-Turkish relations, but I’m sure these were explained on the news on Saturday. What I’d like to share here is what all of this means to me on a more personal level, and how my identity led me to become a farmer.
Armenians have a very strong sense of national identity and pride. It’s just a matter of time after meeting an Armenian that you’ll hear about the food, the 3000 years of history, the fact that Armenia was the first nation to formally adopt Christianity, and, most importantly, the genocide. We have a real fear that if we do not strongly hold on to our culture, the original aim of the Ottoman government will be fulfilled ex post facto. As a child, I went to different youth groups and summer camps where we waved flags while passionately singing patriotic songs, loudly proclaiming our survival and what it meant to be Armenian.
I disassociated myself from this community when I became a teenager for two reasons. First, the extroverted tendencies of these youth groups were in conflict with my more reserved, introverted personality. Second has to do with the fact that whenever members of a group have a strong sense of who they are, with it often comes a strong sense of who they are not: in this case, the Turks. In the groups that I was a part of, this often translated to hatred of Turks, something that I did not share. I hadn’t even met a Turk before.
I struggled with my Armenian identity afterwards. At times I felt close to my culture, and at other times I felt distant. While at Ursinus College, I felt so distant that I decided to reconnect by switching majors from chemistry to history my senior year. I dived into every book written about the genocide during my last two years as an undergrad (I stayed for 5 years). I even read the books written by denialist authors to understand the strategies they’d use. Eventually, I started to realize that the Armenian Genocide was not the only unrecognized genocide in history. In fact, out of all of them, only the Holocaust is widely recognized and accepted by the perpetrating nation. This led me to study genocides comparatively. I learned to place them all within the context of wider historical movements, namely mass democratization, globalization, and nation building, things that were going on all over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
In graduate school at the University of Bremen, I dived deeply into some of these wider topics of modern global history, and one of the most compelling things I learned about was how quickly we urbanized and industrialized in the last couple hundred years. For most of world history the vast majority of us lived in the countryside and engaged in some form of subsistence gardening/farming. Within the span of 150 years, this all changed. Due to the sudden, rapid pace of industrialization and urbanization, a lot was inevitably lost.
In one of my seminar classes in graduate school, someone gave an excellent, truthful presentation about the Armenian Genocide. Afterwards, I approached him and asked, “Are you Armenian?” He replied, “No, I’m Turkish.” That was surprising. In Turkey it is illegal to acknowledge the genocide under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which imprisons anyone who “insults Turkishness.” Many Armenians in Turkey have been murdered for speaking publicly about it, and many brave Turks who speak the truth have been imprisoned. Here was a Turkish citizen who was risking his freedom. His name was Olur. We became best friends. He invited me to his hometown during a spring break. I remember his mother served me a number of traditional Turkish dishes. As she brought me the food, one by one, she began to explain to me how special and unique that specific dish was. And one by one, before she finished, I announced the name of the dish in Turkish and said, “I grew up eating this.” She was taken aback. We have the same culture, I told her.
During my visit, Olur took me to a foundation in his hometown that cared for children who came from families who were either abusive or who could not care of them financially, or who were orphans. I was fascinated by the place. Children running around, chickens, sheep, and cattle everywhere, a farm where they grew much of their own produce. After I completed my graduate studies in Germany, I contacted the foundation asking if I could volunteer there. They invited me, and I ended up living and volunteering there for six months. I occasionally worked on the farm. It was the first time I stepped foot on tilled ground. I remember harvesting peppers alongside one of the farmhands who was surprised as to why my Turkish was broken:
“I’m from the United States.”
“But you look Turkish,” he replied.
“I’m actually Armenian.”
After a brief pause, he looked at me and smirked sarcastically, “So what are you doing here??”
We both laughed. I had this same exact interaction with many others.
While I was in Turkey, I recalled some of the fondest conversations I had with my mother. She had told me about her childhood in Soviet Armenia: her father grew most of the vegetables they ate while her and her mother and her siblings preserved the harvest; my uncle would make spirits from mulberries and apricots that they grew in their backyard; chickens would freely enter and exit their house; and the neighbors would raise sheep and sell the meat for profit while they would pay the KGB to turn a blind eye.
It wasn’t at that time that I decided to become a farmer. I still wanted to be a history professor. But I realized that everything that I learned in school coincided with the fact that I am only one generation removed from some degree of subsistence agriculture.
My time in Turkey “planted the seed” to become a farmer, and my time there has everything to do with my Armenian identity, which indeed has shaped much of my life. President Biden’s declaration on Saturday closed a big circle for me, as it did for all Armenian-Americans who have their own stories to tell. It has helped me remember the suffering of my ancestors, has opened the path towards healing the wounds of the past, and has given me the courage to share with you how my identity has inspired me to bring to you local food.
Permaculture, Nature, and the Torah
January is the time of year when farmers begin planning for the next season. They figure out how much to grow of each crop, they figure out where in the field to plant them based on complicated crop rotation patterns, and sometimes they plan to experiment with special methods that they may have read about somewhere or learned about at a winter conference. There are so many different types of agricultural methods, so much so that mentors of mine have said that there are as many ways to farm as there are farmers (so like, over a million different ways to farm).
Today I want to focus on one main agricultural method and how it differs from all other agricultural methods. It’s so different that it’s actually not agriculture at all. The term “agriculture” refers to something very specific, and basically 99.9999% of the world’s food supply is produced via it. What I mean by this will become clear below, but I am talking about the difference between “permaculture” and “agriculture.”
Before I get into permaculture, I want to say that agriculture – no matter if it’s organic or conventional – is inherently destructive and “unnatural” (more on this word later). Cutting down forests, turning soil every year, planting equidistantly in long, straight beds that are themselves spaced equidistantly, weeding, etc – all unique characteristics of agriculture- are relatively new in the 200,000 years of human history. It emerged about 10,000 years ago simultaneously in a couple specific locations – probably modern day Iraq and northern China- and spread from there across the world over time, fundamentally changing the surface of our planet and how we interacted with the animal and plant kingdoms.
The thing about agriculture is that it’s highly efficient at producing food. Agricultural farmers, throughout history, became more and more efficient over generations to the point that they were able to produce more than they needed for their own personal consumption. This meant that not everyone had to farm. It’s no coincidence that the rise of urban living, art, and culture coincided with the rise in agricultural efficiency. This is why we have cities, because someone somewhere thousands of years ago decided to turn some soil over, probably so that they could regularly get drunk off beer. Yea, I’d do the same.
Now permaculture is something different. While I’d say that agriculture is the result of human ingenuity “working against nature,” permaculture is the result of human ingenuity more closely “mimicking nature” (whatever these terms mean – again these are problematic ways of using these words-I’m just using them here for simplicity and I’ll clarify later). This is done in a number of different ways, but I’d like to highlight just one: how long the plants live. Agriculture relies almost entirely on annuals: plants that must be replanted every year. They don’t live long enough for their roots to develop; this means they can’t reach moisture and nutrients located deep in the soil, which further means that they have to be regularly irrigated and fertilized with external inputs. Then they are harvested, leaving bare soil, which is then turned again the next year. All of this is very invasive. Organic farmers do everything that they can to mitigate this invasiveness via various means. But still, agriculture is agriculture. Permaculture, on the other hand, focuses on perennials, long living plants that develop deep root systems. They don’t have to be irrigated or fertilized; the soil does not need to be turned every year, so vital fungal networks that are otherwise destroyed via tillage are free to fully develop, and they form stable ecosystems that resemble forests. So, maybe we should get drunk off perennial-derived hard cider instead of annual-derived beer? (Did you know that there is a cidery around us? Young American Hard Cider-check them out).
There is the question however of whether or not if permaculture efficiently produces as much food per acre as agriculture. The two schools of thought are often at odds with one another. I do think that both could benefit from adopting methods and philosophies from each other, and agriculturalists often do employ permacultural methods. In any event, I’m not writing all this to claim that one method is better than the other. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Rather, I’m mentioning all of this as an introduction to what I really want to convey: what do the differences between agriculture and permaculture tell us about our place and role in nature? And what in fact is nature, if that word has any meaning whatsoever? And finally, how should we live our lives?
The phrases “working against nature” and “mimicking nature” that I wrote above can all too easily lead one to the conclusion that humans are somehow separate from nature, that nature is some entity that humans either work with or against. This view, that humanity is separate from nature, emerged with Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon during the Scientific Revolution. Descartes, a rationalist, believed that humans are outside and above nature because he claimed that we are unique in our ability to use “reason.” Similarly, Bacon, an empiricist, believed that humans are outside and above nature because we are unique in our ability to use “sensory observation.” We probably know a lot more about plants and animals now compared to the 1600s, but animals are fully capable of “reasoning” and “sensory perception”, and plants have their own form of these.
The man/nature duality, as this came to be known, has led to two seemingly opposing outlooks, which I’d say are more or less two sides of the same coin. The first is what we see with many industrialists: that humans are meant to ruthlessly exploit nature so that it would yield to us. Well, this will always come back to bite us in the behind. The second is what we see with many modern-day environmentalists, that humans are a disease and nature will be at equilibrium if there were only less of us. Well, nature still will have blight, natural disasters, and that darn groundhog that destroys my kale plants. I think that both of these worldviews are problematic. They both stem from Descartes’s and Bacon’s separation of nature and humanity, which laid the framework from which they could emerge.
Truth is, we are very much a part of nature. At the same time though, I believe that humans do have a higher standing compared to everything else, but not because of Descartes’s and Bacon’s ideas that we are unique in our ability to rationalize and observe – these are both plainly false. Of all the modern philosophers I think that Martin Heidegger’s idea of “Dasein” might be a bit more convincing: he said that humans are unique because we are the only being that questions our own “beingness.” But not everyone asks that question, so maybe it doesn’t work. I don’t know. But anyway, prior to any of these dudes, most people maintained the worldview of the ancients. If I had to choose the single most influential book written in history, at least one that is still widely read, it would be the first book of the Torah, “Bereshit” in Hebrew (literally “in the beginning”), also known as the Book of Genesis. Descartes, Bacon, and others have responded to it in one way or another.
Whether or not one believes the Book of Genesis literally, metaphorically, or not at all, I think that the creation story in the first chapter has some very interesting things to say about humans and nature. At this point I’m going to switch away from the term “nature” because really, the connotation of this word presupposes the exclusion of humanity. On all the dating aps I’m on, so many people describe themselves as a “nature lover.” And I don’t really know why I don’t get responses after I keep asking, “so do you mean trees AND humanity or just trees?” Hopelessly romantic, I know. Maybe I should just copy and paste this entire newsletter next time to give some context. Anyway, I want to start using the word “creation.” This word more clearly includes humans. (just to be clear I’m not making any claims about creationism vs. evolution, another topic entirely. I’m using the word creation because it just fits better with what I’m talking about.
In the first chapter God creates plants and animals before humans. But he doesn’t only create them; he also ascribes the value of goodness to them: “And God saw that it was good.” We see an inherent “goodness” ascribed to plants and animals. He then goes on to create humans. But there is a difference between the creation of humans and the creation of plants and animals: while they are all ascribed as “good,” God creates humans in the image of himself. Hence humans have a higher standing than plants and animals. Right away we see here something completely different from what Descartes and Bacon were arguing. According to ancient thought, humans are IN creation alongside plants and animals: they all have the same source. At the same time, humans are HIGHER than the rest of creation. Yet this hierarchy does not imply exploitation. On the contrary, all of creation is valued as good. According to Descartes and Bacon, humans are separate from nature, and nature CANNOT be called “good” because they also constructed what’s called the fact/value opposition. The fact/value opposition claims that things cannot have inherent goodness. This was fundamental to the rise of science and to the exploitation of nature by man-it’s another important topic that I’m not going to get into. This is getting long enough, but you can read about it here).
Now, back to permaculture. I think that the most interesting part about Genesis is the fact that humans were created within a permacultural system: the Garden of Eden has nothing but perennials. Adam and Eve do not have to turn the soil. They just walk up to a tree and pluck the fruit. However, after the fall, God kicks them out of the garden and tells them that they have to now “work the ground” (sounds like tillage) and that the ground will “produce thorns and thistles” (sounds like weeds). There is an immediate switch from permaculture to agriculture. Interesting.
So let me bring this all together…There are some great questions that we discussed in my undergraduate courses at Ursinus College, and I enjoy revisiting them as I grow older, as I learn more, and as I write more. How should we produce food? What is our role in nature/creation as humans? And how should we live our lives? I think that we ought to produce food in such a way that captures a lot of the characteristics of the pre-fall permaculture within the context of the productive efficiencies of post-fall agriculture as best we can. I also think that we need to have a relationship with all fellow created beings in such a way that is respectful and loving of their intrinsic value. But we need to do so in such a way that also gives homage to our own, higher intrinsic value. What does this mean for you? For me, it means having the time to enjoy consuming and making art, music, poetry, and philosophy, and to get drunk off both annual-derived beer on Fridays and perennial-derived cider on Saturdays (you don’t wanna mix them) with friends and loved ones, with plants and pets present. All of the things that make life worth living.
Raw Milk
So I’ve decided to discontinue carrying pasteurized milk. I never felt good about carrying it, and I’m pulling the plug once what I currently have in stock sells. And just to maintain my reputation of long-windedness, here is why:
As is the case with many interesting (and tragic) stories, it all begins with alcohol. Distilleries and craft breweries were popping up all over the place in large northeastern cities in the early 19th century. Meanwhile, people were concerned about milk spoiling on the long journey between the countryside and the city. Distillers and brewers had a brilliant idea: why not start dairy operations adjacent to our breweries and distilleries so that we can just feed our grain waste to milking cows to provide the urban population with cheap, fresh milk. Since there were no pastures to graze on in Manhattan, the spent grain comprised 100% of the cows’ diet. Unfortunately, cows don’t very much like eating too much grain. In fact, it makes them terribly ill. On top of that, the cows were confined in tight quarters where they were knee high in feces. The resultant “swill milk,” as it was called, was dreadful. The distillers and brewers added chalk to hide the blueish tint, and molasses and salt to hide the taste. But, what’s far worse is that the milk was deadly. Thousands of children died in Manhattan alone. Not so brilliant an idea after-all.
In France Napoleon III commissioned microbiologist Louis Pasteur to save the French wine industry. Why was wine souring when kept in storage? Pasteur discovered that bacteria was the culprit, and he experimented with heating wine. It worked. Years down the line this method was applied to milk as a reaction to the dangers posed by swill milk. It was something that was hotly debated state to state. Many raw milk advocates believed it destroyed the nutritional content of the milk. Advocates of pasteurization claimed that it would save lives. While they were both correct, I think that Teddy Roosevelt’s surgeon general Walter Wyman put it best in 1908 when he wrote, “While pasteurization is not the ideal to be sought, practically, it is forced upon us by present conditions.”
We live in a different era now. Raw milk dairy farms are closely inspected on a regular basis. Bottling facilities are sanitized after every milking. The milk is regularly tested for pathogens. And cows freely roam on open pasture, feeding on their ideal food: grass. Pasteurization is only necessitated by the existence of unsanitary industrial agriculture. When things are the way that they are supposed to be with any type of food, processing, chemicals, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, etc are not necessary.
Pasteurization (and homogenization, but that’s another story-and A1 milk is another problem for another day) destroys most of the nutritional benefits of milk. I don’t have time to get into it all, but Realmilk.com is a great resource to understand the science. I highly recommend exploring the website.
I encourage you to try the raw milk from Kimberton Hills. I hope to increase the amount that I order to support this amazing farm and to spread the joy of drinking delicious and healthy raw milk.
Salt of the earth
This week I’d like to write a bit about soil health. All I’m about to write is related to a new product I’m offering this week, so hang tight.
Plants need at least 60 different elements in varying amounts to be healthy: calcium, boron, nitrogen, zinc, sulfur, potassium, phosphorus, manganese, etc. Each element has a unique role in plant health. If just one is short, or even in excess, the plant may be stressed. The science behind all of this is complex, and agronomists constantly debate, but it is very clear that plants need a lot more than the standard fertilizer that you’d find in most garden stores.
For millennia, farmers used manure (even humanure), a complete fertilizer, all over the world. But, like everything else, this all changed with the industrial revolution and 19-20th century European science, which were focused on efficiency, simplification, and finding independent variables. People moving to cities to find opportunity meant less farmers. Population booms meant more people to feed. Imperial ambitions and total warfare meant troops had to be fed. So, scientists stepped in to solve the problem. One of these scientists, probably the most influential, was chemist Justus von Liebig, often called the “father of the fertilizer industry.” He postulated that nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (N-P-K) were essential to plant health. He also postulated that other minerals were important as well. But, no one paid attention to this second part for some reason, and eventually, the NPK fertilizer industry was born. It was too expensive to be practical for a while until the German chemist, Fritz Haber, figured out a way to convert the nitrogen in the air into ammonia (mainly to get around the British blockade of Chilean nitrate to create explosives during WW1, but this was eventually applied to fertilizer). Anyway, if you go into a garden store you’ll still find many fertilizers that have nothing but NPK.
For about 100 years, most conventional farmers have used, and still use, nothing but NPK fertilizer. It results in high yield, important for feeding a booming population. But, it also results in weaker plants that have compromised immune systems: they are more disease prone, which is why these farms spray chemical fungicides; weak plants are more likely to be attacked by pests, which is why these farms spray chemical pesticides; and if you’re going to standardize everything, might as well spray some chemical herbicide too. A typical tomato grown in a conventional tomato farm in Florida has about 100 dangerous chemicals in it that go directly into our bodies. Not to mention the terrible labor practices that make this all happen.
But NPK fertilizer doesn’t only lead to all of these chemicals, it also leads to much lower nutrient content. The more NPK fertilizer is used, the most depleted the soil gets of other vital minerals. Back when food was more local, you could measure someone’s bone density based on the amount of calcium present in that person’s local soil. These fertilizers also destroy important biological life in the soil (and to nail the coffin, these fertilizers easily run into our water supply, even making their way into the ocean where they create dead zones in which no marine life can live). Crops grown even a few decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than what is grown today. Von Liebig and Haber of course couldn’t have known all this. “Progress” unfortunately often has unforeseen consequences.
All the vitamins and minerals that are contained in vegetables originate from the soil (well I guess they originate from rocks which were turned into soil via bacteria breaking them down, and those rocks originated from asteroids and stuff, and those asteroids from….ok I’ll stop). These minerals are essential to plant health and hence human health.
Organic farmers are obsessed with building up the soil through compost, naturally occurring minerals, bacterial/fungal life, cover cropping, etc. And another special thing, which finally leads me to the new product that I’m offering: unrefined sea salt. This is a newer development in agronomy. There is a body of research coming out of universities that suggests that adding very small amounts of unrefined sea salt to the soil, specifically Redmonds Real Salt, is beneficial. I’ve been doing it for the past 3 years. Several of the farmers in Lancaster where I get produce from are doing it too.
Real Salt is also great to use in your cooking. It’s mined from an ancient ocean in Utah, has over 60 vital minerals, and doesn’t have any of the dangerous additives found in normal table salt (dextrose, anti-caking agents that contain aluminum). It tastes much better than any other salt, and it’s more local than Himalayan Salt (from Pakistan) or Celtic Sea Salt (from France). I guess I can’t really say “everything I sell is local” anymore. I’ll make an exception for salt 🙂
That was a really long-winded post to just say “I have salt now.” haha
Spices and Colonialism
For thousands of years spices from the Indian subcontinent were in great demand throughout Europe and the Middle East. For one, spices masked the flavor of food that had spoiled due to the lack of refrigeration. It was also a symbol of wealth and prestige amongst the aristocracy, who were often buried with peppercorns and other aromatics. Finally, the West historically romanticized goods that came from the “far-off” and “exotic” “Orient.”
This demand was so high that, while today we can say that crude oil is one of the main drivers of today’s global economy, spice was the main driver of the classical, medieval, and renaissance economies. They were in some fashion connected to the rise of the wealthy European merchant class, the emergence of the powerful Italian city-states out of the ashes of the Dark Ages, and the triumph of some of the most influential empires in history.
The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 put a strangle on the European spice trade due to the tariffs imposed by the Sultan upon spices that traveled through the Middle East to Europe. This led Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Magellan to find an alternative route to Asia to continue to satisfy the European demand for spice, sparking the Age of Discovery. Well, it worked. The spice trade was reestablished and Spanish, Portuguese, and eventually British power was cemented. It is no overstatement to say that there would be no United States were it not for those little jars of peppercorns and turmeric inside our spice cabinets.
Fast forward a hundred or so years: the British East India company lands on the Indian subcontinent in 1608. Gradually it takes over and colonizes the entire subcontinent with the backing of the Crown. I won’t get into how this impacted every segment of the subcontinent’s society, but one of these segments was spices. The British classified, categorized, and organized spices into some mold in order to exploit them for profit. For instance, they arbitrarily favored the brightest yellow turmeric and the largest peppercorn varieties although these characteristics have no correlation with flavor or nutrient content. Also, the earliest branding marketing campaigns of the Company created Malabar pepper and Allepey turmeric, names that you’ll commonly see in any grocery store. These are not botanical varieties. Rather, they are carefully created brands that used the colonial names of “exotic” places to entice the British consumer into purchasing a taste of the Empire. With the standardization of spices came quality assessment via color and appearance, not via flavor and smell, and certainly not by how it was grown. The result was the loss of countless heirloom varieties that had been cultivated for a couple thousand years.
As I mentioned above, the history of the spice trade enriched many people: from the individual merchant to entire empires: basically everyone involved except the farmer. This system remains largely unchanged to this day. The traditional supply chain from farmer to consumer involves the auction house, multiple traders, exporters, importers, wholesalers, and retailers. The price of the spice is marked up by each intermediary, and the farmer is left with little. The standard commodity market price in India for a kilogram of turmeric is around 35 cents. By the time it reaches the West, it’s around $35. That’s a big difference. The farmer gets 100x less than the final retail price. No matter if we are on the colonial or post-colonial side of history, the farmers seem to get the short end of the stick.
Luckily, there are some companies that are doing good work. Diaspora Company and Burlap & Barrel are devoted to “decolonizing the spice trade.” They cut out several intermediaries by establishing working relationships with many farmers, which allows them to pay the farmers up to 10x the commodity price, overcoming the negative impacts of a globalized/colonialized economy. Also, they encourage the reintroduction of rare heirloom varieties into the western market, varieties that have been lost due to the legacy of colonization. Finally, their connection to the farmers allows them to support only the best agricultural practices.
One of the main reasons why I promote supporting locally produced food is because the further one gets away from the source of one’s food, the more likely it becomes to overlook inequitable systems. Yet at the same time, the closer we look into these systems, the more likely we are to find inspiring business leaders who have dedicated their lives to change them. There is a lot behind the seemingly inconsequential jars of pepper and turmeric in our spice cabinets, and I thank these two companies for bringing much attention to easily overlooked items that we all use on a daily basis.
Squash
.I’d like to tell you about an interesting story behind some of the squash varieties that I’m offering. But first I want write a bit about the difference between open pollinated heirloom varieties and hybrid varieties. I guess using the tomato as an example works best. Heirloom varieties, which we all know and love, are disease prone, low yielding, ripen unevenly, and are difficult to pack/distribute since they are all different shapes and sizes. It’s not fun to grow them, and this is why they are so expensive. But, they are so darn delicious! To help farmers solve some of the challenges involved with heirloom varieties, plant geneticists began to develop hybrids (this is not the same thing as genetic modification) so that they would yield more, be more resistant to disease, and be more uniform in shape and size. But, they don’t taste nearly as good! So, it’s a trade-off.
Generally when plant breeders make new varieties, they do so for the interests of industrial agriculture: uniformity and yield. Usually they don’t pay much attention to flavor (this is one of the reasons why tomatoes in the grocery store are flavorless). So this is where the squash comes in. You may have heard of Dan Barber, the chef/owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He was one of the pioneers of the farm-to-table movement. If you have Netflix, you can watch an episode about his restaurant on the first season of Chef’s Table (I watched it and immediately emailed him asking for a job in-between farming seasons. I worked there for 6 months slicing bread for 10 hours a day, but that’s a whole different story haha). Anyway, Barber approached Michael Mazourek, a squash breeder from Cornell University (who I’ve met and have had several discussions with), and asked him to breed squash specifically for flavor. Mazourek, who had always bred varieties for industrial ag, was surprised: He never before had anyone ask him to breed for flavor. This was the start of a fruitful (pun intended) relationship between the two. Honeynut squash was the first variety they developed: a much sweeter, smaller version of butternut squash. Then came the koginut, intensely sweet and creamy. Last came the tetra squash, which is meant to be a “zero-waste” squash, since the entire plant, including the stems and even immature fruit, are edible and delicious. I’ll be offering all of these!
The Cold War, agribusiness, and capitalism
Last week I assigned some homework, to read an article published in The Guardian about the concentration of America’s food industry. I am writing under the assumption that you read it, so if you weren’t able to get to it last week, click here. Here we go.
In 1971 President Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz gave Soviet Minister of Agriculture Vladimir Matskevich a tour of the American Midwest. It was during that time that Matskevich expressed interest in purchasing American corn, soy, breeding stock, tractors, and other agricultural equipment.
What in the world does this have to do with the fact that there are just a hand full of companies that control America’s food supply today? Well, quite a lot. The Cold War had a profound effect on not only foreign relations but also domestic affairs: it impacted American culture, political ideology, the economy, and the role of the president. Agriculture and the food industry did not escape its clutches.
When Nixon came to office in 1969 he brought with him the policy of Détente, a relaxing of strained relations as a reaction against the traumatic events of the Cold War up to that point. Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed that improving trade relations with the Soviet Union would be a vital first step.
What became the 1972 US-Soviet Grain Deal was the most important trade agreement established during this period. Due to the inefficiencies of Soviet agricultural system and a series of droughts in 1971 and ’72 in the Volga region, the Soviets looked to the US for grain. Meanwhile, the US government for decades prior had been purchasing surplus grain from farmers in order to stabilize prices, so it had excess stockpiles of wheat and corn. The Nixon administration viewed this as an opportunity to bolster the American economy, promote better relations with Moscow, and establish Soviet dependence on US agriculture which could then be used as leverage to influence other foreign policy negotiations. All sounds pretty reasonable, right?
Ever since the New Deal, the federal government had payed farmers to leave sizable portions of their land fallow in order to limit supply. Large grain surpluses during the 1920s-30s caused prices to plummet, which led to and exacerbated the Great Depression. But in the early ’70s, Agricultural secretary Butz went on a campaign across the American countryside to bolster corn, soy, and wheat production. He was (in)famous for telling farmers to “plant from fencerow to fencerow” and to “get big or get out.” Many farmers were hesitant to reignite Depression-era conditions, but Butz assured them that excess grain could easily be sold to foreign markets, including to the Soviet Union. The USDA funneled money to the farmers who listened, and a policy that is supportive of large-scale, industrial agriculture became solidified.
In 1972, after the deal was signed, the US sold the majority of its stockpiled grain to the Soviet Union at low prices. This saved Soviet citizens from starvation (including my mom. Thank you Nixon), but it had far reaching impacts on the US. Because, 1972 and 1973 were very dry years in rural America. With the resulting low yields and with no stockpiles, the price for grain skyrocketed in 1973. Farmers viewed the high prices as an opportunity: they wholeheartedly took in Butz’s mantra of planting from fencerow to fencerow: they purchased more land, tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds and took on huge amounts of debt. It became a bubble. Overproduction ultimately led to plummeting prices in the 1980s and the FED’s war on inflation at the same time led to double digit interest rates. The bubble burst. Countless farms went under, and the few that survived acquired the others at a low cost, hoping to make up the falling prices with even more supply. Butz’s vision: the consolidation, “optimization,” and corporatization of agriculture came to fruition.
In 1862 President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act. This gave every state and territory 30,000 acres per member of congress to be used in establishing a “land-grant” university. Millions of acres, most of which were violently taken from Native Americans no less, were used to establish universities in order to promote and improve American agriculture. Penn State, Rutgers, Yale, and the University of California are all land-grant universities and they all have large, hugely influential agriculture departments. Well, conglomerates have infiltrated these institutions. Earl Butz, before becoming the Secretary of Agriculture, was the Dean of Agriculture at Purdue University, another land-grant school. He was also on the board of the Ralston Purina company, a large conglomerate (which has more recently been acquired by Nestle) that produces pet food, which, you guessed it, is made from corn and soy. I mention this because I want to highlight the revolving door that exists between our education system, the private interests of large-scale agribusiness, and the federal government. This is not unique to Butz: Monsanto, Dole, Tyson, Cargill, McDonalds, Coca-cola, Kraft, ConAgra, and Walmart donate millions to the agriculture departments of the Universities of Minnesota, Arkansa, Purdue, and California, Penn State, Iowa State, and Colorado State and currently have corporate representatives that sit on these departments’ advisory boards. These advisory boards are regularly consulted by the USDA for policy creation. And if I’d want to study GMO technology and how to create stronger pesticides and herbicides, it would be a good idea for me to apply to one of those schools.
The overproduction of corn and soy that resulted from Butz’s policies presented an opportunity for already burgeoning agribusinesses, especially Tyson, Archer-Daniels-Midland, and Cargill. The last two are currently among the largest companies in the world, and Cargill is the largest privately held company in the US and fourth largest in the world. In fact, the president of Cargill was involved in negotiations with the Soviets for the grain deal. Anyway, during this time, in the 1970s, and due to the overabundance of cheap corn, these companies started building a lot of feed lots to raise poultry and pork and chemical plants to produce and refine corn syrup and corn starch. This was very profitable. Their revenues and with it their power grew. And this power, combined with a couple disastrous Supreme Court and district court decisions in their favor (Cargill vs. Montfort and Haff Poultry vs Tyson Inc), allowed them to acquire smaller companies until the point where, between them and a few other companies that grew in parallel, they now control the majority of everything you see in Acme and other conventional grocery stores. That’s where we are today.
This is a crisis that came out of a complex history and is now normalized in our social-political-educational climate. What’s the solution? Well, it’s complicated, and I’m not sure that I have an answer for you other than the simple “buy local” mantra that I’ve repeated over and over again since I started this newsletter. First, I want to suggest how NOT to approach the solution.
Most articles I’ve seen written about this topic, including the one in the Guardian, identify capitalist food policies as the source of the problem. I believe that this is too simplistic. Politicians, pundits, and journalists often unconsciously or consciously throw around words that we have predisposed emotions towards in order to provoke, to garner attention, or to achieve some aim (“capitalism!” “socialism!” “communism!”). The words we use to label phenomena matter, and it’s important to clearly identify a problem in order to solve it. Labeling the problem “capitalism” may lead people to believe that the natural solution would be some brand of “socialism,” its polar opposite. But that’s no solution at all. History has shown time and time again that the interests of harmful agribusiness conglomerates and governmental administrations align. The ideologies of capitalism and socialism both emerged from and still work within the same framework, that of modernity, where fewer and fewer farmers produce more and more food to support one of its most defining characteristics: urbanization. There is nothing inherent in either any brand of socialism or capitalism that would lead to the return to local, regenerative food production. I think a new socioeconomic discourse needs to be popularized to fix the problem.
In any event I would distinguish “capitalism” from the events that I described above. The idea of capitalism emerged out of the European Enlightenment, when philosophers like Adam Smith and John Locke emphasized the importance of individual rights over and above centralized monarchal power. Adam Smith conceptualized capitalism as a means by which to enhance the rights of the individual and to decentralize political and economic power away from the aristocracy. Everything I described above involves the consolidation of power into fewer hands, creating some sort of weird neo-aristocracy. It’s not capitalism at all, especially because those judicial decisions I mentioned above essentially allowed Tyson and Cargill to engage in anti-competitive behavior by colluding with one another to fix prices. The labels of “monopolization” or “corporatocracy” are probably more fitting to describe agribusiness today.
This gives rise to the question, is there something inherent in capitalism the leads to monopolization and corporatocracy. Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin certainly thought so, and they wrote extensively on how the stages of economic development naturally evolve from capitalism, to monopolization, to imperialism, to socialism, then to the final stage of classless communism. It echoes Adam Smith’s idea of the “invisible hand” unintentionally bringing about greater social benefits via enlightened self-interest. Capitalism is just as teleological as communism, they’re both highly idealistic, and they both were imagined by philosophers, not economists, who knew nothing about agriculture. Both Smith and Marx were wrong about anything inherently leading to anything else. History rather moves via real people with real motives and intentions responding to circumstances beyond their control (like droughts).
So, this brings me to two possible solutions. The first is to democratically elect people with the right intentions and the right motives into positions of central power. I don’t think that this would do much. Even President Biden’s executive order targeting large conglomerates, as mentioned in the article, will do little to solve the problem. The educational, private, and governmental interests are so entangled and normalized that only a dictatorship could unravel them. I believe in the separation of powers and our system of government, so we are not going down that route. Besides, never has there been a politician who is fully committed to regenerative, local agriculture. Some have mentioned it in passing, but I have no faith in any politician to effectively and competently make a difference.
The second solution is where I do have faith: it is via decentralizing power in the manner that Adam Smith imagined. Rather than shopping at conventional grocery stores, shop at your local farmers market and encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same. A farmers market is the purest example of capitalism that we have in this country. By supporting local farmers and food producers, we are taking power away from that centralized neo-aristocracy and decentralizing it into the hands of ourselves and a larger number of small farmers and food producers. There is a lot behind the phrase “buy local,” and I hope that everything I discussed gives it new meaning and greater appreciation.