Microfarming and the New Markate Estates

Microfarming. You won’t find the term in Webster’s Dictionary just yet. But that’s exactly what we’ve been doing without knowing what to call it. It’s not like we coined the term, either. The blogosphere is awash in aspirational folks like ourselves, some coaxing out a little slice of agricultural heaven on much smaller parcels of land than our two acres. We’ve struggled for years to define what we do with our own little scrap of Earth for years; we’re more than gardeners, not quite farmers. Definitely permaculturists, but that term doesn’t resonate with a lot of people. So--”microfarmers” it is!

A full-time farmer friend of ours was the one to call our fledgling homestead a “microfarm.” (My heart fluttered a little that he thought us worthy of any name with “farmer” in it.) This was a watershed moment for us. Being human (for all intents and purposes) we adore classification. We’ve got to slap a label on something before we can wrap our brains around it. We knew we were onto something big with the long-term “more than just veggies” approach to gardening. Besides, the term “garden” conjures up images of Better Homes and Gardens, or of your Great-Aunt Rosie outside in a floppy hat, kneeling before her rosebushes on a little mat with a pair of shears in her neatly gloved hand. Our garden isn’t quite like that; it extends beyond the boundaries of the eight-foot-tall deer-proof fence, encompassing our entire yard, our sensibilities about what to eat, the most ethical place to buy it, and the ever-expanding boundaries of self-sustainability. We may move compost, dig holes, pinch grubs, and curse flea beetles, but I’ve always cringed at the notion that our little project is something as delicate and Victorian as a “garden.” On the other hand, it sure would be nice if our effort were as attractive as one of those.

Enter the microfarm, which is simply a tiny version of its much bigger predecessor. Microfarms exist in all settings, rural or urban, in zones 3-10 and beyond. A microfarm emulates the techniques of larger operations on a scale that’s realistic for a few people to oversee. In our case, our mentors include several local biodynamic/permaculture-based CSAs. We watch them closely, impressed by their accomplishments, and strive to replicate them on a smaller scale in our own front and back yards. This year, we attended the NOFA NJ Winter Conference in Princeton as proud practitioners, primed to absorb as much practical knowledge as the largest professional farmers in attendance. We no longer make excuses for the size of our endeavor, nor do we apologize to friends and family about our eccentric forays into all manner of organic agriculture. While our process hasn’t changed (although the scope of our work has), the microfarmer label has inspired a small but significant shift in the way we define ourselves and move forward.

I Believe

The Daily Record was nice enough to let me go on at some length about Long Valley Green Market, a marvelous, exhausting experiment that just wrapped up its first season. Time for a long winter's nap to regroup before starting up again in the spring!

Trendspotting

Where all my homeys at? And by “homeys” I mean thirtysomething gardeners interested in permaculture and obscure vegetables, readers of Michael Pollan, preferably not living in Brooklyn. Is that too specific?

Not that I have anything against Brooklyn. But hip urbanites in H&M wardrobes boasting rooftop gardens and apiaries who ply their wares at the Park Slope Co-op, all to an indie-rock soundtrack, give me pause in a way that my neighbor’s farm in rural northwest New Jersey does not.

Do I sound elitist? I don’t mean it that way. Here’s an analogy: In another life, Mark and I were involved in the Baltimore underground music scene. When a local band got signed to a major label, the community perceived the mainstream recognition as both the best and the worst thing that could possibly happen. While we all want our favorite band to make it big, we fear losing the intimate community of early fans. The band blows up and when they visit your hometown on their nationwide tour you have to shell out $50 for a ticket in a stadium just to watch them as a speck on the distant stage. Suddenly everyone you meet is a fan of the band and you no longer feel special. Many of the new fans have an obviously superficial interest, riding the crest of the band’s popularity and then promptly chasing the next wave. But you knew them way back when!

Let’s face it; gardening is trendy right now—which, don’t get me wrong, is wonderful!—but I get a little rankled that the Food Network is jocking my style. When a friend starts asking me questions about starting a garden, they have a hard time getting me to shut up. I fall all over myself to start seeds for them, give them guided tours of my favorite herb farm, research colorful varieties of vegetables that will grow best in their climate, regale them with the pros and cons of raised beds. But when I see Andrew Zimmern yapping about his enthusiasm for local food, I change the channel.

Almost a decade ago, Mark and I planted some tomatoes, corn, and some thyme and basil in the yard of our first little brick house in the unfashionable outskirts of Washington, DC. Before that we grew tomatoes in pots on the tiny balcony of our apartment. The herbs thrived, the tomatoes were decent, and the corn never saw the light of day. The deer ate every single pansy I planted along the front walk, so I replanted and sprayed them with a non-toxic solution that smelled so bad our new neighbors probably thought we were stashing dead bodies in the garage. We struggled through an 18-month siege against the wall of unsettling, phallic bamboo that had initially made our backyard so peaceful and ambient but turned our entire yard into a battlefield.

Every year we have been a little more successful, and our efforts have become more ambitious. By now we’ve read thousands of pages about gardening, hoovered up knowledge from the folks who run our biodynamic CSA, taken courses in food politics, researched recipes to use bizarre scorzonera and bushels of kale, and learned food preservation techniques. In 2009 we moved out to the country and broke ground on a 4,000-square-foot garden. Our passion is authentic and deep, and our enthusiasm can be contagious (and occasionally, I’ll bet, annoying and tedious to our loved ones). We’re slowly but steadily working on acquiring chickens and bees, and on sacrificing most of our considerable lawn to fruit trees. I’m greatly enjoying the proliferation of public discourse about gardening and our nation’s food system, and in fact I believe this discussion is vital to meaningful change. But I don’t feel trendy, and it’s getting harder to discern individuals and organizations that are genuinely like-minded. My beef, for example, is with the local chef (unnamed, to protect the guilty) who tells her customers she’s sourcing her ingredients sustainably from neighboring farms, then goes and buys everything at Wal-Mart.

What a poseur.

Cagematch: Salad vs. Big Mac

The tragedy that is the Farm Bill--read it and weep.

This is why vegetables cost more than fast food.

In Which I Am Given a Soapbox

Behold!

Heinz Owns You: Epilogue

Marion Nestle from Food Politics illustrates why we should be wary of big business calling the shots with our organic food. Goodbye ethics, hello profits!

Heinz Owns You

I wasn't being paranoid after all! (Not on this topic, anyway.) Turns out most of the organic products we buy at the supermarket are actually made by huge international conglomerates. Read it and weep.

Courtesy of Phil Howard at Michigan State University

This doesn't mean that the products are necessarily any less healthy than we thought, although we don't know anything about how or where these foods are processed. But it does mean that buying Odwalla drinks feeds the same corporate machine that has plagued our schools with Coke machines, and I'm not fond of that idea.

What should we do about this? The first answer that comes to mind is to buy as much local food as possible, and to buy as many whole foods (like produce) as possible, so the big guys get as little of our money as possible. But that doesn't mean we're going to stop buying Muir Glen canned tomatoes or Morningstar hot dogs altogether. We are human (and Americans), after all.

Jersey Girl (& Boy)

We spent almost a decade away from New Jersey, where both of us were born and raised. There was a lot we came to love about the Baltimore-DC area, and we really do miss it, but as our 20s waned, we really found ourselves missing our home state. Where else can you can ski, swim in the ocean, and visit farm country, all just an hour away from New York City? There's the literary legacy of Paterson, the pomp and circumstance of Princeton, the colorful populism of underdog Newark, and the Appalachian enclaves of Sussex County's cow country, not to mention the nation's largest poetry festival. Of course, a trip down the Turnpike illustrates where Jersey gets its negative stereotype, but what many don't realize is that Manhattan's finest restaurants would be lost without the excellent products from our favorite local creameries and farms.

When we returned to NJ in 2005, it took us a year or two to hit our stride, seeking out the wine makers, mushroom lovers, biodynamic farms, renowned herbalists, and the best mozzarella in the world (better than Blue Ridge, even!). But now we're firmly entrenched, happy to live in a place where we've found such a diverse wealth of wise, friendly people happy to impart their gardening and artisanal knowledge.

We're sure that other folks are as passionate about their regions as we are about NJ. What are you grateful for in your area? Or for that matter, what do you like best about Jersey?

Starring Monsanto as the Big Bad Wolf!

This recent Slate article by James McWilliams posits that GMO and organic forces need not be at odds with each other, and that genetically modified crops could be good for the environment. I agree with his premise, but note the rampant use of the word "could" in his piece. The way things stand now, it's unlikely that these two entitites will be working together anytime soon. And here's why: The aims of the GMO behemoths like Monsanto and organic farmers are at odds with each other.

Monsanto's only goal is to make lots of money by any means possible. Of course, organic farmers want to make money, too, but their ethics underlie their efforts. Monsanto's genetic modifications solve short-term problems by making their seeds resistant to drought and to pesticides like Roundup—which is sold by Monsanto, of course. McWilliams doesn't mention the problematic notion of corporations patenting seeds, a concept that directly contradicts the tenets of organic farming, which encourages plant diversity, preserving unique and heirloom varieties, and most important, saving seed.

Monsanto sells its patented GMO seed to farmers with the caveat that they are not allowed to save any seeds to plant again the next year, forcing customers to buy new seed every year from the only provider available. Even farmers who don't buy genetically modified seeds can't protect their crops from cross-pollination with GMO crops, which are becoming widespread, so their harvest ends up containing Monsanto's patented genetic material. Monsanto legally owns any seed that contain those genes, so they can—and do—sue farmers essentially for replanting their own seed. In many states, corporate operatives are legally allowed to wander onto farms without permission and take samples to spy on farmers, although some remarkable individuals are fighting back like this North Dakota collective.

Science is a wonderful thing. I'm right in line with Obama's cheerleading; we absolutely should "restore science to its rightful place." Bioengineering has the potential to contribute the amazing benefits McWilliams describes, and then some. But as it stands right now, I would be suspicious of any claims made by GMO folks that include dicey terms like "organic" or "humanitarian." Take the controversial golden rice, for example, which is a genetically modified grain containing additional beta-carotene, designed for farmers in poor nations to help allay Vitamin A deficiency, a particular problem for certain populations in Africa and Southeast Asia. It sure makes for good PR, but golden rice has met with plenty of opposition.

No one is disputing that world hunger is a profound problem; what some take issue with is its oversimplification. The truth is that there's more than enough food in the world to feed all 6.7 billion of us. The problems are availability, distribution, poverty, corrupt governments, and loss of biodiversity. Some scientists make the point that golden rice treats just one symptom rather than the source of malnutrition and argue that it could even increase Vitamin A deficiency in the long run. And even though this "wonder grain" is touted as a humanitarian tool, it's no surprise that the Syngenta corporation, which holds intellectual property rights, is looking to make a fortune out of this situation.

This situation sounds very familiar to me. I used to work for a global non-profit organization that brought technology education to developing countries. They did great work and expanded quickly. When Microsoft became a major funder, they started suggesting nations where they wanted us to direct ourr efforts. We discovered that the areas they targeted were ones where open-source was gaining a foothold, and it became clear that they were scrambling to make these populations reliant on their proprietary software so they could make money off them later. Unsurprisingly, much of their support came in the form of Microsoft products. As with agribusiness, we were looking at corporate PR and strong-arm tactics in the guise of humanitarianism.

GMOs run rampant here in the US. In fact, you can bet that whatever you ate today has some genetically modified ingredients unless they're explicitly labeled otherwise. Note that the FDA actively discourages labels to alert consumers to GMOs in our food. I'm not against GMOs in principle, but I do object to the way they are developed and used here. Monsanto has spent countless dollars and months trying to ban labels that identify milk as hormone-free; other biotech companies won't let independent scientists research the environmental impact of their products. So far the bigwigs are using these powerful genetic tools as little more than a get-rich-quick scheme. On the other hand, true organic farming has been working for centuries to feed people and animals with delicious, nutritious food in a sustainable manner. Score one for organic.

Home-Grown Hullabaloo

As Americans struggle with our economy’s downward turn, it’s interesting to see people’s different reactions to the changing times. Over the past few years, more people found an interest in gardening as local and heirloom food became trendy. Now even more people are starting to grow their own food as food safety and cost effectiveness become motivating factors.

But who knew wielding a trowel could be so controversial? At every turn we’re reading reports and news stories about firestorms surrounding food, land, and gardening issues. On one hand you’ve got Alice Waters’ call for local produce and an organic, edible garden at the White House. Meanwhile, others protest that home-grown White House tomatoes are elitist and frivolous when there are so many kids living within a few miles of the Obamas who subsist on high-fructose corn syrup and fried foods because there are no grocery stores in their neighborhoods. Personally, I think a White House victory garden is a great idea, even if it’s aspirational for kids in Anacostia. I know of a few vacant lots in Northeast DC that would be prime locations for community gardens.

At least both sides of the Obama garden argument are attempting to think about the greater good. The dark side to the second American Gilded Age was an overwhelming sense of entitlement that persists even as our fortunes dwindle. The Slow Cook talks about being invited to consult about a local community garden and being met with outrage when he suggested that gardeners relinquish their tiny individual plots and change their model to be more like that of a CSA. Forget that the space would be used much more efficiently and each person would end up taking home more food, that it would be healthier for the soil because crops could be rotated, and that spaces could be dedicated to valuable perennials and fruit; the members clung desperately to their little boxes.

At the far end of this self-centered approach are the neighborhood associations and spiteful neighbors who resist the idea that a suburban yard is for anything but (meticulously trimmed) grass. The nice ladies at Garden Rant expressed their consternation with one guy who commented on a NY Times blog entry with the following gem:

“I think we are seeing devolution as people lose their jobs and more of my neighbors are growing their own food.”

I never thought of growing my food as anything but charming and perhaps a little indulgent. Now it’s supposedly trashy, on par with a rusty old car up on blocks in the front yard?

I’ve been thinking about how we Americans have been trained, over the past few decades, to believe that we are entitled to everything and don’t have to think about what goes on beyond our own doorstep. Although gardening can be a solitary activity, I know our interest has prompted us to seek out like-minded individuals to learn from, swap experiences, and share seeds. Can this awful economic situation help us rekindle our community ties and de-compartmentalize our lives by forcing us to share limited resources and find creative uses for our living spaces? While a recession is certainly no fun, I’m eager to find out what happens next.