The official newsletter of the Land Stewardship Project
APRIL/MAY 1997 VOL. 15, NO. 2
COVER STORY: The American Lawn Just Isn't Cutting It: All those miles of manicured grass are the result of an unsustainable turf battle taking place in millions of individual yards.
COMMENTARY: Ag That Includes People
LSP NEWS: New staff members at LSP; office updates from western Minnesota and the Policy Program.
POETRY: Ode to the Sandbag Line
BOOK REVIEW: The Last Harvest The Genetic Gamble that Threatens to Destroy American Agriculture
All those miles of manicured grass are the result of an unsustainable turf battle taking place in millions of individual yards.
By Brian DeVore
The lawn, that green, green grass of home, that succulent, sun-hungry extension of the living room, is more than an innocuous piece of pampered real estate. It's at the center of one of the key sustainable land use issues in this country today.
How can a patch of Kentucky bluegrass here and there be of such importance? For one thing, it's not a patch here and there anymore. In the past 100 years, the turf-based lawn has crept across this country to the point where we've got 44,000 square miles of land (75 percent of that in home lawns) with a green crew cut ÷ roughly the size of Pennsylvania. And that land demands a lot of water and chemicals to maintain its green complexion.
Granted, land in crops and concrete contributes more pollution to our waters and displaces more natural ecosystems. But consider this: The Lawn Institute estimates there are at least 54 million homeowners in this country sweating over their yards on any given weekend. In comparison, there are fewer than 2 million farmers.
So if the importance of a land use issue is judged on the merits of how many people can have a personal impact on it daily, then the American lawn is high on the list. And it's becoming increasingly clear that a lot of individual actions are adding up to one large unsustainable way of using land. Consumers can influence how food is produced through their buying habits and support of various sustainable agriculture policies. In the same vein, lawn owners could have a positive impact on their own micro-environment every time they step into the tool shed.
But that's easier said than done. It's gotten to the point where maintaining an apron of perfect, monocultural green around one's home has become a prerequisite for "good citizen" status in this country ÷ right up there with voting and volunteering at church. Something so interwoven with our cultural fabric is proving difficult to extract from our daily lives, even as the environmental problems associated with the lawn become more evident. Neighbors may not know or care if you're eating pork or vegetables produced by a sustainable family farm. But chances are they will know, and definitely care, if you are taking an alternative path in the care of your yard. Just ask anyone who has spurned the mowing, spraying, seeding and digging that goes with the all-American ÷ it is an American phenomenon ÷ lawn.
"I was astonished at how lawns bring out the worst in people," recalls Walter Stewart of his battle to get neighbors to accept that his Potomac, Md., yard should be more than a monoculture of bluegrass. "You can go into a church and yell obscenities and expect to get negative reactions, but you don't expect such reactions to your yard."
He was slapped with a stiff fine for allowing the vegetation on a few acres to grow above 12 inches in 1986. Stewart fought the fine for almost a year, enlisting the help of ecological experts to defend the value of his yard. County officials finally withdrew their charges and changed the ordinance, but not before neighborly relations in the Washington, D.C., suburb hit a new low. One local resident quoted in the local paper compared the Stewart yard to bad hygiene: "It's like they don't wash."
The reason for this passion is that turf grass truly has roots in the history and culture of this country, and in the population's evolution from rural to urban and suburban. Creating yards that look like the tops of billiard tables was inspired by the closely cropped fields of English manors in the 18th and 19th centuries. These several hundred acre "lawns," which were kept short with the use of sheep and plenty of hired help, were the ultimate symbol that their owner had arrived: He was so wealthy, he didn't need to use his land to produce food. The invention of the lawn mower in 1830 made it possible for even the most modest home to have a piece of English countryside on a few hundred square feet.
Early this century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture teamed up with the golfing industry to promote a monocultural turf grass system based on such species as bluegrass, a plant native to the more humid parts of Europe and Asia. By the time World War II rolled around, lawns had become a part of the American dream. By 1960, we were adding half a million lawns to the landscape a year. Power equipment and agri-chemicals allowed homeowners with even the smallest yard to do some "farming" on their own suburban savanna.
The total land area covered by lawns is about a third of the area planted to corn this year, and half of what we have in soybeans and wheat. But in terms of the intense use of inputs, lawn owners put any modern farmer to shame. By 1984, Americans were applying more chemical fertilizers to lawns than India applied to all its food crops, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A 1989 National Academy of Sciences study reported the astonishing news that homeowners were using up to 10 times more chemicals per acre than farmers.
EPA officials believe that education and general environmental awareness has narrowed that gap in recent years. But in an average year, American lawn lovers still apply between 70 and 75 million pounds of chemicals that kill weeds, insects and fungi. Today the typical lawn owner annually applies on a per-acre basis 2.38 pounds of pesticides, 4.28 pounds of herbicides and 1.69 pounds of fungicides, according to the EPA. In comparison, corn farmers on average apply less than a pound of herbicides or insecticides per acre.
Kentucky bluegrass and similar carpet-like fine grasses do well in a climate found in, say, the Pacific Northwest. But the entire U.S. is not Seattle. As a result, up to 60 percent of the urban water on the West Coast goes toward giving lawn grasses a regular soaking. Even more amazing is the estimate that up to 30 percent of urban water on the more humid East Coast goes toward lawns. The community of Novato, Calif., became so concerned about the use of water for lawn care that in the early 1990s it paid homeowners up to $310 to rip out their turf grass and replace it with a xeriscape landscape of drought-tolerant plants. City officials estimated that each converted property represented a potential water savings of 120 gallons per day in peak-use months.
Groups like the Professional Lawn Care Association of America and the National Lawn Institute say such heavy use of inputs is critical to creating the kind of thick turf that makes for a healthy lawn. That healthy lawn, in turn, creates the kind of ground cover that keeps our soil intact and our water clear, say trade associations who are ever conscious of what good public relations environmental rhetoric produces. The Professional Lawn Care Association goes so far as to claim that "well-managed turf has the greatest capacity for absorbing and holding water than any other ground cover."
That's stretching the truth by quite a bit, say environmental experts, but there's no doubt grass holds our soil in place. "I think a good lawn is good ground cover. It's certainly preferred over concrete," says Roger Bannerman, a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources environmental specialist who has studied water runoff in the city of Madison.
And like any green plant, turf grass can control dust and pollen and absorb and convert pollutants like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into oxygen.
"Environmental benefits of a well-cared for lawn and landscape aren't as well recognized but are very important," says Ann McClure, executive vice president of the Professional Lawn Care Association. "Turf is an unsung environmental hero."
But people like Lorrie Otto aren't ready to bow down at the altar of the almighty turf grass. In fact, the "natural yard" pioneer finds the American lawn to be anything but a hero.
"It's just evil," says the feisty resident of a Milwaukee, Wis., suburb. "When you add up all the reasons why we shouldn't have a lawn, it's just inexcusable to have one."
Otto has had strong opinions about lawns ever since the early 1960s, when she started turning her own one-acre yard over to prairie plants and trees. She's written and taught courses on natural landscaping and in 1977 helped found an organization dedicated to the promotion of yard alternatives.
The average American may not be as prepared to use the word "evil" and "lawn" in the same sentence. But the growing list of environmental costs involved in creating a sea of unblemished green is increasingly difficult to ignore.
"Where the problems come is people expect a perfect lawn of pure grass. The chemical companies are responsible for convincing people the perfect lawn looks like a putting green," says Bannerman. "Mother Nature will not give you a lawn that looks like a putting green. What I've learned from the agronomists is you can't have a perfect lawn without some chemicals."
Despite the water holding capacity of turf grass, the chemicals and fertilizers dumped on lawns are showing up in our lakes and streams. In the Great Lakes Basin, 13 of the 18 most commonly used lawn pesticides have been found in water. A 1993-1994 study of urban runoff in the Denver, Colo., area found 22 different pesticides present in a local watershed (30 pesticides were found in water in an agricultural area during the same study period). Not surprisingly, the Colorado researchers found the highest concentrations of pesticides during the summer, but they also concluded that because there were consistent levels detected year-round, the compounds persist in the aquifer's sediment. Agronomists have also expressed concern that because lawn pesticides are applied several times a year, the potential for runoff may be greater than from crop fields, which may receive one or two applications during a growing season.
Studies have also documented runoff of nitrates and other fertilizers when lawns are over-watered, a fairly common event in homes that panic at any sign of brown grass. And it's becoming increasingly clear that homeowners are applying nutrients such as phosphorus based on little evidence that the lawn actually needs it. Whereas cost considerations often play a big part in reducing chemical and fertilizer applications on several hundred acres of crop land, lawn owners aren't as pressured to scrimp. In fact, they're more likely to finish off a jug of weed killer, rather than deal with the hassle of storing it safely. A close examination of today's lawn care practices reveals an agronomic system akin to crop production 20 years ago, when farmers indiscriminately applied inputs, ignoring soil tests and other indicators of what crops really needed.
John Barten, the water quality manager for the Hennepin County, Minn., park system, has seen this firsthand. In 1994, he conducted a sampling of 181 lawns in four suburban communities of the Twin Cities. More than 95 percent of the lawns tested had phosphorus levels that were at "high" or "very high" levels (more than 50 pounds per acre). And of those lawns with "very high" levels of phosphorus, 75 percent of the owners were applying the fertilizer two or more times a year. Last year, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources researchers found high levels of phosphorus in urban runoff using rainfall simulation in the city of Madison. They also found that the younger the lawn, the poorer the infiltration rate. This is because the typical model for establishing a lawn in a new housing development is to bulldoze the topsoil, and then drop sod on top.
"Some of these places had 10 inches of topsoil and then they're down to one," says Bannerman.
He says it may take three or more years for microorganisms to work at the hardpan and break it down, increasing infiltration. But in the meantime, the owner of the new lawn, hoping to hurry the development of a thick green turf, will likely be pouring on just the kind of pesticides that deter the biological development needed for healthy soil.
Microbes and worms aren't the only unintended targets that get caught in the broad brush of chemical application. Even other beneficial plants can get hurt. Jim Walsh, general manager at St. Louis Park, Minn.-based Rainbow Treecare, says his company originally focused on trees. But they expanded into turf care because of the detrimental effects lawn chemicals were having on valuable woody plants.
"Most of these herbicides don't differentiate between broad-leafed trees and broad-leafed weeds, like dandelions," he says. "We've actually seen trees killed with [herbicides]. I see a tortured ecosystem."
The scientific literature is full of links between lawn chemicals and bird poisonings. But wildlife ecologists say the passion for turf grass poses an even greater threat to wildlife populations: a loss of habitat. Otto, the Milwaukee resident, says even attempts to make conventional lawns more welcome to wildlife are inferior to just converting the yard completely over to natural plantings.
"If you're a bird, where are you going to nest? You're not going to fly into a lawn with one lone shrub trimmed into a ball like some sort of sculpture."
All that mowing ÷ sometimes twice a week ÷ also takes its toll. The California Air Resources Board estimated a few years ago that in terms of air pollution produced, operating a mower with a two-cycle engine for an hour was equivalent to driving an auto 350 miles. Tighter federal emissions restrictions have been imposed on two-cycle engines since that estimate was made, but mowers are still a major source of air pollution.
Concerns about the environment, as well as cost and time involved with a perfect lawn, are starting to turn the tide slowly. Extension educators report an increasing number of inquiries from people looking for natural alternatives in yards that range in size from a few hundred square feet to several acres. Turf grass promoters have read the environmental tea leaves and are promoting such practices as selective spraying and the use of mowers that mulch, returning natural nutrients to the lawn. The lawn care industry now recognizes the dangers of over-watering, and homeowners are being advised to irrigate in a way that develops healthy root systems in grass.
There is also an increasing interest in planting yards to native plants. The landscape and nursery industries have responded to that demand in recent years. Otto says when she started her natural yard, she had to grub up native plants from road ditches. Now she has several prairie nurseries in Wisconsin alone to choose from.
And there is a greater acknowledgment on the part of municipalities that there's a difference between an abandoned lot and a natural lawn. It's a different world from 30 years ago, when Otto's young son dragged her out of the basement one day to the horrific sight of a freshly mowed one-acre prairie. Local officials did it in the name of "weed control." She soon took those same officials on a walking tour of the mowed prairie, challenging them to find any weeds that violated the ordinance. They didn't, and payed her a cash settlement.
In Madison, officials concerned about the pollution of lakes there have been encouraging the planting of natural lawns since the 1970s. They've developed an ordinance and permitting system that includes a booklet to help people get a natural lawn established and avoid conflicts with neighbors and officials.
But the perfect American lawn isn't going to dry up and blow away anytime soon. In 1994, consumers spent $25.9 billion on do-it-yourself lawn and garden activities, according to a national Gallup poll. They spent an additional $13.4 billion on professional lawn and landscape activities that same year, which was an increase of $900 million from the previous year. With so much at stake, it's no wonder the industry saturates the airwaves and magazine pages with images of the perfectly coiffured lawn.
But perhaps the biggest barrier remaining is the social taboo associated with allowing a wayward plant here and there that doesn't fit the Better Homes and Gardens model. Even the most understanding municipal government cannot stand up to neighbors concerned that a natural yard will do everything from serve as a breeding ground for rats, disease and garbage, to spawn wildfires and hay fever outbreaks.
"Property values didn't plunge, children didn't disappear and red foxes didn't turn into timber wolves," Maryland's Walter Stewart says of his now meadow-like yard (one vandal tried to prove public opinion right by tossing a lighted flare into the grass; it sputtered out in the green growth).
In fact, Lorrie Otto maintains that people who plan, create ÷ with an emphasis on planning, not just stepping off the mower one day and letting the weeds take over ÷ and maintain a more natural lawn should be considered a valuable part of the community, not a disgrace. They should be applauded as stewards of the environment who are providing beauty and diversity, she says. When it comes to yards, people have their priorities backwards. They should recognize that with their reliance on artificial inputs and imported grasses, it's the monocultural turf-based lawns that are the exotic invaders in our communities, says Otto.
"We've kind of homogenized the whole planet. Instead, we should reflect the native things that grow in our country. People come to my yard and say, 'Oh, this is what Wisconsin looks like. ' "
SIDEBAR:Stepping off the turf treadmillCreating a more "natural" yard doesn't always mean plowing up the Kentucky bluegrass, planting a prairie from sidewalk to sidewalk, tossing the mower and giving up the idea of ever playing ball on the lawn again. "You need a happy medium," says Roger Bannerman, an environmental specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. "People are not going to live in a jungle." In fact, creating a more sustainable yard can sometimes be as simple as reevaluating what your idea of a "perfect lawn" is, and allowing a few dandelions, some clover or creeping charlie to pop up amongst the bluegrass. Jim Walsh, general manager at Rainbow Treecare in St. Louis Park, Minn., says a lawn can often be naturally improved simply through aerating the soil and not cutting the grass too short. Many homeowners in the Upper Midwest shave grass down to as short as 1 inch. "That's asking the grass to do something it's not meant to," says Walsh, who recommends 3-inch cuts instead. "Mowing too short keeps cutting off the plant's solar panels. This plant wants more solar panels so it spends all its energy on shoot growth, rather than root growth," making it susceptible to drought. Home owners often drive out the air spaces in healthy soil through over watering. When the grass turns brown as a result, they dump more fertilizer in hopes of bringing back the green ÷ the sick soil can't make use of the extra nutrients, and they end up running off. Lawn care experts point out several other common mistakes lawn owners make:
"I walk by lawns where people try to convert to something different, but they have bare soil up to the sidewalk," says Bannerman. "They don't realize they're worse off than before. The sidewalk is just a good delivery system for runoff to enter water systems." |
Your local Extension Service office should have pamphlets on Low Impact Lawn Care (LILAC)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Neil Hamilton will be the keynote speaker at the Land Stewardship Project's 15th anniversary celebration Sept. 13 (see page 4 for more information). He is an Ellis and Nelle Levitt Distinguished Professor of Law and the director of Drake University's Agricultural Law Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Hamilton, who was a columnist for the now defunct New Farm magazine, writes frequently about agriculture and the need for alternative food systems that bring consumers and farmers together. Below are selections from essays he's written for the Des Moines Register and Successful Farming.
By Neil Hamilton
"Historically, a person not born on a farm or wealthy enough to buy land would begin as a hired man. Then by saving, he would become a tenant, building equity to one day own a farm. Once the farm was purchased and the mortgage paid, the farmer could expand the operation. The opportunity to own land and be their own boss attracted and motivated millions of farm families throughout our history.
We are moving away from this view of farming. The farm crisis of the '80s has been followed by ag industrialization ÷ the movement of food processors and input suppliers into food production. While the merits of industrialization are praised by some, the trend promises to take agriculture backward.
Contract production makes farmers employees on their own land, with limited control over the production or marketing of crops, and little opportunity to profit from rising markets.
Bill Haw, CEO of National Farms, one of the nation's largest and most successful corporate farms, views contract production and vertical integration with anticipation and promise. He sees the history of broiler production, where 100 producers raise most of the chickens in the U.S., as the model for pork and beef. He says an integrated production system offers consumers lower-priced, efficiently-produced foods of uniform quality.
Ag industrialization is often billed as economic development because of the jobs it may create. But what of the impact it has on existing producers? Should we turn family farmers into employees of food companies, just so we can buy a more uniform pork chop for a few pennies less? That is what industrialization boils down to ÷ lower cost, more uniform and more predictable food. There is no proof that farmers will be better off, land will be better treated or rural communities will be healthier.
· Consumer tastes may determine which foods are in demand, but I question whether consumer demands drive shifts in food production. If consumers want lean pork, farmers can produce it without being under contract.
· Perhaps the most significant reason for the trend to ag industrialization is the lack of alternatives. There are too few opportunities for farmers to profit and remain independent. Finding these opportunities should be the role of the land grant universities, farm organizations, cooperatives and the government. Unfortunately, these institutions are often willing participants in the industrialization of agriculture.
· If we don't make an effort, or our efforts fail, there will still be an agriculture, but it will be without farmers."
"When Milt and I met in November I asked how chicken sales were going at the store.
He said that never got going. His answer provides insight both to him and to something that is wrong with our food system. He said the chickens the store was buying from him for $5.50 would sell at close to $12.60. He wasn't upset with the price he was receiving, but he couldn't stand what consumers were being asked to pay. He said, 'My name is on those birds and I just didn't feel right selling them knowing they would be charged so much.' You may think Milt is old-fashioned or foolish or just doesn't understand modern business. I think he understands it very well.
·Farmers who want higher profits are learning to sell what they raise as products, not commodities. If you want fresh, natural food and want to help those who raise it, look for ways to buy it from them. Frequent farmers markets, join a community garden and seek out farmers selling directly to consumers. No doubt Milt will have a few extra turkeys this year, so call him. Better yet, find your own Milt ÷ you may make a friend."
"The Wisconsin Farmland Conservancy, a land trust helping individuals and government preserve farmland, is developing projects using the concept of community farms. The idea is for nonprofit groups such as churches or foundations that own farmland to lease the land to new farm families.
One example is Shell Lake, Wis., where the 4-H and fair board were given a 200-acre farm. Officials' first idea was to sell the land to support their projects. But then they asked which they needed more: money in the bank or a new family working the land, with kids in 4-H participating in the fair? The conservancy is working with officials to develop a conservation easement to protect the land and an innovative ground lease for a family to farm the land, renovate the buildings and develop equity in the operation."
"[We should] integrate efforts to protect farmland and support beginning farmers. Agriculture cannot continue without land on which to operate or people to do the work and accept the risks and responsibilities. In recent years the nation has given attention and funding to farmland preservation.
·Unfortunately, there is little effort to link farmland protection and support for farmers. We may be preserving farmland but losing the battle on whether a local farm economy will exist to employ the land."
"·Part of the problem comes from our attitudes about farmland. To most city planners and developers farmland is considered 'undeveloped' land waiting for someone to 'improve' it. This attitude is most common in places like Iowa where our abundance of farmland makes it difficult for people to consider its conversion as a problem.
·Market-driven forces can integrate farmland protection with growth. Education will be key to such efforts, educating developers and officials about the value of preserving farmland and educating home buyers and society of the need to do so."
"How could our respect for the value of civil discourse have sunk so low or our trust in science risen so high? Do we have such little faith in the common sense of people or in the quality of our products or in the integrity of our farming practices? How could an agricultural sector that rails against the proliferation of laws and bemoans the intrusion of government in its business believe the defense of its economic future rests on creating a new crime to threaten those who question [chemical-intensive agriculture and large manure lagoons]?"
"In his famous essay 'The Land Ethic,' Aldo Leopold wrote, 'When the logic of history hungers for bread and we hand out a stone, we are at pains to explain how much the stone resembles bread.'
If we really want to 'improve' the quality of our food, rather than just increase its marketability, perhaps we should produce fewer stones and focus on producing the high quality bread and peaches we all want to eat."
"Attention often focuses on large facilities, such as packing plants, or processing food for export. [Instead] use local production and marketing to create opportunities and capture the tremendous amount of local spending for food.
Benefits include higher commodity values retained by producers, increased employment and efficiencies of direct marketing. Economic development isn't just bringing in a new factory. Every county has an economic system built around food distribution and consumption. The key is to grow and market high-value crops such as produce, meat and flowers locally."
"Dear Mr. President:
As someone who has spoken often and eloquently about our nation's future, I couldn't help but notice in your recent Inaugural and State of the Union speeches you made little reference to food production or agriculture. If you plant a garden you will come to know what all farmers and gardeners know: To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."
EDITOR'S NOTE: In March 1996, Land Stewardship Project organizer and Holistic Management trainer Audrey Arner spent seven days in Cuba witnessing firsthand the sustainable agriculture practices being undertaken on that island nation. The tour, which included 26 American farmers and researchers, was a special program of the California-based Food First organization. The tour was hosted by the Cuban Association for Organic Farming.
Arner was accompanied by her husband, Richard Handeen, and Dan Guenthner, an LSP member who operates a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm near Osceola, Wis., using several innovative, human-powered implements.
Arner and Handeen, who farm near Montevideo, Minn., raise crops using conservation tillage and apply management intensive grazing in their livestock enterprise. They were particularly interested in seeing how Cubans integrate diverse farming enterprises while using few chemical and energy inputs.
Arner would like to thank Peter Rosset, Food First, the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Cuban Association for Organic Farming for making this trip possible. As a direct result of Arner's trip, agricultural researcher Fernando Funes was able to visit farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin last summer under the sponsorship of LSP, the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota and Pastors for Peace.
Each year ÷ usually in late winter or early spring ÷ the Institute for Food and Development Policy-Food First teams up with Global Exchange to sponsor a tour of Cuban sustainable agriculture.
For information on the trips, contact: Reality Tour Program, Global Exchange, 2017 Mission St., #303, San Francisco, CA 94110; 1-800-497-1994. p
By Audrey Arner
After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, agricultural production became what the residents of this island refer to as the "Classical Model" of conventional agriculture. Developed by European communist bloc technicians and involving extensive monocultures of foreign crop species, agricultural production was designed primarily for export, was highly mechanized and required a steady stream of off-island inputs. By the late 1980s, Cuba was importing 48 percent of its fertilizers and 82 percent of its agricultural pesticides. This was accompanied by a dramatic exodus from the countryside to cities and degradation of the very resources upon which production depends.
Sound familiar?
When the Soviet Union collapsed, these off-island, highly subsidized inputs practically disappeared. Likewise, the source of replacement parts for heavy machinery and the market for export crops dried up. Imports of pesticides, fertilizers and petroleum dropped by 80 percent in 1989. On top of this, a U.S. trade embargo has cut the island nation off from sources of most common agricultural inputs. As a result, Cuba is undertaking the largest conversion of any nation in history from what we call conventional agriculture to farming that is based on biological diversity, renewable energy and dramatic input reduction. The Cuban Ministry of Agriculture calls it the "Alternative Model."
A high level of creativity and resourcefulness sustains people who are learning to live without those things they had thought were necessities. This is true in the arts, in transportation, and quite visibly, in food production. On our farm in western Minnesota, Richard and I have a choice as to how much of our land to convert to organic production; and we can take the three to five years necessary to make a proper transition. Cuban farms had to go cold turkey. Such an abrupt transition requires the kind of teamwork and creativity that's rare anywhere.
For example, Cuba's pest reduction program is based on the propagation of homegrown beneficial insects. More than 230 locally controlled and operated Centers for the Reproduction of Entomophages and Entomopathogens (CREE) demonstrate renewable, non- toxic pest control. One CREE we visited was operated as part of an agricultural tech high school, where students scout the fields, assess infestations, raise the bugs, do the releases and monitor the results. This understanding of biological relationships fosters the kind of community building, self-reliance and creativity that doesn't happen when the Minnesota Department of Agriculture certifies pesticide applicators.
"Yo vivo enamorado con mi trabajo ÷ I live in love with my work." These are the words of Juan Jose Suarez, a researcher at the Pasture and Fodder Research Institute. Here, where research was once done on how to concentrate more dairy cows in factory-like operations, Juan Jose is among the researchers who are each responsible for one 2.47-acre (one hectare) plot of land. Their task: given a prescribed ratio of livestock to horticulture, and based upon a fundamental understanding that diversity leads to stability, what regimen will yield the highest human nutrition per hectare? Juan Jose's array of fruits, vegetables, herbs, grains, leuceana and neem trees, living fences, and indigenous forage plants is exceptional; not only because of his fervor but because he lacks what we would consider to be the basic hand tools necessary for this work.
Urban farms, both cooperatively and privately operated, have become key components in a food production system that cannot rely on cheap energy to transport goods long distances. These farms emphasize providing better food for the families within the city, the use of previously abandoned tracts, and the further education of an already very literate population. Luis Sanchez, an organizer of local horticulture clubs, said his work is rooted in the belief that urban and community based agriculture is essential to successfully meeting food production needs. He understand this also to be integral in saving the three rivers that flow through the city of Havana. Club members take advantage of opportunities to learn about composting, vermiculture, aquaculture, biopesticide production and fostering biodiversity.
This was my first opportunity to talk about Holistic Management in Spanish, discussing concepts like carbon cycling, consensus building, and gross margin analysis with people who already have a fair notion of what quality of life they desire. I was struck by the degree of individual decision-making that is based on the behalf of the greater good ÷ the good of the whole. That is possible, in part, because a national vision is in place concerning what is of high value, including health, education and enough food for everyone.
"We have learned how to be happy without those things which we thought were necessities," we were told by Esther Calzadella, who works at the Martin Luther King Center in downtown Havana.
Living without continues to tap the phenomenal creativity of the people: 50 percent of cars on the island are 1950s-era U.S. models for which there are no spare parts stores. In the absence of aspirin, antibiotics and antacids, state-sponsored research is exploring the medicinal potential of a wide array of botanicals based on indigenous knowledge and new science.
Indeed, it's the indigenous knowledge of Cubans that's providing the real foundation for this agricultural revolution. Fortunately, a pre-industrial agricultural generation of elders is still intact in Cuba. This made us keenly aware how little is left of this resource within our own agri-culture, and how valuable that knowledge base is. Additionally, there are Cuban researchers whose previous back burner "hobby" work now provides the foundation for shifting emphasis to growing grain-legume combinations. There is a severe shortage of paper and ink, so many research results cannot be published. The investigations continue nonetheless, undertaken by fervent, committed people who find much cause for celebration amid the uncertainties.
It has been argued that if the trade embargoes are lifted, Cuba will shift back to the input-intensive Classical Model of farming. But there are signs that Cuban sustainable agriculture has evolved from being a crisis-driven response to an integral part of the national philosophy.
Consider the work being done to permanently reduce the reliance on outside energy sources. Between 1990 and 1992, fuel available for agricultural production dropped by half, according to media reports. As a result, the 100,000 oxen that survived the industrialization of Cuban agriculture and which had been, as the Ministry of Agriculture says, "on vacation," have quadrupled during the "Special Period." At the Mechanization Institute, implements used with animal traction are being redesigned to use less energy and to move along the direction of least disturbance to keep the soil profile intact. There is an understanding that most mechanical implement use is propagating weeds. And mechanized implements are generating conditions that destroy organic matter, Hector Bouza, director of the Institute, reminded us.
"Organic matter is like a sombrero. You should use it on your head, not on your feet," he said. "Microorganisms that live in the soil are subject to being cooked. Those that like to live in the shade die in the sun and vice-versa. The world mechanization industry does not want to accept this. It would be contrary to selling their products."
We must all confront the declining productivity and environmental degradation that is resulting from our input-intensive management approach. That's why Cuba's agricultural revolution is a critically important experiment that scientists and farmers around the world should be watching.
We are now "ritornando al futuro ÷ back to the future," Bouza told us. "Mankind finds pleasure in solving the problems that we have created. We are now approaching an agriculture that is friendly with the natural world, socially just and economically harmonic. That which is not sustainable is going to disappear."
The National Pork Producers Council has reimbursed more than $51,000 in farmer checkoff funds that it used to conduct surveillance on the Land Stewardship Project and other groups that have questioned the NPPC's pro-factory livestock policies. The April 4 reimbursement announcement followed a month and a half of intense pressure and protests from farmers represented by LSP, the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment and various other grass-roots organizations.
The checkoff is a mandatory system for collecting money from every hog producer in the country. By law, checkoff dollars can only be used for research, education and promotion purposes. The National Pork Board collects the checkoff funds and contracts with the NPPC to utilize the money. The NPPC, which has affiliate associations in 45 states, received approximately $55 million in checkoff funds last year.
The checkoff was initiated in 1986 and hog farmers have long questioned whether they should be required to pay into this fund. But criticism of the checkoff reached a new high in February when it was revealed that the NPPC had hired a public relations firm to monitor the activities of six grass-roots organizations, including three member-groups of the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment: LSP, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. The surveillance program also covered the National Farmers Union, the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project and the Center for Rural Affairs. This monitoring was part of a $100,000, checkoff-sponsored program called "Strategic Communications Initiatives."
The preliminary investigative audit by the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service concluded that: "The information provided by Mongoven to the NPPC through the checkoff-funded agreement appears to go beyond the objectives and methods of the Strategic Communications Initiatives approved by the [USDA]. . . . Many of the reports submitted by [the public relations firm] provided information on organizations and people with critical views of the industry, often only certain segments of the industry. The Strategic Communications Initiative describes 'targeting' writers whom the NPPC presumably could try to persuade. The reports rarely (if ever) identified writers, but focused instead on the activities of organizations."
The NPPC also announced this spring the firing of Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin, the public relations firm hired to monitor the organizations. This firm has a long history of gathering "intelligence" on grass-roots groups and attempting to sanitize the image of large corporations, according to the PR Watch newsletter.
In addition, the NPPC has agreed to submit to a full investigation of its spending activities by the U.S. Depart-ment of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General.
These latest actions came after LSP and the Campaign raised concerns that the hiring of the public relations firm was proof that although the checkoff is paid into by all farmers, large and small, it's being used to promote a corporate-controlled model of agriculture. The Campaign's efforts culminated in a "Stop Factory Farms" rally and pork roast in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 20 (National Agriculture Day). The rally featured the appearance of Farm Aid President Willie Nelson and presentations by farmers from Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
"There are just so many alternatives out there to these factory operations," Dwight Ault told rally participants. Ault is a LSP member from Austin, Minn., who raises hogs using pasture farrowing and a variation of the Swedish deep straw method.
Before the hog roast, the more than 300 farmers and rural residents who participated in the rally traveled to the NPPC headquarters in nearby Clive to post a sign re-dedicating the building as the home of the "National Factory Farms Council." The Campaign then presented the NPPC a list of demands, including an end to the mandatory checkoff. In addition, it was announced that U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota had asked U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to launch a full investigation through the USDA's Office of Inspector General.
Despite the decision to return the $51,000 in checkoff money and the firing of Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin, NPPC officials maintain the money was used properly and fell under the definition of "research, education and promotion."
"If the USDA has some other interpretation of this section, they have not shared it with us," says newly elected NPPC president Jerry King.
NPPC officials claim their surveillance is justified because groups like LSP are aligned with radical animal rights groups and are working to end the use of livestock in agriculture. The NPPC has failed to provide evidence of such a conspiracy.
"The NPPC indicates time after time that we don't support animal agriculture, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth," says Paul Sobocinski, a Wabasso, Minn., hog farmer and an LSP organizer. "The Land Stewardship Project and the rest of the Campaign believes we cannot attain a sustainable form of agriculture without the production of livestock on diverse, independent family farms. It's our policy against a factory livestock production system that's environmentally, socially and economically unsound that frightens the NPPC, plain and simple. The NPPC got caught red-handed and now they're trying to divert attention from the real issue: they are pro-factory farm, and anti-family farmer."
Mark Sept. 13 on your calendar and plan to attend the Land Stewardship Project's all-day 15th anniversary celebration. The event will be held in Scott County, Minn., (about an hour southwest of the Twin Cities) and will feature music, speakers, good food, fun activities for kids and an opportunity to see a sustainable farm firsthand.
The agenda includes:
There are several motels in the area. Camping will be available at the Scott County Fairgrounds (free, with very limited facilities) or at Minnesota Valley State Park. Watch your mail and future issues of the Land Stewardship Letter for registration material. For more information or to volunteer to help out, contact: Rebecca Kilde, LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110; (612) 653-0618.
The Land Stewardship Project's southeast Minnesota office is sponsoring a tour of four state-of-the-art, pasture-based dairy farms in Lafayette County, Wis., July 14.
These farms feature grass-based production systems and low-cost, time-saving New Zealand style milking parlor designs. The tour guide will be John Cockrell, a nationally recognized grazing and seasonal dairying expert.
The registration fee, which includes bus transportation and supper (bring a sack lunch), is $18 for those who register before June 15, and $23 after that date. For more information, contact LSP at (507) 523-3366. p
Land Stewardship Project initiatives related to sustainable land use, on-farm meat processing, rural development and factory farming were passed by the Minnesota Legislature during the 1997 session. At press time, the fate of these proposals were in the hands of Gov. Arne Carlson. The next issue of the Land Stewardship Letter will have a complete summary of how these bills fared.
Land Stewardship Project Board member Cheryl Miller is the recipient of the 1997 National Wetlands Award in the Outstanding Wetlands Program Development category. The award is co-sponsored by the Environmental Law Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency. Miller works for the National Audubon Society in its St. Paul, Minn., office.
By Doug Nopar
The Land Stewardship Project's15th anniversary is a time of reflection for this organization. But it's also a time for our members to take a moment and consider what attracted them to this group, and, even more importantly, what's keeping them connected to us.
What prompted you to join LSP? Maybe a friend brought you along to a meeting on challenging the factory farm proposed for your rural neighborhood. Perhaps it was your involvement with other farmers and scientists in some of our on-farm research activities. Maybe it was the urban sprawl chewing up prime farmland just beyond your neighborhood in the Twin Cities. It could have been countless other reasons, many of which linked your own personal values and concerns for the land and your community with the values and goals of our organization.
While many of us can point to what prompted us to join LSP, or any other organization for that matter, what is it that keeps us involved and motivated as members? Clearly there are numerous factors, but our seven southeast Minnesota steering committee members ÷ Pat Sheeler, Della Rupprecht, Joan Redig, Charis Stenberg, Dave Hauck, Ed and Arlis Ellinghuysen ÷ are working with LSP staff to take a look at several key issues that, when resolved, we hope will make us a much stronger and powerful organization in this part of the state.
Specific questions being considered include: 1) how can our members be better connected with one another; 2) how can we improve our southeast Minnesota organizational structure so that members can be more actively involved in our work; and 3) how can members be much more actively involved in organizational decision-making and prioritizing the kinds of activities LSP is going to be involved in from year to year?
Along with doing some in-depth assessment of LSP's membership efforts, steering committee members and staff are gathering insights and experience from a number of other successful rural community organizations from around the country. We're hoping to adapt the best of those ideas to LSP's own experience.
So far we've spent time with, and received some training from: Joe Fagan, executive director of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; Maureen O'Connell, executive director of Save our Cumberland Mountains, based in Lake City, Tenn.; and Pat Sweeney and the training staff of the Western Organization of Resource Councils in Billings, Mont. We've learned about these groups' membership recruitment strategies as well as how they decide which issues to work on. We've also held workshops entitled "Why Organize?" and "The Importance of Disagreeing."
Through this experience, it's becoming clearer than ever that to be successful in the long term, a grass-roots organization needs more than a "hot issue" to get people excited about taking steps to improve their community. It also requires the kind of steady, even flame of involvement that can burn for years to come.
Doug Nopar, program director for the southeast Minnesota office, has been with LSP 12 of its 15 years.
By Jennifer Potter-Andreu
Talking about the impact of urban sprawl over time is one thing, visualizing it is quite another. We know what the statistics tell us and what sprawl looks like when we drive in what used to be countryside ÷ subdivisions and pavement have replaced farmland, woods and wetlands. But it's difficult to imagine what this pattern means on a regional scale. How much land is now covered by development? How much farmland is left? How is this changing over time?
For years, the Land Stewardship Project's 1000 Friends of Minnesota program has been promoting discussion on the conversion of farmland to suburban and exurban development in the Twin Cities region. Recently, the program has added a new tool which helps illustrate growth patterns in the region. With the help of Seth Spielman, a teaching assistant in the cartography laboratory at Macalester College, I've developed a time series of maps showing housing density in the Twin Cities seven-county area for 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2020. The first three maps use information from the U.S. Census, and the last two are based on projections made by the Metropolitan Council in 1995. The data is for cities and townships, and the density is the average lot size for the local unit of government.
The show that high urban densities are found in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the communities which immediately surround them, and in major suburban cities like White Bear Lake and Minnetrista. Rural townships are those with an average of one home per 40 acres or more ÷ the density commonly accepted as necessary for farming. The middle ring of development shown includes a wide range of lot sizes ÷ between one and 40 acres. These are the parcels which are "too small to farm and too big to mow." They are consuming metro area farmland, and have been the major regional trend in housing in the decades since World War II.
The time series maps show the results of current housing trends: the dramatic loss of farmland to large-lot suburban development. These maps make it easy to visualize what the number-crunchers already tell us: We are increasingly using more land to house fewer people.
But we must not consider these maps documentation of the inevitable. Rather, they can serve as critical warnings of what will happen if we allow present trends to continue.
Jennifer Potter-Andreu recently served an internship with LSP.
The rhythm of the sandbag line
is a many splendored thing.
Amidst the rising waters,
under wood ducks on the wing.
A thousand hands have touched this bag
that passes down the line.
With momentum of a million hopes
to reach the dike on time.
Firemen and soldiers
with machines of massive brawn,
work amidst the chaos,
to race against the dawn.
The farmers,
the lawyers,
the teachers,
and the docs ÷
Stand with students and with housewives,
to heave the frozen blocks.
They are fed by caring legions,
serving hotdish by the score.
Despite the rain,
the snow,
the howling winds,
we keep on giving more.
Now the frozen dikes are silent,
and it is time to take a rest
With time to think,
we realize ÷
that this was but a test.
We know deep down,
that nature rules,
that she alone is king·
And yet ÷
The rhythm of the sandbag line
is a many splendored thing.
÷ Patrick J. Moore
Montevideo, Minn.
April 1997 ÷ the Great
Minnesota River Flood
Reviewed by Anna Barnes
Some yahoo with a computer and a spell-check cranks out a book on the threat of alien abductions and people gobble up copies like they were Pop Rocks. A respected science journalist produces a carefully documented work on the genetic gamble that threatens the very food we eat and, well, Hollywood isn't exactly scrambling to buy the movie rights.
Since The Last Harvest was first published in hardback two years ago, it's all but been ignored by the American public. That's too bad, because it has a critical message for anyone concerned about the quantity and quality of our food in the future. Author and Associated Press science writer Paul Raeburn does a tremendous job of entertaining while explaining the science behind threats to the diversity of our major food crops.
That in itself is no small feat. Having written about this subject for the last four years, I can say that there is no surer way to find yourself alienated at a party than to bring it up. Terms like germ plasm, gene pool, and hybrid are not in the vocabulary of most Americans, and those who use them in common conversation will be greeted with glazed eyes. Compared to saving a rain forest flower or a rhinoceros, saving crops that grow in our backyard seems infinitely less exotic.
Plus, how can we be in trouble when we produce so much food? We can and have, Raeburn points out. The southern corn leaf blight attack in 1970 was far from the last time our crops were in trouble. As recently as 1995, our nation's corn crop, relying heavily on a single hybrid type of corn, was attacked by gray leaf spot. However, the only individuals who seemed to take the problem seriously were grain traders. The rest of those in agriculture, including the U. S. Department of Agriculture, seem to have grown increasingly short-sighted, writes Raeburn.
"By betting that no pests or disease will come along to take advantage of the uniformity in their crops, farmers are playing long odds. Nature is predictable. Pests and diseases will leapfrog ahead of breeders. They will exact their biological revenge. Seed companies and farmers ought to take a lesson from Las Vegas. You can keep a winning streak going for a long time. But in the end, the house always wins."
When the house wins next time, it will take with it not only a major share of America's food supply, but the world's as well. This nation is charged with both producing the majority of the world's grain and soybean exports and with protecting the genetic resources behind them. The latter is ironic, given that none of these grains originated in the U. S. They came instead from the Middle East, the Andes mountains, India, Mexico, and China. And as Raeburn writes, the people whose job it is to protect these resources realize their long-term worth ÷ so much so that in some cases they put their own well-being at risk. During the German blockade of Leningrad in 1941, scientists starved to death while guarding a mountainous collection of 187,000 specimens. More recently, Wisconsin botanist Hugh Iltis dodged armed Guatemalan militiamen to protect his collection of the corn relative, teosinte.
These tales of sacrifice make it all the harder to accept the neglect of our own National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) in Fort Collins, Colo., and the backup labs across the country.
Plagued by under-funding and decades of mismanagement, nearly one-third of the 235,810 samples of the NSSL were below a 65 percent germination rate as of 1994. Of the 443,840 germ plasm samples scattered throughout the U. S., one-third had no backup. Some, like the tropical corn backups the U. S. was keeping for Central America's International Center for the Improvement of Maize and Wheat, have been lost forever through error.
What's more, the budget for the entire system doesn't rate a separate budget line at USDA. At $30 million, USDA spends more on food assistance each day than it does on the seed labs in an entire year.
No one knows whether the labs' germ plasm, providing it's even viable, will be of use. Critics like ethnobotanist Gary Nabham charge that a better method would be to have plants growing in situ to see if they can withstand changing conditions like the salinization of the soil in the Southwest brought about by irrigation. On a small scale, that is the aim of the Iowa-based Seed Savers Exchange. But with a budget of only $30,000 and just 1,000 members growing seed across the country, the group can hardly take on the responsibilities of the national seed labs.
Changing environmental conditions like global warming and burgeoning U. S. and world populations will place an even greater demand on our genetic crop resources. Many of those resources are disappearing at rates faster than they can be discovered. At the same time, Raeburn notes that our current crop production methods, with their reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, exact a heavy price from the environment. Rather than increasing the productivity of the soil they grow in, future advances in productivity must come from the plants themselves. Most plant breeding experts say we have only begun to scratch the surface in the area of increasing plant productivity. However, realizing these advances depends not only upon doing a better job of preserving crop germ plasm. It also relies on the lifting of roadblocks like the federal farm program and the re-direction of biotechnology which so far has brought us only pesticide-intensive crops.
Without these changes, writes Raeburn, we will endure perhaps "the ultimate environmental crisis. We will be unable to feed ourselves." Viva Las Vegas?
Anna Barnes is a veteran agricultural journalist based in Champaign, Ill.
With the recent explosion in the number of farmers who are raising chickens on pasture, it was inevitable that an organization like the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association (APPPA) would be hatched. This new group offers a quarterly newsletter with tips on everything from feed to legal issues. The APPPA also has available a database of active pastured poultry producers that can be used by farmers looking to network as well as consumers searching for high-quality chicken products in their area.
To join, send $20 to Diane Kaufmann, APPPA, 5207 70th St., Chippewa Falls, WI 54729; (715) 723-2293.
The Organic Growers and Buyers Association (OGBA) is seeking part-time independent contractors for its organic certification committee. For more information, contact: OGBA, 7362 University Ave. N.E., Suite 208, Fridley, MN 55432-3102; (612) 572-1967; 1-800-677-6422.
The University of Minnesota Extension Service's Tourism Center offers books, videos and other resources on how to promote agri-tourism on your farm or in your community. For a list of resources, contact: Tourism Center, Minnesota Extension Service-U of M, 116 Classroom Office Building, 1994 Buford Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108-6040.
Email: tourism@mes.umn.edu
With the brutal winter and spring some farmers have experienced this year, the 1997 edition of the Farmers' Guide to Disaster Assistance could be an invaluable resource for many families. This 200-page book guides farmers and farm advocates through government assistance programs. First published in 1993, the new edition reflects changes Congress made in 1994 to disaster and crop insurance programs.
For a copy, send $18 (that covers postage & handling) to: Farmers' Legal Action Group (FLAG), 46 E. 4th St., Suite 1301, St. Paul, MN 55101; (612) 223-5400.
Farmers looking for help in navigating the new conservation options in the Freedom to Farm law can call the "Conservation Options Hotline" at (402) 994-2021.
Operated by the Center for Rural Affairs in cooperation with the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (a coalition of grass-roots organizations, including the Land Stewardship Project), the hotline can provide assistance to farmers seeking information on the Conservation Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Farm Option.
Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) is offering two sustainable beef management workshops this fall. The first one will be Sept. 23-25 in Linneus, Mo. The second workshop will be Oct. 7-9 in Springfield, Tenn.
For more information, call Ron Morrow or Ann Wells at 1-800-346-9140.
The Sustainable Agriculture Network has a new web site for farmers, researchers, students and consumers.
The annually updated National Organic Directory lists growers, wholesalers, farm suppliers and certification groups. It also provides summaries of state and federal organic laws, as well as advice from people working in the organic industry.
To order the 1997 edition of the directory, send a check for $50.95 (that covers shipping & handling; California residents add $3.48 for sales tax) to: Community Alliance with Family Farmers, PO Box 363, Davis, CA 95617. For credit card orders, call 1-800-852-3832.
To get listed in the 1998 edition of the directory, contact the Alliance before mid-summer.
Two former editors of New Farm magazine have launched Sustainable Farming Connection (SFC), an interactive World Wide Web site where farmers and others forging more sustainable food systems can find and share valuable information.
The SFC web site includes commentary by rural writers such as Gene Logsdon, timely news and action alerts, archived material and links to other key sites. Discussion groups also provide a forum for farmers to ask questions, exchange tips and "talk" with others about topics of importance to them.
For a copy of the new, 35-page Land Stewardship Project publication, When a Factory Farm Comes to Town: Protecting your Township From Unwanted Development, send $6 (that covers shipping; LSP members receive a 10 percent discount; Minnesota residents add 6.5 percent for sales tax) to: LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110. For more information, call (612) 653-0618.
The Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA) offers a toll-free help line for farmers and others who want to learn more about various aspects of sustainable agriculture. Call: 1-800-909-MISA.
The Land Stewardship Project's 1000 Friends of Minnesota program has news, notices and calendar items related to land use issues available via electronic mail. If you have an Email account, you can sign up for the electronic news service by sending the following message to: majordomo@igc.org: subscribe 1000fom-news.
The latest edition of Educational and Training Opportunities in Sustainable Agriculture (9th edition, Dec. 1996) is now available.
For a free copy of the 49-page booklet, contact: Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, NAL, Rm. 304, 10301 Baltimore Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705-2351; (301) 504-6559; Email: afsic@nal.usda.gov; web site.
By Jodi Dansingburg
When many people near retirement age, they have slowed in their interest for gaining knowledge in their chosen profession. That is not the case with Everett and Rosemary Koenig. For the Koenigs, who live near Elgin, Minn., learning from and working with others holds the promise for more sustainable farms and communities.
Everett quit using chemicals on his crops in the mid-1970s after attending some information meetings sponsored by a natural fertilizer company.
"I never really liked using chemicals," recalls Everett. "So when I started going to some of these meetings and learning more about soil health and the damage chemicals can do to the soil, I decided to quit. We quit cold turkey and looking back it was probably a mistake, but we managed. We had weeds, but after a few years as our soils came into better balance we were able to keep things under control. We were tired of the big vet bills, and thought if we cut out the chemicals we would see improvements in animal health, and we did."
Their first formal involvement with the Land Stewardship Project came in 1987 when they became participants in LSP's Stewardship Farming Program.
"At first I thought they should take someone with less experience without chemicals than we had. I thought I had this stuff figured out, but I quickly found out there was a lot to learn," recalls Everett.
The Koenigs smile as they recall one of their first field days held in conjunction with the Stewardship Farming Program.
"We had been planning for an attendance of about 40 people, but it turned out that they shuttled out 250 in several charter buses on the day of the event . . . that was quite a day," says Everett.
Since they stopped milking in 1990, the Koenigs have rotationally grazed a beef herd. More recently, they have begun using pasture management skills to custom raise Holstein heifers for a neighbor. They have also started a small farrow-to-finish hog operation and have been raising chickens on their pastures. The sows farrow outdoors in the spring and fall. Pigs born in the spring are finished on pasture. Fall pigs are finished in a converted dairy barn during the winter. They raised chickens in moveable cages on pasture last year and sold the chickens directly to consumers. They also sold some of their hogs and beef directly. Their daughter Lisa, who once was an intern with LSP and currently works at an agricultural lab in the St. Cloud, Minn., area, marketed some of the meat the Koenigs sold in 1996 to her friends. This year the Koenig farm is undergoing another transition. Everett is "retiring" from farming and renting most of the cropland out to a neighbor. Lisa hopes to move back to southeast Minnesota to begin taking over management of the livestock. She will be leasing the cattle from her folks this year.
Everett is involved in both the direct marketing and beginning farmer activities LSP is working on in southeast Minnesota. The Koenigs feel marketing farm products directly to consumers can provide the income needed for smaller, sustainable family operations to be successful. The family also enjoys the feedback it often gets from the consumers who purchase their meat.
"Everybody seems to like what they are getting from us," says Rosemary. "I don't think some folks know that there can be such a difference from what they get at a grocery store."
Jodi Dansingburg is based in LSP's southeast Minnesota office, where she works with an on-farm sustainable agriculture monitoring project.
JUNE 21 ÷ Flame weeding of vegetable crops field day, Peterson Produce, Delano, Minn.; Contact: (612) 972-2052
Workshop on alternative poultry production methods, Everett & Rosemary Koenig farm, Elgin, Minn.; Contact: (507) 689-4370
JUNE 28 ÷ Field day featuring poultry production and stream bank grazing, Jon Peterson farm, Peterson, Minn.; Contact: (507) 864-2722; (507) 689-2988
JULY 5 ÷ Mobile poultry processing workshop, John Fisher-Merritt farm, Wrenshall, Minn.; Contact: (218) 727-1414
JULY 8 ÷ Field day featuring biological farming, Jeff Gerard farm, Spring Grove, Minn.; Contact: (507) 689-2988
JULY 10-13 ÷ Bus trip from Twin Cities to 3rd annual Mississippi River Conference, St. Louis, Mo.; Contact: John Lamb, Minnesota Project (612) 645-6159
JULY 12 ÷ Field day featuring soil quality & garlic production, Joel Girardin farm, Cannon Falls, Minn.; Contact: (320) 732-6203
JULY 14 ÷ Bus tour of four pasture-based dairy farms, Lafayette County, Wis. (leaving from Lewiston, Minn.); Contact: LSP (507) 523-33666
JULY 18 ÷ Monitoring Team meeting & field day, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., Ralph & Geri Lentz farm, Lake City, Minn.; Contact: Richard Ness, LSP (507) 523-3366
JULY 19 ÷ Field day featuring alternative poultry production & milk parlor refurbishing, Greg Erickson farm, Lewiston, Minn.; Contact: (507) 689-4370; (507) 689-2988
JULY 20 ÷ Field day featuring pasture-based beef finishing, Johnson farm, Cromwell, Minn.; Contact: (218) 727-1414
JULY 22 ÷ Field day featuring the raising of dairy steers & replacement heifers on pasture, Melissa Nelson farm, Ortonville, Minn.; Contact: (320) 273-2340
JULY 23-25 ÷ "Creating Communities of Healing, Creativity & Justice in Rural Iowa, Wisconsin & Illinois," Sinsinawa, Wis.; Contact: Churches' Center for Land & People, General Delivery, Sinsinawa, WI 53824; (608) 748-4411
JULY 26 ÷ Tour of community gardens in the Twin Cities area, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.; Contact: Urban Lands Program (612) 872-3299
JULY 28 ÷ Field day on garlic production & soil quality, 1:30 p.m., Arnold farm, Sauk Centre, Minn.; Contact: (320) 732-6203
JULY 30-31 ÷..Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture's 10th Anniversary Conference, Ames, Iowa; Contact: Rich Pirog, (515) 294-3711
JULY 31-AUG. 2 ÷ 2nd annual Minnesota River Basin Conference, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn.; Contact: Ann Ludvik (612) 361-6590
AUG. 2 ÷ Field day featuring intensive rotational grazing of gestating sows, Byron Bartz farm, Barrett, Minn.; Contact: (320) 528-2301
AUG. 7 ÷ Field day featuring the use of livestock to manage riparian buffers & stream banks, Todd Lein farm, Northfield, Minn.; Contact: (507) 645-9036
AUG. 9 ÷ A field day for consumers on environmental & health issues related to production & consumption of lean meats, Payton & Peterson farms, Tamarack, Minn.; Contact: (218) 727-1414
Field day featuring native flowering plants & solar energy, Prairie Moon Nursery, Winona, Minn.; Contact: (507) 689-2988
AUG. 15 ÷ Field day featuring therapeutic & cosmetic crops that produce well in poor soils & are in high demand in certain markets, Brett Pearson farm, Cottage Grove, Minn.; Contact: (612) 768-7875
SEPT. 13 ÷ Land Stewardship Project 15th Anniversary Celebration, featuring Drake University's Neil Hamilton, the Minar farm & musician John Gorka, New Prague, Minn.; watch future issues of the LSL for more details; Contact: (612) 653-0618
Poultry field day, Lynn Farmer farm, Rushford, Minn.; Contact: (507) 689-2988
OCT. 5 ÷ Identifying native grasses & seed collecting, Vic Ormsby farm, Winona, Minn.; Contact: (507) 689-2988
NOV. 8-9 ÷ Northeast regional Community Supported Agriculture conference, Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort, Hancock, Mass.; Contact: Elizabeth Keen, CSA of North America, Indian Line Farm, Box 57 Jugend Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230; (413) 528-4374; Email: csana@bcn.net
NOV. 21-22 ÷ "Population, Consumption & Sustainability: Infinite growth in a finite world?," Humphrey Institute, Minneapolis, Minn.; Contact: Tom Anderson, Warner Nature Center (612) 433-2427
DEC. 7-10 ÷ Midwest Fish & Wildlife Conference, featuring a special session on "Effects of Alternative Agricultural Practices on Wildlife," Milwaukee, Wis.; Contact: Gerald Bartelt, Wis. DNR, 1350 Femrite Dr., Monona, WI 53716; (608) 221-6344
Check the Calendar for the latest on upcoming LSP events.
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