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Editor's
NOTE
This season our three interns will be taking
turns tracking their observations and sharing
what they are learning helping out the research
department here at The Rodale Institute.
This next generation of farmers offers insights
into what motivates them to go against the tide
when so many farm families struggle to keep up-and-coming
generations interested in farming.
As they will tell you, it’s a combination
of love for the land, good food, sharing community,
and a sense of purpose that keeps them going.
--NF
Editors
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June 8, 2006: Before I came to The Rodale
Institute, my firsthand experience with agriculture had been
a patchwork of encounters with fringe movements, small-scale
efforts that often seemed futile and impractical, and homemade
science experiments. I grew up in suburban Boston, where farms
mainly serve the purposes of education (especially day camps
for young kids and demonstration farms), small CSAs, land
preservation and the fulfillment of aesthetic and nostalgic
ideals about our relationship to the land. In the suburban
world, farming is often just as much about seeking a return
to a “simpler” or more meaningful time in human
history as it is about innovation and feeding people. When
it comes to actual subsistence, most of suburbia finds itself
at Trader Joe’s, Stop & Shop, or Whole Foods, purchasing
produce most likely grown in mono-cropped fields somewhere
in Latin America or California.
What strikes me about the metro area’s idea of a farm
is that it looks like an island from an outsider’s perspective—isolated,
makeshift, and scratched out of the rocky New England soil.
(I don’t mean to speak about my hometown as if it’s
another planet, but it definitely feels that way after spending
two months in rural Pennsylvania.) These farmers are predominantly
small growers, often a husband and wife team—and maybe
some kids—who recognize from the outset that they will
not feed a sizeable population. Starting a small farm tends
to be more an expression of personal ideals and principles
about sustainability and environmentalism than a die-hard
business venture.
Throughout high school and college, I have worked at several
of these venues. A hydroponic tomato farm, my main source
of income during high school, appeared quite different from
the nearby small organic growers but, in fact, rested on very
similar ideas about small-scale, local production and a market
with a direct personal connection between grower and buyer.
In addition to supplying supermarkets, the on-site farmers'
market spawned a small community around food—a group
of citizens who cared about where their food came from and
about supporting local agriculture, which to me is the first
step towards a consciousness about sustainable agriculture.
I have also spent a summer on a CSA on the eastern shore of
Maryland—an ambitious 10 acres surrounded by more acreage
of conventional corn and soybeans than people—and another
few weeks on a communal “experiment in sustainable living”
in northern New Hampshire.
Although these farms required business smarts and knowledge
of season, weather and soil variations, my impression of organic
agriculture has been, in part, that it’s a rebellious
ideology, more rooted in emotion than empiricism. Since I
have no formal background in agriculture (my degree is in
sociology), working at The Rodale Institute these past couple
of months has opened my eyes to the technical aspects of sustainable
production, and, in particular, how to stay sustainable on
a large scale. While my experience has been limited to homegrown
vegetables, I have learned about the production of organic
cash crops such as corn, rye, wheat and soybeans. Rodale focuses
on the reality of large-scale production for the farmer who
may already be producing conventionally but might switch to
organic if he was made aware of the long-term benefits to
his soil and the possibility of comparable yields. As an intern
here, I have begun to realize that organic farming can mass
produce while still being environmentally sensitive. Rather
than investing in chemical inputs like synthetic fertilizers,
the farmer’s energies can be redirected into crop rotations,
building up organic matter in the soil with the use of cover
crops (while simultaneously fixing nutrients in the soil and
reducing erosion). Using these science-based approaches, a
farmer can still strive for the ideals of sustainability and
self-sufficiency.
Working with cover crops, one of the most basic approaches
to biological weed control here at Rodale, has been a revelation
for me. In my varied farm work experience, I had never heard
the term used. A single cover crop can serve multiple purposes,
including erosion control, nutrient sequestration and provision,
weed control and soil enrichment. Our weed-control work so
far in the internship mostly centers around monitoring a hairy
vetch comparison trial in which 20 varieties of hairy vetch
from all over the U.S. are grown in small plots, with four
randomly-placed replications for each variety. As points of
comparison, we take plant measurements, chlorophyll readings,
evaluate the percent cover and percent bloom of each variety
in order to determine how effective it will be at weed suppression
once it is rolled, and we take square-foot biomass samples
for the same reasons.
I was recently trying to wrestle the small biomass sample
from a tangle of hairy vetch vines, and as I pulled the thick
mat away from the soil, I noticed a complex ecosystem had
formed below it. My fellow interns Mary and Aaron each separately
pointed out to me that this underworld was markedly varied
from plot to plot. In many of the plots, the mat traps moisture
against the soil, so that beneath the slimy bottom layer of
vetch is moist, fertile soil teeming with insect life, larvae,
sometimes mushrooms, and billions of microorganisms too small
to see. Like other legumes, vetch has a higher nitrogen-to-carbon
ratio, which means that it will break down in the soil much
more quickly than a carbon-rich crop such as corn or rye.
With the help of the abundant microorganisms, this will soon
lead to a usable form of nitrogen for the corn crop (which
will be no-till drilled into the soon-to-be rolled mat of
vetch) as well as a rapid boost of organic matter to the soil,
building up its structure and absorbent abilities.
Again, the differences among the varieties of vetch are sometimes
striking. They can produce adequate biomass and adequate flowering
at vastly different times. Some biomass cuts revealed an almost
dry patch of soil, while others exposed earthworms breaking
through well-aerated, moist and nutrient- rich soil where
the bottom layer of vetch had already begun to decompose.
But to see these differences reflected in soil quality and
in the “little world below the mat” really illustrated
the ripple effect created by organic practices. Most of the
hairy vetch yielded a soil rich with life and contrasted starkly
to the cracked, cement-like soils surrounding the plots. Life
needs life in order to thrive, and crops are no different.
Diverse life is preferable. Hairy vetch can be pretty hairy
indeed if it is an unwelcome visitor, but its effects on the
enrichment of organic soil are fully evident even after one
season. 
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