Tumbledown Goes Downwardly Mobile

Tumbledown noticed the spate of articles and editorials today bemoaning the latest census data:

"More Hoosiers sink into poverty, Indianapolis Star, Wednesday, August 30, page 1 above the fold.

"Downward Mobility," New York Times editorial.

"Census Reports Slight Increase in '05 Incomes," New York Times article.

What got Tumbledown's attention was the generalizing nature of the editorials, the hidden assumptions about wealth and poverty (the altogether goodness of one and the wholly unmitigated badness of the other). Especially when Tumbledown hears statistics about the top fifth of earners living in metropolitan areas (90.8 percent vs 9.2 percent rural) and the bottom fifth of earners living in rural areas (21.2 percent rural vs. suburban or city), Tumbledown begins to ask "what were we measuring?" Just cash? What about the bounty of life lived "at nature's pace" (Logsdon), cordoned by sunrise and sunset, shared with a strong community, sustained by fresh produce from one's own place? Doesn't anyone in the census bureau remember Jesus' comment about serving mammon?

The mindless repetition of such statistical claptrap reinforces a stereotype and prejudice that is destructive of rural culture, the most valuable assets of which are not measured in cash. The inability to ask more subtle questions of the census data means that we will continue to offer "strong support for public education, a progressive income tax, affordable health care, a higher minimum wage and other labor protections" (NYT editorial; none of which Tumbledown opposes) as the cure-all remedies for rural and urban poor alike, when what is needed in rural areas is simply a right valuation of rural life and produce.

Such bandying of blunted statistics perpetuates what Gene Logsdon, following Wendell Berry, calls "our hidden wound"--the opposite pole of which is the suburban invention of a "divine right to be mindlessly rich" (emphasis mine; Berry, The Long-Legged House, "The Tyranny of Charity," p. 5; Logsdon, Living at Nature's Pace, p. 50).

Want to feed some country bumpkins with food stamps (with food stamps?) and give them MRIs and CATscans? Fine. But dealing with rural poverty in the abstract, as Berry says, will simply "encourage the exceptional to become ordinary" (p. 10). Let's not follow governmental thievery and neglect with cultural destruction, if there is still a rural culture that can be nourished, celebrated, justly compensated, and protected.

Let's do good and do a good accounting of the things that matter most--so that we may all be enriched--rural, urban and suburban.

Animal Farm

Tumbledown would be remiss if he failed to mention the 61st anniversary of George Orwell's classic farming handbook, first published after a year and a half delay (to satisfy the publisher, and perhaps also some British censors, that Russia would not be unduly offended) in August 1945. It should be some small comfort that the satire is still required reading in the U.S., along with Nineteen Eighty-Four, in many High School and college literature classes. Mostly, with the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, we've exorcised our "communist" demons. But totalitarianism of all sorts is still with us, especially the sort that says "if you are not with us, you are against us" (in the words of The Seven Commandments, "whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy"; "whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend"). In other words, the sort of totalitarianism that gives rise to animal revolutions in the first place is still all too much with us. After all, Eric Blair begins his classic "fairy tale" with Mr. Jones and his last glass of beer, not with the comrade pigs.

Tumbledown thinks we still have a few things to learn from Mr. Orwell's farm--and not just to use a lantern, shut the popholes on the hen-houses, and mow and rake with Boxer and Clover. Some animals are still "more equal than others." Too many farms are still Manor Farm and too many farmers still rulers less-than-entirely great.

Haven't read it in a while? Check out Animal Farm,The 50th Anniversary Edition. And while you are at it, listen to NPR's Day to Day, with Alex Chadwick's tribute to the book, August 17, 2005.

Fuel Farming = Big Corn = Big Oil & Bad Farming

Tumbledown gulped with great pride and appreciation as the Indianapolis Star devoted a whole section (OK, it wasn't section A,B,C,D,E, or even F; it was section "G"...for green; Thursday, August 17, 2006) to farming. Hey, there was even a red barn on a cover page that was otherwise the color of growing corn (but some of that green was from weeds, despite the chemical and mechanical perfection of the picture. I guess no one on that farm has heard of an invention called the cultivator...or the hoe, for that matter. (And, of course, there isn't an animal in sight.)

But I digress. The Friday (August 18) edition of the Star included an editorial entitled "Pumped up about ethanol" in which the Star took the position that "ethanol could be one soure of helping nation reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil." The editor did at least start with the caveat that "much work remains"...fantasy about what "could be" is not yet passing entirely as reality. What about the arguments attributed to Senator Richard Lugar and Purdue University President Martin Jischke? Let's take them in turn:

1) It is in our national interest to reduce dependence on imported oil. Let's see, last time I checked, most of the corn grown in Indiana was planted in fields prepared by tractors burning oil, in planters burning oil, dressed with chemical fertilizers and oil-based herbicides and pesticides, and, of course, harvested with huge machines chugging oil. The manufacture of all of the machinery and the storage facilities requires the use of oil...and that's all before we get to the production of the ethanol from the corn. Can the Star be so confident that ethanol production actually reduces dependence on foreign oil when a comprehensive accounting is done of the way the corn is produced and shipped for ethanol? Perhaps if our current corn "surplus" had been produced by horse-drawn plows, using manure as the primary fertilizer, then we could talk about a real reduction of dependence on foreign oil. But without the consumption of all that foreign oil, we wouldn't have the surplus to turn into E85.

2) The Star's list of "solutions" to the crisis of dependence on foreign oil is laudable in the main, especially the call to conservation and mass transit (in Indianapolis?), but the exaltation of E85 to an "important" answer to the nation's energy needs is a bit much. Bravado, really.

3) The recognition that something other than corn (e.g., the President's infamous "switchgrass") might be made into ethanol is comforting, especially given corn's drain on the soil (requiring more pesticides and herbicides to grow, and still more loss of soil fertility than with other crops)...and the temptation for farmers to "squeeze as much corn production as agronomics will allow" from every acre. (Tom Holloway Jr., as quoted by Jeff Swiatek in his Thursday article, "Fuel of the Future?") If Swiatek's reporting is correct, Holloway intends to abandon even the modicum of a two-year rotation (classic corn/soybean) for "continuous corn year after year." That's what Tumbledown means by a partial accounting of the cost of Ethanol. A full accounting would include acres of land ruined by such monocrop greed. ...not to mention the genetic modification of all those non-corn candidates for ethanol production, some of which are naturally occuring grasses that will not easily be confined to the plots where they are grown.Tumbledown was not entirely negative about the reporting (cheerleading). Vasanth Sridharan's report, "Environmental Benefit: It's open to discussion," was both "fair and balanced" (to borrow a trademark).

A Good Walk Spoiled by Monsanto

John Feinstein's well-known chronicle of golfing's challenges (A Good Walk Spoiled) should be warning enough that difficult pursuits are often accompanied by painful failure. But it is one thing to miss a hole-in-one, and something else altogether to misjudge the risk that genetic modifications now introduced into plants (and animals) will remain benign or entirely beneficial. It is one thing to spoil a game, another to despoil the landscape for greener ($$$) greens. So it was with melancholy that Tumbledown learned on the same morning that Monsanto would acquire the Delta and Pine Land Company, maker of "Roundup ready" (herbicide glyphosate) and "pest-resistant" cotton and soybean seed, and that ecologists at the EPA had confirmed the common sense notion that genetically modified grass will escape the neat little test plots where it is supposedly confined. Not only will grass pollen spread 13 miles downwind, but the seeds will leak out of bags in transit, be knocked off spreaders into areas not usually maintained by a golf course (will go to seed in the coarser highways and byways--the rougher rough on the edges of a course) and be washed and blown every which way but Sunday. Monsanto isn't the only troublemaker in this instance. Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, supposed friend of gardeners (the high class dealer for chemical gardening addicts), is the manufacturer of the genetically modified bentgrass variety.

Tumbledown sighed and gave thanks that he does not use roundup to control his grass and weeds (there is something to be said for old-fashioned mechanical cultivation), then prayed that Monsanto would find a more honorable and less profitable line of work.

Now, time to drown our troubles in a bowl of oat cereal and berries.

Yum!

References: (NY Times) Monsanto Buys Delta; Engineered Grass Found Growing in Wild; Grass Created in Lab is Found in the Wild

A Visit to the Indiana State Fair

Tumbledown and family attended the sesquicentennial (150th) celebration of the Indiana State Fair

on Friday and was pleased to see that farming--especially the raising of animals (poultry and rabbits, cattle, horses [especially draft horses], sheep and goats, and swine) and the history of farming--are still central to the event.

Tumbledown always enjoys a visit to the Pioneer Village, with its array of antique tractors and its focus on demonstrating traditional arts and crafts. But he was disappointed as usual to see most of the equipment (threshers, shellers, plows, and the like) sitting on the floor gathering dust or hanging from the rafters like so many "objects de art."

One area certainly worth the effort of a visit is the art exhibition entitled "Painting Indiana II: The Changing Face of Agriculture," a collection of 40 paintings on the third floor of the Clarian Health Home & Family Arts builiding. The exhibit is a collaborative effort of The Barn (The Center for Agricultural Science & Heritage; contact Justin Armstrong, jarmstrong@indianastatefair.com; and see the article in the Indianapolis Star) at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and the Indiana Plein Air Painters Association. The work of these ten "plein air" painters is certainly worth seeing "life size" as well as in the book by the same title. Of course, Tumbledown appreciated the paintings based on "the family farm" and nearly choked on the one that showed a space-age hovercraft harvesting corn. "Just sayin', 't'aint nat'ral."

Another highlight was the blarny spun by a young lady from "Barn Tours" of Granbury, TX.

But most of all, it was and always is the animals that grab Tumbledown's attention, especially the "World's Largest Boar"

and the Grand Champion and Reserve Champion Sows with their litters.

Enjoy the menagerie.

Why Farming is Worship...and GM is Sin

It probably isn't a shock that Tumbledown reads his Bible. Or that he has finally discovered the verse that says "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it." (He didn't have to read that far, just to Genesis 2:15, NRSV.) But it may surprise you to find out that Tumbledown is something of a Hebrew scholar. The Hebrew words for "till" and "keep" in Genesis 2 are "`abad" (often translated "to worship" as in Exodus 3:12) and "shamar" ("keep" as in "keep the 10 Commandments, Exodus 20:6). In other words, the Lord's first plan for humankind was that we fulfill our religious duty by farming!

When Tumbledown read that "the LORD God planted a garden in Eden," he figured that God would surely understand his recent prayers about pesky rabbits, voracious bugs, and bouts of blight. ...but I digress.

As everyone knows, the first couple sinned by crossing willy nilly into God's domain. They crossed another gardener's fence, so to speak, and stole some of his fruit. They did it to "be like God, knowing good from bad." (Or maybe because God's tomatoes were looking better than theirs.) And, as a result, they had to leave the garden.

And that brings me to genetically modified (GM) seeds. I have two reasons for thinking that GM is sin, and the first is perhaps the most significant: 1) GM results in fewer farmers and 2) GM substitutes human wisdom for divine. The first concern is known to GM supporters like Deroy Murdock ("Down on the biotech farm," Indianapolis Star, January 21, 2005): this technology "likely will displace superfluous agricultural laborers." Perhaps worship is superfluous and perhaps we are content to continue driving ourselves out of Eden, but for much of human history we have understood this state of affairs as tragic and sinful. Even the Greeks understood the second point: GM is hubris. Again, GM supporters sometimes recognize the human potential to err (our inability to "be like God," always knowing "good from bad"), but their counsel is like that of the serpent, "you ssssshall not cccccccertainly die." (Murdock, quoting one African approvingly, "If it creates problems, we can stop using it.) If? Try when. We do all know by now that we will die, right? (The headline above the article printed on the verso page from Murdock's reads: "Human error botches experiment on Saturn mission." The AP article begins, "David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space.")

Tumbledown knows that there is no magical boundary beyond which, when we step, will result diabolical "Frankenfoods" that "unleash unimaginable horrors." But he also knows the human propensity for self deception, error, and...well, sin. In other words, he sees the irony of an opinion piece advocating the renewed use of nuclear power (Jack Corpuz, "Boost state's energy supply with nuclear power," July 23, 2006) in the same paper that runs a story about massive "structural flaws" in the design and construction of a library. Better a library than a nuclear power plant. ("Blueprint for Failure: $153 Million Mess") Better local, low tech mistakes with a horse and plow or a shovel and hoe, than the escape of air born pollen from GM food. That's all Tumbledown is saying.

So, let's stay in the garden a little longer and find a way to tell Monsanto that we prefer to worship another Lord. ("Lord of the seeds," The Economist, January 29, 2005; "Monsanto Co. to Pay $1 Billion For Produce-Seed Firm Seminis," Wall Street Journal)

Put the Romance Back in Farming

Tumbledown agrees with Jonah Goldberg that agricultural subsidies to U.S. farmers and tariffs (and other trade barriers) should stop. ("Welfare kings ride high on their tractors," Indianapolis Star, Saturday, August 5, 2006; see National Review.) However, Mr. Goldberg is wrong about several of the details with which he supports his argument. First, it is wrong to say that agricultural subsidies "prop up the last of the horse-and-buggy industries." The "hugely energy intensive" industry ("immoral agricultural corporatism") against which Goldberg rails is neither mom-and-pop nor horse-and-buggy.

If the farmers about whom Goldberg writes are plowing with horses, Tumbledown will eat his straw hat.

Secondly, while it is true that fewer than 1 in 100 workers today is employed in agriculture (down from 9/10 of workers in 1776), this factoid causes Tumbledown great consternation, while Goldberg sees farming as a "luxury" that developed nations can easily afford to do without. Tumbledown is not alarmist, because there are signs of a revival among small farms. And today's small-scale farmers will feed Goldberg well enough when an unforseen event prevents foreign imports of food from arriving to his table in a timely manner.

I guess the difference between Tumbledown and Goldberg is that Tumbledown thinks the romance about family farms is justified and that a community of small farms has benefits that warrant support for family farming as a bedrock of our culture, while Goldberg is willing to throw them out with the bathwater that passes for farming today. Goldberg is only "in favor of farming when it's economically feasible." (emphasis added)

Tumbledown is in favor of farming. (Period!) By all means, let us farm sustainably, organically, without the environmental degredation that Goldberg decries. But for heaven's sake, let's farm! Tumbledown is such a romantic.

A Good Farmer?

Tumbledown Farmer is pleased that the Star continues to publish stories that question the sale of farmland. But that was not the emphasis on the front page of the Business Section this Sunday ("Attached to the Land," Indianapolis Star, July 30, 2006). Sure, farming is business, but for the better farmers it is also a calling, so there was much with which to argue. Tumbledown Farmer found especially aggravating the assumption by Roger DuMond (Kova Fertilizer agronomist) trumpeted by Norm Heikens (reporter) that "good farmers...farm a lot of acres in a mechanized manner." The implication drawn by the reporter is that "poorer soils...breed a less prosperous, more cautious farmer." The statement could have been accepted as merely descriptive (perhaps even received with some literary approbation if the article had approached the classic descriptiveness of, say, James Agee's and Walker Evans's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; see August 25, 2006, NY Times article on the artistry of Walker Evans), except that it was paired so closely with the previous statement as to castigate the farmers with small holdings of lesser quality land as "bad farmers" (not directly stated, but certainly implied).

Tumbledown has to ask, do "good farmers" really "lunge" at the chance to sell the most fertile soils and "bad farmers" hesitate to sell poorer soils?

Again, the too prevalent assumption that "the exclusive function of the farmer is production and that his major discipline is economics" goes unchallenged. (Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony, "Discipline and Hope," p. 127) Perhaps that is excusable in a business page article, but I hope not. The article betrayed a commitment to efficiency and specialization in agriculture (another word for a destructive exploitation of the land) that exalts annual production and industrial degredation of the land over the maintenance of fertility. The article applauds the quick courage of a few big farmers whose lack of attachment to the land they farm is evident. And diminishes the courage of the small farmers "whose allegiance to their land, continuing and deepening in association from one generation to another, would be the motive and guarantee of good care." (ibid., p. 93; see also pp. 91-92). It takes courage to farm poor land well.

Tumbledown also asks how can it be "good" for the richest Indiana farmland to be underneath a Honda plant? How "good" can a community remain that not only allows, but welcomes and applauds, the sale of the richest farmland not to the best farmers, but to manufacturing plants? Are there not urban wastelands in Indianapolis that are good enough to pave over for such factories? (Or sports arenas?)

Tumbledown Farmer thinks the reporter should have quoted Confucius to the fertilizer salesman: "The best fertilizer on any farm is the footsteps of the owner." Bad soil can be made better with the addition of humus. Give "good" farmers, the kind who become "attached" to their land and reluctant to sell, time and a supportive community and their "bad" land will improve. "On the other hand, if shiftless greedy men have exploited it [or sold it to Honda], there will be little left that is any longer worth anything either to the owner or to the nation." (Louis Bromfield, Pleasant Valley, "The World within the Earth," p. 156)

"A good farmer, a 'live' farmer is not one who goes into the field simply to get the job of plowing completed because he must first turn over the soil in order to plant the crops that will bring him in a little money." Instead, he walks the ground and "sees the humus in his good earth and counts the earthworms...[and] knows that out of the soil comes everything." (ibid., pp. 157-158).

The "good" farmer is firmly attached to the land she farms.