Lentil Underground

by Liz Carlisle

  What should I put down for your title? I teased Dave. On the Timeless website, he was listed as CEO and founding farmer, but he didn’t spend his days like any other CEO I knew. Today, for example, Dave had made an impromptu trip to Fort Benton to pick up eleven bags of Kamut. It was a time-sensitive errand, and Dave wasn’t sure if a delivery truck would be available in time. So he’d decided to fetch the ancient grain himself—in his Honda Civic hybrid. The previous day, Dave had made a personal trip to pick up French Green lentils from the nonprofit vocational center he’d been working with since 1994, now known as Quality Life Concepts. This was apparently something Dave had done before: He knew the names of nearly every developmentally disabled client there, even the ones who didn’t work on his packaging jobs.

  I rode along as Dave shuttled product around central Montana, eavesdropping on the calls he made from his Bluetooth headset. Picking up what I could from Dave’s half of one of these conversations, I gathered that a conventional buyer looking to diversify was asking about organic lentils. Things sure had changed, I said to Dave, noting an incredible statistic I’d just learned from Alison Harmon: Montana now produced about half of the lentils in the United States—enough to supply six servings a day to each of the state’s 1 million residents. Dave was surprised by the big numbers, but not the trend. “Some of the farmers that saw the first lentil in their life up on our plots here, they’re probably doing three or four or five hundred acres of lentils now,” he told me. “There’s hardly anybody anymore that’s doing just one crop, even conventional guys.” No sooner had Dave finished his thought than his phone rang again. One of his buyers wanted him to certify the Timeless plant as kosher, so he started calling around to get a recommendation for a rabbi. Dave had learned to delegate some things, I’d noticed, but there was a limit to how much he was willing to simplify his diverse life. He liked things this way.

  On the final day of my visit, Dave took his household newspapers and cardboard to the Conrad recycling center. We weren’t planning to stay long. It was four degrees outside, and I had a plane to catch. But when Dave pushed a button to pop his trunk and get his recyclables, nothing happened. He turned his key in the ignition, but the car wouldn’t start. He couldn’t even get a chug-chug-chug out of the hybrid engine. It was completely dead. After calling Sharon to ask for a jump, Dave started rooting around for his jumper cables. And then he remembered—those were in the trunk too. After a split second of panic, a light bulb went on somewhere inside Dave’s head. The next few moments went by so quickly, I hardly knew what was happening. Suddenly the trunk was open, the hood was propped, cables were hooked up, and a faint ding signaled the Civic’s resurrection. “I guess the battery lost connection,” Dave explained, showing me the bolt he’d just tightened before loading his jumper cables back into the car. “That’s never happened to me before.”

  “Well, that was an adventure,” I said to Dave, once we’d called off Sharon and were safely back on the road. Dave’s ungloved hands were bright red, and he was blowing on them to warm them up. “A brief adventure, luckily,” he answered. “And a learning experience.” I tried to figure out what it was I supposed to learn from Dave on this journey. I imagined myself, like Joseph Brown consulting Black Elk, distilling some nugget of wisdom from all the conversations we’d had over the past three years. What profound teaching had I received? What lesson would I convey from this homegrown sage? Before I could figure it out, Dave interrupted my meditation. “Never buy a car that won’t let you get into both the trunk and the hood mechanically,” he instructed me. “Now let’s get you to the airport.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A number of busy people spent long hours sharing their stories and their knowledge with me. I am deeply grateful to David Oien and Sharon Eisenberg, Jim Barngrover, Bud Barta, Russell Salisbury and Elsie Tuss, Jim and Toni Sims, Doug Crabtree and Anna Jones-Crabtree, Jody and Crystal Manuel, Jerry Habets, Casey Bailey, Jacob and Courtney Cowgill, Daryl and Linda Lassila, Clay and Anne McAlpine, Mariah and Brandon O’Halloran, Susan and Scott Lohmuller, Jerry and Kathy Sikorski, Jess Alger, Laura Leibner, Cathy and Mick Odden, Mark and Monica Goldhahn, Ole Norgaard, Bruce and Melinda Pester, Leni Yeager, Loren Nicholls, Jason Roberts, Heather Hadley, Mike Ferrara, Mary Hensley, Neva Hassanein, Grant Jackson, Bruce Maxwell, Perry Miller, Fabian Menalled, Chengci Chen, David Wichman, Alison Harmon, Al Slinkard, Kenny Keever, Nancy Matheson, Jonda Crosby, Barbara Rusmore, Maxwell Milton and Joan Bird, Dawn McGee, Birdie Emerson, Kye Cochran, John Cawley and Christine Marshall, Blu and Rose Funk, Ann Sinclair, Robert Boettcher, Tom Bump, Jack Reams, Margaret Misner, Bob Herdegen, Dave Christensen, Scott Sproull, Andre Giles, Sam Schmidt, Bob Quinn, Wes Gibbs, Jan and Rich Boyle, and the staff and volunteers of the Alternative Energy Resources Organization and Montana Organic Association. I am humbled by your generosity and your wisdom, and I am truly honored that you would trust me with telling some of your stories. Any shortcomings, of course, are my own.

  I would never have met this extraordinary cast of characters had I not had the pleasure of working for one them, US senator Jon Tester. My stint as a legislative correspondent in Senator Tester’s Washington, DC, office was quite the learning experience, and I am grateful to all the members of Team Tester for educating me, introducing me to several of the people in this book, and sending me off to grad school in California without too many snickers. I owe especial thanks to Matt Jennings, Andrea Helling, James Wise, Lili Snyder, Daniel Stein, Amanda Arnold, Susan Cierlitsky, and of course, Jon and Sharla Tester.

  As a graduate student in geography at UC Berkeley, I enjoyed two great luxuries during the research and writing of this book: a lot of time and a lot of support. I am particularly grateful to my dissertation committee—Nathan Sayre, Jake Kosek, Ryan Galt, and Claire Kremen—for their wise counsel and uncommon patience. Several other colleagues and mentors at UC Berkeley were invaluable allies, among them Annie Shattuck, Maywa Montenegro, Albie Miles, Nathan McClintock, Alastair Iles, Shannon Cram, Erin Collins, Adam Romero, Mike Jones, Natalia Vonnegut, Marjorie Ensor, Christopher Bacon, Kathryn DeMaster, Ann Thrupp, Jennifer Sowerwine, Christy Getz, Miguel Altieri, Alex Tarr, and the members of the Sayre and Fortmann Labs, Center for Diversified Farming Systems, Berkeley Food Institute, and Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society. Beyond Berkeley, I’ve also been inspired by my colleagues at the Sustainable Agriculture Education Association and by my indefatigable undergraduate adviser, Kay Kaufman Shelemay.

  My research was financially supported by the National Science Foundation, the PEO, Soroptimist International’s Founder Region, and the Charles Redd Center; and Michael Sacramento at UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division was my guru of grantsmanship. The librarians at the Montana Historical Society provided expert assistance with my archival work, and Yeu Olivia Han helped me transcribe interviews.

  When it came time to put pen to paper, two consummate storytellers at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism mentored me through the complex process of authoring my first book. Michael Pollan and the members of his fall 2012 writing workshop helped me outline the project and thoughtfully commented on multiple drafts of the introduction. The following spring, under the auspices of a three-credit independent study, Edwin Dobb read two full drafts of the manuscript and provided thorough, incisive feedback. Both Michael and Edwin offered critical advice and encouragement as I worked through multiple revisions and pitched the book to agents and editors. I have them to thank for my formation as a writer. I am also grateful to four superb fellow storytellers—Annie Shattuck, Lynne Carlisle, Patrick Archie, and Nathan Hodo—who read the manuscript in its final stages and helped me improve it.

  In New York, my first debt of gratitude is to my agent, Jessica Papin, who took a chance on a completely unproven first-time author with a pitch about lentils. Jessica totally got this book, and she championed it as if it were her own. Her suggestions on my proposal were so good that many of them are reflected in the final text of the prologue.
Before I started working with Jessica, another insightful literary agent, Mollie Glick, also helped me hone my pitch. At Gotham Books, I’ve had the pleasure of working with editor Charles Conrad, who has an uncanny ability to get inside a story and identify what’s missing. Two other people at Gotham helped shape the text: Leslie Hansen offered perceptive editorial suggestions and copy editor Eileen Chetti saved me from several embarrassing errors.

  Writing is a weird job. A social science PhD is an equally weird job. Putting them together is a mental health risk and definitely calls for the buddy system. In addition to the folks mentioned above, several other kindred spirits helped me find meaning in my solitary work, even during those long months when I had very little to show for it. The world’s most gracious landlady, Ruth Silverman, provided a beautiful live-work space, and her team of assistants—Su Evers, Araly Cruz, Evelyn Serrano, and Katya Kostyukova—made sure I had human contact even on my most intense writing days. Several stalwart friends had my back: Yan Xu, Lauren Merker, the Razon family, Sibyl Diver, Margot Higgins, Lauren Withey, Allison Rogers, Peiting Li, Simona Balan, Sepideh Sadaghiani, Rose Hardy, and Stephanie Bortz. My grandmother Helen Gordon inspired and encouraged me, both with her passion for growing things and with cautionary tales from her Dust Bowl childhood on a western Nebraska farm. My brother, Andrew Holder, has been a staunch supporter and stimulating interlocutor throughout. And my parents, Lynne and Ray Carlisle, contributed in innumerable ways to this project, not the least of which involved driving all the way from Missoula to Great Falls to bail me out when I got a flat tire.

  Here in Berkeley, California, it’s normal usage to refer to your significant other as your “partner.” But Patrick Archie truly is one, in every sense of the word. Maybe I could have written this book without his unwavering intellectual, practical, and moral support. But it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

  NOTES ON SOURCES

  This is a work of nonfiction. I have used real names of people and places, with the written permission of identified sources. Contemporary scenes are reported from direct observation. To reconstruct the historical scenes narrated in Chapters 1–8, I have drawn on both the memories of those involved and archival materials: photographs, journalism, newsletters, nonprofit and business records, and a small amount of video. Direct quotes are taken either from statements made in my presence (as transcribed from digital audio recordings or handwritten notes) or from written records. In some cases, I represent individuals’ recollections of their earlier statements as direct quotes, but in only a few instances have I corrected a grammatical error or deleted “umms” or “uhhs.” Most of the research for this book was conducted while I was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, according to a protocol approved by the university’s Office for the Protection of Human Subjects. Although I conducted dozens of formal interviews and a small survey, my primary method of research was in-depth ethnography. Grounded in participant observation, ethnography allows social science researchers to develop partial cultural literacy in the communities where they conduct research, such that we can attempt to understand things about people and events beyond what is directly expressed in response to an interview question. Thus, some of the quotations and dialogue in this book were overheard as I shadowed farmers in their daily lives. Sparingly, I have attempted to report on these farmers’ internal meditations—by reading between the lines of their words and observing actions and body language. While all these characterizations of people and events reflect my own limited perspective, I shared them with sources before publication, to confirm that they felt fairly and accurately represented. All remaining errors, however, are my own.

  In the notes on sources, I retrace the steps I took to construct the narrative. In the bibliography, I cite selected sources that deepened my understanding of several issues I touch on in the book. I suggest these bibliographic sources as further reading for those who wish to dig deeper into these topics, or those looking to substantiate statements made by characters in the narrative.

  I. FERTILE GROUND

  Throughout the first eight chapters, I draw heavily on the Sun Times, a periodical published by the Alternative Energy Resources Organization from its founding in 1974 to the present. Nearly all the events chronicled in this opening section of the book were documented in the reported articles, columns, calendar listings, and classified advertisements of the Sun Times, complete with photographs, detailed descriptions, and direct quotations. I am indebted to the dedicated reporters and editors at AERO for recording this history as it happened. I am also grateful that nearly all the protagonists in these chapters were in good health and willing to spend several hours sharing their stories with me. Interviews with David Oien and Sharon Eisenberg, Jim Barngrover, Bud Barta, Jim Sims, Russell Salisbury and Elsie Tuss, and Nancy Matheson and Jonda Crosby helped me fill out and corroborate the story of Timeless Seeds’ founding and early days. In addition, I drew on the following sources for specific chapters:

  CHAPTER 1

  E-mail correspondence with Scott Sproull—who shared photographs and materials from his alternative energy workshop—helped me tell the story of the night school class that first turned Dave Oien on to DIY renewable energy. An essay on the history of agriculture in Montana, submitted by the Montana State University Library as part of the National Preservation Program for Agriculture Literature, provided key details on the early-twentieth-century history of north-central Montana. I accessed this essay at the following website: http://harvest.mannlib.cornell.edu/node/24.

  CHAPTER 2

  The proceedings of AERO’s 1984 Sustainable Agriculture Conference substantiated and supplemented the recollections of those present.

  II. SEEDS OF CHANGE

  CHAPTER 3

  Several current and former researchers tutored me in the history, agronomy, and ecology of legume farming on the northern Great Plains: Jim Sims, Al Slinkard, Bruce Maxwell, Perry Miller, Chengci Chen, and Grant Jackson. I retraced Jim Sims’s research on the Gallatin Valley Seed Company with the aid of the Internet, which led me to the company’s website: http://gallatinvalleyseed.com/history.php.

  David Oien’s collection of articles about Jim Sims’s research and black medic was invaluable:

  Cramer, Craig. “Water Saving ‘Weed’ Replaces Chem-Fallow.” New Farm, September–October 1987, 28–30.

  Hay and Forage Grower. “Black Medic Turns Fallow Green.” March 1991, 16–17.

  Henkes, Rollie. “Forages for All Reasons: Seeds of a New Revolution?” Furrow, Special Hay and Forage Issue, Spring 1992, 10–12.

  Henkes, Rollie. “Taking a Closer Look at Annual Legumes.” Furrow, Prairie ed., March–April 1994.

  Kessler, Karl. “Homegrown Fertilizer for Wheat.” Furrow, Northern Plains ed., September–October 1983, 6–7.

  Kessler, Karl. “New Ways to Summerfallow.” Furrow, North Plains ed., March–April 1993, 22–23.

  Northcutt, Greg. “Forages Are a Natural.” Hay and Forage Grower, February 1990, 28.

  Oien, David. “Black Medic: A New Prescription for Worn Out Soils.” Synergy 3, no. 1 (1991): 24–25.

  CHAPTER 4

  Although I did overhear several stories about Russ Salisbury at farm tours and demonstration days, my favorite source on Russ’s life and philosophy was his correspondence with Alternative Energy Resources Organization staff, which I found in an archival file at the nonprofit’s Helena office. Russ’s poignant essay “Land,” which I found attached to one of these letters, belongs alongside the writings of Wendell Berry and Fred Kirschenmann as a modern agrarian classic.

  The history of AERO is well recorded in the organization’s archives and the Sun Times, but interviews with Kye Cochran, Birdie Emerson, Nancy Matheson, Jonda Crosby, and numerous current and former AERO members added colorful details and a firsthand perspective. An oral history session I convened at AERO’s 2012 annual meeting elicited additional juicy tidbits, and I am grateful to all who participated. Key events in
the history of the Farmers Union are detailed on the organization’s website, and Lawrence Goodwyn’s The Populist Moment provided helpful context on agrarian cooperative movements in the early twentieth century. Kye Cochran’s 1979 article in Mother Earth News recounts the history of the Northern Plains Research Council and can be accessed online: http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment /strip-mining-consolidation-coal-company-zmaz79zsch.aspx.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Proceedings of AERO’s 1988 Soil Building Cropping Systems Conference—complete with a lengthy transcript of Jim Sims’s remarks—are a researcher’s dream. AERO also provided me with extensive records from the ten years of the Farm Improvement Club program, including club applications and year-end reports, newspaper clippings from local and trade publications, and reports to funders. Clay (Tuna) McAlpine graciously toured me around his ranch and answered questions.

  III. TIMELESS GROWS UP

  CHAPTER 6

  Quotes from Jon Tester are taken from a 2012 interview and visit to his farm. Ann Sinclair’s remarks were published in a 1995 interview with the AERO Sun Times, but I corroborated the story in a 2014 phone interview.

  CHAPTER 7

  I learned about Saskatchewan’s conventional lentil industry from Al Slinkard, who directed me to several references on the websites of the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and Pulse Canada.

  CHAPTER 8

  Al Slinkard was an equally helpful resource on the lentil variety he released as Indianhead, for use as a green manure crop. To trace the journey of this lentil before it made it into Slinkard’s hands, I consulted the USDA’s Germplasm Resources Information Network; and to follow it forward, to its emergence as the specialty food lentil Black Beluga, I referenced David Oien’s article “Indianhead Lentil,” in the winter 1991 issue of Synergy magazine, as well as Dorothy Kalins’s Newsweek article “The Tastemakers,” published September 18, 2005. In interviews, Oien clarified that a key reason for developing a new trade name for the lentil was the hurtful connotation of “Indianhead,” the name of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research station that had been researching lentil-based cropping systems. The station itself had been named after a town in Saskatchewan that was reportedly rife with unburied indigenous bodies after the smallpox epidemic that followed the arrival of fur traders. When Dave decided to instead market the lentil under the name Black Beluga, he took the additional step of registering this phrase as a trademark, to be held by Timeless Seeds. Mindful that the organic industry was on the verge of rapid growth, Dave wanted to protect his “deep green” product from co-optation. Within a few years, several of his peers across the country would find themselves outcompeted and undersold—by corporations who were interested in organic premiums but had no allegiance to organic principles.