[Lapg] Obstacles to Small-Scale Agriculture in the US By KOLLIBRI terre SONNENBLUME

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

Obstacles to Small-Scale Agriculture in the US
http://counterpunch.org/sonnenblume08012011.html

Who Will Feed the People?

By KOLLIBRI terre SONNENBLUME

"In the future, more people will have to grow their own food" has become 
a truism among pundits and observers who are paying attention to the 
changing state of western industrial civilization, and of the U.S. in 
particular. Declining energy resources, ecological degradation, and 
global financial disolution are a few of the trends that are and will be 
impacting agriculture-as-we-know-it, and forcing agriculture-as-it-will-be.

That chemical-based farming is a failing experiment has been 
well-documented elsewhere; numerous books and articles have explored 
declining soil fertility, chemically-resistant weeds and pests, the 
tainting and depletion of irrigation water, the shrinking diversity of 
seeds, the dangers of genetically modified crops, and the plummeting 
nutritional value of fruit, vegetables, and grains. I will not reiterate 
these issues here, except through examples that address my points, which 
concern the future of agriculture.

The "need" for a smaller-scale, non-chemical-based agriculture is clear. 
So are the attributes that it must have. This agriculture will be 
regionally-based, because the means for shipping produce around the 
world will no longer be profitable. This agriculture will be based more 
on animal power (two-legged and four-legged), because machines will be 
few, and the fuel for them too expensive or unavailable. This 
agriculture will focus on soil-building rather than chemicals, because 
the chemicals are sourced from the same raw materials that make the 
fuel. This agriculture will break with monocropping over hundreds of 
acres and instead utilize small parcels intercropped. And, this 
agriculture will have to involve much more than 2% of the population, 
even if that population is in decline.

I must mention that, in my opinion, the forces at work in the world 
today -- energy, ecology, economics -- are of such a large scale and 
their inertia so powerful that we are being coy when we say we "need" to 
switch to a smaller-scale, non-chemical agriculture. I suspect that we 
"will be" making that switch, like it or not, planned or not. No need to 
rally for the ball that was tossed in the air to come back down. It's on 
its way, like all things that go up. But the transition -- the beginning 
of which we are living to see right now -- is a very tricky one, to say 
the least!

Despite appearances -- which include the mainstreaming of "Organic", and 
the growth of farmers' markets, CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), 
and urban agriculture -- very little fieldwork (pun intended) is 
happening that meaningfully addresses the emerging challenges of our 
time. A "100 mile diet" for more than a few "sustainability" geeks is 
still the stuff of fantasy. The mega-farming system born of the 60's 
"Green Revolution" is still what puts food on the table of almost 
everyone in the U.S.

I am a farmer in Oregon's Willamette Valley. This season I have 
partnered with two other farmers and we are working about seven acres 
together, trying to grow vegetables, medicinal herbs (not OMMP) and 
staple crops such as legumes and grains. In the recent past, we were 
urban farmers in Portland, growing produce for our CSAs in little yards 
and empty lots while experimenting with staple crops on larger suburban 
and exurban plots.

Among us, we have over ten years of farming experience, a botany degree, 
and work in the restoration field, as well as above-average 
intelligence, impressive resourcefulness and a dawn-to-dusk work ethic 
rarely seen anymore these days in the U.S. (at least among white 
people). We are not trying to get $-rich, but we are not idealistic 
money-haters. Until the seed-and-feed, gas station, and hardware stores 
take barter, we need the cash. We do not limit ourselves to a single 
doctrine, such as permaculture. We are unconcerned with the pettiness of 
politics or the vagaries of the nation's culture. We are simply people 
who are aware of the emerging food crisis, and want to see what it takes 
to grow a sustenance-providing amount of food and medicine for ourselves 
and a few friends and family who threw investment our way.

We are farming on land that was formerly used for grass-seed production, 
and has been hammered with chemicals and big machines for decades. Over 
50% of the cropland in the Willamette Valley is planted in grass-seed, 
so the lessons we are learning are potentially valuable for future 
farmers who will be attempting the same in this area. But the issues we 
are facing -- lack of soil fertility, residual chemical effects, 
out-of-balance insect populations -- will be found across the nation for 
anyone trying to farm on land that was conventionally abused.

While in the city, my bicycle-based CSA operation gained much media 
attention, so I was able to raise enough resources to give urban farming 
a very serious try. Unlike most urban farmers, I did not have rent or 
other bills to pay, so was able to devote myself full time. Having thus 
immersed myself in the practice, theory, and context of agriculture, 
both urban and rural, for the last several years, the following 
obstacles to sustainable farming have become obvious to me.
1) Not Enough Farmers

Less than 2% of the U.S. population is directly involved in farming. Two 
hundred years ago, it was over 90%, and as recently as the 30's it was 
still 40%. Increased mechanization and cheap fuel were the paired 
enablers of this historic shift to giant farms manned by a handful of 
people. The so-called "Green Revolution" of the 60's, with its "better 
living through chemistry" was the hammer that nailed shut the coffin on 
small-scale farming, which has been dying a drawn-out death in the 
decades since. Despite a small uptick in the number of small farms over 
the last decade -- due largely to the Organic trend -- most agriculture 
is still huge and corporate-run. The population of the U.S. and much of 
the world is utterly dependent on this system for sustenance, and will 
remain so while any transition takes place.

This 2% will have to grow, but how? Who wants to give up a working week 
of five 8-hour days for one that is seven 12-16 hour days? Who wants to 
give up a regular check for financial uncertainty and perhaps 
impoverishment? Who wants to give up their city socializing and 
entertainments (both increasingly electronic)? Or maybe their 
electricity and hot running water? Not most people I have met, whether 
the proposition is to farm in the country or in the city.

Many Portlanders I met were inspired by the urban farming beginning to 
take place in the city, and some dreamed of Havana. As portrayed in the 
film, "The Power of Community", a radical rearrangement of agriculture 
took place in Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union and the attendant 
loss in resources. Non-chemical farming became the only viable option, 
and the practice of urban farming grew dramatically. The makers of the 
film claimed that Havana was now growing over 50% of the produce it 
consumed within its own city limits. Impressive and inspiring, on the 
face of it.

But Portland is and was not Havana. A few dozen people starting CSAs and 
selling to restaurants does not a food revolution make, and besides, 
Cuba's very different style of government was likely the major steering 
and empowering force in that shift. Most Portlanders would probably not 
appreciate the contrast in ownership models, etc., used on that island, 
were they to be imposed to them and their neighborhoods (which is not to 
denigrate Cuba or its response in any way).

Portland is a hypey town, and the press that urban farming got made it 
look much more impressive than it was. I know this from reading the 
articles about myself and my own operation, all of which but one had 
glaring errors that presented things not quite like they were. One 
result of the press coverage was that people made the assumption that 
"OK good, somebody's taking care of that," and went on with their days.

But no, nobody's taking care of that yet, really. Urban farming has 
still not attracted enough practitioners to be taken seriously.
2) Lack of Equipment for Small Scale Farming

Suppose you want to plant an acre each of wheat, soup beans, and millet. 
How does one plant, cultivate, harvest, and process crops on this scale? 
Wheat can yield over two tons per acre, beans and millet half a ton 
each. You can't efficiently seed plots of these size by hand. Or weed 
them, or harvest them, or thresh and winnow them. Not without a lot of 
people, that is, and the days are over when the whole village would drop 
what they were doing and turn out to bring in the harvests from the fields.

The vast majority of machinery available on the market today in the U.S. 
is geared toward the hundreds, or thousands (or even hundreds of 
thousands) of acres. It's too big to move around in such a small area.

The equipment needed for small acreage farming is no longer manufactured 
in the U.S., and hasn't been on a mass scale since the 70's. Most of the 
old stuff is sitting in rusty heaps at the edges of fields or has been 
repurposed as "yard art". Earlier this season, we watched helplessly as 
scrappers hauled away an old combine they had found in the blackberry 
brambles on the property we are farming. Being lessees, we were unable 
even to buy enough time to see if it was repairable, but we saw pieces 
go by that could have been used on their own for seed-cleaning at our scale.

Equipment for small acreage farming is still manufactured and sold in 
other parts of the world, including Europe, China, and India. The 
technology has continued to develop in these places, with new 
innovations improving on tried-and-true designs. We farmers have drooled 
over the beautiful machines that Ferrari is making. But the cost of 
purchasing and shipping this equipment to the States is a prohibitive 
factor for our operation.

The Amish and a few hobbyists have been keeping alive draft animal 
practices, but these folks are also few and far between. Animal 
husbandry is not a skill learned overnight, and, as with vegetables, 
some heirloom breeds that are good for field work have been lost or are 
dwindling.

In the city, the situation is easier, because the plots are usually 
small enough to be polished off with a walk-behind rototiller. Here, 
too, there are serious quality issues, and the best machines are made 
overseas, many of them in Italy. Regardless of how good the equipment 
is, some knowledge of small-engine repair will really help the farmer, 
especially to avoid costly by-the-hour fix-it shops, who might or might 
not do the job right.

Additionally, for farmers rural and urban, parts could eventually become 
an issue. If the economic fabric frays to the point where shipping 
becomes expensive, then the next skill the farmer will have to take up 
-- or better yet, find in someone else who wants to barter for food -- 
is metal fabrication, including welding. If you don't feel like picking 
up a pitchfork, consider enrolling in a VoTech.
3) Lack of Knowledge about Small-Scale Farming

The knowledge of how to grow on a smaller scale is also disappearing. 
The average age of an Oregon farmer is 67. If he (usually) even 
remembers how things were done before, who knows if he is capable of 
changing, or if there are enough of him around who are willing or able 
to teach younger people. The big equipment he uses cost hundreds of 
thousands of dollars and isn't paid off yet. What else is he supposed to 
do? Federal agricultural subsidies aren't going to Grandpa Grass Farmer; 
they're going to ConAgra, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland.

We have the pleasure of knowing the farmer in our area, Harry McCormick 
of Sunbow Farm, who founded the Willamette Valley Grain and Bean 
Project. Harry has been farming near Corvallis since 1972, and has a 
wealth of knowledge and experience about growing horticultural and field 
crops. He started the Grain and Bean Project a few years back to try to 
help farmers get out of the grass-seed business and start growing food. 
Thanks to his efforts, thousands of acres are in transition, but that's 
not as impressive as it sounds. Harry himself describes this work -- the 
work of cultivating staple crops on a small-scale basis -- as "fringe".

Old USDA publications from the early 20th Century (and earlier) will 
become more useful again, as they describe in detail many practical, 
reliable techniques that don't involve 40+ foot wide combines.
4) Lack of Financial Resources

Will there be a Marshall Plan for small-scale agriculture in the U.S.? 
Not from a president who appointed someone from Monsanto to the USDA. 
How about from the cities, counties or states? Nope. They're going broke 
and cutting essential services already. The private sector? There's no 
money in it. The non-profits with their grants? Only if you fit their 
ideological stripe and promise to play by their rules. Ralph Nader's 
bizarre vision of the super rich saving us is only slightly less 
far-fetched than the idea that the Galactic Federation will be raising 
us to the next level of consciousness in December 2012.

Though I had no difficulty selling shares to my produce CSA in Portland 
(and could in fact have kept a long waiting list), I have not had 
similar success with raising funds for our current project. I don't know 
why, for sure. Possible reasons: Staple crops and herbal medicines, 
delivered once at the end of the season, doesn't offer the same 
gratification as twice-weekly produce. Or, grains and beans lack the 
trendiness of urban farming, which in Portland has reached the status of 
sexy (for which I will gladly accept some credit!). Or, having moved to 
the country, I am now out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Or, I was just too 
outspoken for some people's standards, and their self-obsession led them 
to take personally what I meant culturally. Who knows?

The bottom line is that there ain't much of one. In our case, the only 
way we were able to invest as much as we have (a low five-figure 
amount), is because one of us had an inheritance from a recently 
deceased mother to draw on. Which is not exactly what most people would 
wish for, or that many can even look to as a possibility. Going into 
this year's season we had seeds, tools, books, and other hard-good 
resources (altogether worth another low five-figure amount) only because 
we had invested in those things so well during the urban farming years. 
We were not starting from scratch. In these ways, we had a financial and 
material advantage that other people can't count on.

Not that these resources have been adequate to the task; they haven't. 
We estimate that our project could only be truly effective if we had a 
low six-figure sum for a three year period. Who is going to hand that 
out, to tens of thousands of farmers across the nation?
5) Lack of Market

One farmer in the Grain and Bean project is sitting on 17,000 lbs. of 
garbanzo beans because he could not find a buyer willing to pay a 
reasonable price. While the big boys are continuing to be subsidized -- 
not just by the USDA, but by the U.S. military holding control of 
various regions and their resources -- the non-chemical farmer coming up 
in this country is unable to compete on price.

One year in the city, I calculated that my hourly wage was something 
like 5 cents. Even in a so-called "Foodie Town" like Portland, it was 
challenging to find a market for my produce. Most consumers, including 
restaurant owners, are still shopping for produce with a list in their 
hand, rather than learning from the farmer about what can and can't be 
grown in their region. On the first hot day of Summer, which happens 
sometime in late June in the mild Northwest, everyone wants tomatoes, 
watermelon, and corn. Nevermind that those crops are still 2-3 months 
away at that time of year (if they ripen at all).

The farmers bring some of this on themselves, by choosing to cater to 
perceived customer desires, rather than by concentrating on what grows 
best and presenting a balanced, nutritious diet to the customer, and 
educating them about it. For example, the Pacific Northwest is the best 
place in the U.S. to grow parsnips: the roots can winter in the ground 
and don't need to be dug up and stored, and, the sweet flavor comes out 
only after a couple-three freezes, but the ground doesn't get cold 
enough to kill them. For this second reason, California parsnips never 
taste as good. The temps just don't go down enough. Here is a delicious 
-- almost sugary when roasted -- vegetable to get you through the 
winter, along with carrots and turnips also from the ground through the 
cold months, and very few Oregon farmers are growing them.

Even if you grow something people want, making a profit is still a 
challenge. Restaurant owners want to pay a wholesale price that compares 
well with Cash-and-Carry, and farmers' market customers are often 
looking for a bargain, too. Farmers' Markets can be expensive to attend 
for the starting-out farmer, what with the costs of a tent, table, bags, 
a legal scale, etc., and with market policies such as mandatory 
liability insurance. Most Farmers' Markets would more accurately be 
called Farmers'-Market-Manager-and-Their-Non-Profit-Board Markets, as 
they have become highly regulated structures, making demands of farmers 
in the interest of creating their own personal vision of a market that 
matches their effete tastes. Gone are the days when you could just drive 
a truck up and sell produce out of the back, with no cost except 
gasoline and a tarp.
6) The Wasteland Left Behind by Conventional Farming

Much of the farmland in the United States is a wreck and not ready to 
eat out of. Here in the Willamette Valley, over 50% of cultivated acres 
are in grass-seed. Another sizeable percentage is in Christmas trees, 
for which very poisonous chemicals are used, including Atrazine, a 
ground water contaminant. Nurseries of ornamental plants account for 
another chunk. Only 5% of the Valley is in food production. That's a lot 
of poisoned, not-ready-to-farm land.

We are seeing first-hand the issues in making a grass-seed-to-food 
transition, and the picture is sobering. The first thing we discovered 
is that you can't simply till the grass under and plant. The list of 
crops that can grow unaided in our particular toxic circumstance doesn't 
go much beyond jerusalem artichokes, chicory and horehound. Soon after 
arriving, we transplanted healthy perennial medicinals into the ground 
and watched as they turned red immediately. Some grew out of it, some 
did not. They have all been stunted and in some cases misshapen. These 
were the kinds of plants that are said to thrive in poor soils, and 
which we had never amended before. Tough old birds reduced to clipped 
weaklings. Sad to see.

Without the money to amend all the soil, we took to carefully dressing 
each spot or row where we would be seeding or transplanting. This has 
worked somewhat well, but is not a farming-technique that I would 
recommend. The result has been a field that is still predominantly 
infertile, with little "pots" of short-term fertility plugged into it. 
An act that's difficult to follow the second season, and not at all a 
long-term solution.

We were able to get a list of the chemicals used by the grass-seed 
farmers. Broad-leaf herbicides, 10-10-10 fertilizer, fungicides, and 
growth regulators were their main tools, with Round-Up at the end of the 
five to seven year planting cycles. A toxic brew, to be sure, but not 
nearly as intense as what people will find at sites where other crops 
were farmed.

The effects of these chemicals are persistent, even when the chemicals 
themselves are (allegedly) not. Fungicides take out the mycorrhyzal 
bacteria so important for healthy root growth, and must be 
re-introduced. When artificial nitrogen is used, the nitrogen-fixing 
bacteria in the soil stop fixing, and must be restarted. When broad-leaf 
herbicides are used, the diversity of plant life becomes constricted to 
those tenacious weeds that can survive the pounding, and their vigor in 
the absence of chemicals can quickly overcome the organic farmer's new crop.

Cover-cropping and other methods could eventually fix these hurting 
lands, but they take years. So, when people realize that they can't wait 
any longer to switch to small-scale, non-chemical farming, will it be 
too late? If it's going to take empty shelves in stores to make more 
farmers, then the future will bring starvation.

Interestingly, we found that the soil in the city was much cleaner and 
more productive than any of the country land we have worked (five 
different locations). The image in city minds of a pristine countryside 
is false. Many agricultural chemicals are flat illegal to use in urban 
areas. Nope, the country has become a toxic wasteland, and people have 
another thing coming if they think we'll just be able to fan out into 
the fields around the cities and start growing our own food when the 
machine breaks down.
7) Extreme Weather

The apparently more common instances of extreme climate events such as 
droughts and flooding are leading to crop losses around the world and in 
the United States. I will take no stand here as to whether these events 
are caused by human industrial activity, HAARP and weather modification, 
or are merely another trend like the "Little Ice Age" or "Medieval 
Warming" of the past. But as a farmer who closely observes the local 
weather, and who keeps up-to-date about other farmers' weather, it is 
clear to me that we definitely are in a period of increasing climatic 
instability as relative to immediately preceding decades.

Hundreds of hours of work and many months of growing can be wiped out by 
an early frost, a record heat-wave, or an unseasonable rain. You can't 
eat your insurance policy, even if you have one. This year, in our 
location, we experienced precipitation high above average in March, 
April and May, preventing tilling and hence the planting of spring 
grains. Then, in June, we got rain twice, the second time only a 
sprinkle. In July, we had one two-day rain event. Last year, the rains 
didn't stop until early July, also preventing tilling. Then the October 
rains started in September. Going back season-by-season, each year of 
the last six has been marked by different extremes of wet, dry, hot and 
cold, all considered atypical. So, abnormal is the new normal, which 
makes it very difficult to plan, if not plant.

Historically, agriculture has been marked by famine on a regular basis. 
That the U.S. has not experienced widespread crop-failure since the Dust 
Bowl is an historical abberration. With the floods in the Midwest and 
the droughts in Texas and the Southwest, perhaps we are witnessing the 
end of that lucky streak currently. In any case, the drama of weather 
will play itself out region-by-region, farm-by-farm, farmer-by-farmer, 
and does not seem likely to be easily predictable.

8) The Social Challenges

Sometimes when I'm out there in the field doing repetitive and arduous 
by hand because there's no other way to do it (sometimes because that's 
just how it's done and always has been done), I find myself wondering, 
"How do people think we are going to switch from conventional to 
'sustainable' agriculture?" The on-the-ground facts paint a picture of 
mind-boggling challenges, tangled (by nature) logistics, steep learning 
curves, tremendous labor, and radical lifestyle change for which no one 
seems ready.

The people of the U.S. are, by and large, the pampered children of 
Empire, unaware and uninterested in their own priveledge, taking their 
war-won comforts as an entitlement and their narcissism as a birthright. 
For much of the rest of the world, the view is different: the globe is a 
plantation, its people slaves, and the U.S. is the master's house on the 
hill. The flabby inhabitants of that mansion don't want to go out into 
the fields for fear of getting their hands dirty. Or chop their own 
wood, or carry their own water, or so on.

Why does this matter? Because although we are all individuals, we are 
all -- whether we like it or not -- "in this together". U.G. 
Krishnamurti put it in terms of the cells in the body; each cell is its 
own individual entity, but each cell is dependent for its survival on 
all the cells immediately surrounding it, each of which is dependent on 
the cells around them, etc. There is no going-it alone. "Rugged 
individualism" has always been a myth.

When it comes to my own current dedication to farming, I have personally 
experienced what I can only describe as some kind of instinct with a 
species-centered focus, to work on our collective survival. I do not 
consider myself better or worse than anyone else for choosing this work. 
There is not for me a political, philosophical, or sentimental 
motivation. I offer no vision and have no hope. And I do not believe 
that I will survive trying times just because I am trying. I say all 
this to dissuade you from your own delusions of hope, if you have any.

Wishing, praying, or (a la Portland) "manifesting through intention" do 
not grow crops. Neither does hard work on a piece of land if that land 
is poisoned, or you lack the equipment or resources, or if the weather 
knocks you for a loop. Those are the circumstances that all the farmers, 
old and new, will be facing. Agriculture has always been a crapshoot, 
and it looks to me like the odds against are rising.

Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a co-founder of Walking Roots Farm, near 
Monmouth, Oregon. For contact information, visit: 
http://walkingroots.infotage.net