The Dirt 2008

The Greatest Environmental Threat:  Agriculture? 
Kaitlin Harrigan -08
Acclaimed scientist Jeremy B.C. Jackson recently visited Dickinson and gave a phenomenal lecture for the college community detailing his work on the over-fishing crisis and the accelerated extinction of marine species.  While his hard data alone was enough to move anyone to panic concerning the state of our natural world, his candor convinced me that I need to help instigate a social movement for conservation in everyday life.  He also said something intuitive, but it caught me off guard, as I am happily immersed in the world of sustainable agriculture.  Dr. Jackson stated that “agriculture is the greatest threat to the environment.” 
Guilt was my reaction.  Can we take it for granted that sustainable agriculture isn’t a part of the problem?  Other sustainable efforts have come under scrutiny in light of unforeseen environmental impacts.  Gene Wingert recently presented the issue of windmill-caused bird mortality to my Energy Resources class.  Windmills are seen as bright beacons of renewable energy, and yet they may have a devastating impact on our migratory bird populations, which would, in turn, disrupt entire trophic cascades and ecosystems.  We can’t make the assumption that “sustainable” and “renewable” technologies or practices have no negative impact.  Sustainable agriculture takes a huge departure from conventional farming in methodology, but, it is still agriculture, so, is it still part of the problem?  For starters, I took a look at agriculture in general.
A recent book by Dr. Jason Clay, head of the Center for Conservation Innovation at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), details the startling facts of current agricultural and environmental trends.  Titled World Agriculture and the Environment, his book describes how inefficient farming is driving deforestation, pollution, ocean degradation and species loss, and constitutes the most serious environmental threat in the world today.  He highlights the tremendous inefficiency of modern agricultural practices.  For instance, modern agriculture wastes 60 percent, or 1.5 trillion liters, of the 2.5 trillion liters of water that it uses each year.  Agriculture uses more than half of the planet’s habitable area, including land that should not be farmed, and destroys some 100,000 square miles of forests and other critical species habitat annually.  Conventional farming uses chemicals and heavy machinery that are proven to cause environmental harm.  Objective analysis and hard data can easily prove both Dr. Clay and Dr. Jackson’s assertion that agriculture is the greatest threat to the environment. 

As I read more about our agricultural-environmental crisis, I came to see that not only is agriculture taking a toll on the environment, it also had an integral role in shaping human society and producing the myriad of problems we now face.
Dr. Jared Diamond’s well known 1987 Discover article, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” makes a convincing case for the idea that agriculture has produced the ills of our race, and, in turn, the environment.  The shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture transformed the way humans interact with the Earth and each other.  Because grain is easily stored (and wild plants and meat are not), the human existence became more populous and crowded, more sedentary, and, ultimately, more excessive with the expansion of agriculture.  Diamond counters the argument that agriculture has made our lives better by pointing out how agriculture has made our lives worse. 
Huge monocrops of high-carbohydrate crops dominate farmland today, yielding poor nutrition.  Diamond states that before the switch to agriculture occurred, foraging societies enjoyed a diet rich in variety and nutrition, and therefore better health.  He also points out that foraging societies were not dependent on just one crop, and therefore were far less susceptible to starvation than farming communities were thousands of years ago and still are today.  Interestingly, agriculture affected human health in another significant way:  crowded societies produced by agriculture allowed for the transmission of parasites and infectious diseases. 
On a broader scale, agriculture gave rise to deep class divisions within human communities, as individuals were able to stockpile grain surplus and social hierarchies formed to deal with commerce and trade.  Agriculture also may have encouraged the subjugation of women, as farming societies required more labor and therefore more pregnancies.  In some agricultural communities, women were also made to be beasts of burden.  Clearly, much of our social fabric can be attributed to agriculture.
These are seemingly abstract and unrelated issues, but they contribute very much to the modern issue of agriculture’s threat to the environment.  If agriculture is counterproductive for human health and well-being, it is also counterproductive for the environment.  We are the culprits in the environmental crisis – we are the one inflicting the damage.  If humans are not healthy and not happy, if we can’t really take care of ourselves, then we certainly won’t be bothered to take care when it comes to the environment.  Successful and productive as our human world may seem, we have actually created our own hell.  The vast majority of the human population in “developed” countries is completely dependent on the industrial and agricultural system in place. 

Sustainable agriculture strives to right the wrongs of modern, conventional farming, and not just in terms of resources.  Sustainable and organic agriculture focuses on the holistic health of the land and all who inhabit it, not just people.  The practices and ideas behind sustainable agriculture strive to balance the relationship between human and nature.  It is a respectful paradigm, but it also has undertones of self-sufficiency and independence.  We are living beings and we do need to eat, and in our society very few people have the knowledge, the means, or the willpower to provide food for themselves.  Therefore, agriculture must persist in some sense; the intensive cultivation of the land must continue simply to feed our burgeoning population, but it doesn’t have to ensure ecological ruin. 
In conclusion, the answer to my earlier question is complex and incomplete.  (Can we take it for granted that sustainable agriculture isn’t a part of the problem?)  No, I don’t think we should take the innocuous nature of sustainable agriculture for granted, but sustainability is a difficult standard to achieve.  What matters most right now is that we are working toward solutions to our problems and not standing idle.  Drip irrigation, crop rotation, cover crops, compost, no-till cultivation, organic pest and weed control, diversified crops, beneficial insect habitat, and renewable energy are a few tools of the sustainable trade – but will they be enough?  We can not “wait and see.”

References
Clay, Jason.  2008.  World Agriculture and the Environment.  Island Press:  Washington, D.C.
Diamond, Jared. The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. Discover, May 1987.

  (Im)maculate conception
By Rachel Winner-‘09

Bare feet connect me to the earth.
This morning’s lecture on deforestation in the Amazon
the piles of books on religious violence teetering on the corner of the desk
beneath my dark green mug waiting impatiently to be filled with steaming coffee for a long evening
and the graphs and charts of simulative monetary policy from last night’s homework all dissipate as I step from the truck and the sun beats into my back
Swirling specks of the land stick to my eyelashes
Like rose colored glasses.

The smells of sweet grass, and raw brown age and youth spiral by  trap me in nostalgia for this moment.

The world stops spinning out of control
and I cradle the next generation of life in my palm
place the seed deep into the soil’s womb to protect it from the chaos for just a few months more.
I let my whole body sink down into the loamy earth, mingling with the hay and clods And watch it all drift by for a time

 The silence breaks subtly as the sheep bleat off in the distance, persuading me to continue with my task.
We smooth over the soil
And water swirls over the plots of freshly impregnated earth
A soft shade of rust fills in the crevices of my fingerprints
We are connected – my identity and hers.
My hope. Her future.  

Bringing the Movement Home:
The 100- Mile Diet, Local Eating for Global Change

Maggie Stonecash-08
As for-profit globalization plows onward, our local economies, environments, health and food production continue to be left behind in disarray. In the face of the constantly emerging global economy, the green movement is attempting to bring the food revolution back to our backyards. One of the many tactics for promoting local foods in hopes of shrinking the distance between the consumer and producer is the 100 Mile Diet. This simple experiment in local eating was born in 2005 from two Canadian residents, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon. For one year, they would attempt to live off drink and food from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver. Their simple experiment might not have been so simple but sure was successful. Now hundreds of individuals and grassroots groups are attempting this diet in hopes of reducing their carbon footprint and supporting local farmers and producers.
                The 100 Mile Diet is a drastic reduction from the typical 1,500 Mile Diet. Most North Americans participate in this SUV diet when they sit down to eat. Each ingredient has typically traveled 1,500 miles from farm to plate. The misconception is that this is the only way possible. A regional diet consumes 17 times less oil and gas than a typical diet based on food shipped across the country. In addition, money spent at a local food business stays in the local economy and has almost twice the value and contribution in the local economy as the dollar spent at the supermarket chain. Due to the way our food production system has been set up, there is an effort that must be made by the consumer to eat locally but the 100-mile diet is possible and becoming more and more feasible. Yet, we have to use our dollars and mouths to rework the infrastructure to re-develop and utilize the resources that are closest to us. The more consumer support there is, the more possible a local food diet will become for our whole nation.
                When the first experimenters were interviewed about their cold turkey 100mile diet they admitted that it was hard and time consuming at first. Due to their location on the West coast it took them seven months to find a rogue local farmer who grows wheat. Those seven months they ate a lot of potatoes! They admitted that this full commitment is the hard way and is not for everyone. A more realistic approach is to start with a totally 100-mile meal and move from there. Once you begin to find local sources, your opportunities will only continue to expand from there. As Alisa and James expressed the 100-Mile Diet is about learning by doing. It is a learning experiment in a new way of living. Local eating is an adventure in getting to know the seasons, the environment around you, the resources and people around you, the foods you eat and how to prepare and cook them, and in self-sufficiency.
                The two largest obstacles you hear about are expense and feasibility based on location. The campaigners for the 100-mile diet claim that it was only expensive in the beginning. Most of us pay a big premium for out –of-season foods like cherries in winter or prepared foods like spaghetti sauce, usually with a long list of ingredients we would refer not ingest. Eating locally, they bought fresh ingredients in season and direct from the farmer. They bought mostly in bulk and preserved food for the winter so they rarely had to buy groceries. They indeed bet that most people eating a typical diet could save money by eating locally.
                They claim that local eating is never impossible, as they have eaten 100-mile meals in New York City, the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, and at 55 degrees north latitude. Yes, there are places where it is easier and places where it is harder, but with some planning and patience it is possible. And just think if more than individual groups of people were attempting this diet. If this grassroots movement continues to grow and spreads to the large organizations, businesses, schools, and restaurants real change in the infrastructure of our global food systems could happen on a larger scale. You have the ability to change your diet and the world.
                 Check out www.100milediet,org to find your own 100-mile food shed and to help you get started tracking farmers and markets in your radius. The website has turned into a locus for information and resources for 100 miler individuals and grassroots groups involved in this movement. In addition, the trailblazers, James and Alisa have published a book about their year on the 100-mile diet. Other great online resources include localharvest.org, foodroutes.org, newfarm.org, and specifically in PA; buylocalpa.org.
If you are still not convinced of why it is so important to eat locally you can check out their 13 lucky reasons on the website that will be sure to tip you over the line.

“The Things We Grow”
By Allie Schaefer-‘10

I don’t know where life will lead me
But I’m glad I’ve found my way here.
With the wind and the sun and sometimes, the rain,
I can feel the child within me–
The girl who played in fields and forests and mud.
Carefree and happy, she was a part of nature.

Here, I can be that girl again.
When I plant a seed in the earth,
When I help build a greenhouse,
When my hands become calloused and dirty-
I unite with the earth to help create something
And to help sustain life.

Here, on the farm,
I have found peace and happiness.
I continue to grow like the plants we care for.
Wherever life may lead me next,
I will always have a home here
And a part of my heart.

Here, on the farm,
I have discovered so much about myself.
I have learned that I must integrate
My childhood self with my adult one, and
That I can appreciate and contribute
To the beauty of nature.

Amidst a big grey barn, a humid greenhouse,
A noisy tractor, budding beds, bleating sheep,
The most loveable black-and-white farm dog,
And good friends-
I connect better to myself and to the world
When I’m at the farm.

Bogalusa, 1952- Will Crain ‘08
For My Grandfather
From the front porch you watched two men shuffle their feet in the stubbled cornfield.  You imagined the crunch of cut stalks under the weight of your father’s oiled leather boots, the pair you would carefully lace your feet into after your parents had gone to bed.

Rifle in hand, your father addressed him.  He was a stranger, bible-black, caught trespassing.  Your land was a shortcut from the bus station to town, he said. 

A month before, you and your father tilled the same field.  Taking turns on the worn Ford tractor, he showed you how to lay blade to the rich, compact soil; how to turn the top layer of turf over and let older earth breathe.
 
The gun rested snug against your father’s shoulder, the end a dull keyhole; a rusted omphalos eyeing origins.

The two men talked only a minute.  They parted and your father watched the man leave through the front gate.

In a week, you would take to the field alone. Now old enough, you would mount the same worn tractor and plow the same field, letting it lay fallow for next season.

Feeding the World
Wanted: Agricultural Innovation
by Ben Sedlins – ‘09

In recent weeks, the world has been wracked by riots and political unrest in response to the soaring prices of basic food stuff.  Activists are calling this a global food crisis, which many claim is a direct result of the inequitable global agricultural industry, as well as increased corn usage to produce ethanol.    

With the world’s population expected to reach 7.5 billion by the year 2020, and global climate change threatening to drastically alter climates worldwide, food production will be a crucial humanitarian issue in the years to come.  Solutions to this problem will require careful understanding of the dynamics of the crisis as well as innovation regarding current technologies and techniques. 

The first stages of this innovation have already been seen, with the rise in popularity of organic farming, hydroponic farming and genetically altered species.  To highlight one example of a potential solution, hydroponics is a relatively new approach to farming which attempts to maximize the use of each key resource needed in agriculture; namely water, nutrients and space.

Hydroponic farming involves growing plants suspended so that their roots are continuously bathed in a trickle of nutrient-enriched water.  Because of the constant recycling of the water, and the abundance of the nutrients available directly to the plants roots, hydroponics maximizes the plants’ use of both these resources.  Because there is no competition between plants for nutrients, they can be grown much closer together, thereby reducing the amount of space required.

Hydroponic farming appears extraordinarily unnatural at first glance – how could growing plants without soil ever work?  Originally developed by NASA to hypothetically feed long-term space missions, hydroponics has always taken a semi-radical approach to the demands we place on agriculture.  But in this radicalization, we have been able to extend intense farming production to areas where it would otherwise be unthinkable.  Take Israel for example, a country with one-tenth the yearly average rainfall of the US.  Through implementing hydroponic farms, they have been able to maximize their use of water to great effect.

Hydroponics represents a departure from the traditional, agro-industry of today’s world and displays precisely the type of innovation that will satiate the world’s appetite.  Some inventors envision hydroponic skyscrapers in the middle of urban centers around the world, feeding
the surrounding population with minimal transportation costs and maximum output.  It is thinking like this that will solve the global food crisis.

However, it should not be assumed that hydroponics represents a cure-all for the current problem.  Rather, this method of farming should be part of a complete reevaluation of, and subsequent solution to, how we want our food produced, and how we plan to feed our world.

Dickinson Students Need the Farm
They Just Don’t Know it
Curtis Lentz ‘10
As I walk up the gravel road, taking in the rolling hills in front of me, the smell of fresh air and the distinct odor of compost, I am able to think deeper, even clearer than I could ever have within the confines of the Library walls.  The outdoors is a place for people to return to their true roots.  It’s an opening into who we are as human beings, where we came from and most importantly where we’re going. 
I grew up spending every waking hour in the outdoors, a luxury that many people don’t have.  This connection that I established with the outdoors at such a young age translates directly into my life today.  My passion for the environment and the outdoors was set in motion well before I knew the words sustainability and organic.  There was something innate about my love for the outdoors and my concern with always having it around me.  My parents did not preach to me about the importance of the outdoors nor did they ever force me to immerse myself in the natural world.  Something that was already hard wired in my brain, in my spirit, at birth simply told me that I belonged out there.  I belonged in nature not as an intruder but as another piece of the complex puzzle of the environment.
I firmly believe that if everyone in the world had similar experiences as I have had in the outdoors than global warming would not be a debated topic.  As societies move farther and farther away from their connection to the natural world, human beings begin to loose sight of the importance of the outdoors.  I am not suggesting that if every child in the United States was taken on a weekend hiking trip that they would all grow up with environmentalism in the forefront of their concerns.  However, I am arguing that it is important for every person to have a place to go that will allow them, if they feel the need, to immerse themselves in nature, to feel that innate bond.  The campus farm provides students at Dickinson College the perfect outlet for this desire.  Not only does it provide students the opportunity to settle their need for a connection to the natural world but also plays a “lead by example” role within the Dickinson and Carlisle communities.  In the short time that I have had the privilege of working on the farm I have seen subtle, yet promising changes within the Dickinson community.  The most prevalent example is student’s willingness to compost.  From the beginning of the year to the time that the school purchased the new pulper, the amount of compost increased.  Student no longer thought that composting was “un-cool” or that the three seconds extra it took to scrape their plate just wasn’t worth it.  Recently a student that had volunteered at the farm for only one day, earning community service hours for his fraternity, called me the very next day asking to come back and bring a friend this time.  When I asked him why he liked working at the farm so much he responded by telling me he grew up in New York City and was never exposed to an environment like the campus farm.  After his first day he said that he would like to volunteer as much as he could. 
It is such stories that lend themselves to the theory that everyone has a need to connect to the outdoors.  It is simply a matter of making it available to them and that is exactly what the Dickinson College Farm does.

“The Blustery Day”
By Deb Hicks – ‘08
Disclaimer: I actually love composting.

One sunny winter afternoon, I was heading to the farm.  As the full bed of the truck testified, I was on weekend compost duty.  Despite the beautiful rays I could feel inside the cab, outside it was a chilly day, made downright freezing by the additional wind factor.  The bosses, Jenn and Matt, were away for the day, so I was on my own.  “No problem,” I thought.  “Last time I used the tractor [now ‘necessary’ in our composting process] was just the other day.”…also the first time I’d ever run it. 
So I arrived, got out of the cozy, compost-smelling cab, and opened the back latches, exposing the bed full of food waste.  I backed the truck up a bit more, aligning the open bed with the bucket of the tractor, trying to make my work as easy as possible.  Before beginning the process of unloading, I pulled myself onto the tractor, thankful that last-minute logic had convinced me to layer up with the works—from Under Armour and wool socks, to winter hat, scarf, and gloves.  I grabbed the ear protection, which I tried adjust over my hat, all the while hoping I remembered how to not kill myself or the tractor.  Ok.  Key retrieved, clutch in, engine on, I’m good to go.  I remove the ear-gear and jump back down, attempting unsuccessfully to avoid the two inches of pure, spa-quality mud that covered the face of the farm after the recent rains. 
On the truck, I start unloading.  The bins are so heavy I sometimes suspect management of throwing in an unproductive café worker, most probably a high-schooler.  This consistently turns out not to be the case, as I realize the heaviest containers are inevitably full spaghetti—complete with sauce and, if you’re lucky, meatballs too.  The café must have recently served spaghetti.  There’s so much waste, I’ll have to return with the tractor for another run—the bucket is full.
Between the unloading and the chasing after the bags and Wendy’s cups and plastic ice-cream wrappers that, on that particularly windy day, wanted nothing to do with the compost, the tractor had more than enough time to heat up.  I climbed back in control, this time buckling my seatbelt and securing my ear protection as if I were at the mercy of another.  I certainly felt that way given the ferocious wind, which licked up the mud under the tires, threatening to throw it in my face.  Instead my scarf and the tassels on my hat blew in my face, and my hands, frozen in gloves soaked with mysterious juices, were themselves too violated to do anything about it. 
                As I rounded the greenhouse with the tractor, I remembered what Jenn had told me—there were a bunch of birds gathering around the compost pile, attracted by the poorly covered scraps.  “Be certain,” she advised, “to cover the pile with enough leaves so to discourage the birds.”  Again, not a problem.  It only took me three tries to scoop up a bucket-full of leaves on our practice run the previous weekend. Maybe the difficult maneuver—20 degree angle on the lip of the bucket, just above the ground, accelerate…lever Forward! Right! LeftAndBackAndStop! accelerating…—would naturally come to me in a moment of need.  Maybe.
                I soon found myself repeating this maneuver, luckily only three times, until I managed to collect a decent load of the dried matter.  This was just enough time for me to realize that it wasn’t yet time for the leaves; I had first to return once more to the truck.  “If only I had remembered before!” I thought.  What was done was done.  I put the tractor in reverse.  When the clutch was in for the change to forward, I looked up and to my left.  A huge flock of seagulls, straight from Hitchcock’s The Birds was swarming over the compost I had just dumped five minutes earlier.  Thank goodness I wouldn’t have to deal with them yet!  I escaped in the tractor as fast as I could…but it wasn’t fast enough.  They must have seen me!  All of the sudden all of the giant birds take flight, heading in my general direction.  The tractor’s open cab wouldn’t be enough to protect me—I was completely vulnerable even with my seatbelt and ear protection.  Just as the mass was nearly overhead, a powerful gust of wind came, and I was dabbled with white splotches!  One fell in my eye and I immediately started to panic.  I had a friend who inhaled pigeon droppings on a mission trip and was in and out of the hospital for the following months. 
                I could not longer feel or see any obstruction in my eye, but myself and the tractor were still speckled.  What filthy birds!  What a sick way to ‘rain’ on my parade!  “I’ll show them whose boss when I bury that compost so deep in leaves they’d might as well ask for food at the local drive-thru!—they’d have more luck than returning here!”  Just as this thought was swelling in my head another gust of wind came, bringing with it more white particles.  Wait.  The birds at this point were downwind.  One sec.  So it wasn’t them after all.  “What is this strange substance?” I remember thinking as I touched the pure white on my navy blue sleeve.  It was snow!  Or something very close to it...It came in those two gusts and that was it.  
                I felt silly but relieved as I drove across the farm to finish the compost.  Psychologically tainted by the experience, I couldn’t help but think of Winnie the Pooh and his “Blustery Day,” of which all I could remember was that a windy day led to a crazy nightmare.  My brief ‘nightmare’ having ended, I was once again in the truck, this time headed back to campus.  As the hefty Ethel May plowed her way back, I thought of my wind-proof apartment and the nice warm shower that awaited me.  But I couldn’t help but also think of the farm—another ‘home’ to me, not just because of the farm ‘family’ I’ve found there, but also thanks to it endless supply of crazy-fantastic adventures.

2007-2008 Farm Crew

Front L-R
Kaitlin HArrigan, Allie Schaefer, Maggie Stonecash, Deb Hicks, Rachel Winner
Back L-R:  Curtis Lentz, Will Crain, Ben Sedlins
Missing Overseas: Jenn Carson, Megan Wummer