SENTIENT TIMES
April/May 2009
Stimulating Local Agriculture
Jody Woodruff
Dan Armstrong describes himself as a community minded writer. Others might say author, journalist, activist. In any case, in addition to his writing, Dan is also committed to four interrelated community projects focusing on local sustainability, all directed toward improving the quality of life in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Primarily a fiction writer for many years, Dan began to feel a social responsibility to write more than just entertaining stories. This awareness prompted environmental and political articles in local papers, learning and gathering more research as he progressed. In 1995, Dan focused on global food security which expanded his understanding of the larger picture. Although he wrote several articles about the global grain market, his perception was that most people simply weren’t getting it and he thought perhaps he could reach more people through fiction.
Dan spent ten years researching the grain market, the economics of sustainability, and related environmental problems. Alarmed by the rapidly diminishing world grain reserves, he translated his research into Prairie Fire, an intriguing novel set in a world of limited grain reserves, climate change and peak oil. Dan explains, “By the time I published the book I had a good knowledge of agriculture and related issues. This led to applying that knowledge locally, beginning by analyzing the agriculture of the Willamette Valley through the past 50 years—investigating USDA statistics, finding out what was now grown here and what could be grown. My first take was to realize that we could be producing more food here because 40 to 50 years ago we were probably eating 75% locally grown food. Since then, local farmers have grown less and less of the vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains produced at that time. Many had transitioned from wheat into growing grass seed.” In one way or another, it is the same story being played out with variations across the country.
About the time Dan was pondering the idea of why more food wasn’t being grown locally he met Harry MacCormack, an organic farmer who had a long time interest in the same issues Dan had been studying. A man of many talents, Harry had taught at Oregon State University in the theater department, written books of poetry, and was the cofounder of Oregon Tilth, an early nonprofit organization devoted to promoting organic farming. Due to Tilth’s efforts, the first federal laws were created and passed regarding organic certification. In addition, Harry offers a variety of workshops at his Sunbow Farm, near Corvallis, Oregon—workshops “designed to provide skills to ease the transition during this time of the end of cheap petroleum living.” Through Harry, Dan learned more about how, as a citizen, he could help bring about positive change in his own community. Here are the four projects, in various stages of development, that Dan is currently involved with:
Lane County Food Policy Council. This independent organization’s goal is to promote a comprehensive regional food system assessment. At present, the Council is hoping to get money to fund a one year project to assess food security in Lane County. To date, Dan has written a brief food security assessment with the input of council members that has been presented to the city of Eugene and to Lane County officials. Some parts of this proposal have been incorporated into the City’s planning discussions.
The Governor’s Oregon Solutions Project. The Governor has the option of setting up a team to bring people together to work on a particular issue. At present, there is a group plan to help Lane County institutional cafeterias obtain locally grown food at affordable prices. Locally grown food may be more expensive than food purchased through a corporate food system, which is usually pre-packaged and not as fresh or as nutritionally vibrant. Thirty people in Lane County who are either food processors, distributors, farmers or nonprofit food activists are creating a pilot project in one school district to facilitate a way for distributors and farmers to provide local food. The plan is still in progress, but the goal is to have a pilot project in place by the next school year. There is support for this project from the Oregon Senate and parents and other citizens are starting to take notice.
Fairgrounds Project. The 55 acre Eugene fairgrounds, built in the 30s, is in disrepair and losing money. The potential, however, is enormous. A small citizen’s group has approached the mayor and county Commissioners to propose the creation of a plan to remodel the fairgrounds as a sustainable entity. In other words, a zero waste site and zero net energy site which could include community gardens, a year round farmers’ market and a food distribution warehouse to facilitate institutional buying related to the Governor’s Solutions project.
At a potential cost of 30 million dollars, this project seems particularly ambitious in this time of recession, but little of value is accomplished without the boldness of dreams. Starting in small increments, the plan is to have citizens begin composting and building soil using all the waste from the animals, hay and leftover cardboard at the fairgrounds.
One perspective is that regardless of the expense, this is a project worth supporting as an economic stimulus plan. It is a bad time to look for money, but a good time to create worthwhile jobs. It is also a time when food security is on notice in the valley. The underlying mission of this project is teaching people green energy processes and food growing skills while stimulating local agriculture. A large, year round farmers’ market, linked with smaller area markets, could encourage more people to buy locally and more farmers to produce for the markets.
Dan explains that research shows a serious lack of infrastructure for a complete food system in the Willamette Valley. Forty (even thirty) years ago, such a system existed—with storage, processing, distributors and farmers producing essential foods. As more and more grass seed was planted, local distributors went out of business and food storage capability became limited. People have become used to getting food through the global system, from out of town and out of the country.
“Everywhere in the United States we find the change to monoculture. Even in Iowa, where farms once produced a wide variety of items, they now only do corn and pigs. By facilitating the global market where labor is cheaper in other countries, the market virtually turned farmers to growing only one thing on large industrialized farms with huge mechanized equipment rather than the more labor intensive and diversified produce—especially organic.”
Dan continues, “What we need is balance. If we even produced 20 to 25% locally grown, that would be enough to establish a food system. It would mean we could have distributors, processors and storage. I’m not suggesting that we become an island unto ourselves. Just that we become balanced. When you manage a stock portfolio, you know you need diversity. By the same token, if we imagine managing a valley that is wonderfully fertile and has huge potential, we would make sure we didn’t grow all one crop. Now we have too many eggs in one basket, with almost 60% of our acreage in grass seed production. On the other hand, if we could stimulate local agriculture to diversity into more food crops and sell it here, it would allow us to keep some of the money here and recycle it into our own little economy. That might be a more stable way to go. Currently, with the problematic financial markets, even borrowing money to sell and buy grain on the global market has become a problem. Self reliance has become a very appealing notion.”
The fairgrounds could be a piece of the infrastructure these citizens are promoting. Dan points out that it could also be a community gathering place, and offer educational opportunities as well. The Oregon State Extension Service is located on the fairgrounds and the proposal for a fairground makeover could provide them with more opportunity to be self supportive—teaching gardening, compost making, food preservation and preparation.
At present, permission has been given by the fairground manager to use about an eighth acre of the property to make a plant nursery. Partnering with the Extension Service and their Master Gardening Program over the next year, the plot will be tilled and enriched in order to grow fruit trees and other nursery items which will be sold by the Extension Service to raise money. It’s a beginning, and, as Dan points out, if nothing else, promoting the project is an educational process.
The Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project was inspired by Harry MacCormack. As an organic farmer primarily growing produce, Harry’s farm has always been experimental as well. In the early years he grew some grain, but then became more interested in the standard produce found in farmers’ markets. One day in 2005, however, when someone in his co-op remarked that their dried beans had come from China, Harry began to think about grains and beans again. Why couldn’t they be grown here in quantities that would work for the farmers?
Apparently when Harry thinks, he acts. Consequently, he bought 16 varieties of bulk items of grains and beans from the co-op and planted them on his farm. They all grew, but would they produce? Harry’s test plots indicated that his red wheat, black beans, garbanzos and several other varieties could be productive crops, perhaps leading to a local market. Harry saw no reason to limit selling to co-ops or natural food stores, many larger franchises that also carry bulk items could be potential buyers as well. With the cost of transportation escalating, perhaps local crops would be appealing. Harry’s experiments continued with 50 to 60 types of grains, beans, and nutrient dense seeds such as quinoa and amaranth.
The next step occurred when Harry met Willow Coberly, a like-minded woman who attended one of his workshops. She and her husband, Harry Stalford, operate Stalford Seed farms, where they grew 9,000 acres of grass seed for the global grass seed market. But Willow had been watching the grain market, population growth and related environmental issues and she began to perceive that we may reach a point where our country needs more food than grass seed. When Willow learned about Harry MacCormack’s grain and bean experiments she was eager to participate, so she and her husband decided to transition 130 acres of their grass seed acreage to organic beans and lentils. This meant they had to treat their acreage to rejuvenate the soil, ridding it of chemicals in order to be certified as organic. Harry MacCormack’s recipe for compost tea (which can be found at www.sunbowfarm.org) played a large role in this transition which involved three years of soil preparation to eliminate chemicals and to rebuild the soil biology—beneficial microbes, bacteria and fungi.
The experiments eventually resulted in the Grain and Bean Project, a small group formed in January 2008 and comprised of Harry MacCormack, Dan Armstrong, a USDA farm agent, farmers and local food system advocates. This ground level undertaking is aimed at reorganizing local agriculture to bring more balance and diversity. Their primary task at this point is to encourage the local cultivation and marketing of organically grown beans and grains to provide a basis for year-round food resources in the valley. Initially, the intent was to grow 20 acre plots to test how many pounds could be produced per acre, to assess the quality of the beans, and to explore local markets. Prior to planting, this information gathering group met periodically to discuss the issues of buyers, storage, weeds, pests, growing without chemicals—and brainstorming all the pros and cons.
In the end, beans and grains were grown with average success, but a great deal of learning occurred regarding proper planting times and harvesting methods. Soy beans proved to be a poor fit for the climate, but black beans, garbanzos and pintos produced well, along with a great red wheat crop—the latter significant because it is usually grown in eastern Oregon, Washington and the Midwest. As Dan points out, “As we attempt to rebuild our food system, we need to start with the staples. That’s beans and grains. If we have them growing and stored here, that’s the foundation of the food system.”
A Good Time for Change
Last winter a meeting of about seventy farmers met to hear about Harry MacCormack’s experiments on his farm and the larger example of the Stalford’s transition of 130 acres from grass seed to organic certified grains and beans. Everything that had been learned in their process was shared, including planting time, harvesting methods, crops that grew well and what wasn’t suited to the climate.
Subsequently, two smaller meetings this past March resulted in four conventional farmers, in addition to Stalford Farm and a few smaller alternative farmers, considering using a percentage of their acreage to transition into grains and/or beans. It is uncertain how many acres will be committed by the larger farms of several thousand acres, but Stalford Farm will transition another 300-500 acres to beans, grains and edible seeds.
A big part of this process is helping farmers see that they can profit from marketing at the local level—getting them to think locally instead of believing they have to send their crops out to a global market which is affected by the credit crunch and currently failing due to prices dropping to where farmers cannot always even make their costs.
Harry MacCormack believes “It’s a good time for change and these bigger growers are the guys who can do it. They have the machinery and the land. They know how to farm. They just have to transition into local food. And it’s a good opportunity to clean up some of this land at the same time because local buyers want food to be transitioned toward organic.” Harry goes on to explain that it is easier to clean up soil in a field growing grass seed rather than vegetable or fruit—although the grass farmers use herbicides and fungicides, they don’t get into the chlorinated hydrocarbons found in conventionally farmed soil.
Another excellent selling point for farmers considering making a change to growing for the local market is that the profits from marketing the grains and beans produced last season by Sunbow and Stalford farms exceeded all expectation. On the other hand, some of the grass seed produced in the Willamette Valley is still sitting in storage sheds. In short, as Harry MacCormack said, “We can cut their costs, give them cash flow. We’re turning them toward a public that wants them. A 30 year commercial farmer like Harry Stalford has never had any kind of praise from the public before. It kind of blows his mind that people think a farmer is worth talking to.”
There is a vast opportunity for growing many varieties of wheat, rye, triticale, barley and peas, as well as other crops which were grown successfully in the valley fifty years ago such as hemp and flax, both of which can be used for food and fiber. Since Linn County is the biggest grass seed growing area in the world, there are literally thousands of acres of land potentially available for food production. People are now setting up meetings to show farmers the options local marketing offers. Hummingbird Wholesale, in Eugene, Oregon, located buyers for 400,000 pounds of transitional beans last year—which is only 30 or 40 acres of beans. That’s one small niche market. With eventual expansion into conventional markets with restaurants and institutions, it is believed that both grains and beans could be a huge source of income for these farms.
In addition to the Grain and Bean Project committee there are two other organizations available to help farmers in the Willamette Valley transition to grains and beans—Ten Rivers Food Web and the Willamette Food and Farm Coalition. All three groups cooperate, working together and sharing information. Harry MacCormack explains that they are now seeking funding for farmers like Harry Stalford to become mentors for others. As the farmers transition and get two or three years experience each one will be able to assist others.
Harry MacCormack emphasizes that he is still primarily a vegetable and fruit grower, although his experimental plots of grains and beans keep expanding. This past year he sold his beans and grains through the Farmer’s Market, but explained that he is also experimenting with a new type of marketing through a Sunbow Farm internet buying group. It will not be a CSA where buyers put money up front, but rather local people on a mailing list will receive weekly updates about the produce which is available for them to purchase directly from the farm. So far this appears to be working well, providing fresh food at lower cost for the buyer with less transportation needed on the part of the producer.
When asked what advice he could pass on to individuals and communities concerned about food, Harry has several suggestions:
“A really important thing is to organize neighborhoods or some kind of community into a formal food share buying group. If they organize around food, they can hook up with farms that are doing that kind of marketing. Individuals in the group need to assess what they actually eat in a year as well as which items they want for storage, such as beans, grains or potatoes. That information could be given to the farmer before they plant. Pre-ordering helps both parties.
“Bulk orders will be in bigger bags than food purchased from a Farmer’s Market which sells retail. If people want the lower wholesale price for organic or transitional food, they have to organize themselves. And they must do it consistently, year after year. Once the system is set up, it may pull people away from stores to some extent, but helps the farmer with direct support from the community and the buyer to save money.”
Harry adds that there is a level of assessment that needs to be ongoing, offering a great opportunity for universities to tie into the infrastructure. Typically, universities do well investigating and measuring. The system requires gathering and assessing data to make sure the system is functioning. He suggests this is good work for students, turning theoretical academia into a reality.
The ideas keep flowing. Change is definitely in the air and on the ground in the Willamette Valley. Although Harry and Dan feel they have only made small inroads toward what could be achieved, from an outsider’s observation it appears they have come a long way in a relatively short time.
The Grain and Bean Project’s progress has been documented by Dan Armstrong through all their stages. Information is available through the internet at www.mudcitypress.com and via documents mailed to interested farmers. To learn more about Harry MacCormack’s work and Sunbow Farm visit www.sunbowfarm.org.
Jody Woodruff is a retired social worker and educational film writer who now writes freelance from Talent, Oregon.
SENTIENT TIMES
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