Uncertainty

It’s early February as I write, but the ground outside the MOFGA offices is missing its blanket of snow. For the past two months, as I take my evening walk, the stream on the hillside has been running almost half the nights, often running as fast as it would at spring thaw. There’s already talk of tapping maple trees. Maybe this is what winter will be like in a world of climate change.

Each year the world burns enough fossil fuel to produce the equivalent of 400 years of stored sunlight. That is, if, for the next 400 years, we turned all the sunlight that hits the earth into energy that humans can use, the energy from that light would equal only one year of fossil fuel consumption. We continue to increase the amount of petroleum we use even as the available supply literally goes up in smoke and heat.

We are able, and willing, to turn energy into food. The production of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, the mechanization of every possible function on the farm, and the transportation of raw ingredients from every corner of the world has "freed" much of the U.S., and world, population from food production. Estimates of the energy input to food output ratio suggest that even unprocessed, raw foods take 10 calories of energy for every calorie of food produced. Processed foods and foods that travel long distances use 200 calories of energy or more for 1 calorie of food energy.

When we look at the future energy economy, we know that sunlight is our basic resource. Stored sunlight (petroleum, coal, natural gas) is a tool, but can’t be the basis of our economy. The ratio of energy used:food calorie produced needs to be much closer to 1—sunlight in, plus sunlight stored in the soil, equals food out. That means that building soil fertility and building soil organic matter must be the focus of agricultural systems, which is the basic tenet of organic agriculture.

Richard Heilberg, in Powerdown, describes strategies for building a post-petroleum society. One that he presents, but then dismisses, is a "lifeboat" strategy with dispersed, decentralized groups, showing what is possible in each area. That means local farmers producing local, organic food for themselves, their neighbors and their communities.

Unlike Heilberg, I think the lifeboat strategy has merit, and so I think MOFGA is in the right place at the right time. This year marks 35 years of shared work aimed at figuring out how to grow organic food. Hundreds of certified farmers and thousands of organic gardeners are growing around Maine. We know that we can grow the food we need to eat, and grow it with minimal energy inputs. Now we need to share with the public the knowledge that we’ve acquired and that we share with one another.

We know we are addicted to oil. Each seed we plant this year is another way to capture sunlight and convert it to food. Let’s get growing!

What’s Your Dream?

Organic farmers, gardeners and consumers filled a large meeting room and overflowed into the hallway at MOFGA’s annual meeting in January. Our executive director, Russell Libby, noted that this probably was the most populous meeting to be held at the Maine Agricultural Trades Show. Our president, John Bunker, reported that MOFGA serves over 5,200 individual, family and business members; that MOFGA has 301 certified-organic farmers; and that last year about 45 MOFGA apprentices farmed and learned on about 30 farms. Maine has over 60 farmers’ markets, he added; over 60 Community Supported Agriculture farms (many run by MOFGA members) and over 60 natural foods stores. Things just keep getting better!

The power of grassroots organizing is huge. Activists often point to the civil rights and women’s movements as examples of how small numbers of people with the right ideas can begin to effect massive, culture-wide change as their dreams and ideas become publicized, recognized, accepted and adopted. That’s certainly happened with organic farming and gardening, most certainly in Maine. What a great place to be!

This is a year of reflection for MOFGA, as our own Eric Sideman—the first "organic extension agent" in the United States--marks his 20th year with the organization (see his column in this paper for his thoughts on two decades of accomplishments), and the organization itself marks its 35th year. We’ll have a look back at those 35 years in the September-November issue of The MOF&G; if you have special memories you’d like to share, please send them to the editor (jenglish@midcoast.com).

Anniversaries prompt us to look ahead, too. In the last MOF&G, Sharon Tisher said that in 50 years, she expects most of Maine agriculture to be organic or close to organic. How I’ll welcome that tasty organic food when I’m old, sitting in my rocker and knitting with Maine-grown wool at the old-organic-folks’ center that I dream could arise on or near MOFGA’s site in Unity.

Looking closer in time, I’d love to see an affordable, environmentally benign (or even beneficial) roll of plastic-like organic mulch. What a time and energy saver that would be!

Will we have a Maine Board of Genetics Control, like the Board of Pesticides Control, in the next decade or more? No offense to the hardworking BPC, but I hope not! If we spend as many of our food and clothing dollars as possible on organic goods, the market will drive genetically engineered crops off the land and put genome research back in the lab, where it should stay—benefiting growers by identifying useful genes and helping breeders incorporate them into crops by traditional methods.

What’s your dream for the next decade or five?

In the Tradition

When the spring is sprung and the seeds are sown
Beyond the garden gate,
The scythe is hanging in the barn
While the patient farmer waits

The days are getting longer now. Oceans of seedlings fill greenhouses and line windowsills. Throughout the Northern Hemisphere many millions of gardens are going in: some huge; some tiny; others in between. Cows are calving; goats are gamboling; piglets squealing and sheep are running around naked. It’s springtime again. When you tip the wheelbarrow and spread compost over the moist soil, you are participating in a tradition of organic farming and gardening that predates Nearing, Rodale, Steiner, Johnny’s, Fedco and Pinetree.

Though some might tell you it all started with the hippies or the back-to-the-landers, don’t believe them. We are part of a very long tradition, an ancient tradition. The first organic gardeners sowed their first seeds 12,000 springs ago. They domesticated sheep, goats and pigs 10,000 years ago; then cattle; then horses. It’s been 6,000 years since they planted the first orchards and yoked the first oxen.

We call modern, petroleum-based farming "conventional;" but this type of farming has been a very short convention. Of the farming and gardening of millennia, less than 1% has been so-called "conventional." The other 99% has been organic. We in the 21^st century are getting back to our roots, you might say. Organic is conventional. Organic is conservative. Organic is the tradition.

In January I attended the Maine Organic Milk Producers’ (MOMP) annual meeting. The popularity of organic milk is one of the bright spots in Maine agriculture these days. Ned Porter, Maine’s acting commissioner of agriculture, even highlighted organic milk in his remarks during the commissioner’s lunch at this year’s Agricultural Trades Show. At the MOMP meeting, representatives from the University of New Hampshire gave a presentation on the new teaching/research farm they are constructing in conjunction with the University of Maine and others. The farm, which features a herd of roughly 50 Jersey cows, will be entirely organic. This is very good news. The farm will be a tremendous resource for New England dairy farmers, including those in Maine. Although to many in the conference room this organic herd seemed like an innovation, it’s nearly as old as the hills. The days of antibiotics in the feed and herbicides in the field are not so long. New England itself has a nearly 400-year tradition of organic dairying, from the two Devon cows and the single bull that stepped off the boat in Plymouth in 1624; to the first cattle driven into York County in 1633; to the first Maine Jerseys in 1855 and our first four creameries in 1883.

While, at least for the present, the days of a garden in every Maine yard are gone, each of us can participate in this age-old tradition of local organic agriculture in many ways. We can all support Maine’s organic dairy industry, for example. We now have the largest percentage of organic dairies in any state. We can all buy organic milk. We can work together to create an organic grain industry in Maine. That’s what the dairy (and sheep, and other) farmers need.

We can patronize the restaurants popping up around the state that feature locally grown fruits and vegetables as well as locally raised meats and locally produced cheeses. We can join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm or regularly visit our local farmers’ markets. Maine has over 60 of each. Buying a share in a CSA is an excellent way to support the tradition while bringing fresh food into our homes each week. And, even if you do have a big garden yourself, a farmers’ market is a great place to check out what others are growing while picking up what you don’t raise yourself. Shop at one of Maine’s dozens of health food stores that feature local organic produce, dairy and meats. Of if you prefer Hannaford, Shaw’s – or even Wild Oats – tell them you want more local food.

Over the past 12,000 years, billions of gardens have been planted. There is a wonderful annual sameness to the ritual. And yet, each year is different; each garden unique. Each plant is a miracle, and no two miracles are ever the same. And so, once again we find ourselves on the edge of a new adventure: this year’s gardening season. The seeds are sown, and now we all wait. After all, it’s in the tradition.