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The following transcript is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Link to Audio and Episode Info Here
Show
Transcript Deconstructing
Dinner Kootenay
Co-op Radio CJLY Nelson,
B.C. Canada February
22, 2007 Title:
Michael Ableman
- Fields of Plenty Producer/Host: Jon Steinman Transcript: Erika Steeves Jon Steinman:
And
welcome to another broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner, a syndicated weekly
one-hour radio program and podcast produced at Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson,
British Columbia. I'm Jon Steinman. As Deconstructing Dinner is a program designed to help
unravel the mysterious world of food, in doing so we often hear from the
innovators, the people who are working towards creating new and alternative
means through which food can make its way to our dinner plate. These
alternatives act in opposition to the industrial food system that more and more
is seen as one that sacrifices nutrition, environmental sustainability and
social justice. One of these innovators is Salt Spring Island's Michael
Ableman. Located in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Michael settled on
Salt Spring not long ago, where he began walking the talk that led him into the
world of food in the first place. Michael currently farms at Madrona Valley
Farm producing organically grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, free-range
eggs, and lamb. Michael has also recently, along with some partners, acquired a
120 acre piece of land called Foxglove Farm, on which he is working to create a
farm which will include mixed grain, livestock, and fruit and vegetable
production. The surrounding forest will be managed using eco-forestry principles,
and any harvested trees will be milled and produced on-site into furniture
products. He intends to create an environment for learning, and one that will
act as a model that will challenge the industrial forms of agriculture that
dominate Canada's food system. We heard Michael Ableman speak on the March 2nd
2006 broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner, and he is often in high demand to
speak at events across North America. And it was back in November 2005 that
Vancouver's Necessary Voices Society recorded Michael speaking to an audience
at the Vancouver Public Library. This talk was recorded shortly after the
release of his book Fields of Plenty,
and while the powerful forces within the Canadian food system often suggest
that humane and sustainable practices result in a loss of production capacity,
the book chronicles a three-month journey across the United States where he
meets with fellow farmers and looks to reassure himself that abundance is enhanced,
and not sacrificed, by using humane and sustainable practices. increase
music and fade out JS: In this first clip
from Michael Ableman's talk, he looks back to when he was first introduced to
farming. Michael Ableman: Well I've
been on the road since October 1st, home for five days since October
1st so it's nice. Two days ago I was in New York City. I was telling
someone I had the most remarkable experience. I saw this couple arm-in-arm
walking down the street, and they each were on their cell phones talking to
someone, maybe they were talking to each other, I don't know. (audience
laughter) It was pretty interesting. I hadn't really seen that before. If you
haven't had the opportunity to go to that amazing metropolis, you don't need to
ever attend a single theatre performance, or movie, or anything. It's all
happening right there. But actually I spoke at a wonderful event called Eco
Metropolis a few days ago. One of the things I learned, and I'm going way off
my script here but that's okay, was it occurred to me after attending this
event, what a relatively and incredibly sustainable place New York City is. Now
that's exactly the opposite of what you might imagine, but consider the fact
that 80% of the population does not have cars; they all take public transport.
The way the housing is structured is terribly efficient, cluttered and stacked.
Of course there's also something like 44,000 pounds of food that arrives via an
armada every day from elsewhere, and about 20,000 pounds of waste that leaves
everyday. But that's another story. Almost 35 years ago I joined a commune in California that
was based on agrarian principles. We had three different parcels of land
totaling some 4,000 acres on which we raised row crops, orchards, operated a
complete goat and cow dairy, and produced grain and fiber. We supplied our own
natural food stores and bakery and juice factory and restaurant as well as
feeding ourselves. We even made our own backpacks and our own shoes and our own
clothing. After only four months living in that community, I was given the
responsibility of managing the 100-acre pear and apple orchard located in a
High Desert Valley. At the time this was one of just a handful of commercial
orchards in the country that was being farmed organically. And here I was at
the age of 18 with no orcharding experience, having never managed anything,
directing a crew of thirty people most of whom were older than I. The orchard
had been abandoned for fifteen years. The branches between the trees had become
so intertwined that you couldn't see the alleys down the middles of the roads.
I had a 1930s copy of Modern Fruit
Science, the journal from the guy who ran the place before and gave up in
frustration, and a copy of Goethe's famous quote, "Whatever you can do or dream
you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it," attached to the
door of my twenty foot unheated trailer. Now, as you might imagine, this could have ended up really
bad and under most similar situations I probably would have ended up spending
the rest of my life working in some high-rise office building. But there was
something that took place down those rows of apple and pear trees, something
very different than what is happening in most agricultural fields and orchards
in North America. I went to work each day with thirty of my friends, and while
we worked we joked and we talked and we discussed our dreams. We tried out our
latest theories and philosophies on each other, speculated on the fate of the
earth and ate our lunch together under the shade of the trees. In the winter,
we pruned everyday for four months straight. In the spring, we thinned fruit,
and in the fall it was a ten-week harvest marathon. It was repetitive work, but
at the end of each day instead of feeling like I had been chained to some
mind-numbing drudgery, I felt like I had attended an all-day party. The work
got done, the orchard thrived, and those apples and pears gained a reputation
around the country. And while the cold nights and hot days of that high desert
provided ideal growing conditions, I am sure that that fruit was equally
infused with the energy of that group of people and the pleasure they found in
each other and in that land. Now this was my introduction to agriculture, and this
community experience has informed all of my agricultural endeavors since. It
demonstrated that good food is more than just the confluence of technique and
fertile soil. That it is the result of men and women who love their land and
who bring great passion to working with it. For a long time I wanted to pick up
where I left off with my first book and visit and write about and photograph
this movement - tell the good story, hold my heroes up for all to see. So a
couple of years ago my 24-year-old son Aaron and I left our own farm for a
three-month journey across the U.S. and Canada to document this quiet
revolution. We visited farmers who were growing high quality artisanal foods
who had gone beyond organic, who were redefining that movement, using their
farms as platforms for social and ecological change and for education. We went
to see folks who are happily married to a place, many of them master farmers,
innovators, their farms incubators for the new agriculture. Folks who are
demonstrating that farming is not just some lowly form of drudgery, but that
it's an art and a craft and an honourable profession. I'd like to very briefly introduce you to some of these
folks. I'm going to tell you a little bit about their story, show you their
faces. The images I'm going to show you and the text that I'm going to read are
directly from my newest book, which just came out, actually November 1st,
called Fields of Plenty. Well, what's interesting is that for every person that we
were able to visit in this wonderful journey there are hundreds more that are
doing great work. We just touched on it. As you might imagine, that journey
provided some incredible insights. First of all, I was reassured to discover
that I am not alone in many of my challenges with farming. That everyone has
their moments when they wonder whether they chose the right profession, and
some of us even consider quitting once or twice a year. But it's amazing. Every
time I have that thought something happens that not only pulls me back from the
edge, but reminds me why I'm alive in doing this work. There was the woman at the Farmer's Market who after
tasting one of our mulberries started to cry. When I asked her if she was okay,
she told me that the taste brought her back to Eastern Europe to a village and
a mulberry tree that she had not returned to for 22 years. Or I'm out walking
on the farm alone. It's fall and the watermelon field I'm passing has finished,
but there in the middle of the field I spot one. With total abandon I pot
myself down, cut it open, and eat the heart out. Or the first year on our new
land here on Salt Spring Island, I'm bent over planting asparagus crowns, and
it's wet and it's cold and my hands are cramping up and I'm starting to wonder
what the hell I'm doing here. Then all of sudden I hear this whoosh, so close
that I can feel the air moving around my head. I look up and there just above
me, with its majestic white head turned towards me, and a wingspan large enough
to block the sky, is an eagle. Now these are those very special moments, simple
gifts to those who immerse themselves in the natural world. Moments when I
realize that there's no other place I'd rather be, no other work I'd rather be
doing. That extraordinary journey that I took with my son to see my colleagues
reminded me that what we are doing is more than just growing food. That this
movement embodies many of the most critical elements of a healthy society:
reverence, mystery, humility, ecology (in its wider sense), and community. It
is amazing to consider what a recent phenomenon our society's departure from
the natural world is - a mere blip. In such an extraordinarily short period of
time, we have forgotten where we came from, that we are a part of - not apart
from - nature. For the first time in the history of human evolution there is an
entire generation of young people who are, for the most part, completely
denatured. So I wonder, who are we going to be able to seek out to
guide a society that has become so completely disconnected from the natural
world, from the most fundamental necessities such as food and water? What will
happen if there are most Katrinas? What will happen when the oil runs out? I
think we desperately need leaders, real leaders. I'm not talking about managers
or actors or dictators or manipulators, leaders. Folks who have compassion,
respect for diversity, creative vision, and understanding of our true place in
nature. Now John Thurman who you met in those slides told me, "If you farmed,
you can run the world." I thought about that. I think he may be right. In a
time when our primary connection tools to the world around us are the computer
and the cell phone, those who have maintained an intimate connection with the
land, whose daily work is inextricably tied to biology and botany and animal
husbandry, those who know how to restore and nurture soil, care for animals, coax
food from the earth, may become very very important. In the hysteria over
arugula or heirloom tomatoes, the explosion of Farmer's Markets and box
programs, the desire to meet face-to-face each week with the person who grew
your food goes deeper than that food. It may just be part of a desperate
longing to have some connection to the real world. I've watched chefs receive
mythical rock-and-roll status. It may be time for farmers to receive that same
attention. The chefs don't mind me saying that I'm sure, if you're here. I've been on the road speaking quite a bit since the
beginning of October, and I've been telling folks to make friends with a
farmer, you know the old saying, "Make friends with the cook," because you're
really going to need them. For I am certain that as this current global,
industrial experiment continues to unravel, and I have to tell you I get up
each day and I look around and it's still going on and I can't believe it. It's
as if the tree has been cut, but it still hasn't fallen. But as this experiment
unravels, agriculture may once again return to its rightful place at the heart
and at the centre of our society. Think about that. That's where we came from. JS: And you're
tuned in to Deconstructing Dinner. On today's broadcast we are listening to
segments of a talk conducted by farmer Michael Ableman as he spoke to an
audience in Vancouver in November 2005. Michael farms on Salt Spring Island,
located in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. He is also author of the book Fields of Plenty. In this next segment of Michael's talk he's directed away
from the topic of agriculture, but his story is one that emphasizes the way in
which community interests are sacrificed for the benefit of economic progress,
an all-too familiar story within the industrial food system serving most
Canadians. As Michael begins to suggest in this segment, asking questions is
the first step to understanding the role both the individual and communities
can play to combat such a model, and children, as he indicates, provide perhaps
the greatest example of what questions we should be asking. MA: I have two
sons now, my 24-year-old son Aaron, who I already mentioned, and my youngest,
Benjamin, who's almost four. It's kind of my version of long-term crop
rotation. This past spring, I took my 3-year-old son Benjamin out to a friend's
cabin located on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The two of us left the
farm in good spirits, hopped on the ferry - the guys out for a little three-day
adventure. But what I didn't realize was that to get to my friend's cabin
required driving through a huge relatively fresh clear-cut. Now I've seen a lot
of ecological devastation, but I don't think there's anything quite exemplary
of human's most destructive ways as seeing a rich, diverse oxygen producing
forest reduced to vast fields of brush and stumps and eroding soil. The
emotional impact of being in the midst of such a thing for an extended period
of time is absolutely overwhelming. Little Benjamin was glued to the scene,
looking out the windows of the truck with the most heart-breaking look of
horror and dismay. And you know what I felt like? I felt like I had just taken
my young son, unknowingly, to see a really violent film. When it came time to
drive back after our little retreat, Benjamin cried; he pleaded with me not to
drive back the same way that we had come. "Why" is a word you hear a lot with a
three year old. But there was a new persistence to Benjamin's "why" after our
experience that day and my responses just couldn't satisfy him. I find myself asking why a lot these days as well. But I
cannot find answers when my questions stray too far beyond my own land and
beyond the community within which I live. Why is a word we should all be asking
ourselves and of those that claim to be our leaders. I just think about what if
we had asked why after 9/11 instead of who? Think about how things would have
shifted. As we bear witness to the disappearance of nature and the
disconnection of our society from it, we also see an increase in confusion and
extreme lack of compassion and understanding of how to care for each other and
for our world. A loss of understanding in regards to cause and effect. It takes
a real conscious effort to rise above the propaganda and the lies, the litany of
misdirected questions. Step out of the confusion and be like little Benjamin.
Come back into our beginner's mind, to our sense of childlike wonder, and start
asking why as honestly and as freshly and as persistently as a three year old. I believe that to deal with the great unraveling that is
taking place around us, we've got to come back home. I should be telling myself
that. (laughs) Immerse ourselves in that which goes on in our neighbourhoods and our communities, in our own backyards or
on the land that we farm. We can feel paralyzed by the broader world scene, but
we have enormous power in and around the places where we live. It really
doesn't matter what the issue is - energy, water, food, waste, transportation,
or even that pervasive sense of loneliness or disconnection that so many folks
are feeling. When you focus your attention on the local world in which you
live, when you come back home, real change is possible. I've been used to getting lots of accolade for my work.
After all, it's difficult to get too many people upset when you're just
offering them a ripe tomato or a peach, only asking that they make choices that
will actually increase the pleasure of their experience. But a couple of years
I ago I found myself involved with initiating a campaign to challenge Norske
Canada, now known as Catalyst Paper. By the way, they were very wise to change
their name when they did. Too much heat. It's the company that owns the Crofton Pulp and
Paper Mill on neighbouring Vancouver Island, across
from us from Salt Spring. At the time they were proposing to begin burning
tires, railroad ties, and coal in one of their power boilers at that mill to
save a few dollars. You've probably heard about this. It made national news, or
at least our efforts did. We eventually stopped them from that particular
whacko plan, but in the process we discovered that current emissions from that
mill are not so good. Twenty-four million cubic metres of exhaust gases coming
from that facility each and every day, containing the likes of dioxins and
furans, chlorine, formaldehyde, PCBs, hexavalent chromium. We had the audacity
to ask questions, to wonder aloud whether our families and our communities
should be exposed without choice to such chemicals. We expressed concerns about
the headaches and the burning eyes and the ash and the goo that covers cars and
houses near the mill. We worried about the high levels of cancers and lung and
heart disease and the asthma amongst local kids. By the way, the asthma
statistics at the Crofton school are off the charts, and yet the principal of
that school did not want me talking about that. I thought principals are
supposed to be the ally of the students. We eventually got Neil Young, the Barenaked
Ladies, Randy Bachman to perform at the Duncan hockey arena for the first Clean
Air concert, and we raised a bunch of money to do a study on that facility.
That was quite an event. I just about had to have protection for that event. I
was so surprised. I came to Canada because I love Canadians; they're so nice
and polite. But boy, you start talking about this issue and watch out. We asked
the questions that every father and mother should be asking. Should this huge,
aging, decrepit, industrial facility belching 24 million cubic meters of
exhaust gases each and every day, 24 hours a day, into the air that we all
breath, be allowed to do so without any functioning pollution devices or
government oversight? Should the community be forced to breath whatever comes
out of that facility? Should the company that owns them be allowed to make
decisions that affect the broader community, solely to satisfy the return to
their shareholders? At first we were patted on the heads by the company
officials and told not to worry. But when some of us began to organize, when we
engaged experts to help us understand the pollution, when we initiated the
concert, when we got louder, we were called names and criticized, even
threatened. In the play "An Enemy of the People" written by Henrik
Ibsen over 100 years ago (I don't know if any of you have read this) a young
doctor in that town begins to discover that the chronic health problem that
he's seeing across the board have a direct connection to the industrial
facility in that town. Now he figures that when he announces his findings he's
going to be considered a hero, but instead he becomes the enemy of the people.
He's hated, he's vilified for bringing up things that might impact tourism,
jobs, and the economy. Sounds familiar. That was 100 years ago. I came to the
conclusion that the biggest problem is not so much with Catalyst Paper or
Norske, what their other alias was, one more corporation that every day places
the wellbeing of its shareholders over the wellbeing of its workers and the
community. The biggest problem may not be a government which ignores its
responsibility to protect the health of its citizens and the environment. The
biggest problem my not even be the toxic pollution itself. The problem, I
believe, may be our own self-deception in a form of denial so deep, so complete,
that many people in the region are willing to accept and to even rationalize
polluted air that is making them sick just because the company "contributes to
the local tax base" or because "it's always been there" or because "it's too
expensive to clean it up." Folks are willing to accept such a pathetically
narrow view of economic health over the personal health of their children and
of all those who work and live in and around the mill. Those of us who held up
the mirror, the messengers who bear information that folks are afraid to hear,
were called names. "Nimbys, aging rockers, environmentalists, radicals."
Radicals. But when did it become so radical to want clean air? What is so
radical about wanting a safe place to work? What is so radical about wanting to
see the clear blue sky, or to eat safely from the waters, or to go to bed at
night and not to have to close the windows? We simply wanted an independent
study of the mill's emissions. Independent. We wanted to know what is coming
out of those stacks, where the pollutants are traveling, and in what
concentrations and what the health impacts are. Now I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but it's
important. The government in essence refused to get involved, and the company,
instead of supporting a study commissioned its own-managed, paid for, and
controlled by the polluters themselves- all behind closed doors. And of course
when they announced their findings they told us that everything was fine. You
may not know it, but there are virtually no laws in this province protecting
any of us from dangerous air emissions. Nothing. A permit is required for that
mill, but there are no legally binding enforcement policies for that permit.
B.C's regulations for air emissions are so lax we might as well be living in a
third-world country. Why else would a company that originates in Norway, where
this mill could never operate due to strict environmental laws, set up shop
here? In a province founded on resource extraction, we have a
government that still believes that its role is to protect the rights of
industry, not the rights of citizens and the environment. Now I'm probably not
telling any of you anything new. Definitely not. But I had to get this off my
chest here. There are a lot of bad ideas in the world that each of us
unknowingly supports just because we've decided they are a necessary casualty
of doing business. Trade-offs like blood for oil, or cancer for bleached-white
toilet paper. It's certainly easy to blame government and industry, and I think
we should, but we have some responsibility in this as well. By the way, that
company has its offices right here in Vancouver. Ultimately, and I am raping up
here, our arrogance, our wholesale disconnection from the natural world, our
belief that somehow we are in control, keeps us from recognizing the most
fundamental law of nature. The one that every good farmer is absolutely bound
by: What we sow is what we reap; for every action there is a reaction; cause
and effect. It's the law, and no one is immune from it. At every turn in each
moment, with each change in our lives and on the broader world stage, we must
bring forth the hopeful and positive alternatives and models. No matter how
outrageous, no matter how ridiculous we may appear, we must gently and creatively
and persistently repeat and remind and demonstrate that a new world is in fact
possible. Thank you very much. (audience applause) JS: And you're
listening to Deconstructing Dinner, a weekly one-hour program produced at
Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, British Columbia. This program is heard on
radio stations across the country and is also available on our website at www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner. Today's broadcast is featuring a talk conducted by farmer
Michael Ableman, who among being the author of the book Fields of Plenty, also farms on Salt Spring Island in British
Columbia. The recording is courtesy of the Necessary Voices Society. That last
segment concluded the structured component of Michael's talk, and when we
return after this musical intermission, we will hear clips from the question and
answer period that followed. musical intermission by Don Ross JS: And you're
tuned in to Deconstructing Dinner. That musical intermission was Toronto guitarist Don Ross, referred
to by many as one of the best guitarists in the world, and that was his tune
titled Thin Air, one that appeared on
his 2001 release Huron Street. And the interesting story behind that tune is
that it was inspired by the harrowing pass through the mountains that he took
here into Nelson, British Columbia while on a Canadian tour. During the first half of today's broadcast, we heard a talk
given by Salt Spring Island farmer Michael Ableman, recorded in November 2005
in Vancouver. And for the remainder of the broadcast we will explore clips from
the question and answer period that followed the talk. One of the audience questions presented to Michael allowed
him to further expand on this idea that our current food system of industrial
agriculture and food production is simply an experiment. And in this clip, he
describes what he means by an experiment. MA: When I call
it an experiment, it's been very short lived. I mean we're looking at a system
of food production that really came out of the technology of two world wars. If
you're not familiar with that I can briefly tell you. Certainly the
fertilizers, traction, even the pesticides came out of wartime development. So
we're looking at this really tiny - if you consider we have an agricultural
history in this world of anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 years, this is just a
tiny blip in that broader history. It's taken us quite a while to figure out, first of all,
that the first Green Revolution was not totally a great idea. The problems are
surfacing; it's very clear that we are all living and dying with the results of
how food has been produced in those last 50 years. And I think the experiment
is not working. It's not working for people in many different ways. People are
responding and desiring a change because corn doesn't taste like corn and
tomatoes don't taste like tomatoes and they want food that tastes real. People
are responding because of food safety concerns, because of personal health
concerns, because of environmental health concern. A very few people are
concerned about soil loss, some of us are, which I think is the enormous
concern that no one - it's not part of our language. I spoke, and excuse me for my tangents here, but I was
involved with a benefit in New York City for the Soil Association, which is
based in England. It was founded in the '30s by British royalty really, Lady
Balfour and Sir Albert Howard on the fundamental principle that all life on
earth is inextricably connected to the life and the health of the soil-that we
are tied. I'm there staying in Trudy's House in New York giving a talk to a
hundred high rollers on soil, which was a lot of fun. But basically it's
critical. It's a very thin layer of material that's covering the earth. It's
been referred to as the earth's placenta. It is disappearing at a staggering
rate and we really all have got to be concerned about it. It's more than just
the farmer's problem. Water, another issue related to this big experiment. The
incredible inefficient use of fresh water, 80% of which is used in agriculture,
only a fraction of which ever reaches the intended plants and animals due to
really inefficient transport and application methods. These are critical
issues. Energy. I mean I think that what we are going to see is I
think the energy issue will probably push things over to the other side.
There's a wonderful piece written in Harper's called "The Oil that we Eat." If
you haven't seen that article, it's quite fantastic. But basically, and I don't
know the numbers, but it simply takes more calories of energy, of fuel, of
fossil fuel, multiple calories to produce single calories of actual food. That
probably can't go on for very much longer. So I think that fortunately there
are people who are beginning to recognize that this isn't working. And one of
the important aspects of having done that book, and the reason I think the book
is critically important is not only that it gives us some sense of hope, but
that it presents some very important models that we are going to have to look
to when this thing really starts to come apart. I think that everyone,
non-farmers especially, can begin to support this shift. Not by supporting
organic necessarily-I'm not that interested in that issue anymore-but by
supporting your regional and local food system. That's the fundamental and most
important thing to be doing. If I had said that even five or ten years ago as I
was, people would get up and walk out or not understand me. Did I even answer?
I don't even remember what the question was. (audience laughter) JS: Continuing
on with the question and answer period following Michael Ableman's talk, in
this next clip Michael fields a question in regards to the "back to the land"
movement that took place in the 1970s. As Michael comments on the role of such
a movement today, he suggests that the back to the land movement was about
self-sufficiency, and his current work is about community sufficiency. MA: I mean I
think the "back to the land" movement, at least what I remember of it, it was
almost, if you will, a survivalist movement in a sense. There were people going
back and it was all about self-sufficiency. I'm looking towards community
sufficiency as the alternative. And so I don't know that any of us are going to
be able to run off somewhere, because there's nowhere to go, and as such, we
had better find ways to do what we do to support the broader communities in
which we live, which is very different than what was happening back then, I
believe. And believe me, I have moments where I'd like to run off, certainly,
and to some degree maybe I did. So I think certainly there are elements of that
whole movement that triggered an interest in alternative energy applications
which were very good, and some of those people that began experimenting have
now developed some wonderful systems. People learned a little bit about what it
meant to support yourself off of the land and the realities of that, which is
why for many people it didn't last long. And there are those that are still
doing it, no doubt. I know that. But again, I think that we have to expand
this. If we have a little bit of knowledge and access to land, I think we have
a great responsibility to share that knowledge and to share the products of the
land that we're growing on. I think it's important. And by the way, this is not just a rural thing that I'm
talking about. I spent a lot of time talking about the importance of developing
agricultural systems that are urban based because as of the year 2000 the
majority of the world's population is no longer living in rural areas. They're
living in cities. In fact, a significant percentage of the world's poor is not
surviving from the products of distant farms, they are surviving from their own
tiny little postage stamps urban gardens. That's a very critical thing in many
parts of the world. We have a great deal of knowledge as to how to do this
well, whether it's on rooftops or in small plots in urban neighbourhoods.
We've got to grow food closer to where it's being consumed. It's very very
important. We've got to reconnect the nutrient cycle, also very important. That
has to happen by bringing the food and the people together again. JS: And you're
tuned in to Deconstructing Dinner as we listen to segments from the question
and answer period following a talk given by Salt Spring Island farmer Michael
Ableman. As Michael indicated that the majority of the population now lives in
urban centres, this next question asks whether such large cities can survive on
just local food. In his response, he suggests that we have not yet
pushed the edges of possibility. MA: Okay,
there's two issues here that I'll mention. One is, I just need to bring it up
because it comes up all the time. People say all the time, "How are you going
to feed the increasing populations of the world with the system that you're
proposing? Is it possible?" And I'll say no. The population issue has to be
dealt with as a social issue, as a population issue. It's not an agricultural
issue. With that said, I will tell you that right now, and this is a fairly
accurate statistic, 40% of the food consumed in Cuba is being produced in the cities. 40% percent! They are
employing, and my friend Catherine Murphy who spent probably ten years of her
life down there giving tours for Global Exchange and Food First. I think in
Havana alone, I think it's a staggering number. It's over 200,000 people - I
think it's maybe way over that that are employed in urban agriculture. So it's
not only the food, it's the employment. You can run the numbers and do a
comparative look, but I told you what we do on that twelve acres. Now mind you
that's a year-round cycle, okay. I think that we have not, because we haven't
had to, pushed the edges of what's possible. How much is it possible to produce
on a small piece of land within an urban or peri-urban area? How many people
can you employ? I think we have not even touched on the possibility there.
Fairview is one example, but I think that we have a fairly limited imagination
on that. We are still working off an old idea, and I think we might have to
change that idea and begin to demonstrate that yes, you can have a very
successful economic industry on a very small piece of land; quarter acre, half
an acre. You can employ people, you feed a lot of people, and when you have to do that you'll figure out a way
to do that. JS: Prior to
Michael Ableman's arrival on Salt Spring Island, he helped establish the Center
for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens, in Santa Barbara, California. The
farm is a living example of the abundant nature in which a farm is able to operate,
and it further illustrates the importance of preserving agricultural land from
urban sprawl. MA: Fortuately
there's two wonderful images taken from the air, one that was taken in 1954
which shows this little farm in the entire region all agriculture. And then you
turn the page - there's one copy of the book there that tells the story of that
farm - and it's 1998 and it's the same perspective from the air. It looks like
that little farm is sitting on a computer chip. Every square inch is developed.
That is in a valley that once boasted some of the deepest and richest topsoil
anywhere on the west coast, some thirty feet of topsoil, yet most of it now is
paved over. Of course by doing so we've preserved it for future generations.
(audience laughter) But this farm (I've been involved with it for 25 years, I'm
still involved if you can believe it) it's 12.5 acres; it employs over thirty
people now; it feeds approximately 500 families; it produces 100 different
fruits and vegetables. Now, if you know anything about current agricultural
statistics, none of that makes any sense. You have to see it to believe it.
It's true, I'm not making this up. It also is a place that now runs programs
for some roughly 5,000 people a year that come through. A number of years ago
it had been privately owned for a good part of the time that I was farming
there and it was zoned for 52 condominiums. And one day the owner gave me, she
was getting old and her kids were anxious to cash in, and she gave me a little
slip of paper after I had pushed her for years to consider allowing me the
opportunity to try to save it. This little corner of a legal pad said, "A
million dollars, no bickering." Now in those days a million dollars was a lot
of money. Now it seems like it was quite a deal. We formed a non-profit
organization called The Centre for Urban Agriculture, which I am still
directing, and in eight months we raised that million dollars and placed that
land under an active agricultural conservation easement, or covenant as we call
them here, which not only protects the land as an organic farm, it specifies
very particularly what time of farming and that education must take place
there. It's a very unusual real estate document. That document is attached to
that title; it gives that land a voice forever, which I think is a very
important mechanism. I know we have this situation here with the ALR (at least
what's left of it) and the fact that we need to do much more than the ALR. I just have to say to me the best land preservation strategy
is not what people think. It's not setting up all these policy initiates and
raising money. It's demonstrating to young people that they can make a decent
living doing this. This, to me, is the most important thing that we have to do.
That always surprises people. I think that's one of the most important things
that we have to do in agriculture, is show that you can make a good living
doing this. That this is an honorable profession. For whatever reason, a lot of
people (I find more so here) have decided that's not possible. But it is
possible. There are those who are doing a wonderful job of it here in British
Columbia. JS: And this
is Deconstructing Dinner, produced at Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, British
Columbia. A quick reminder that if you miss any of today's broadcast, it will
be archived onto our website, and that website is
cjly.net/deconstructingdinner. We're currently listening to clips from the question and answer
period following a talk given by farmer Michael Ableman. Michael is the author
of the book Fields of Plenty, a book
that chronicles a three-month journey across the United States where he meets
with fellow farmers and looks to reassure himself that abundance is enhanced,
and not sacrificed, by using humane and sustainable farming practices. Such
practices are a far cry from the many that are often exposed here on this
program, Deconstructing Dinner. Following Michael's time at Fairview Gardens in Santa
Barbara, California, Michael moved to British Columbia and settled on Salt
Spring Island. It was a few years later that an article was written in a
magazine that encouraged a reader response that then compelled Michael to
address the possibility that even cold Canadian communities could produce a
diverse diet of foods. And here's that clip. MA: The Sun
magazine did an interview with me a couple of years ago. The following issue
somebody wrote a letter and said, "We have great respect for Michael Ableman's
work, but why is it that every time we hear someone waxing poetically about the
wonders of regional food, they always come from southern California?" (audience
laughter) I don't know how they missed it, but I was already years living up
here. But it gave me a great opportunity to address an issue, a misperception
if you will, that people have and that is that the only people that can eat a
diverse diet somehow live in southern climes. Not true. I'll give you two wonderful examples. There are many many
more. They're both in this new book. One is Eliot Coleman who farms in Maine
whose main season (no pun intended) is, how do I say that? whose primary season
actually begins in the fall and goes through the wintertime. The climate of
Maine, by the way, makes British Columbia look like Jamaica or something, trust
me. Unless you're well in the interior, in the higher reaches of the interior,
but certainly along the coast. But his products are grown in cold frames, or
green houses often unheated with multiple layers of diaphanous floating row cover on
top of them. So outside of the greenhouse it's ice and snow and inside you've
come maybe a zone or so down. Below the first layer you're in Pennsylvania and
below that, anyway it's a wonderful system and he's quite successful with it. Another person is Odessa Piper, L'Etoile
restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin. In case you haven't been to Wisconsin in
January-February, it's pretty hard to present a diverse menu in January and
February that is based on local ingredients, but that is what she does. Only
local ingredients throughout the year, and it's an incredible wonderful menu
throughout the year. As a result she has stimulated people to find ways to grow
throughout the year. So bananas, I don't know, that's another story. Avocados,
I miss them. Truthfully. But citrus? Possible here on the coast, yes,
certainly. Figs? Yeah. JS: Michael
Ableman currently farms on Madrona Valley Farm, a 6-acre plot of land located
on Salt Spring Island, and in this next clip Michael describes the farm and his
recent acquisition of Foxglove Farm, a 120-acre parcel of land that will become
a working model and learning centre that addresses the possibility of creating,
as he would so aptly call it, "Fields of Plenty." MA: We started
on a little place over six years ago on Salt Spring. We planted a lot of
asparagus. We do white and green asparagus. The white actually comes to
restaurants here in Vancouver in the spring. We do a lot of berries:
strawberries, raspberries, blueberries. We do about twelve different types of
French melons. European shelling beans, which we shell in the fresh stage,
which is very unusual. We have a fig orchard that we planted. Lots of plums.
It's fairly diverse; it's about 50 or 60 items. I must tell you about a year and a half ago we got grabbed
by another piece of land on Salt Spring Island and there's a wonderful,
historic 120-acre farm/ecosystem called the Foxglove farm. With a partner who
sits on the Board of the non-profit that I'm still directing in the States, we
did something completely crazy and jumped off the cliff and bought it. So we
are now, our little place is in the process of finding a new owner, and we are
shifting, starting over again (how many times is this that I've done this?) to
develop a rather remarkable 120-acre place. It's got two creeks and it borders
the lake. It's right up by Lake Maxwell if you're familiar with the Island.
Wonderful forests and fields and lots of funky buildings. So that's going to be
the next fifty years of my life. Probably take ten just to get it developed. JS: And in
wrapping up today's broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner and the segments of the
question and answer period following Michael Ableman's talk, he comments on the
strain of operating a farm in the way he does, and how part of the major
problem of creating more sustainable approaches to farming, is that more
natural methods of agriculture are always in competition with the dominant
systems and the market economy. MA: It's both
ways. There are a lot of moments where, "Why am I doing this?" Every day is not
a joyous experience in other words. But part of this is the strange collision
that we face doing this work, of trying to practice natural agriculture within
the context of a market economy. It makes you crazy sometimes. The bottom line
of the traditional market economy does not take into account the fertility of
the soil, or the wellbeing of the community, or the person doing the work on
the farm. That's a challenge. I think that's probably for most of us the area
that - at this point in my life if I just had to produce enough for my family
and the immediate community, it would be amazing, it would be so simple. But
the fact that 1.5 or even less percent of our entire population is trying to
feed the rest, it creates this kind of dynamic tension, which I think is
challenging. JS: And that
was Michael Ableman, who is both author of the book Fields of Plenty, and a farmer on Salt Spring Island. You can learn
more about Michael, his books, and his work by visiting his website at
www.fieldsofplenty.com. Today's recordings were courtesy of the Vancouver-based
Necessary Voices Society, and you can learn more about the society on their website
www.necessaryvoices.org ending theme That was this week's edition of Deconstructing
Dinner, produced and recorded at Nelson, British Columbia's Kootenay Co-op
Radio. I've been your host Jon Steinman. The theme music for Deconstructing Dinner is
courtesy of Nelson-area resident Adham Shaikh. This radio program is
provided free of charge to campus/community radio stations across the country. Should
you wish to financially contribute to this program, we invite you to offer your
support through our website at cjly.net/deconstructingdinner
or by dialing 250-352-9600. Till next week.
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