by Liz Carlisle
Born and raised in western Montana, I ate at ShowThyme several times before I ever dreamed I would write this book. (When I was first served Black Beluga lentils, I thought they were some kind of exotic wild rice.)
IV. RIPE FOR REVOLUTION
In this section, I shift from archival and oral history sources to my own interviews, photographs, and field notes.
CHAPTER 9
Although other sources contributed to my understanding of the events in this chapter, it is based primarily on interviews and ethnography conducted with Jerry Habets and David Oien. Dawn McGee at Good Works Ventures, LLC, added key details.
CHAPTER 10
This chapter is based primarily on interviews and ethnography conducted with Casey Bailey and his family.
CHAPTER 11
Doug Crabtree and Anna Jones-Crabtree generously provided documentation to help me make sense of what I observed on their farm, including maps and a rotation plan. With the Crabtrees’ permission, these documents have been published as an appendix to my Ecology and Society article, “Diversity, Flexibility, and the Resilience Effect: Lessons from a Social-Ecological Case Study on the Northern Great Plains, USA,” and are available on the journal’s website: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss3/art45/appendix1.pdf.
CHAPTER 12
Three generations of Manuels helped me construct this chapter. The Timeless Seeds advertisement I describe is from the Winter 2010 Montana Organic Association newsletter, and the Havre demographics are 2008–12 averages reported by the US Census Bureau: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/30/3035050.html.
CHAPTER 13
I reported this chapter at the Xerces Society’s Pollinator Conservation Planning Short Course, held on June 14, 2012, at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana. For additional references on the history of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, see the bibliography.
CHAPTER 14
While most of the reporting for this chapter was conducted at Timeless Seeds’ 2012 field tour and barbecue, I added quotes and information taken from interviews held before and after this event, where I felt they helped to clarify or explain. For the section on AERO’s campaign to regulate GMO wheat, I drew on interviews with Jim Barngrover, as well as reporting by the AERO Sun Times, and two other journalists’ coverage of the “steak dinner” scandal concerning the Montana Farmer Protection Bill:
Deines, Kahrin. “Biotechnology Seed Bill Tabled by Senators.” Associated Press/Helena Independent Record, March 26, 2009. http://helenair.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/biotechnology-seed-bill-tabled-by-senators/article_05b7387e-08b4-56d6-9b3c-558eac25bc54.html.
Lowery, Courtney. “Did a Monsanto Hosted Dinner Kill the Montana Farmer Protection Bill?” New West, March 25, 2009. http://newwest.net/topic/article/monsanto_hosts_dinner_for_montana_legislators_on_seed_sampling_bill/C559/L559/.
I also looked up the text of the bill on the Montana Legislature’s website (http://leg.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0445.htm) and confirmed membership of the Grow Montana coalition on that organization’s website (http://growmontana.ncat.org). For sources on the history of the Conservation Reserve Program, see the bibliography.
V. HARVEST
CHAPTER 15
This chapter is based on visits to Casey Bailey’s farm and the Timeless Seeds plant in Ulm, Montana. For more on the 2012 drought, see the bibliography.
CHAPTER 16
To construct the first section of this chapter, I drew on interviews and ethnography with David Oien, Sharon Eisenberg, Jerry Habets, and Jacob and Courtney Cowgill, as well as the Prairie Heritage Farm website: http://www.prairieheritagefarm.com. The second section is based on interviews with Tuna McAlpine and my visit to his ranch. Further reading on working lands conservation and ecosystem services is suggested in the bibliography.
CHAPTER 17
The first section of this chapter was reported at the 2012 Montana Organic Association Conference, held at the Holiday Inn in Helena, Montana, from November 29 to December 1—augmented by interviews conducted before and after the event. The middle section, “All the Wealth of the Earth,” is based on unreleased video footage recorded for the Alternative Energy Resources Organization’s Sustainable Agriculture Curriculum Development Project, 1993–94. Quotations and factual information presented in the final section are taken from interviews conducted in 2012 and 2013. Sources on the limits of the “food miles” approach to conscientious consumption are cited in the bibliography.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
On the Industrialization of American Farming:
Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977.
Hauter, Wenonah. Foodopoly. New York: New Press, 2012.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
On Nitrogen Pollution and Marine Dead Zones:
Diaz, R. J., and R. Rosenberg, “Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems. Science 321 (2008): 926–29.
Eggler, Bruce. “Despite Promises to Fix It, the Gulf’s Dead Zone is Growing.” Times Picayune, June 9, 2007. http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/06/despite_promises_to_fix_it_the.html.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). Washington, DC: Island Press, 2005.
Tilman, D., K. G. Cassman, P. A. Matson, R. Naylor, and S. Polasky. “Agricultural Sustainability and Intensive Production Practices.” Nature 418 (2002): 671–77.
On Jon Tester’s US Senate Race:
Continetti, M. “How the West Was Won: Is Montana Senate Candidate Jon Tester the New Face of the Democratic Party?” Weekly Standard 12, no. 7 (2006). http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/846btide.asp.
Egan, Timothy. “Fresh Off the Farm in Montana, a Senator-to-Be.” New York Times, November 13, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/13/us/politics/13tester.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2.
Lowery, Courtney. “The ‘Good Guy’ Running for US Senate.” New West, August 29, 2005. http://newwest.net/main/article/the_good_guy_running_for_us_senate/.
On the Life and Work of Joseph Epes Brown:
Brown, Joseph Epes. The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953.
Brown, Joseph Epes. The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian: Commemorative Edition with Letters while Living with Black Elk. Edited by E. Brown, M. Brown Weatherly, and M. O. Fitzgerald. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2007.
PROLOGUE
On the 2012 Drought:
Eligon, John. “Widespread Drought Is Likely to Worsen.” New York Times, July 20, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/science/earth/severe-drought-expected-to-worsen-across-thenation.html?pagewanted=all.
Scheer, Roddy, and Doug Moss. “Dust Bowl Days Are Here Again.” Scientific American, June 9, 2013. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dust-bowl-days-are-here-again/.
US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. “U.S. Drought 2012: Farm and Food Impacts.” http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-news/us-drought-2012-farm-and-food-impacts.aspx#.Ufk-rFOKQfo.
On Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz and 1970s Farm Policy:
Critser, G. “Up, Up, Up!” In Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, 7–19. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.
Friedmann, Harriet. “The New Political Economy of Food: A Global Crisis.” New Left Review 197 (1993): 29–57.
Friedmann, Harriet. “The Political Economy of Food: The Rise and Fall of the Postwar International Food Order.” American Journal of Sociology 88 (1982): 248–86.
On the Problems with Grain Monoculture:
Manning, Richard. Against the Grain. New York: North Point Press, 1994.
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Scott, James C. “Taming Nat
ure.” In Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, 262–306. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
On the Agronomy and Ecology of Lentil Farming:
Biederbeck, V. O., C. A. Campbell, V. Rasiah, R. P. Zentner, and G. Wen. “Soil Quality Attributes as Influenced by Annual Legumes Used as Green Manure.” Soil Biology and Biochemistry 30, nos. 8–9 (1998): 1177–85.
Campbell, C. A., R. P. Zentner, F. Selles, V. O. Biederbeck, and A. J. Leyshon. “Comparative Effects of Grain Lentil–Wheat and Monoculture Wheat on Crop Production, N Economy and N Fertility in a Brown Chernozem.” Canadian Journal of Plant Science 72, no. 4 (1992): 1091–107.
Chen, Chengci, Karnes Neill, Macdonald Burgess, and Anton Bekkerman. “Agronomic Benefit and Economic Potential of Introducing Fall-Seeded Pea and Lentil into Conventional Wheat-Based Crop Rotations.” Agronomy Journal 104, no. 2 (2012): 215–24.
Miller, P. R., Y. Gan, B. G. McConkey, and C. L. McDonald. “Pulse Crops for the Northern Great Plains. II. Cropping Sequence Effects on Cereal, Oilseeds, and Pulse Crops.” Agronomy Journal 95, no. 4 (2003): 980–86.
Miller, P. R., B. G. McConkey, G. W. Clayton, S. A. Brandt, J. A. Staricka, A. M. Johnston, G. P. Lafond, B. G. Schatz, D. D. Baltensperger, and K. E. Neill. “Pulse Crop Adaptation in the Northern Great Plains.” Agronomy Journal 94, no. 2 (2002): 261–72.
On the Limitations of Locavorism and the “Food Miles” Approach:
DeWeerdt, S. “Is Local Food Better?” Worldwatch Institute, 2009. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6064.
McKie, R. “How the Myth of Food Miles Hurts the Planet.” Observer, March 22, 2008. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving.
Schnell, S. M. “Food Miles, Local Eating, and Community Supported Agriculture: Putting Local Food in Its Place.” Agriculture and Human Values 30 (2013): 615–28.
Weber, C. L., and H. S. Matthews. “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States.” Environmental Science and Technology 42, no. 10 (2008): 3508–13.
CHAPTER 1
On the Land Sharing/Land Sparing Debate:
Fischer, J., Berry Brosi, Gretchen C. Daily, Paul R. Ehrlich, Rebecca Goldman, Joshua Goldstein, David B. Lindenmayer, et al. “Should Agricultural Policies Encourage Land Sparing or Wildlife-Friendly Farming?” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6 (2008): 380–85.
Perfecto, Ivette, and John Vandermeer. Nature’s Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation, and Food Sovereignty. Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2009.
Scherr, S. J., and J. A. McNeely. “Biodiversity Conservation and Agricultural Sustainability: Towards a New Paradigm of ‘Ecoagriculture’ Landscapes.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B—Biological Sciences 363 (2008): 477–94.
Tscharntke, T., Yann Clough, Thomas C. Wanger, Louise Jackson, Iris Motzke, Ivette Perfecto, John Vandermeer, and Anthony Whitbread. “Global Food Security, Biodiversity Conservation and the Future of Agricultural Intensification.” Biological Conservation 151, no. 1 (2012): 53–59.
On the History of Grain Agriculture on the Great Plains and the Agricultural Treadmill:
Cochrane, Willard W. The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979.
Cronon, William. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.
Matheson, Nancy. “Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Agriculture.” AERO Sun Times, November/December 1983: 9–12.
Matheson, Nancy. “There’s No Taste Like Home.” Montana Magazine, January/February 2000: 39–44.
On the 1980s Farm Crisis and the Cost-Price Squeeze:
Davidson, O. G. Broken Heartland: The Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996.
Harl, N. E. The Farm Debt Crisis of the 1980s. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990.
On the Environmental and Health Impacts of Agrichemicals:
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.
Harrison, Jill. Pesticide Drift and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.
Pimentel, David, H. Acquay, M. Biltonen, P. Rice, M. Silva, J. Nelson, V. Lipner, S. Giordano, A. Horowitz, and M. D’Amore. “Environmental and Economic Costs of Pesticide Use.” BioScience 42, no. 10 (1992): 750–60.
On Climate Change and Agriculture:
Jensen, E. S., Mark B. Peoples, Robert M. Boddey, Peter M. Gresshoff, Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen, Bruno J. R. Alves, and Malcolm J. Morrison. “Legumes for Mitigation of Climate Change and the Provision of Feedstock for Biofuels and Biorefineries: A Review.” Agronomy for Sustainable Development 32 (2012): 329–64.
Lappé, Anna. Diet for a Hot Planet. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.
Lemke, R. L., Z. Zhong, C. A. Campbell, and R. Zentner. “Can Pulse Crops Play a Role in Mitigating Greenhouse Gases from North American Agriculture?” Agronomy Journal 99, no. 6 (2007): 1719–25.
Vermeulen, S. J., B. M. Campbell, and J. S. Ingram. “Climate Change and Food Systems.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 37, no. 1 (2012): 195.
On the Chicago Counterculture and the Weather Underground:
Berger, D. Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2006.
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. Rev. ed. New York: Random House, 1993.
Miller, James. Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
The Weather Underground. Directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel. New York: Docurama, 2004. DVD, 92 min.
CHAPTER 2
On the Commodity Payment System and Its Consequences:
Imhoff, Daniel. Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill. 2nd ed. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2012.
Winders, Bill. The Politics of Food Supply: U.S. Agricultural Policy in the World Economy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.
On the Early Organic Farming Movement in the US:
Belasco, Warren. Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
Conford, Philip. The Origins of the Organic Movement. Edinburgh, Scotland: Floris Books, 2001.
On Agroecology, Green Manures, and Biological Nitrogen Fixation:
Altieri, Miguel A. Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995.
Altieri, Miguel. “The Ecological Role of Biodiversity in Agroecosystems.” Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 74, no. 1 (1999): 19–31.
Crews, T. E., and M. B. Peoples. “Legume Versus Fertilizer Sources of Nitrogen: Ecological Tradeoffs and Human Needs.” Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 102, no. 3 (2004): 279–97.
Gliessman, Stephen R. Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems. 2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2006.
Magdoff, Fred, and Harold van Es. Building Soils for Better Crops. 3rd ed. Beltsville, MD: Sustainable Agriculture Network, 2010. http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-for-Better-Crops-3rd-Edition.
Peoples, M. B., H. Hauggaard-Nielsen, and E. S. Jensen. “The Potential Environmental Benefits and Risks Derived from Legumes in Rotations.” In Nitrogen Fixation in Crop Production, edited by David W. Emerich and Hari B. Krishnan. Agronomy Monograph Series 52. Madison, WI: American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America (ASA-CSSA-SSSA), 2009.
Vandermeer, John. The Ecology of Agroecosystems. Sudbury, MA: Bartlett and Jones, 2010.
CHAPTER 3
On Black Medic and Ley Farming:
Bell, Lindsay W., J. Lawrence, B. Johnson, B. O’Mara, and D. Kirby. “Ley Pastures—Their Fit in Cropping Systems.” GRDC Advisor Updates. Canberra, Australia: Grains Research and Development Corporation. March 3–4, 2010. http://www.grdc.com.au/Research-and-Developm
ent/GRDC-Update-Papers/2010/09/LEY-PASTURES-THEIR-FIT-IN-CROPPING-SYSTEMS.
Chen, Chengci, with Jess Alger, Bob Bayles, David Buschena, Clain Jones, James Krall, Jon Kvaalen, Roy Latta, and John Paterson. Survey and Economic Analysis of Montana Farmers Utilizing Integrated Livestock-Cereal Grain (Ley Farming) Systems. Project Final Report. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. US Department of Agriculture, 2009. http://mysare.sare.org/mySARE/ProjectReport.aspx.
