Stewardculture magazine
Village Farming Contemplations on Berry’s ‘Two Economies’ Two Trees and The One Pastor and permaculturist, Jonathan Dodd, discusses our role as children of the King and how we should take care of His creation
Wisdom of Salatin Installment two: 10 threads of success
Stewardculture magazine is a quarterly electronic magazine containing news, articles and features about regenerative farming and gardening that is God glorifying. Stewardculture seeks to promote Bible-based stewardship agriculture. This simply means we advocate for creation-friendly thinking that emphasizes the fact that we do not own the Earth or even some small piece of it. Creation is simply a gift given to humans who are commanded to be its stewards as God’s representatives. Our editorial and promotional content is designed to inform, educate and motivate nearly anyone connected with growing things, with content targeted to redeemed Christians. Each issue will cover a wide range of editorial and promotional content including tips and how-to articles, opinion pieces and feature stories. Stewardculture’s editor happily accepts by-lined editorial submissions with the right of final editing for style, tone, length and voice. Editorial and graphical content may not be used in any form, printed or digital, without permission of the editor and attribution. Publisher and editor: Dan Grubbs Stewardculture 19108 Scott Rd. Holt, Missouri 64048 816-729-4422 stewardculture@gmail.com
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INSIDE
Stewardculture
Cover story
The final installment of “The Wisdom of Salatin,” where our editor expounds on famed farmer Joel Salatin’s ten threads of farming success.................Page 3
Is land alive?
Editor Dan Grubbs in his regular column explores the notion whether land is alive or not.....................Page 4
Village farming
Author and farming blogger Gene Logsdon explores his notion of what village farming means, its place in the world and what might be the benefit of collboration between neighbors.............................................Page 8 “Contemplations after Berry’s ‘Two Economies’” What does it mean to be a good neighbor? We explore Wendell Berry’s discussion of the idea that farmers have failed to treat soil and water like good neighbors..................................................................Page 12
Can’t miss recipes
Rhubarb is the feature of this issue of Stewardculture Magazine. You’ll find a pie and a jam recipe for your delight..............................................................Page 20
Into the Barn
Special guest contributor, Jonathan Dodd, brings us a multi-part series considering our relationships with God, with each other, and the land. As a biblical child of the King, believers should care for the land as the King would.......................................................Page 22
The Wisdom of Salatin part 2
Five more ways to take you down the path of success on your farm Here in this second installment of “The Wisdom of Salatin,” I continue to expand on Joel Salatin’s 10 common threads for success on the farm. Salatin, of the famous Polyface Farms, taught these at a presentation he gave at the Sustainable Agriculture Symposium last November. Here’s a link to part one of this two-part article. It would be worth going back to read part one in order to get up to speed. 5. Direct market This is easier to understand for someone working at a smaller scale. However, direct marketing is wise even for farmers who are working at large scale. Unless someone is growing industrial commodities, direct marketing can be a primary vehicle of trade for the successful farmer. It affords for a higher margin on products because it cuts out a middle party who may take their own cut or add a middle expense. There is business security in a diversity of marketing options. When one market dries up for you, you have several others on which to rely while developing a new market to make up for the loss. Salatin calls this stacking enterprises. Direct marketing your products is a powerful way to also help keep your farm itself diversified. As permaculturists around the world have proven, there is increased land productivity
when growing a diversity of plants. This improves the health of your soil and aids in water retention. Direct marketing also takes more time. This is the part of farming as a business that many farmers don’t like. They want to be on the land getting their hands dirty or with their animals. But, a large amount of time needs to be spent promoting what is going on and selling the products of the farm. Cultivating relationship with chefs, schools, senior centers, market directors, food hubs and consumers is a must for the farmer who is direct marketing. For the more entrepreneurial of spirit, a community supported agriculture buying group is a common option. This is popular with both producers and consumers. A CSA affords the farmer to have a good idea of their income ahead of time because consumers pay up front for a season’s or year’s worth of products. In effect, this allows consumers to share the risk of producers while being guaranteed a constant flow of seasonal food. Products are either delivered directly (often weekly or bi-weekly) to the buyer or delivered to a pick-up spot. Similar to a CSA are farm distribution centers where
see SALATIN on page 6 3
From My Tractor Seat Observations and opinions from the editor stewardculture@gmail.com
Is land alive? And does it matter to farmers? I discovered a blog titled, Redeeming the Dirt. It’s a blog written by a born-again Christian farmer named Noah Sanders that is quite refreshing. I recommend it. We reviewed Sanders’ book Born Again Dirt in our first issue of Stewardculture Magazine. But, I want to share a question Sanders posed in his blog some time ago. At his blog, Sanders asked his readers to answer “Is land living or non-living?” He asked this question with the idea that his readers would answer it from a biblical perspective.
Provocative, to be sure.
translation.
I believe we need to examine the semantics because most readers’ scriptural references are made in English, which is not the original language. Additionally, our understanding of these terms can differ today from when the English translators did their work.
Therefore, I posit that Sanders’ question is a semantical one in that we may not know what he means by “land” when he asked his question. Do we understand it to mean soil? Or could it be real estate? Or how about a geography? Land could even mean an ecosystem.
For example, the Hebrew word “erets” that is translated as “earth” in Gen. 1:11 is tricky in itself. Its literal translation is “be firm” which then can be translated by context as country, earth, field, ground, land, or even nations. My point is let’s be careful about being dogmatic based on the English
Do we come up with an answer to his question of vivacity if we pick one of these legitimate definitions of land? If soil is our definition, then we know soil is some combination of silt, sand and clay. But, it also has many organisms that exist among the three elements (see photo). Does soil become living because there are nematodes or other microscopic life in it? Does a house become living because people live in it? Is that a logical comparison? One can say that a dog is living, yet it has component parts that are also living, such as skin cells. Does the living cell make the dog a living thing or vice versa? Do bacteria in the soil, which are alive, cause the soil to be alive in its unified form? This can be heady stuff if we let it. Let’s say that the “earth” of Gen. 1:11 means either soil or land. The verse tells us that God commands, “Let the earth sprout vegetation …” We have to examine the gram-
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See LIFE on Page 16
Editor’s Pics - YouTube Channels School of Permaculture
Eco Oasis
Missouri
Suburban
Wind and
Homestead
Solar
Daddykirbs
The Urban
Garden &
Farming
Farm
Guys
Permacultre Pennsylvania
Wranglerstar
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SALATIN from page 3 customers can pick up their orders from a central location. They may or may not have already paid ahead of time, but this is more a “meet you half way” approach compared to actual door-to-door delivery. Sometimes farmers collaborate together to create a common location and broaden the choice of what’s offered to consumers.
but gives the farmer a chance to expose the buyer to their operation, which can deepen the buyer-producer relationship. 2. Gross margin analyses You don’t have to be scared off by this idea. We don’t need to be CPAs to do a bit of basic adding and subtracting of costs and income. The point is that producers need to have a handle on how much it costs to produce an item and for how much it can be sold. The trick is to keep track of all the costs and time that went into getting a final product to market. Farmers usually estimate this too conservatively and neglect to add in some costs that aren’t readily identifiable.
The traditional farmer’s market is often the most common place to direct market. Though this provides direct connection between consumer and producer, the schedule of the market places tough burdens on the farmer. The producer must As farmers, unorganize their less we’re doing week around proit as a hobby, duction tasks that What is your gross margin? we need to unalign with the derstand where processing, transour break-even portation and set point is on any up at the market. Crops don’t always come ripe at the enterprise we have going on our farms. Knowing this exact time they must be picked and processed in oris simply keeping a good record of all our expenses reder to get to the farmer’s market. Not really a middle lated to an enterprise. This includes cost of materials, man, the market organizing entity will usually charge cost of labor, cost of fuel, cost of feed, cost of seed, farmers a fee for their market space. This can be a flat the costs of maintenance, the cost of depreciation, fee or a percentage of sales. Note, many of the other taxes, etc. When all these are added together, they farmers are selling similar items so price pressure can represent one side of your margin analysis. Don’t forquickly eat into profit margins. Yet, a farmer’s market get to add in your own time. You have to know what a is a great way to get started building an audience and dollar value is for every hour you work. How valuable exposing the farm business to more buyers. Establish- is your time to you and your operation? Be sure you ing a trusted relationship between buyer and farmer include that for an accurate determination of your is a strength of the farmer’s market model. Producers total costs. can also develop lasting relationships with other proThe other side of your margin analysis is your total ducers with whom they may collaborate on projects, income from that enterprise, such as the total sale resources or expanding product offerings. of broilers. You subtract your total costs from the Finally, a farm stand is a good option for some farmtotal sale and you come up with the difference. Then, ers. Location is the key element here for starting a divide that difference by the total sales. This gives you farm stand. These can be on your property or they can a percentage and your gross margin. This looks like a be away from the farm located on some highly visvery simple equation: (total sales – total costs) / total ible, easily accessed spot. Tourists and afternoon rush sales = gross margin %. hour traffic are common targets for market stands. This helps you know how much of each dollar of sales On-farm stands may offer less exposure to traffic,
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Do you have a multi-enterprise operation?
that you keep as profit. For example, if you know your total costs of annual production of chicken eggs is $2,300 and at the end of the year you’ve sold $5,400 worth of eggs, you have a profit margin of 57.4%. That means you are earning $0.57 for every dollar of sales. This is especially important when you have multiple enterprises to know which are more profitable and worth your time than other activities on your farm. Without determining this for each of your activities, you won’t know what you should continue doing and what you should stop doing.
and a better chance at offering something else the customer wants. It’s so often the happy customer will ask, “what else do you have?” 4. Conduct time and motion studies Successful farmers know how to be efficient. You don’t get to be efficient without knowing how long
3. Multi-enterprise operation It’s rare that someone can make a living on the farm selling just one or two things. As Salatin said, it’s easier to find 100 people who will spend $1,000 on your products than it is to find 1,000 people to spend $100. That may seem counterintuitive to the multienterprise idea, but it’s not. Consider this; it is easier to sell five products to one customer who is already buying something from you. The hard part isn’t growing or raising a product. The hard part is getting the customer in the first place. If you have multiple products to sell them that were derived from a multi-enterprise farm, you stand a better chance of landing that customer the first time
it takes to do something. If you’re harvesting apples, you need to know how long it takes one person to harvest apples from one tree. You need to know how long it takes to dress a chicken. You need to know
See SALATIN on page 21 7
Village Farming by Gene Logsdon
A lot of attention is being given to urban farming and that is certainly good. But there is a somewhat broader view emerging under the impetus of garden farming. I call it the ascendancy of village farming. As far as I can find in history and archeology, as the hunting and gathering age gradually evolved into settled communities, farming was very much a village affair, not an individual family undertaking. People congregated into groups for mutual protection and for sharing the work load. Their garden farms were clustered around the outskirts of their villages. Among the many advantages, there were plenty of children and dogs running around, scaring wild animals away from the crops. Traditionally in Europe and especially Asia where even today the average size of farms is under five acres in some areas, farmers lived in villages and went out to their acres during the day. Immigrants who lived this integrated village farming life in Austria have told me how much more comfortable and enjoyable life was compared to what they found in America. In their homeland, farmers often worked in groups in the fields and then returned to town in the evenings, to community, and on porches, street corners, and in taverns, they talked to each other, shared ideas and events, tended to see both farm field and urban shop as one community united in work and play. In America they felt lonely on American farms. But even here, there were close connections between farmers and villagers as I grew up. On Sunday morning, we country people went to church in our villages and after services, everyone stood around outside and talked sometimes for more than an hour. We children played hide and seek among the legs of the grownups. And on Saturday night, everyone went to town and stood on street corners visiting with townspeople and each other until after midnight. Automobiles remedied the isolation to some extent, and then electronics to a great extent, and the division between town and country is now fast disappearing. But mental attitudes, in this case of mutual alienation leading to distrust, are the last to go in the face of cultural change. The old isolation, especially in the open lands of North America, encouraged self-determination
Gene Logsdon is author of several books on rural life and agriculture, including All Flesh is Grass, A Sanctuary of Trees, Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind, The Last of the Husbandmen, which can be found at his website.
which is good, but also encouraged suspicion of cities, which is not good. And of course it worked the other way too. City people learned the value of mutual cooperation but tended to think their rural counterparts were ignorant. It is an oversimplification, I suppose, but I think one of the reasons we have red and blue states today is because farming here did not evolve out of communal village life like it did elsewhere in the world. I’m sure it sounds ridiculous, but I like to think that the village represents the apex of human civilization. Village life is more secure and comfortable than the lonely ramparts of the outer countryside or the crowded nonentity of the big city. The world is littered with the ruins of great cities. The way to keep a nation vital and human is to keep it as a collection of villages spread out over the landscape. This new age of local garden farming is a way to do this. It is causing the return of the village as the center of human endeavor. People are coming together for that most basic need of all: good food. They are realizing that humans have a lot more in common than geographical, political, economic and religious differences would imply. As they flock into farm markets, why, my goodness, they realize they can actually like people of different ideologies. The cross-cultural benefits of local garden farming not only tie farm to village but village to city. The more different communities mingle, the more they grasp their commonality. It always amused me during the nine years I worked in big city Philadelphia, how a series of secretaries did not say, when I asked them, that they were from Philadelphia. Invariably they would give a place name that applied to a village that the city had swallowed up over the years.
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We are all villagers at heart. I walked through the “Greek section” of Philly on my way to work because I loved the sweet rolls one of the family bakeries there made and sold. Because I was travelling one week, I missed my usual morning visit and when I returned the next week, the matron who always manned the cash register looked at me with mock displeasure and said, (remember in this city of seven million or so): “Where were you last week?” To view local food as a workable, long range develop-
ment, we have to see urban farms as twin sisters of village farms and the windswept acres of industrial farms as country cousins to village garden farms. I will bet you that in the farm markets of Baghdad you can find smiling Christians buying good food from smiling Muslims. And vice-versa. Editor’s note: This article appeared originally in Gene’s blog, The Contrary Farmer, and appears here with permission.
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Contemplations after Be In Wendell Berry’s essay “Two Economies,” he explains his thoughts on the important differences between a money economy or some “little” economy when compared to what he refers to as “The Great Economy.” This difference is vital to understand especially when humans consider the components and processes of creation.
in a money economy because the costs that occur outside of the money economy (poisoned water, soil loss, reduction of habitat) are charged against The Great Economy. When objectively viewed from a macro perspective, these macro costs far outweigh the micro benefits gained by industrial agriculture in the money economy.
Should humans see creation’s components and processes as resources, as the extractive or deconstructionist mindset sees them? Or should humans see them as co-residents of The Great Economy. For my purposes here, soil is the great co-resident – something that resides with – that is of utmost importance for the survival of the human species even beyond the exploitation of other components of creation, such as fossil oil or fossil water.
In other words, according to Berry, industrial agriculture is based on an “invasion and pillage of The Great Economy” because it sees the components as extractable resources rather than collaborative co-residents. In my mind, nowhere is this more profound, and profoundly unheralded, than with the abuse of soil, specifically topsoil.
For Berry, The Great Economy is inclusive of all of creation, its processes and elements, and their full integration. Of this, Berry wrote, everything in The Great Economy “is joined both to it and to every thing else that is in it.” As heady as this stuff sounds at this point, I believe Berry is helping us to understand human hubris in the notion that we cannot live in an economy that is not as inclusive as The Great Economy, a subset economy, if you will, without repercussion of destructive behaviors. For example, humans should not practice industrial agriculture on a large global scale
He adds, “Once we acknowledge the existence of The Great Economy, however, we are astonished and frightened to see how much modern enterprise is the work of hubris.” For me, the arrogance of human behavior and attitude toward soil is more than astonishing and frightening, it’s blasphemous. There are many components that co-reside within The Great Economy that the extractive mind views as valuable resources that originate from The Great Economy, according to Barry. These are worked into the smaller money economy by the activities of those holding that mindset. Fossil coal, fossil water, uranium, are just three examples.
Soil erosion from poor agriculture techniques
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erry’s ‘Two Economies’ Soil, however, is that co-resident in The Great Economy that has the power to create life from death. In fact, healthy soil requires death to offer life. Yet, when soil is viewed as a resource, humans lose sight of the fact that it is a co-resident with them. The result of soil exploitation has negative impacts in The Great Economy where there is always interaction and integration at play. Exploitation of soil is rarely felt in the money economy because of this fact. This is what is taking place in industrial agriculture where humans no longer collaborate with the living soil. Instead, soil’s life-giving characteristics are extracted or destroyed for the sake of yield rather than collaborating with it for the sake of fertility. One can measure farming success by fertility or even the calorie. But, yield is a misleading measure of farming because it does not take into account the costs. In The Great Economy, as I understand it, there is harmony between the co-residents. Dare I say symbiosis? Whereas, in the money economy which exists as a subset to The Great Economy, humans are necessarily parasitic to the elements that are resident in The Great Economy. Humans leech most dramatically from the soil without any sign of a physician to remove us. Humans extract from the soil and destroy its ability to be soil. It becomes sterile. When we realize this, we apply inputs to the soil that we know our crops need for their own processes. Mankind does
by Dan Grubbs
this with blatant disregard for the interaction and integration that is at play in The Great Economy. As one writer put it, humans are living and operating as if we don’t believe that when we poke nature, nature’s not going to poke back. I claim that The Great Economy won’t be just poking back, its reaction will be correlative to the degree of human hubris. In other words, it will be cataclysmic. When one adds to that calamity, the justice that the Creator of The Great Economy demands, the weighing of the scales will be fearfully unbearable because the Creator’s command was for humans to be stewards of that portion of The Great Economy in which we’ve been placed and for which we’ve been equipped. We are not designed to be manipulators of some subset profane economy. By definition, creation is the work of a creator. The Great Economy, the all-inclusive set, is the work of the Creator. As such, to abandon stewardship of its inherent components and processes is to be in direct violation of the Creator’s commands. Worse still, to abuse that which the Creator bestows is not only a violation, but blasphemous, since The Great Economy is a direct fiat of the Creator. In no language, Hebrew or otherwise, could dominion ever be synonymous with abuse and exploitation. And make no mistake, industrial agriculture is abuse of soil.
Phytoplankton formed from agriculture runoff leading to algae plumes that create dead zones in large bodies of water 13
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Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,� says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Malachi 3:10 15
LIFE from page 4 mar to help us have some insight into this process. The Hebrew verb “desah” is translated in the New American Standard as “sprout” and “bring forth” in the King James. But the verb stem of the Hebrew used is technically known as Hiphil, which is causative active. One could say that this grammar indicates that the soil has the capacity to transfer life-like characteristics to the plant, or causing the plant to come forth from its own soil nature. I give this qualification, however, that God is the creator and life giver and in this case is commanding by fiat that the earth bear living green things with the soil as His divinely designed system. Now, after several paragraphs, I haven’t even attempted an answer to Noah’s question. I suggest for most of us that this requires some careful study and prayer. I believe an important reason to better understand God’s creation is that it can help us learn more about Him. Secondarily, as a farmer, it has direct implication for me as I try to be a biblical steward of the land He has graciously extended to me. Whether I believe the land is living or not may not change my attitude toward it any more than if I view the land as a gift from the greatest Gift Giver. I honor the Gift Giver by working to make it give a return, as in Christ’s parable of the talents in Matt. 24. Is the land living? That’s a question answered by another question, “What constitutes life? (at least for things other than man). So as not to be seen as copping out on the question, I view the “land” from a more holistic standpoint and see it as an ecosystem. With that in mind, I would tend to see the land hav-
ing living characteristics. An ecosystem has component parts that are living (flora, fauna, man). An ecosystem has both a respiratory system (exchange of gases) and a circulatory system (hydrologic cycle) with its component parts dependent on these. An ecosystem also has a neurological system with its component elements communicating and interacting with each other. Its component parts also have their own micro life cycles – plants and animals arise from the elements, flourish and then return to the elements only to become part of the process again. My second point is to caution against pointing to biblical anthropomorphisms as proof that the land is a living thing. One can view Hebrew as a pictorial language (where English is a literal language) and often uses simile, metaphor, word pictures, figurative language and anthropomorphisms to convey complex ideas. Is our Heavenly Father really “a fountain of living water”? Of course not, God the Father is spirit and not of His creation. However, the Hebrew of Jeremiah 2:13 uses this metaphor to help covey a particular characteristic of God. Therefore, I’m not confident that God intended us to understand the anthropomorphisms in the bible about the land being alive to be a proof that His creation is living. Though we are subject to the effects of the post-Edenic curse, the land is, by God’s design, an environment within which He knowingly placed man to live and be fruitful and creative. I have to believe that I need to work with the land knowing how God created this special gift to function healthfully and not simply as a resource for my needs. I’m not the owner, simply the steward of a particular ecosystem, and yes, including the soil of the land.
FR
Soil Health DiscussionEE with
Doug Peterson NRCS State Soil Health Conservationist
July 11 2 pm Hosted by:
19108 Scott Road Holt, Missouri, USA Bring your lawn chairs 17
Events
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Almost Manna: Can’t Miss Recipes
Rhubarb Sourcream Pie Ingredients:
1 standard pie crust
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
3 cups cut rhubarb 1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon flour
Preheat oven to 350. Cut rhubarb into small pieces and place into bowl . Pour boiling water over cut rhubarb to cover and let sit five minutes, then drain . Beat the eggs until blended . Mix all ingredients well and pour into unbaked pie crust. Pie can be covered with lattice top or baked without. Bake 45 minutes. Fresh strawberries can be added to filling.
Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Ingredients:
6 cups cut rhubarb 4 cups sugar
2 cups sliced strawberries
3oz packet strawberry jello Have on hand sterile canning jars. Wash and slice the six cups of rhubarb, pat dry. Combine rhubarb and sugar in pan and bring to boil and boil for five minutes. Stir in sliced strawberries and hard boil another five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in package of straberry jello. Seal in jars or let cool and freeze .
SALATIN from page 7
agriculture mindset thinks is needed for farming.
how long it takes to prep tomatoes for market or fulfill CSA order.
When the capital-intensive, single-use infrastructure becomes obsolete or inefficient or unpopular, you’re still stuck with it and have to use it. Portable infrastructure removes the land from the farming equation and makes many choices of what to do possible. Your operation can be moved from one leased farm to another and you don’t lose a single customer because they are portable too.
Why do we need to know these times? You need to know whether you’re doing them efficiently or not. And if you think the process is too long, if you conduct a time and motion study, you now have a benchmark to compare if you look for a way to change the process to be more efficient. Can you cut five minutes off CSA basket preparation by arranging the environment differently? Will that five minutes more mean anything if you’re processing 50 CSA baskets? That’s a savings of more than four hours! Most farmers can use that extra four hours in a day. Time the main processes on your farm and document them. Then study it to see if there might be a change in the process to cut down on the time. This is most often done by ensuring the environment is right for the process and getting things in order ahead of time (the motion part). 5. Concentrate on creating a portable farm A portable farm is one in which the equity of the farm is in management and information not in hard assets or infrastructure. Single-use, capital-intensive infrastructure creates undue pressure because too much of the farm’s equity is tied up in them. “We become enslaved” to the infrastructure that the industrial
Depreciating infrastructure, such as grain silos or large storage barns is not where you want your equity residing on your farm. You want it in your people and they knowledge they maintain and can convey to others. This is what some finance people call fluidity. This doesn’t mean you have no infrastructure at all. However, you want to keep that at low as possible. Salatin closed his discussion with a variety of words of wisdom about changing our mindset when we set about doing something. He said that we are often brought up thinking that we have to do everything right and repeated the oft-quoted saying if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right. Salatin taught this is the opposite idea we need to have on our farms because we often don’t succeed at something on the first try and we should be encourage to keep getting better at what we do because in his words, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly first.”
Is your farm portable?
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Into the Barn
I want to start by telling you a personal story. It is not intended to be a judgmental story about a neighbor, for I and my neighbor are one. Anything written about my neighbor in this story, interwoven with the Grand Story, is in some ways true of me, just in a different way. You see, we are all the same in the beginning. Until we are transformed, metamorphosed by the good news, until we are sealed with the truth that finds us, we will be found wanting, waiting its fulfillment. This is not a story about trees. It is a story about us, it is a story about everything. In fact, everything is about relationship! For now, let me tell you about my neighbor. A neighbor I want to be friends with. A neighbor I am trying to love. My neighbor two lots to the south, uphill and upwind, the neighbor who caused herbicide drift to my trees last spring, decided to cut down the property line row of trees on the edge of the field that he has been farming. They were osage, hickory, walnut and cedar, some of which looked to be more than 50 years old. As I caught him in the act I waved him down and asked why he was cutting down all of those trees. He animatedly said, “I don’t want to scratch my $240,000 combine. I hate trees.” In a short tone, instead of politely asking him to trim the trees rather than rip them out, I told him that his spraying had caused herbicide damage to my trees the previous spring. He said that his guys are really good at spraying and would not do that (cause herbicide drift). I then told him that without trees and with continual herbicide spraying and tillage, all that is left is a desert. He said, “then I want a desert. I hate trees. Well, I better get back to my diggin’.” “Forest, field, plow, desert – that is the cycle of the hills under most plow agricultures,” wrote J. Russell Smith in 1929 in his book Tree Crops: A Permanent
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courtesy of Birdcage Release Collaborative
Two Trees and the One: The Beginning
by Jonathan Dodd Jonathan Dodd has a Master’s of Divinity from Regent College in Vancouver, BC. He is an entrepreneur, a farmer, a pastor, and a lover of the land who has started multiple businesses, with both success and failure. He has been farming for 5½ years with his wife, Catherine, three children and others who work with them at New Earth Farm & Goods in Papillion, Nebr. Jonathan is the executive director of Keipos, Inc., a non-profit focused on teaching food and farming education, whole systems design, hands-on training, and community development both locally and abroad. http://negood.com http://keipos.org
Agriculture. More than 80 years have passed since the writing of this book, yet nothing much has changed in agriculture during that same time. What has changed the most is that humans have created larger, more powerful and impactful tools, weapons both with minerals and biology. There is both good and bad in the advancement of technology. Technology by itself is an amazing thing; however, the problem is when technology is combined with human capability, ignorance and neglect. A recipe for disaster is close at hand. But the opposite is true as well; we have potential to do great good and use technology to make the world a better place. But that is story for another day.
desert, not in our lifetime or for many generations to come. Once the plow turns the ground, erosion soon follows. Erosion gives way to the loss of water and nutrients, life being denuded - a slow death to the living soil. Desertification is already here and has been for many generations in the Midwest and around our planet.
The land, left alone, will move in succession in one of two directions: it will go from field to forest, or from forest to savannah. There is not much coming back from the
This neighbor and his father and his father’s father have been farming this land for three generations. How could a person that has been
My neighbor, the one who tore out those trees along a road embankment, will see next year more major erosion of the field. The water, the soil, his petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, harmful fungi and soil will wash over the road and into the field below, eventually washing onto my property farther downslope, polluting the water table and the sky.
living in this place for so long tear out a windbreak that was planted before his grandfather? Why would someone till the soil up to the road’s edge? As a point of clarification, problems are never simple; they are usually complex with many moving parts. However, the solution is usually pretty simple. In order to answer the question we must move from patterns to details. There are many biblical patterns that can help us answer this question of “why?” This is the beginning, the first of a 12-part list to answer the question “why?” But first we should start from the beginning with Genesis chapter one.
Worldview Conflict: Inheritanceship vs. Warship Although my neighbor is farming
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this particular 200-acre field, he does not own the land. This particular piece of land used to be another homestead with a house dating back to the early-mid 1800s. The original house still stands, like an island in the middle of a sea of dirt most months of the year, before being surrounded by heavy, chemical-laden compacted soils and staple crops. The windbreak trees that used to surround the oneacre house property have mostly been cut down. The house is now a rental for a young struggling family, while the 200 acres around the house is rented out to my neighbor farmer. My neighbor who heavily disturbs every square inch around the family in the island house does not own the property. He is indebted to make the land produce a monetary profit at the expense of everything else. He is doing the only thing he knows how. It is not all his fault. He is a slave to war, a warrior using technology against the land; he is also renter, not an owner or a future inheritor of the land he works. Let us start from the beginning, to help us frame the problem. Of the many things that Genesis chapter one teaches us, a few stand out. First, we are taught how the universe works. Second, we are taught our role as image-bearers within the universe is described.
A Palace Temple We will never understand our role within the created order until we understand the order of the universe. The Creation account of Genesis one is primarily about God building a palace temple and dwelling for Himself. It is a story about taking chaos and creating order. It is a story about forming functions and fashioning functionaries. It is
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about designing systems and then installing them. In this story, it is God who is the great whole systems designer. During the first three days of creation God is creating three systems, and during the second three days God is filling those three systems with working parts. On day one, God creates time; on the parallel day, day four, God installs the functionaries of sun, moon and stars to regulate time. On day two, God creates the patterns for weather with a diversity of birds and the waters below with a diversity of fish and creatures of the deep. On day three, God creates fecundity, separating dry land from water, letting the ground fill with a diversity of life, vegetation, plants, and trees; on day six, He fills the land with a diversity of land creatures, including His image-bearers, to eat, harvest and maintain the bountiful diversity of abundance. This is a picture of God as the great systems designer, and installer of the whole system. Did you notice that the image-bearers do not have their own day? That is because we are fleeting mortals; we are not the pinnacle of creation. The pinnacle
of creation comes on the last day. Day seven, the final day, a day set for special purpose, is about God sitting on the throne ruling and resting over everything He has put into right order. The Sabbath is the pinnacle of creation. Other ancient near eastern texts that predate the time of Moses also speak about the creation of
the universe. However, it is usually viewed through a cosmonogy of violent births and deaths of many gods, a warring of the armies, death, and deceit. In almost seemingly direct contrast, Genesis one gives a radical re-interpretation of an ancient cosmonogy, using the language and ideas of an ancient cosmological world view. In this world view we learn about a God who is unity in diversity, in control of everything and creates with ease, all things created by His
very breath, the wind alone.
Ruling Rightly Once we understand that creation is God’s palace temple, we can then understand how to live within it rightly. Stewardship is a wonderful word that has been used to describe the image-bearer’s vocation in Genesis one. However, I am not
sure that stewardship is the best word to use when describing Genesis one. The word steward is based on old English and early Germanic languages meaning to serve or manage the house, the sty. A steward is one who care-takes for another. No doubt this is true of the Bible in many places and can be used by analogy in Genesis one. I am not sure, however, that it is the best word to describe the imagebearer’s role in the first creation
story of Genesis. The word that is used in Genesis one to describe the role of image-bearers within Creation is not that of servitude, but of kingship. The text talks about rulership, not servanthood. Inheritanceship is the language of love. Slavery is the language of war. A king, or children of the king fashioned from the living soil and created in His image, thinks about the land as an inheritance. Landowners, who want to leave a land inheritance, think about the health and proper function of the land for their children and their children’s children. Genesis one is not only a call to steward the land but to rule over it like God rules over it, for we are his children, the beneficiaries of the inheritance as children of God. Image-bearers are both children of the king and stewards of the kingdom. In common ancient near eastern hieroglyphics and writings only the king, the pharaoh, is created in the image of the god and everyone else is a slave to the king. The role of the humans is to serve the gods, the one king made in the image of a chief god. In direct contrast,
Genesis one presents the radically different idea that people are not slaves, but children of the king! The vocational calling of imagebearers in Genesis is to rule in the temple as He rules, putting order to the living systems and bringing order to chaos, moving from a matter that is formless and messy to light, stable and resilient. Genesis one is not just a story about the past; it is a story about us. The first calling of the imagebearer is to hold together in harmony the diversity and abundance of all life created by a diversified and unified God, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer and King. The first calling of the image-bearer is to imitate and replicate the Great Designer’s design. Until we are able understand our role of inherintanceship and rulership within the universe in which we live, we will continue to rule poorly. Even though I do not agree with a methodology that destroys life, creating monoculture form and pollution to the land, I do want a relationship with my neighbor. What happens with my neighbor affects my family, all that is living on my land, and all those who live around. In honesty, the hope I have for my neighbor is not very high; yet, I have not taken the time to truly speak with him about these things. I realize that we each are learning, and learning takes time. May we learn together and love our neighbors. Only love, time and relationship really change things. This is only the beginning. In order to fully answer the question of “why?” we must continue the story…another day.
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Stewardculture Magazine is looking for born-again believers who are interested in writing for this free publication. Knoweldge of news writing style is a bonus. Contact Dan Grubbs, editor, at stewardculture@gmail.com