Gaia Community: leensylus' Blog

My Food Life

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:26:08 GMT

The Creation of a “Local” and “Sustainable” Eater:

The Story of My Food-Life

My food choices have been a long personal evolution of understanding what my own body, the bodies of my species in general, and the landscape surrounding me are best suited to. I grew up in a family with little in the way of food traditions. My mother was a minimalist cook, primarily basing meals on packaged or plainly prepared food. We had a small garden when I was young, but it fell out of use by the time I was a teenager. From an early age I loved to cook and bake. I passed through the fairly typical teenage girl’s phase of vegetarianism, based on the notion that eating animals was cruel. I slowly relinquished this dietary limitation because I found my body aching for, utterly craving, meat. I simply had not the will power to deprive myself of something I so desired. But letting go of the only “style” of eating choices I knew of (vegetarianism) only served to make me more curious about what I should eat. From this base of experiences was lain a fairly blank slate regarding my food values; I didn’t have much to base a value system on, but I was interested in food, and cared to learn more.

Awhile after high school, I attended a certificate program in southern New Mexico on the study of herbal medicine. This program necessarily included a great deal of study of the human physiology. One of the most interesting concepts that we discussed was that around the, “eat right for your blood type” ideal. This idea is based on the condition of blood types that are regionally and temporally rooted, for instance type O is the “original’ blood type for all human kind, whereas type B originated 10,000 years ago in Asia. Based on this, one can gain insight into what he/she is evolutionarily adapted to consume. My blood type being type O indicates that I am most suited to a diet of proteins and vegetables – the food stuffs available to the earliest humans – and not terribly suited to grains and dairy –which are relatively new to the human diet. Not only did this understanding make logical sense to me as well as validate what my body consistently desires for food (I like to say that I could easily live on salad with steak or vegetable and meat soups and forget that bread, rice, and cheese even exist), but it also began my considerations of how both my body and the world have evolved to fulfill my dietary needs.

While living in the desert southwest, the idea of bioregional eating became hugely clear to me. For example, the idea of fish or shellfish seemed utterly ridiculous in the heart of the desert. Because of the volatility of fish, the issue of the food’s distance from source was made clear through this particular meal. But once the idea was planted in my mind, more and more foodstuffs were analyzed relative to their “reasonability” in the desert. Likewise, there were foods that had never appealed to me that suddenly were quite tasty. The most significant of these were avocados and figs, both of which I could pick myself or buy locally. I realized these foods were better than when I had tried them in New England because they had been grown close by, were picked when they were at their peak ripeness, and made immediately available to me the customer.

My study of plants in the desert served in many ways to deeply inform my understanding of human and plant adaptations to the landscape and one another. A significant aspect of this was through a handful of social connections with people who worked with Native Seed Search. This organization acts as a steward of indigenous seed varieties. My connection with the many diverse landscapes of the southwest and observing the work of Native Seed farmers, I came to understand how important it was to maintain varieties that were suited to specific locations. In that region specifically, the microclimates can vary greatly from canyon to canyon, mesa to mesa. Because of this a variety of corn, for instance, that has been grown and selected for in one valley for many generations, may not be very well suited to a valley just a few kilometers away. Bringing in hybrid corn is likely not to succeed at all. I learned that the work of many generations of humans to establish varieties suited to their home and needs could not easily be effectively replaced by the scientific method in laboratory science. Heirloom varieties are hugely important both for their genetic diversity as well as for their material representation of human culture. Likewise, the food ways built around those varieties are valuable adaptations to the land and needs of a people.

A short while after leaving in New Mexico, I spent a season as the assistant manager of an organic farm in central Wisconsin. While I had gardened and grown my own food on a very small scale before, my immersion at the farm awakened me to the true work and issues surrounding food production and the organic method. I worked literally from sun up to well past dark, six and a half days a week. There was always something to be done, and the management of all the variety of endless tasks was a project in and of itself. I was learning and needing to implement everything: soil science, tractor maintenance, crop rotation, pest management, management of workers, esthetics of display (for a farm stand and market), economics, keeping good relations with the neighbors, and on and on and on. We served seven farmer’s markets. Within my first couple weeks, the farmer’s market that I worked was outselling the others that we served. Displaying our vegetables attractively, promoting the new harvests of the week, and talking about cooking were priorities to me at the market. I came to recognize that the process of growing food does not stop at the edge of the fields. Getting out into the community and connecting all my hard labor with the grateful and excited community around me was the greatest reward for my efforts.

During this period I was presented with the consideration of whether it was more important to buy organic or buy local. The farmer I worked for was, well, perhaps the best word for him was fanatical about organic farming. So one day, when the question of local versus organic came up and he weighed in on the side of local, I paid attention. He avowed that for him organic was imperative, but for the average consumer, to purchase local had a greater impact and importance. He noted that most (in terms of volume) of the organic food sold in the US was large scale organic, adhering to the national organic standards. He recognized the national standards as just one more way for big business to get in on his market, and as such, the standards really meant nothing. But if a consumer could see the land his/her food came from, if they know their farmer, and could hold some sway with him as his neighbor, this would be far more effective in altering our food systems than any standardized label ever could.

By the time I returned to Maine some six years ago, I had already begun to crystallize my views about culture, bioregional adaptation, and food. Always having been an active home cook, and having worked many professional kitchen jobs, I found myself shortly in a community of “foodies” in the Portland area. These folks opened a space for me to truly embrace the love of food. I made the connection that what is delicious on the table begins with what is nurtured in the field. Buying from people who truly loved the meats, vegetables, cheeses and so on that they had produced, made my own love of the meal more profound.

When I began college studies I took a course where I had to write a term paper and enter a structured debate on globalization. We were allowed to choose our subject, but which side of the debate we were on was by lottery. I choose globalization because I thought it was one of the great evils of modern times. I was set on the side to uphold the value of Globalization. I do firmly believe that being set on the “wrong” side of this debate taught me a good deal more than it would have otherwise. One of the most fundamental considerations that resonated with me was that the basic premise behind globalization is to allow each region to focus on what it can produce most efficiently, and then allow these goods to be exchanged. While this has not effectively been implemented because of the capitalist skewing of value, the initial idea seemed very valid to me. This has been important to my food values because, while I seek to eat as seasonally and locally as possible, I also recognize that certain items can be produced far away more effectively than they might in Maine (if they can be grown at all). I might eat something (canned tomatoes, avocado, pineapple, olive oil, tea) from away, but when I do I respect the extra inputs that were required for it. It is a tiny celebration of gratitude on my plate.

My anthropological studies at University, served to solidify my understanding that food production and preparation are fundamental to society: the health of these processes is especially indicative of the health of a culture as a whole. Food is not something that can be effectively broken down by reductionist thinking, the growing of plants and animals is far more complex than a simple input/output scheme, and the food on a plate is far more complex than the sum of its nutritional parts. There are countless examples of food ways being fundamental to culture, as well as what a people hold onto the longest after emigrating from their native lands. The human species as we know it today is founded around the hearth, and as such it is compelling to recognize the kitchen as the center of a strong modern society.

By the time my son was born my ideals relating to food were quite developed. The birth of my son catalyzed my fully devoting myself these ideals. When pregnant with and nursing my son my awareness of what I consumed was heightened. It was extremely important to me that I not load my body with chemicals that might harm him or start him off early in life with a high load of toxins that would only grow as he aged. As my son began to eat solid foods himself I was starkly aware of every new type of food, and questioned each item’s safety. Additionally, from the moment I was pregnant until I stopped nursing my son, I was hungry all the time. Not the rumble in your tummy hungry, but the deep in your muscles, never quite satisfied hungry. I lost a huge amount of weight when I started nursing my son, and I lost a great deal of my ability to cook myself good meals when my son’s father left us. All this made my awareness of food shift. With food scares such as the tainted spinach of 2007, I became more aware that organic did not inherently mean safe. For the first winter I lived alone with my tiny baby and subsisted too often on frozen dinners and cereal, I became aware that food in my belly did not necessarily mean nourished. This period of living alone also brought me to fully recognize that even when I did cook a good meal, it never tasted as good as when I could share it with someone. Through this period when so much of my “normal” way of life was shaken to the core, I was left with little but to re-examine everything and choose to root in my life those pieces that seemed most important.

As with so many aspects of raising a child, feeding my son has made me solidify my ideals so that I can pass on to my child a tradition of eating that I believe in. As he has grown in his perception of the world around him, it is not possible to do one thing and try to impress on him that he should do otherwise. For example, my son has only ever eaten meat that I knew exactly the source of. I still tend to occasionally have a pub burger when I want it. Now that my son is interested in eating hamburgers, it is no longer possible for me to order one and tell him he can’t have any. I have also found the amazing trick of convincing a finicky toddler to eat by reminding him of the farmer who grew the food, or better, the day we harvested it together with friends in a place we love:
“Remember the day we picked all these carrots with Maive and you guys carried all the tops and fed them to the pigs. Remember the baby pigs were still just tiny then…” He loves this sort of connection with his food, and I love fostering it. My desire to foster these ideals in my son has made them natural in myself.

People often praise my ability to “be so good” about sourcing my food and cooking so many good meals. I never know quite what to say, for their remarks seem to imply that there is some burden in this work, or that I am denying myself something (like cheap industrial food). But it is so far from that. We eat the way we do because it brings me so much joy. I love to look in a bowl and know the story of every bit and bite. I take pleasure in seeing my friends and family eat food filled with love and nourishment, and have them revel in how yummy it is. I have spent some years now cultivating a knowledge base and a community around me that provides the resources I need to live my ideal. I can spend time in field and forest, rather than money in the grocery store to get my food. Many of the struggles that people have to afford good food have been alleviated for me through choosing where to devote my personal time and energy. I find the added advantage in this scheme that my efforts result in not only feeding myself, but my community as well.

I love that my son is involved with and understands where his food comes from – both field and kitchen. I believe it teaches him so much more than lessons of food or nutrition. He understands work, and land, and community, and ecology, and on and on. On a cold afternoon he can wander by the barn and ask, “Mama, are you done killing turkeys yet?” and wander off to climb on the lumber pile when I tell him not yet. He knows that carrots come from the ground, potatoes need the bugs picked off, and porkchops come from Matilda. He understands the patients and alchemy that is baking, and gets excited at the prospect of potluck. I compare this to what he might know if our lives were limited to the grocery store, restaurants, and just the two of us, and I come to the conclusion that we clearly have the advantage.

Food is something I love. I love to see it come forth from the ground. I love to create it in my kitchen. I love to share it with my family and community. This love has translated to a passion and an ideal. I believe that a strong culture has strong food ways, both field and kitchen. I believe that as our western culture has moved away from these traditions we have moved away from social, personal, and ecological health. Growing my own food, living organic, buying local, embracing my community – these are ways that I have enriched my own life, not chosen to limit it. I believe that the way that I eat is sustainable for environment and society. I also believe it will nourish myself and my son both in our physical health, and our mental and spiritual well being.

Tags:

Thesis Update December 2009

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:25:16 GMT

A Search for Modern Sustainability in the Traditions of the Past:

Reexamining the Grange and Agrarian Heritage of Maine

SURF Research, Summer 2009, Independent Study: Final Write Up

Thesis Progress Update

Nikkilee Carleton

12 November 2009

“…Reap for the mind as well as for the body. Natural history is replete with both the wonderful and the beautiful, and its study enables us to better carry out the principles we inculcate of Faith, Hope and Charity. Cultivate an observing mind. It is delightful to acquire knowledge, and much more so to diffuse it. It is sad to think that any human soul should fail to perceive the beauty that everywhere abounds. Nature preaches to us forever in tones of love, and writes truth in all colors, on manuscripts illuminated with stars and flowers.”

~ Manual of the Subordinate Grange, spoken by the Lecturer during the ceremony of the third degree.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship: Approach

My summer research project came from an initial understanding of why the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange, was established. Through some very basic preliminary research I found that the Grange was formed just after the US Civil War as a way for isolated rural agrarian communities to more effectively share knowledge (such as the latest agricultural technology and methodology), come together for the cooperative dissemination of goods, and as common voice against corporate and legislative powers. As I inquired deeper into the Grange in Maine, I studied Stanley Russell Howe’s book A Fair Field and No Favor: A Concise History of the Maine State Grange. In the front of this text, Howe offers a quote from the Oxford Democrat, 6 September 1887:

“The Grange was organized for the intellectual, social and financial improvement of the farmer and his family, to place his occupation where God himself placed it – the best and most honored of all callings. It seeks not to build up agriculture at the expense of any other class, but it would give the farmer an equal chance in all things. A fair field and no favor. Justly distributed burdens and justly distributed power. Equal laws, equal taxes, and no discriminations of any kind. As educated by the Grange the coming farmer will be a recognized power in every sphere of usefulness. Commerce will give him the credit which is due him. Politics will take shape from his judgment and will. Society will confess his worth and acknowledge his title to nobility – at least the only nobility that can exist in a republic. Then will our farm homes become, what under our free institutions they should be, the very strongholds of the land.”

With this (admittedly romantic) initial understanding I began to make some theoretical connections with the needs of modern farmers. Through my own experience in local farming communities, I know that small farmers face many of the same issues the Grange seemed to be attempting to address: powerlessness against the monopolies of corporations and legislature, a want for cooperative buying, selling, and distribution of farm goods, the need for an effective way of sharing information between farmers, and support of farm communities and families. I have also come to recognize that many of the farmers who are working in Maine today do not have one significant advantage that many farmers of the past would have had: According to the latest US Department of Agriculture Census, the number of small farms in Maine is growing at three times the rate of anywhere else in the nation. I know empirically that the majority of these new farm managers did not grow up on family farms, and certainly not the farms they are trying to work today. Traditionally a farmer would have the benefit of learning through being immersed in a culture of farming that was established over generations of adaptation to the immediate land and community. But today, decades of agribusiness have interrupted this culture of farming. So I wondered: could understanding an organization established when there was a strong agrarian culture help to support our current efforts at re-establishing a local small farm infrastructure?

With this underlying curiosity I began an investigation of the Grange with these most basic and broad research questions:

What was the historical role of the Grange in farming communities?
What are the current manifestations of Granger activities?
What does the Grange have to offer or teach modern agrarian communities?

With these questions I hoped to gain a deeper understanding of what the Grange was trying to do and how effective they were, what role the organization has evolved into in modern times, and what our farmers could do with this knowledge.

Field Work: Archival

I began my research in earnest with an immersion in the archival information available to me. In their entirety I read the thesis by Samuel Carleton Guptill, The Grange in Maine – 1874–1940, the master’s project by Elspeth Brown and Rose Marasco (on file at the University of Southern Maine American and New England Studies Office), Ritual and Community: The Maine Grange, and A Fair Field and No Favor, by Dr. Howe. By traveling to the Maine State Library in Augusta I examined texts on reserve there, such as the Origin and Early History of the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry in the United States by James Wallace Darrow and the Semi Centennial History of the Patrons of Husbandry by Thomas Clark Atkenson. I also examined many editions of the Maine State Grange Annual Journal of Proceedings, Lecturer’s Handbooks, and Grange newspaper publications.

Through reading these descriptions of the history of the Grange I came to understand that Oliver Hudson Kelley formed the Patrons of Husbandry after the Civil War. Kelley had been sent to the south to determine what could be done for the desolated rural communities in the war-ravaged region. He found that his being a Free Mason offered him a fraternity with the southerners that would otherwise not have been offered a northerner. He conceived of a fraternal order of agrarian peoples that would provide a fellowship for rural, agrarian people in an era when there was a growing concentration of capital, population, and energy focused on the metropolitan areas. Influenced by his niece, Caroline Hall, a woman’s suffrage advocate, Kelley created the Grange ritual and structure in a way that set women on equal footing in the organization – a novelty in that era.

Table 1: Patrons of Husbandry Accomplishments

Major Accomplishments of the Patrons of Husbandry

Establishment of Land Grant Colleges, 4-H, and Cooperative Extension Service

Formation of Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, and Farm Bureau

Passage of Legislations such as the 1914 Smith Lever Act, ballot law reform, Sherman Anti-Trust Law, and 1902 legislation preventing the false branding of food

Creation of network of County Fairs

Rural Free Delivery

Creation of many Cooperative Stores and Insurance Companies

Support of Woman Suffrage

The Maine State Grange had its origins in the establishment of the Hampden, Eastern Star #1, in 1873. At one time the Maine Grange had the largest membership of any in the nation. Reading the annual proceedings of the meeting of the Maine State Grange, I saw that the focus of their efforts seemed to shift over the generations. The general trends that I saw showed that in the late nineteenth century the focus was primarily on the concerns facing rural communities. By the 1920s much was being said and discussed regarding World War One and consideration of if the nation was going to face involvement in another war. The 1940s brought a focus in the pressures the economy and big industry was placing on agrarian communities. By the 1960s most of the talk was about the work of the youth groups (4-H and Junior Grange), as well as some discussion of environmental concerns facing the nation and rural people.

Early in my research I visited Dr. Stanley Russell Howe at his office in the Bethel, Maine Historical Society. Dr. Howe is the state Grange Historian. I conducted a very brief interview with Dr. Howe, focusing primarily on the structure of the Grange and the more contemporary evolutions of the Grange. This interview was both productive as well as disconcerting with the recognition that I was very unpracticed at conducting ethnographic interviews. One of the primary mishaps was that I improperly pressed the ‘record’ button of my audio recorder and failed to get any sound for a fair portion of the interview. Compounding this was that I failed to take extensive notes during this section, assuming that everything was being recorded for later transcription. I did feel like we had a productive conversation, where I found a good balance of covering my established “guiding” questions, while also asking pertinent questions about what he was describing– drawing Dr. Howe into a natural telling of stories and research. After interviewing Dr. Howe I examined the small display “The History of the Grange in Maine,” which was showing in the historical society’s gallery.

Another research trip that I took early in my process was to the Maine Folklife Center at UMaine Orono. While at the Folklife Center I viewed a short film by Chris Sterling, titled “Greetings from the Grange.” I read and photocopied transcripts of interviews with Grangers from all around the state conducted between the years 1975 and 1996. These were a rich source of amazing oral history and I could have and would have spent hours reading and searching for more of these archives, but the center closed after I had read for just a few hours[1]. So I then went to the special collections at the Fogler Library on the same campus, where I wanted to view more Grange publications. Unfortunately, special collections was about to close as well. Additionally, the librarian explained to me, the archives from Grange are extensive, and the majority of them are not yet catalogued and organized. Dr. Howe had told me that any Grange in the state that closes down (and this, unfortunately, is a fairly regular occurrence) sends all of their records–secretary’s notes, treasurer’s records, handbooks, fliers, newspapers, photos, certificates, music, everything collected over the past century and a half– to the special collections at UMO. What the librarian told me is that these records arrive by the pickup-load, often unannounced, and the collection is now massive, and the cataloguing of it no small undertaking. This being the case, I was able to examine very few records (really not knowing where to even begin with so little time).

Field Work: Ethnography and Oral History

The next portion of my research was to begin my ethnography in earnest. During my archival research I had done preliminary work to prepare for my interviews. I got IRB approval for conducting interviews, and drafted Informed Consent and Media Release Documents for my informants to sign[2]. I began my contact with the Grange by writing formal contact letters to the Master’s of the two Granges that I hoped to work in (Sabbathday Lake #365, in New Gloucester, and Dirigo #13, Brunswick,), as well as to the head of the State Grange.[3] From these three letters I received no reply. After two weeks I called the Grange Masters repeatedly, and got no reply. By the time I left the University at Orono, not having accomplished what I had hoped for that day, and having had no luck contacting Grangers, I was feeling rather discouraged. I stopped for dinner on my long drive home, and through the providence of serendipity, I got into a conversation with the old salty fellow sitting at the bar. His name is Harvey King (Camden, Megunticook Grange, #423, now defunct), a retired history teacher who grew up with a mother passionate about the Grange who had held many offices in her lifetime. Harvey became an important informant for my work and led me to my key informant, Glendon Mehuren (Montville, Union Harvest Grange, #97) a fifth generation Granger and the last dairy farmer in Searsmont. Shortly after meeting Harvey I decided to interview my great-uncle, Willard Waterman (New Gloucester #28, now defunct). I also was able to contact Elizabeth Hart, the Master of Dirigo Grange (Brunswick, # 13) and she connected me to Shirley Thompson, the Secretary of Marriconeag Grange (Harpswell, #425).

My interview with Willard took place at his home in New Gloucester. He left the Grange in his early 20s (sometime between 1945 and 1950, he was unsure). He was able to tell me about his grandparents forming the New Gloucester Grange, and about the conditions of farming in his early life. This was really very informing to my work. One of the most interesting things that he explained to me was the correlation between the developments in mechanized farming and the lack of domestic labor during World War Two. He told me that he, and others, gave up going to Grange meetings because they were just too busy with farming. His farm was running multiple tracts of land and hiring out equipment. At the same time, he found no need to go to Grange meetings to learn about the news in the farming world, because publications such as American Cattlemen were delivered directly to his home. By the 1960s the farmstead was sold because neither he nor his brothers cared to farm or care for the farm buildings, when it was less hours and less work to work for businesses off the farm.

Harvey King gave me a long, interesting monologue about the history of the Camden–Rockland area. He gave me old photos, certificates, and ribbons from his mother’s time in the Grange. Harvey explained that if there was a lack of diversity (religious or racial) in the Grange, it simply reflected the local society’s lack of diversity, not a bias on the part of the Granges.

Glendon Mehuren loves to tell stories and contemplate his community and farming’s place in the world. Glenny feels strongly that the fact that there are so few farmers left in Maine makes it incredibly difficult for him to farm because there is no community of farmers to support one another, as he puts it, no farming culture. This makes it very difficult for him to get help on his farm, share equipment or knowledge with other farmers, and makes it so there is very little respect in the community for the practice and lifestyle of farming. Glenny noted the Extension Service’s[4] inability to serve farmers the way the Granges did. He equates this to a lack of infrastructure: where the Grange was in virtually every town, the Extension has one office per county. This makes it impossible for Extension to fully understand, serve, or represent the farmers dispersed throughout rural areas.

Elizabeth Hart, in her mid sixties, is one of the youngest of the dozen or so members of her Grange in Brunswick. She joined because her obligation to drive her elderly mother to meetings made it logical to just be attending meetings as well. Elizabeth sees the Grange as declining because the oldest generation of members is unwilling to change some of the stringent rituals, which would make the organization more attractive and accessible to young people. She sees the world as having gotten too busy for people to want to take the time to attend meetings or even grow their own foods. She believes the Grange could (and should) be reorganized to reach out to new young farmers and families, but feels hobbled by the elderly Granger’s disinterest and inability to take on bigger projects.

Shirley Thompson joined the Grange in the 1950’s when it was the center of her community and everyone joined to be able to take part in the dances, dinners, and events. She has remained active in the Grange and believes firmly that the Grange will last indefinitely. She describes new younger members and the Grange’s outreach to a new young farming family on the peninsula. Shirley explained that the reason the Grange was no longer really a farming organization is simply because there are no longer any farmers to serve or join the organization. She also sees a lack of neighborliness and shared community that existed when the Granges were stronger.

Conclusions: Building of Thesis Discussion Areas

As my work proceeded over the summer, one of the most prominent lessons that I was faced with was that ethnographic work is iterative: as understanding of the subject grows, you continue to ask the same broad underlying questions, but in new, more specific ways, to gain new insight. Early on, I asked, “Why was the Grange implemented in rural communities? What is it doing today?” The questions were just that simple. As my work evolved, however, I came to be asking, “Was the Grange implemented in rural communities by different groups for different purposes? Is the official Grange less active today simply because it created other organizations that have more intensively taken on rolls that Grange once covered?” With my growing understanding of history, regions, and influences involved with Grange, I came to ask more refined questions. With the knowledge gained from the answers to these, I could again refine and focus my questions, to be able to get deeper and deeper toward the heart of understanding the cultural contexts of the Grange.

Many of the “conclusions” that I have reached are really just more questions to be explored in the writing of my thesis. The research that I did this summer allowed me a deeper understanding of some of the more tangible aspects of the Grange’s history and activities, while also leading me to some provoking contemplation about rural society, regional identities, and our agrarian culture– past and present. Below I briefly describe just a few of these ideas, which I hope to explore more in depth during the writing and research of my Honors Thesis.

Dichotomy in the Lexicon: Community and Commercialism

One of the most telling and unique characteristics that defines any culture is the language used by the people. The group’s unique words and word meanings, – or lexicon – provide insight into how society and individuals perceive the world. Without my prompting or presenting of the words, both Shirley Thompson and Elizabeth Heart independently described what they conceived of as a dichotomy between “community” and “commercialism” in their society. They saw that in the era when the Grange was strong (for them, the 1950s and 60s) there was an emphasis on involvement with, and support of the community. As Elizabeth explained, the work of the Grange was the work of a strong community– the two were synonymous. As the world became more commercialized –food was bought at the store rather than grown, canned, and prepared at home, every family owned TVs, multiple cars, and generally more “stuff”– people no longer depended on or immersed themselves in the community around them. Instead there became a more insular focus on one’s own life.

I found this especially interesting because one of the major shifts to commodity-driven agricultural practices occurred concurrently with the broader social shift and decline in Grange membership described by Elizabeth and Shirley. In the 1970s, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz began an intense policy of “Get Big or Get Out.” This was the beginning of an era where production of commodity crops is the primary focus of agricultural policy and research. Through various mechanisms of subsidy, trade, competition, and regulation, farmers have been forced to focus on increasing yields to remain economically viable.[5] This is a deeper crystallization of the shift that began with mechanization and World War Two (described below). In these shifts the farmer is increasingly pushed to focus on his/her own insular situation– the precarious balance of farm inputs, versus yield. To go to a community meeting such as the Grange, or freely exchanging labor hours with a neighbor is seen to have economic costs. Farmers see this sort of community involvement as hours away from the farm (or the off-farm job that supports the farm), which may be enough to imperil his/her uncertain enterprise. Elizabeth and Shirley described the time period around the 1970s, when the world became “commercial” rather than “community” focused. The parallels in agricultural change and broader social change seem as though they have a correlation. I would like to explore these further.

There are other periods when agricultural practices are changed and Grange membership sees, what seems to be, a corollary decline that may be indicative of a broader social shift away from community interaction. One period of decline in Grange involvement was during World War Two and the post-war era. At this time, as described to me by Willard Waterman, the Grange was no longer needed by farmers to provide them with agricultural information (the establishment of Rural Free Delivery of mail and the County Extension Services –both efforts headed by the Grange – made farmers more able to get information on their own), and the farmers were, “too dam busy” to go to Grange meetings. Willard describes the adoption of new machines and field techniques that would increase yields, as well as a decline in the number of farmers as a result of better money making opportunities in other employment. This meant that any one farmer was managing ever more acreage on his own, using machines rather than neighbors or brothers, sons, and family to aid him. Willard describes working plots of land all over the county as other farmers “got out of it,” and his new machinery (such as the first hay bailer in the area) allowed his farm to take over the use of their land. This, as I interpret it, shows that through the various economic and social factors of the time, the farmer focused more and more on the commodity he could produce, and how to make ends meet economically. This, instead of needing to produce a few commodity crops for monetary income, as well as a stock of subsistence goods to feed horses, oxen, and workers. Farmers no longer had a focus on a long-term, equitable interaction with neighbors whom he/she was interdependent on, but instead on what he/she needed to be able to stay economically viable– making enough money to feed the family[6] and fuel the machines.

A narrative I found in my research at the Maine Folklife Center further describes this shift. Arthur Hill describes changes in community interdependence as the first tractors came into use. Before tractors, he explains, something like sugaring in the winter would not be calculated in terms of cost of inputs versus the value of output. The winter was not as busy a time of year for most farmers, and sugaring could be done without taking away from other activities. Because of this availability of time (often the farmer’s most limited resource) in this season, the farmer could use his days to produce a needed staple: sugar. Neighbors would come and help in exchange for the farmer’s labor on their own projects, and horses or oxen were used to haul the sap, and the animals, of course, needed to be maintained through the winter with or without working them. When tractors came in, sugaring suddenly became less viable. The cost of fuel and mechanical maintenance needed to be accounted for in the overall “value” of the sugar. Often, the cost of fuel would have made the maple sugar more expensive than the sugar purchased from a store. The result was a significant decline in the sugaring activities of the region. In the same shift, Arthur describes, the whole concept of the value of labor changed. “Work” was no longer so easily exchanged between farms and neighbors. Goods and labor became labeled with a monetary value, rather than a concept of exchange based on relative need, or community viability. Arthur explains of the labor exchange, “We didn’t figure any money on it in them days. I mean, I helped him and he helped me do something else. No record ever kept of it. Hard to tell who beat who [he laughs]. We didn’t figure we’d beaten anybody back in them days” (Mary Ellen Barnes, Transcript 2481, p 32, 9/22/96). It wasn’t just the free exchange of labor that began to dissolve with the mechanization and commoditization of agriculture. As Glendon describes below, to be truly viable, a farmer needs other farmers around him/her – to be able to exchange ideas, work out seasonal or other variable problems together, share equipment, resources, and infrastructure. As Thomas Clark Atkenson explains in Semi-Centennial History of the Patrons of Husbandry, the early farming communities (from the colonial period at least through the early nineteenth century) embraced a culture of cooperation, “though this was generally a matter of necessity,” (Atkenson, p 3, 1916). With the inception of the use of machines rather than man- or horse-power, (along with the pressures of competing with industrial and corporate infrastructure) the necessity of supporting an interdependence with neighboring farms seems to have been displaced by the necessity to earn capital.

I found it interesting that Shirley and Elizabeth independently used the same words to set up the same oppositional ideas. When people began to focus on the gathering of commodities, they disregarded the community around them. I see evidence that the same displacement happened in agrarian communities as farmers focused more on commodities and capital, they moved away from subsistence and interdependence with the community around them. This will be one of my primary explorations in the thesis.

From Traditional to “Scientific”: A Shift in Agrarian Practice

As I began my research into the purpose of the Grange, one of the fundamental aspects I was attracted to was the early effort to promote agriculture and rural life as being as valuable as the work done in mills and cities. As the Committee on Resolutions stated in the 1882 Journal of Proceedings, “…We should use all honorable means to so frame the laws of our land, both state and national, that agriculture may at least stand on equal footing with the other great industries of the country” (p39).

While the Grange was working to protect rural communities against the corruption of industry and big business, I began to see that in many ways the work of the Grange served instead to initiate the agrarian cultures into the industrial paradigms. Through the progression of my work I came to understand that the efforts of the Grange, over the long-run, have served to displace the value of a traditional understanding of the land, an aspect of farming that I feel is lacking today. The Grange was central to the establishment of the land grant colleges and the associated County Extension Service. These two agencies have been a major (if not the primary) force in the shift to using reductionist, “scientific”[7] agricultural practices. The research conclusions reached by the land grant colleges are disseminated through the County Extension. The methods presented to farmers are often not suited to the unique sites and soils of individual farms, but instead are to increase the yield of commodity crops. While the methods may be effective at increasing yield on the test sites, any one site or set of sites where a method or input is tested will not exactly match each and every farm (its soils, microclimate, pest-array, etc) within that county or region. Especially in a region of highly diverse biomes such as that of Northern New England, universal techniques or crop varieties are inappropriate. Furthermore, especially early in the shift toward “scientific” agriculture, the systems tested by the Extension Services were often overly simplified.

An example of reductionist, and overly simplified practices implemented in agriculture is the early (and today virtually ubiquitous in industrial agriculture) establishment of an N–P–K fertilizer system. In 1840, German chemist Baron Justus von Liebig, “set agriculture on its industrial path,” (Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p 146, 2006) with his discovery the major nutrients needed by plants: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Based on this information, a revolution in fertilizer was executed based on the conclusion that the entire mystery of soil fertility had been solved. By the end of World War Two the land grant colleges and Extension services were pushing for a wholesale shift to artificial manures– as chemical fertilizers were first called. But as we are coming to recognize today, soil science is not nearly so simple. The N-P-K model reduced the complex biology of soil to a simple chemical equation, and agriculture to a machine of inputs and outputs. As Michael Pollan wrote in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, “Complex qualities are reduced to simple quantities,” (p. 147, 2006). Outside of the deterioration of millions of acres of soil, the cost of such reductionist thinking has been the loss of a traditional understanding of how to interpret and understand the qualities of soils and amend them accordingly. Each site is unique. Each crop is unique. Through empirical science and inherited practices, the traditional farmer was able to adapt to his/her unique conditions. With the strong pressure to adopt industrial methods, there are very few farmers left who are deeply and intimately adapted to the land on which they farm.

The Grange “worked themselves out of a job” according to state historian Stan Howe. They established land grant colleges, the County Extension Service, and many other resources for farmers. In the creation of these, however, the need for a meeting place (such as the Grange) for farmers to come together and share their ideas and techniques was lost. But, as Glendon Mehuren described, it was not an equitable exchange. Glendon described the difference as being between resources and representation: whereas the Extension Service can provide him (a farmer) with some resources and information, it does not represent his ideas, ideals, or needs. Furthermore, he explained, the Extension Service doesn’t have the infrastructure that the Grange had. The Grange had a hall in every rural town, the Extension Service has one office per county, and the land grant colleges are generally one or two per state. With this minimal coverage, there is no way they can understand or effectively work for each and every farmer.

The Grange worked to establish institutions that would improve the viability of an agrarian way of life. Yet, a century-and-a-half after the inception of these efforts, it seems that the effect of the established institutions (along with other forces) was to take from the farmer his/her sovereignty. No longer is it enough for a farmer to know his/her own land and farm it in the ways of the generations who came before. Profitability and “scientific” technique were asserted as more valuable than community viability and adaptive knowledge. The implications of this reverberate both through the environmental stability of agrarian landscapes, as well as the social viability of rural communities.

The Grange Cannot be a Farming Organization: There are No Farmers to Join

I began my research wondering what the Grange is doing today. Specifically, I wanted to know if the Grange was still an active farming organization. The most direct answer I got about the Grange still being a farming organization was from Shirley Thompson. She told me that the Grange is no longer a farming organization because there are no longer any farmers to take part. Sure, she told me, they would welcome and invite any farmers to join, if there were any in Harpswell. This indicates that it is not an issue of farmers choosing not to join the Grange, or the Grange not serving the agrarian community. But the issue of Grange decline is more likely due to the parallel decline in agriculturally based communities.

Glendon Mehuren describes this loss of community through first-hand experience. The biggest culture shift for him has been that his community no longer lives off the land. When he was a kid most other kids were like him- they could trace back generations of the same sort of subsistence off the land. There was a local knowledge that was held as an important piece of the culture. But today, the culture is fragmented because it is not profitable enough to be contiguous. There is only one dairy farmer in town (him), so there is no shared knowledge and community. It makes it so there is not “culture.” He sees that outsiders with money have incrementally replaced the locals, and these outsiders have no knowledge of how to live off the land, and no regard for the locals who do. This sentiment speaks to many of the issues that I have been discussing.

A Thesis Statement

Perhaps the greatest “conclusion” of my summers work is that a true thesis statement has coalesced for me. Primarily, in my spring writing I will do my best to defend my definition of a sustainable culture. My current understanding is that a sustainable culture is a synthesis of place-based, adaptive traditions effectively shared as common knowledge. Within this definition are many important ideas around sustainability in culture. Adaptive traditions are those that are adopted over generations of empirical observation. As one generation goes through a process of trial and error they are able to better understand what is most effective for their survival. Specific to my research is agricultural methods – what soil amendments work, how to rotate crops and pasture animals, how to effectively use tools, resources, and seasonal shifts, for example. The understanding gained by one generation is then passed along to the next, so that they can build upon this. These adaptations to the land become tradition, and they are specific to place. As I have discussed, each and every landscape is distinctive, requiring its own specialized understanding. To effectively adapt to all of the unique regional conditions, the adaptations must be place-based.

All of this specialized adaptation to the land is not enough to grant sustainability, it must be shared effectively, and for this there must be an effective community structure. Humans are not adapted to being insular. It is our evolutionary adaptation to be communal; to be able to have a unique skill or quality that we can hone while being able to take advantage of the particular abilities of those around us. To be able to share our understanding so that it can be built upon, to be able to share our skills and products so they can exchange for the skills and goods of others, we need to have a strong community. To sustainably live off the land people need interdependence on those around them. It builds trust, support, and insurance that that no one person will do something highly destructive to the wider society.

As a society evolves to live effectively off the land and establishes a community of interdependence that fosters specialization and trust, it becomes a sustainable culture. The agrarian heritage of Maine and Northern New England was strongly rooted in this sort of adaptive tradition and focus on communal ties. Many forces have deteriorated the balance. The Grange offers examples of what can be interpreted as both successes and failures of attempts to preserve or reinvigorate a strong agrarian heritage. I look forward to more intensively contemplating these issues and drawing on the many rich sources of information I have found. I want to more cleanly understand local political and economic history as it correlates with the evolution of rural society and agrarian practices. Most importantly I want to be able to discern where our agrarian traditions seemed to go mal-adaptively astray, in the hopes that it is still possible to take a step back and begin again from these junctures. It is frightening to think of all the generations of adaptation to the land that have already been lost in our modern struggles toward capitalism and industrial agriculture. But I do believe that there are still some “old timers” out there that hold some of this traditional knowledge and could have a great deal to share with a community of people who wish to listen. Perhaps if a work such as my thesis can make the connections –helping to make clear the need to understand how the past can support the future – perhaps then we will be one step closer to a return to sustainable culture.

Attachment A: Letter Pleading for the Preservation of Maine Folklife Center

Dear:

Emily Cain State Representative at Maine House
Robert Kennedy, President, UMaine
Jeff Heckler, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Pamela Dean, Archivist, Maine Folklife Center

I am writing in regards to the closing of the Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine. I am an undergraduate student at the University of Southern Maine, majoring in Geography – Anthropology. I am also an Honor’s Program student and an Undergraduate Research Fellow.

As part of my summer research project I visited the Folklife Center in June. I was amazed at the amount of resources there and the knowledge with which Dr Pamela Dean, the archivist, attended to my needs. Dr Dean not only found me all of the resources that I needed, but she could recall the interviewers and the projects for which the research was gathered. Each interviewer and interviewee played an important roll in the qualitative content of the data. Dr Dean could tell me about what sort of work the researcher did and the context in which it was gathered. When researching people and cultures this sort of added insight is invaluable.

The archives held at the Folklife Center are quite literally unique in the world, and perhaps more importantly they embody the culture and history of Maine. From hand written transcripts and reel-to-reel audio, to digitally gathered interviews the database is not only diverse in its holdings, but in how it can be accessed. To place such a collection into a general library, outside of the adept guardianship of a professional ethnographic archivist would be a tragedy. This resource should stand alone on its own merit. The culture of Maine is something to be held in prestige, it belongs to all of us and, I believe, will lead us prosperously into an uncertain future. Dismantling the Center, for the dollars it might save, will in the long run only hurt us as a State and a University.

Please reconsider the decision to cut the funding for the Folklife Center. While so many important institutions at the University are being undermined by budget shortfalls, I recognize that each dollar must be allocated carefully. The Folklife Center should be considered as a priority for those dollars, if for no other reason than it is a resource that can be accessed no where else in the world, and further because access to this resource is significantly more effective under the guidance of a professional archivist. Again, please consider maintaining the Maine Folklife Center.

With my deepest sincerity,

Nikkilee Carleton

Attachment B: Informed Consent

Informed Consent for Participation as a Subject in Research Study:

“Maine’s Historical Grange and

How It Might Inform Modern Farm Communities”

Introduction:

You are being asked to be in a research study about the historical role of the Grange in farming communities and what role the edicts of the Grange might have today in the modern sustainable agriculture movement. You were chosen for this interview because of the role that you play in the Grange and/or agrarian community.

Please read this form and ask any questions that you may have.

Please feel free to ask any further questions about the project, the researcher, or your roll at any point during the research process.

Purpose of the Study:

This project seeks to gain a deeper understanding of how the Grange sought to and did impact agrarian communities and farming practices in Maine before widespread adoption of industrial farming techniques. The purpose is to share this historical information with modern farming organizations and communities, to see if there is any applicability to support a more effective return to pre-industrial farming techniques.

Interviews will focus on your experience in the Grange and agrarian community, what you may remember of your elder’s experience in the Grange and agrarian community, and what you think the Grange could mean to contemporary small farmers.

Interviews will be conducted over the summer of 2009. At the end of this research period I will create a report about the Granges historical role in farming communities, taking into consideration what aspects are similar to the needs of modern small farm communities. This report will hopefully be presented to the Granges as well as provided to the leaders of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), or any other interested farming organization.

The total number of formal interviewees will be between 4-10.

I am an undergraduate research fellow at the University of Southern Maine (USM) who is directly supervised by a USM faculty mentor.

Description of Study Procedures

If you agree to be part of this study, I will ask you to do the following things:

Meet with me over the summer of 2009, during which you may…

Be interviewed one or more times

and

Be voice recorded, photographed, and/or quoted

and

Be contacted by phone, physical mail, or email

Risks to Being in Study:

There are few foreseen risks to the subjects of this research. The discussion topics may evoke difficult or upsetting emotions for you. The University’s Counseling Services are available to you should there be any need. They are located on the Portland USM campus, and their phone number is 207-780-4050.

It is likely that direct quotes or summaries of your statements that can or will be linked directly to you will be used in my final presentation. I will ensure that you have sufficient opportunity to affirm that any presentation of your story is acceptable to you.

Benefits to Being in Study:

The benefits of this study will ideally include a wider understanding of the Grange’s history and efforts, a potential revival of Grange membership by modern farmers, and the support of modern farming communities through an enhanced understanding of an historical agricultural organization.

Payment and Costs:

Your participation is completely voluntary. You will not receive payment or reimbursement for your time or transportation.

I do not expect there to be any cost to you. I will arrange to meet with you in locations and at times that are convenient to you.

Confidentiality and Privacy of Data:

Records of this research will be kept private. No one except yourself, the primary researcher (Nikkilee Carleton), faculty mentor (Dr Kreg Ettenger) and the University of Maine’s Institutional Review Board will have open access to the original transcripts or recordings of your interview.

Audio clips, photographs and some quotes or general conclusions from your interview will be brought together into a poster and/or oral report. This will be presented at the University of Southern Maine’s Thinking Matters Conference in the spring of 2010 [this conference allows students and faculty from all fields to share their work with each other, their colleagues, and the general public] and to any organization – including the Grange – that is interested in the results. You are welcome to attend any of these presentations, or request one for yourself.

You will have the opportunity to review transcripts and audio files before they are publicly presented to ensure that the data I have collected, the manner in which it is presented, and the summaries/conclusions reached are a true representation of your story and feelings.

Voluntary Participation/Withdrawal:

Your participation is voluntary. If you choose not to be a part of this research, it will not affect your current or future relations with the University of Southern Maine.

You are free to withdraw at any time and for any reason.

Contacts and Questions:

The primary researcher conducting this study is:

Nikkilee (Lee) Carleton

You can contact me at-

phone: 603.986.0739

address: 329 Preble St #1, South Portland, ME 04106

email: leensylus@mac.com

The faculty mentor for this project is:

Dr Kreg Ettenger

If you have any questions or believe you may have suffered a research-related injury, please contact Dr Ettenger at-

phone: 207.780.5231

email: kreg.ettenger@maine.edu

If you have questions about your rights as a research subject, you may contact-

William Harrison, Director

USM Office of Research Compliance

phone: 207.780.4517

email: usmirb@usm.maine.edu

Copy of Consent Form:

You will be given a copy of this consent form and I will keep a copy on file for future reference.

Please Sign Below

I have read (or had read to me) the contents of this consent form and have been encouraged to ask questions and have received answers to my questions. I give my consent to participate in this study. I have received (or will receive) a copy of this form.

Study Participant (Print Name):______________________________________

Participant or Legal Representative Signature: _____________________________

Date: ____________________

~UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE~

RELEASE AND AUTHORIZATION TO

PHOTOGRAPH, FILM, VIDEO TAPE AND AUDIOTAPE

I hereby grant full permission to Nikkilee Carleton to use the following items that I have initialed:

__________ Photographs

__________ Film

__________ Video

__________ Audiotape

__________ My name

__________ Other (describe) ________________________________________

I agree that the item(s) I checked above can be used in any way or manner including the following (cross out any you do not wish to allow):

Photographic,
Print,
Video,
Electronic, Digital, or Other formats developed in the future

This permission is solely related to the project titled “Maine’s Historical Grange and How It Might Inform Modern Farm Communities”

I understand that I am giving up all my rights of privacy or payment or other compensation, except for my rights in the case of negligence by USM or people working with USM.

Name_____________________________ Date____________________

Address___________________________ Telephone____________________

____________________________

Signature______________________________

_____ I would like to be contacted if the above is to be used for any other future project.

Attachment C: Contact Letter

Dear Grange Master and members:

I am an undergraduate student at the University of Southern Maine. My major is Geography-Anthropology and my minor is Environmental Sustainability. I am hoping to undertake an oral history project within the Grange community. This research would be the basis for my Honors Program thesis. I have also received a Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) to begin this project during the summer of 2009. [Please see attached fellowship proposal]

Specifically, I am interested in traditions that enable people to be better stewards of the land and supportive members of their community. I believe that one important aspect of this is learning from our past. As a farmer, I recognize that there is a new generation of us working to re-establish low-input, small-scale agriculture. But many of us have not grown up in farming communities, or learned locally-based farming practices that took generations to establish. This is true of our field methods as well as how we can organize as a community to support farm families and communities. I believe that small-farm communities could benefit from learning what the Granges have tried to do over the past century and a half.

I plan to first study the archives of Grange proceedings and to work with historian Stan Howe to gain a better understanding of the historical setting of the Grange. I will then do oral history research though interviews and conversations with Grange members and officers. I will also attend Grange activities to increase my understanding of what the Granges do today. Eventually I would share my findings with other farmers, many of whom I interact with on a daily basis, and try to understand the commonalities of the two groups – modern farmers and Grangers. I believe the benefits to both could be significant.

I have chosen to focus on two towns, New Gloucester and Brunswick. I feel that these two areas provide a diverse yet representative sample of southern Maine communities. Additionally, these towns are important to me personally, for Brunswick is where I farm today, and New Gloucester is where my family farmed for nearly 250 years and was active in the Grange over generations. I would like to begin by attending a Grange meeting and introducing myself to some members. I hope to then be able to interview several people in the organization. I would like to discuss individual’s experiences within the Grange, gathering stories about the past, as well as thoughts about the condition of farming in Maine today.

My initial research will be conducted during June and July of 2009, although I hope that this project has the opportunity to grow and become more comprehensive. All information that I gather and conclusions that I reach will be freely available to anyone in the community who would like to see them. I will be creating a written and oral report of my results for the Granges, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), or any other group who is interested in this research. My primary mission is the sharing of understandings about Maine’s strong heritage of farming and farming organizations.

Please feel free to contact me at any time. You may also contact my academic advisor at USM for more information. His name is Dr. Kreg Ettenger, and he can be reached at 625-4721 (home) or by email at ettenger@usm.maine.edu. I hope to hear from you soon.

With Warm Regards,

Nikkilee Carleton

[1] The Maine Folklife Center, due to budget cuts at the University of Maine, is to be closed down. When I learned this I wrote an appeal to the appropriate leaders, hoping that this will change. This letter is below as Attachment A: Letter Pleading for the Preservation of Maine Folklife Center.

[2] See below as Attachment B: Informed Consent

[3] See below as Attachment C: Formal Contact Letter

[4] The Extension Service is generally considered the modern ‘replacement’ for the Grange, and was essentially formed by the Grange to disseminate modern “scientific” farming practices established by research at the land grant colleges– another organization established through the efforts of the Grange.

[5] Many factors make the average farming enterprise exceptionally insecure. These include concentration on large-scale commodity (rather than subsistence, or diversified) crops, dependence on expensive petro-chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, and seed varieties that must be purchased annually from major corporations who can independently set prices, the volatility of the subsidy system, and many other considerations. In my thesis I will discuss more of these factors that have depressed the viability of a farming life-style. Here, however, I am focusing on the decline of the community inclination of farmers.

[6] The family structure in this era was changing as well. Families began to be much smaller, which is indicative of the (continued) shift from a more subsistence-based society where many children were needed to help with production, to a more industrial/capitalist society where large families are simply more mouths to buy food for.

[7] I put the word “scientific” in quotes here because, while it is the word commonly used to describe modern agrarian method, as well as the word historically used to differentiate from the “dirt farmer’s” methods, I don’t feel it is entirely accurate. While science is generally considered something only done in a laboratory, or in structured experiments, my understanding is that science also includes studying the world through empirical observation. As such, generations of growing the same or similar crops in a unique biome, while observing what works and what does not, then adjusting methods accordingly– this is as much of a science as what is done in any laboratory.

Tags:

Radio Equals Bioregion?

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:44:17 GMT

This is a post I recently made on a different blog: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Bioreg/

It occurred to me tonight that perhaps the distance that any particular radio frequency covers is indicative of a region, specifically a geo- and hence bio- region. Tonight I traveled from the foothills of the White Mountain's Presidentials, east to my home on a large cove beach in southern Casco Bay. As I crossed out of the curvy dark hills and valleys and up onto the rolling coastal plain, the weather shifted (as it so often does) and I had to change my radio from setting 2- NHPR to setting 1- MPBN. These two stations have noticeable overlap, where as the Maine station never makes VT nor VT speak to the coast. The mountains running down the center of the state of New Hampshire are the divide. They cut off the frequencies that would otherwise travel east to west, west to east. The biomes, and culture of these regions seems to be divided likewise. The landscape of Vermont is slightly different than that of New Hampshire, and a bit more from that of Maine. The weather man from Maine speaks more directly to my father's weather patterns just east of the mountains in NH than does the Vermont weather man much closer - as the crow flies - to the west across the mountains. At his home the Maine NPR comes in clearly, that from Vermont is virtually impossible to get.

I know this is much discussion on a fairly banal phenomenon. But I wonder that such a recognition does not speak directly to some of the most rapid transformations and pressing concerns of our day. As our nation-state takes it upon itself to institute ubiquitous digitally transported television, I think it wise for us to consider what old ways of transferring knowledge we would like to hold on to. I think it ungrounding not to hear regularly and often about the news from my local region. The awareness of my immediate eco/cultural landscape will keep me focused on the needs and resources closest at hand. This sort of connection might make us not only more sympathetic to our own neighbors and landscape, but more sympathetic those people, creatures, and landscapes we so readily learn about with the many-other digital forces of our day.

"Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative." - Vandana Shiva

Tags:

EO Wilson: Sustainability, Stewardship, and Protection of Spirit

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:41:40 GMT

6/14

Natural philosophy has brought into clear relief the following paradox of human existence. The drive toward perpetual expansion – or personal freedom – is basic to the human spirit. But to sustain it we need the most delicate, knowing stewardship of the living world that can be devised. Expansion and stewardship may appear at first to be conflicting goals, but they are not. The depth of the conservation ethic will be measured by the extent to which each of the two approaches to nature is used to reshape and reinforce the other. The paradox can be resolved by changing its premises into forms more suited to ultimate survival, by which I mean protection of the human spirit.

EO Wilson

“The Conservation Bible”

Biophilia

Tags:

Comment Reply 6/2

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:42:45 GMT

Zephyr commented on Entry "Change in Food quote 6/2"

i thiink we should consider carefully, the bird flu first then swine flu, are factory farms a breeding ground for new pandemics?

http://www.ciwf.org.uk/farm_animals/pigs/swine_flu/default.aspx

Zepher,

Yes, I believe this is a huge issue. There are so many components to it- human health (both nutritional and disease), animal welfare, the safety of our food supply. With the swine flue scare of last month, I grew incredibly frustrated with the government and US pork industry, as they worked to officially declare that the outbreak should not be referred to as "swine" flu. They said that it would scare people away from eating pork and deface the industry, when the flu (in their minds) was not related to either. But, of course, the flue was a direct result of both. Sure, a person's pork-chop on the plate was not going to infect them, but the industrial production of the meat was the cause of the new disease. The pork industry should have lost more face in that situation than it did, and I was incredibly disappointed in the Obama administration and the global media for not doing a more effective job of letting the public know that it was their food choices and the methodology of the meat industry that put us all at risk and killed so many people.

Tags:

Change in Food quote 6/2

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:55:19 GMT

Eric Schlosser:

“Our food production has changed more in the last 40 years than it did in the previous 40k, through the industrialization in particular of livestock”

I got this quote from the author of "Fast Food Nation" out of a PBS Nature film. I like it and believe that it speaks an important truth. However, it is somewhat inaccurate, in my view, because I believe that the domestication of plants and animals (about 10k years ago) was surely the most significant shift in man kind's history of food acquisition.

"Holy Cow" 

Narrated by EDWARD HERRMANN

Produced by LAURA MARSHALL ANDIE CLARE

Written and Directed by HARRY MARSHALL

Tags:

Final Thesis Proposal

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:15:25 GMT

Reexamining Adaptive Traditions:

How the Historical Vision of the Maine State Grange Might Support

the Modern Sustainable Agrarian Shift

Thesis Proposal by

Nikkilee Carleton

28 May 2009

University of Southern Maine

Honors Program

Major: Geography-Anthropology

Minor: Environmental Sustainability

"It is not necessarily those lands which are the most fertile or most favored climate that seem to me the happiest, but those in which a long stroke of adaptation between man and his environment has brought out the best qualities of both." ~T. S. Elliot

Abstract:

This research investigates the role of adaptive traditions in the ability of societies to be socially and ecologically sustainable. This will primarily be examined through the comparative case studies of the Maine Patrons of Husbandry (Grange) and modern sustainable agrarian communities. I will research the historical role of Maine Granges to determine how understanding them as a precedent can assist the efforts of current agricultural communities. At one time the Granges served as centers of community life and as an impetus for sharing knowledge and technology between isolated farmsteads.[i] What impact did the Grange’s efforts have on farming practices, the farmer and his/her community? The Grange’s popularity saw significant decline with the inception of modern mechanization and agribusiness. For today’s farmers who are reapplying techniques from before the Green Revolution, what aspects of the Grange system might still be applicable? An ethnographic, oral history and archival examination of two Maine Granges and the agrarian communities they supported – the Cumberland County, Maine towns of New Gloucester and Brunswick – will provide insight into these questions. Concurrent to this oral history research, information about the Grange will be anecdotally shared with sustainable and small scale farmers in Maine to gain insight into what aspects of the Grange might support modern farm communities. The result will be an historical and contemporary ethnographic examination of agrarian Maine that explores scientific and global socio-economic references. I hope for this work to inform both regional and global shifts in agrarian cultures.

A Theoretical Introduction

Do generations of working within a landscape lead to adaptive traditions in human culture? Can traditions of the past be re-implemented contemporarily when they have not been used in generations? These questions along with many aspects of the social and cultural history of agriculture and culture in Maine will be the focus of this thesis. Eight weeks of ethnographic fieldwork combined with theoretical research of socio-economic history and cross-cultural examples will provide the data for examination of these topics.

Ecological Adaptation and Resilience

True sustainability, both social and ecological, is not simple to establish. It has taken millennia for the Earth’s diverse ecosystems to develop, and research shows that it is this diversity that supports the resilience of the biomes.[ii] Resilience means the community as a whole is able to withstand stressors and shifts.[iii] Stated directly, we see that diversity leads to sustainability.

At the root of the evolution of diversity is adaptation. As a species adapts to a specific niche it is able to most effectively and efficiently use a set of available resources. As more and more species develop to usurp specific niches, every resource is taken advantage of, and the “waste” of each process becomes a new resource[iv]. This is the root of sustainability: a community that is well adapted to the site and to one another.

Human Social Adaptation

This dynamic can be transferred to human communities. As a human society adapts to a specific landscape, it gains the ability to effectively use each resource. This adaptation manifests as cultural traditions. Communities have traditional practices that are based on generations of trial and error; generations of learning how to most effectively live in a local landscape. This is one of the most significant adaptive advantages of humankind: the ability to pass on learning. This makes the human ability to adapt much swifter and pliable than the genetic adaptation upon which all other species depend exclusively.

The ability to share acquired understanding is, in many ways, what makes us human. It also can be at the root of the ability to live sustainably upon the land. Over generations, a community passes on a growing understanding of how to use resources and manage waste. The inherent test in this system is that if a society does not find a sustainable balance, their culture will no longer have the ability to persist. But sometimes generations of adaptation are disrupted by outside forces. Maine’s agricultural system is a fine example of this.

Maine’s Farming Tradition

Close to four hundred years ago settlers entered New England with a primary focus on farming. The Maine landscape, in many ways, was an ideal setting for an agricultural society.[v] Families spent nearly ten generations adapting to specific locations. Each farmer learned his soil, his sun, his rain. He established crop systems and husbandry models that were low-input, and low-impact. There were many ecological missteps, as we see them today, and the people surely struggled in their survival. We must recognize, though, that four hundred years is not very long in establishing a completely balanced culture.

On the whole, early New England farmers had a primary consideration for the sustainability of the land, for it was the land that directly provided sustenance for the family and future generations. Rural people focused on cooperation, kinship and family rather than individual profit or high production for the markets.[vi] Farmers came to understand their land in a way that would ensure the sustainability of his life’s work. Each husbandryman had to know what crops would provide a balance between production and ensuring soil fertility for coming years, he had to find effective pest strategies for his particular issues, and develop crop varieties that worked in his fields and kitchen. All of this was slightly different for each farm, and even more unique between bioregions. Each landscape required individual adaptation.

Industrial Displacement of Tradition

In the past half-century or more, these local adaptations have been, for the most part, disregarded and left unpracticed. In an effort to increase production and decrease the cost of food, agriculture has become an industry of monoculture and mechanization.[vii] This has had significant implications not only for the farmers, but also for the land. The pliability of local adaptation is lost with universal mechanization and commodity mono-crop production. We have seen the number of U.S. farms reduced to less than one-third the peak numbers before WWII and the autonomy of the farmer has been lost.[viii] Powerful forces have pushed the average farmer into making decisions that are not only unsuited to her land, but unsuited to her family and community.[ix] The past fifty years of agri-business have disrupted the three centuries of adaptation that came before. Where once a farmer would have grown up on a farm and in a community that was rooted in the adaptive traditions of agriculture, today very few have this advantage.

How we get our food is one of the most fundamental aspects of society. Problems and changes in this vital resource acquisition have considerable and extensive repercussions. Modern agricultural methods are having a serious and detrimental impact on the health of individuals,[x] society,[xi] biodiversity,[xii] and the environment as a whole.[xiii] The small family farm - local and diverse - is one alternative approach that seems a likely source of a more broad-based social and ecological sustainability. [xiv]

The Modern Shift Away from Agribusiness

Recently the USDA published census data showing that the number of farms in Maine is increasing at a rate of 13 percent. This is nearly three times the national average.[xv] It is clear through empirical observation that the farmers who are establishing new farmsteads today are not investing in industrial farm systems. Instead, these farmers seem to be leaning toward a low-input, low-impact, family and local community focused methodology – something more akin to what was in place before the Green Revolution. But these farmers do not have the benefit of having grown up immersed in the traditions of small-scale agriculture. Fifty years of agribusiness have created a “generation gap” in farming traditions.

Reconnecting with the Past

To reestablish sustainability, it seems it would be beneficial to try to regain some of the localized adaptations established in the first three centuries of New England settlement by Europeans. New farmers could benefit from learning what came before. Reconnecting modern farmers with those who remember the methods in place at the beginning of the twentieth century could be a way of preserving the culture. Within this culture are generations of adaptation to Maine’s landscape and the inherent sustainability that they can impart.

Ethnographic Field Work

Introduction

For over one hundred years the Maine State Grange was a primary cultural and organizational center for agrarian communities.[xvi] The Granges brought farmers together for education, cooperative dissemination and purchasing of goods, a common voice against corporate and legislative powers, and support of community in isolated rural areas.[xvii] The Grangers sought to “reinvest the farming class with a sense of dignity and pride in the value of husbandry, in contrast to the morally bankrupt livelihoods of Gilded Age “speculators and middlemen.””[xviii] Doctrines of the Grange acknowledge some of the biggest concerns of contemporary small farmers, who I have come to understand personally through immersion as part of the community.

Participation in the Granges declined precipitously at the establishment of industrial farming.[xix] During this same period the number of farms and farmers declined.[xx] In contrast, today the number of farms in Maine is rapidly increasing[xxi] and most are re-instituting low-input, low-impact practices more typical of pre-industrial agriculture. As a result, many of the struggles of modern small farmers are akin to those faced historically by the Grange.

This research is to examine the current state of farming in Maine and the momentum toward a more sustainable and community-focused food system. My understanding is that the farming system in place during the heyday of the Grange is akin to the “alternative” system currently emerging in Maine: the trend is toward regional innovation that fits the demands of the land and local community. Farms are shifting to a smaller scale and greater diversity (economic, in the crops being grown, and in the value-added adjustments) than their industrial counterparts of the past fifty to eighty years. Rather than focusing on fulfilling a limited, commodity-based objective, these farms are directly serving the surrounding communities and the farmer. This evolution (or as some would see it, regression) can potentially be supported through understanding what was historically known about the land and methods of small-scale, locally-focused agriculture here in Maine. By examining the history of the Granges I hope to better understand what role these institutions played in the agrarian communities and what potentials there are that such a system could support current farmers and their communities.

Objectives

· Explore the history of the Granges through examination of archives such as the Annual Proceedings of the Maine State Grange, visiting of Bethel Historical Society’s Exhibition on the Grange, and discussion with State Historian Stan Howe. Focus on priorities of the Granges and what their efforts were toward accomplishing these priorities.

· Locate informants that have historically participated in the Grange in New Gloucester and Brunswick. Conduct 8-10 interviews about the impact of the Granges on farming practices and communities. Focus specifically on what the informants feel the benefits and problems were with the Granges, what they feel was the major impetus for the collapse of the Grange’s use, and what aspects of the Grange they feel could benefit contemporary small farmers.

· Gather anecdotal ethnographic information within the small farm community surrounding Brunswick Farmer’s market. Focus on sharing information about the Granges and recording farmers’ views on whether the Grange system correlates with their own needs and efforts.

· Create a report about the Granges historical role in farming communities. In this report take into consideration the conditions and responses of current farming communities and what aspects of the Grange system might apply to the contemporary agricultural culture. This report will be distributed through the Granges and Brunswick Farmer’s Market, as well as provided to the leaders of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA).

Locations

The locations this research will focus on, New Gloucester and Brunswick, have personal significance to me: the former is the site of my family’s homestead, farmed for over two hundred years but now unplowed, and the latter is where I farm today. I have family members in New Gloucester who are life-long members of the Grange and will provide an inlet to that community. In my farming community of Brunswick I am regularly faced with how little we know about historical farmers and their methods. Both these towns have significance in the history of the Grange and embody an interesting dichotomy of farm communities. New Gloucester represented a relatively isolated, highly agrarian community. Brunswick was agrarian, but had the temper of a busy mill and fishing economy. Brunswick is significant in the history of the Granges because the first Master of the Dirigo Grange (in Brunswick) was an organizer of the Maine State Grange. New Gloucester stands out as a community with three Granges, and is adjacent to Lewiston, where the Maine State Grange was formed.

Methods

Initial research will focus on examination of historical documents, contemporary publications, and discussion with pertinent experts. I have been in contact with Dr. Stanley Howe, Historian for the Maine State Grange, who has offered to support my research; he is an expert and key informant for this ethnography. With an initial understanding of Grange history, I will undertake an ethnographic examination of the Grange communities in New Gloucester and Brunswick, including field interviews, collection of oral history, and participant-observation at Grange activities. All interviews will be digitally audio recorded for eventual transcription. I will also undertake participant-observation in the contemporary farming community through the interactions of the farm cooperative I am a part of establishing and my regular presence at local farmer’s markets. Conversations with farmers will share information about the research I am conducting and gather ideas about what aspects of the Grange seem to be applicable currently.

Work Plan

While the informal gathering of information and resources is currently on going, the first official effort of this project will be to garner IRB approval for the research. The first two weeks of the SURF session (June/July 2009) will be spent examining historical archives, visiting the Bethel Historical Society, as well as in discourse with experts such as Dr. Howe. Visits to the Granges and local historical societies as well as conversations with on-site historians will direct me toward appropriate informants for ethnographic interviews. I will begin field interviews no later than the last week of June. Throughout the summer I will have the opportunity to hold informal conversations with today’s agricultural community (some to be recorded).

[i] S. Howe, A Fair Field and No Favor (Augusta, Maine: The Maine State Grange, 1994).

[ii] D. Tilman, “Causes, Consequences and Ethics of Biodiversity” Nature 405 (2000): 208-211.

[iii] Tilman, “Causes, Consequences and Ethics of Biodiversity”

[iv] Tilman, “Causes, Consequences and Ethics of Biodiversity”

[v] R. M. Thorson, Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History in New England’s Stone Walls (New York: Walker & Company, 2002).

[vi] E. Brown, “Ritual and Community: The Maine Grange” Unpublished Masters Project (University of Southern Maine, New England Studies), 1992.

[vii] M. Troughton, “Fordism Rampant: the model and reality, as applied to production, processing and distribution in the North American agro-food system,” Rural Change and Sustainability: Agriculture, the Environment and Communities, Ed. S.J Essex, A.W. Gilg, R.B. Yarwood (Cambridge: CABI Publishing, 2005) 13-27.

[viii] Troughton, “Fordism Rampant”

[ix] Troughton, “Fordism Rampant”

[x] “King Corn” Dir. Aaron Woolfe; Writers Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis; Co-prod. Mosaic Films Incorporated and The Independent Television Service, 2006.

[xi] B. Kingsolver, Hopp, S., and Kingsolver, C. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

[xii] “Pastures Unsung” Ideas, Host: Paul Kennedy; Journalists: Regina Writer and Trevor Herriot; Naturalist: Stuart Houston; Producer: Dave Ridel, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Regina and Edmonton, Canada, 2005.

[xiii] United Nations Environment Programme/GRID-Arendal, “Impacts on Biodiversity and Ecosystems from Conventional Expansion of Food Production,” Rapid Response Assessments: The Food Crisis, Acessed 29 May 2009 from http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/food-crisis/page/3569.aspx

[xiv] Kingsolver, B., Hopp, S., and Kingsolver, C. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.

[xv] B. Quimby, “Farming in Maine a Growing Business: Demand for Organic Foods Help Spark a Surge in Production and Sales Since 2002” Portland Press Herald 6 February 2009, Retrieved on 6 April 2009 from http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=237359&ac=

[xvi] Howe, A Fair Field and No Favor.

[xvii] Howe, A Fair Field and No Favor.

[xviii] Brown, “Ritual and Community,” 24.

[xix] Howe, A Fair Field and No Favor.

[xx] Troughton, “Fordism Rampant”

[xxi] Quimby, “Farming in Maine a Growing Business.”

References:

Aberley, D. “Interpreting Bioregionalism: A Story from Many Voices.” Bioregionalism. Ed. Michael Vincent McGinnis. London and New York: Routeledge, 1999. 13-42.

Brown, E. “Ritual and Community: The Maine Grange.” Unpublished Masters Project (University of Southern Maine, New England Studies), 1992.

“Golden Rice.” Living on Earth. Journalist: Julie Grant. Exec. Producer: Steve Curwood. Public Radio International, Somerville, MA, 30 January, 2009.

Howe, S. A Fair Field and No Favor. Augusta, Maine: The Maine State Grange, 1994.

Howe, S. “History of the Grange.” Maine State Grange. 2006. Retrieved 3 April 2009 from http://mainestategrange.org/grange/index.php?q=node/4

Kemmis, D. “Foreword.” Bioregionalism. Ed. Michael Vincent McGinnis. London and New York: Routeledge, 1999. xv-xvii.

“King Corn.” Dir. Aaron Woolfe. Writers Ian Cheney, and Curtis Ellis. Co-prod. Mosaic Films Incorporated and The Independent Television Service, 2006.

Kingsolver, B., Hopp, S., and Kingsolver, C. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

McGinnis, M. V. “A Rehearsal to Bioregionalism.” Bioregionalism. Ed. Michael Vincent McGinnis. London and New York: Routeledge, 1999. 1-10.

McKibben, B. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. New York: Macmillan, 2007.

“Pastures Unsung.” Ideas. Host: Paul Kennedy. Journalists: Regina Writer and Trevor Herriot. Naturalist: Stuart Houston. Producer: Dave Ridel. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Regina and Edmonton, Canada, 2005.

Quimby, B. “Farming in Maine a Growing Buisness: Demand for Organic Foods Help Spark a Surge in Production and Sales Since 2002.” Portland Press Herald 6 February 2009. Retrieved on 6 April 2009 from http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=237359&ac=

Robinson, Guy M. “Stewardship, ‘proper’ farming and environmental gain: contrasting experiences of agri-environmental schemes in Canada and the EU.” Rural Change and Sustainability: Agriculture, the Environment and Communities. Ed. S.J Essex, A.W. Gilg, R.B. Yarwood. Cambridge: CABI Publishing, 2005. 135-150.

Thorson, R. M. Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History in New England’s Stone Walls. New York: Walker & Company, 2002.

Tilman, D. “Causes, Consequences and Ethics of Biodiversity.” Nature 405 (2000): 208-211.

Troughton, M. “Fordism Rampant: the model and reality, as applied to production, processing and distribution in the North American agro-food system.” Rural Change and Sustainability: Agriculture, the Environment and Communities. Ed. S.J Essex, A.W. Gilg, R.B. Yarwood. Cambridge: CABI Publishing, 2005. 13-27.

United Nations Environment Programme/GRID-Arendal. “Impacts on Biodiversity and Ecosystems from Conventional Expansion of Food Production.” Rapid Response Assessments: The Food Crisis. Accessed May 29, 2009 from http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/food-crisis/page/3569.aspx

Annotations:

Aberley, Doug. “Interpreting Bioregionalism: A Story from Many Voices.” Bioregionalism. Ed. Michael Vincent McGinnis. London and New York: Routeledge, 1999. 13-42.

Primarily a history of the bioregional movement, Aberly discusses the various players who have been formative in the creation of the theory. With roots in the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, bioregionalism was a response to the growing awareness that natural resources were being extracted at accelerating rates with no corresponding improvement in social or environmental quality of life. The initial effort was to balance industrial-driven economic progress with cultural and ecological sustainability. Two of the most important leaders of this movement were Peter Berg –founding member of the legendary Haight-Ashbury, anarcho-political publication “Diggers” – and Gary Snyder – the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Many other writers and thinkers were incremental in establishing the philosophy and tenets of bioregionalism over the next few decades. In the 1980s Jim Dodge began writing significantly on the topic, and contributed what is arguably the most compelling explanation. He wrote of three central values to the vision: the importance of using natural systems as the base of reference for directing human decisions, reliance on a system of government based on “interdependence of self-reliant and federated communities”, and rediscovering the connections between nature and the human mind. In a publication in the 1980s, Peter Berg notes the importance of having or establishing customs that adapt human society to the limitations and opportunities of the natural processes around them. Another leader in the movement, David Haenke, describes some of the important areas that bioregionalism encompasses: permaculture, appropriate technology, renewable energy sources, cooperative economics, land trusts, ecologically-based health policy, and aggressive “peace offensives”. While Aberly is diligent in describing the work of these important thinkers in bioregionalism, he also emphasizes that the theory is best understood by taking part in the practices and gatherings of bioregionalism. Finally, Aberly does his best to synthesize all of his research and experience into a list of tenets of the theory, which include edicts on world-view, culture, governance, and economy.

Brown, E. “Ritual and Community: The Maine Grange.” Unpublished Masters Project (University of Southern Maine, New England Studies), 1992

Elspeth Brown conducted her Masters Research Project for the New England Studies program on the Granges in Maine. Her particular interests were the rituals they used and the atypical (for the period) inclusion of women in the organization. Her writing covers many interesting social and organizational aspects of the Grange. She discusses the late 19^th century ideas of the “rural mentalite” and “agrarian republicanism.” These were the loose terms set on the ideas that rural people were motivated by strong belief in cooperation, kinship and family, rather than individual profit. Brown compares this with the more typical vision of the Gilded Age of “speculators and middlemen” whose rapid concentration of economic power threatened the personal autonomy of the average citizen. The Grange, she says, sought to reinvest the farming class with a sense of dignity and value. Brown also discusses the balanced and important role that women played in the Grange. This was generally seen as a way to ensure the moral fiber of the Grange, where male power had failed to do this on the national level. She describes in detail the various offices and symbolic titles within the grange, as well as the demographics of who joined the early Granges. The architecture and organization of the Grange halls is described and explained. Lastly, Brown describes the conditions of the decline of the Grange.

“Golden Rice.” Living on Earth. Journalist: Julie Grant. Exec. Producer: Steve Curwood. Public Radio International, Somerville, MA, 30 January, 2009.

Golden Rice is a genetically engineered food, designed to supplement the dietary intake of vitamin A in regions of the world, such as India and China, where eye degeneration resultant from Vitamin A deficiency is rampant. Vandana Shiva says, however, the people should not need this, “You can add a few micrograms of vitamin A to white polished rice, and be thrilled that you have added nutrition. But, again, food is not just rice. And definitely for anyone who has even a kindergarten knowledge of nutrition, polished rice is not where you turn to for meeting your Vitamin A needs. You turn to your greens, you turn to your coriander, to your curry leaves, something very very central to our eating.” Since the Green Revolution in the 1960’s farmers no longer grow food for their families, but focus on commodities for the market place, such as rice and cotton. Shiva says they need to be reeducated to grow and eat those green vegetables and leafy greens.

Howe, S. “History of the Grange.” Maine State Grange. 2006. Retrieved 3 April 2009 from http://mainestategrange.org/grange/index.php?q=node/4

This history describes the origins of the national Grange (officially known as the Patrons of Husbandry) and the subsequent formation of the Maine State Grange in the 1870s. The Grange was created to represent the views of agricultural communities, which were often less than prominent in politics because of the rural and remote location of many farmers. The primary focus of the Grange was cooperative activities for farmers, such as offering insurance, promoting group purchasing, and supporting the regulation of railroads and banks. The Granges were a place for adults to better educate themselves as well as debate issues of significance in the communities. The Grange worked hard to improve the livelihood of rural farm residents through efforts such as the promotion of Rural Free Delivery, advocacy for strong local schools and increased funding for UMaine, and promoting and educating farmers about modern scientific farming methods. By the 1960s the Grange’s membership levels had fallen significantly. Today the Granges are still active in some areas, but primarily as a community service center.

McGinnis, Michael Vincent. “A Rehearsal to Bioregionalism.” Bioregionalism. Ed. Michael Vincent McGinnis. London and New York: Routeledge, 1999. 1-10.

A healthy relationship with place is displayed through aspects of culture: languages, rituals, food, textiles, medicine and so on. McGinnis explores the various ways a bioregional approach to life has been exploited. One of the earliest manifestations of the idea was in response to the environmentalist concept of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ or the idea that common resources are inevitably over-exploited as a result of the lack of oversight. McGinnis points out, however, that many societies over time have held common resources, under shared regulations, and the resource was conserved. Bioregionalists also disdain the move toward mechanization and away from manpower, as well as the shift to large-scale formal economies rather than the traditional local and community-based economies.

McKibben, Bill. “Introduction.” Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. New York: Macmillan, 2007. 1-4.

Throughout the history of mankind the acquisition of resources created an improved circumstance for individuals and society. McKibben describes this as the “birds” More and Better roosting side by side on the same branch, and when an individual threw “the stone of your life” it was likely to strike both. This led to an economic and industrial system where the primary focus was on producing ever more because, it was believed, this could only make our lives better. But we now are beginning to see that at some point in the development process the correlation between more and better begins to disintegrate; despite a continued increase in wealth and production we do not see a persistently continued increase in happiness. As a result, the majority of people in the modern world must choose between focusing their lives on augmenting their wealth or fostering their own contentment. McKibben explains that in order to begin to focus more attention on human satisfaction we must endeavor to rebuild our local economies. Because local economies build richer relationships they are more durable and, overall, better able to provide for human satisfaction.

McKibben, Bill. “After Growth.” Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. New York: Macmillan, 2007. 5-41.

In this chapter McKibben begins to describe in detail the disintegrating correlation between wealth and human satisfaction. The focus on growth has created inequality and insecurity rather than prosperity and progress. Median wages for Americans are the same as they were thirty years ago, and the real (adjusted for inflation) income of the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers has declined steadily. A further failing of the persistent growth focus has been the depletion of resources and overwhelming increase of pollution. These problems not only mean that the growth is not sustainable, but may also be at the root of many individual’s lack of contentment: desecrated back yards and wild lands and miles of monotonous suburbia to commute through are not what bring most people a sense of satisfaction or joy. McKibben offers compelling evidence comparing increases in wealth with falling happiness indices for developed nations over the past half century. Nations described include the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Japan, and many others. He observes that in these places alcoholism, suicide, and depression have increased with the development of capital-building industries and economies. He also emphasizes importantly, that it is not necessarily getting richer that caused these problems, only that it clearly did not alleviate them. Perhaps the most incredible statistic he offers is the clear evidence that money only buys happiness up to the point of $10,000 per capita income, after that the correlation between personal satisfaction and income disappears. Overall, McKibben proposes that perhaps the actual methods of pursuing so much “stuff has turned us ever more into individuals and ever less into members of a community, isolating us in a way that runs contrary to our most basic instincts.” [page 37]

Quimby, B. “Farming in Maine a Growing Buisness: Demand for Organic Foods Help Spark a Surge in Production and Sales Since 2002.” Portland Press Herald, 6 February 2009. Retrieved on 6 April 2009 from http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=237359&ac=

This article describes some of the trends found in the latest five-year census released in February, 2009 by the Department of Agriculture. The primary focus is on the fact that the number of farms in Maine is on the rise, and the number of organic farms is rising even more quickly. Despite this trend the number of acres in usage is decling. Russell Libby, executive director of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association describes an influx of new young farmers, as well as an increase in farmer’s markets. The overall assessment of the census by experts is positive, and the image of agriculture’s future in Maine is seen as promising.

This piece focuses on the ideas of “stewardship” and “environmentally friendly farming” contained in the Ontario Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) and some of the contrasts between this and the ideas within the European agri-environmental schemes. The EFP system was set up to financially and educationally support farmers through a six stage process of identifying environmental strengths and concerns on their farms, and then creating goals to improve environemental conditions. Approimately 24% of farmers in the province (covering 1/5 of the farmland) took part in the project in the first ten years, though the drop out rate after the initial workshops has been especially high. Farmers surveyed reported that the primary positive impacts of the project have been increased awareness of farm conservation issues, education, and identification of potential environmental risks. Most of the farmers in the project are not associated with conservation-related organizations, suggesting that most see the scheme as a way to ‘better management’ over the ideal of environmental benefits. This contrasts with the EU scheme that focuses on reducing farm inputs and outputs and moving away from industrial-style farming methods and adhering to traditional cultivation or pasture management practices. The EU is geared more toward a new model of farming, where the Ontario farm plans are set up to support the current farming system in shifting toward more environemental stewardship. The EU system is based on a strong regulation-compliance basis, something the Ontario farmers explicitly said they would be strongly against, fearing that enforced standards by the government would be the antithesis of ‘proper’ farming methods.

Troughton, Michael. “Fordism rampant: the model and reality, as applied to production, processing and distribution in the North American agro-food system.” Rural Change and Sustainability: Agriculture, the Environment and Communities. Ed. S.J Essex, A.W. Gilg, R.B. Yarwood. Cambridge: CABI Publishing, 2005. 13-27.

Prior to WWII the farming sectors in North America were at their peak number of individual farms. With the Fordian mechanization that was broadly integrated during the war and post-war boom, farming became a highly specialized, capital-intensive enterprise. The agro-food systems began to work under the industrial paradigm of the commodity chain and economic efficiency. The generation of food became highly mechanized at every level, on the farm and through the food processing and distribution systems. Powerful economic, technological and political forces integrated these systems into corporate structures. The result has been a drastic reduction in the amount of farms and the farm labor force, to numbers less than one-third of the peak totals seen before WWII. The remaining farms are geared to mass-produce only a few varieties of uniform products, which conform to strict standards of size, weight and consistency allowing for easier processing, storage, marketing and shipping. All of these mechanisms have created a farm system where the ‘farmer’ is at the mercy of major corporate forces, bearing both low prices and essentially being reduced to the roll of managers on their own land. Government and agricultural organizations have supported agribusiness focusing solely on increasing the output of farms, even at the expense of the individual farmer or the family farm. The result has been research and legislation that serves the interests of agribusiness rather than farmer’s needs.

Tags:

Request for Internal Review Board Exemption

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:14:24 GMT

Research Proposal Summary

“Maine’s Historical Grange and How It Might Inform Modern Farm Communities”

A. Introduction

This research project is the center of a USM Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship and will also be a primary base of my honors thesis. The study investigates the historical role of Maine Granges to determine how understanding them as a precedent can assist the efforts of current agricultural communities. At one time the Granges served as centers of community life and as an impetus for sharing knowledge and technology between isolated farmsteads. What impact did the Grange’s efforts have on farming practices, the farmer and his/her community? What aspects of the Grange system might be applicable today? An ethnographic, oral history and archival examination of two Maine Granges and the agrarian communities they supported – the Cumberland County towns of New Gloucester and Brunswick – will provide insight into these questions. Concurrent to this oral history research, information about the Grange will be anecdotally shared with sustainable and small scale farmers in Maine to gain insight into what aspects of the Grange might support modern farm communities. The result will be an historical and contemporary ethnographic examination of agrarian Maine.

B: Specific Aims

· Locate informants that have historically participated in the Grange in New Gloucester and Brunswick. Conduct 4-10 interviews about the impact of the Granges on farming practices and communities. Focus specifically on what the informants feel the benefits and problems were with the Granges, what they feel was the major impetus for the collapse of the Grange’s use, and what aspects of the Grange they feel could benefit contemporary small farmers.

· Gather anecdotal ethnographic information within the small farm community of southern and central Maine. Focus on sharing information about the Granges and noting farmers’ views on whether the Grange system correlates with their own needs and efforts.

· Create a report about the Granges historical role in farming communities. In this report take into consideration the conditions and responses of current farming communities and what aspects of the Grange system might apply to the contemporary agricultural culture. This report will be distributed through the Granges and local farming communities, as well as provided to the leaders of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) or other agricultural organizations expressing interest.

C. Methods of Data Collection and Analysis

Initial research will focus on examination of historical documents, contemporary publications, and discussion with pertinent experts. I have been in contact with Dr. Stanley Howe, Historian for the Maine State Grange, who has offered to support my research; he is an expert informant for this ethnography. With an initial understanding of Grange history, I will undertake an ethnographic examination of the Grange communities in New Gloucester and Brunswick, including field interviews, collection of oral history, and participant-observation at Grange activities. I will also undertake participant-observation in the contemporary farming community through the interactions of the farm cooperative I am a part of establishing. These conversations will share information about the research I am conducting and gather ideas about what aspects of the Grange seem to be applicable currently.

D. Description of Subject Population, Research Setting, Subject Recruitment Procedures

All subjects of formal interviews will be Grange members. I will write an initial contact letter [See Attachment A: Initial Grange Contact Letter] to the Grange Master of Sabbathday Lake Grange #365 in New Gloucester and Dirigo Grange #13 in Brunswick, requesting their permissions to research their Grange through participant observation and interviewing of members. I hope that this introduction will be the start of relationships that will be the source of interviewee contacts. Additionally, I will attend Grange meetings and activities and meet Grangers directly. I will also be conducting informal interviews with local farmers. These are all farmers that I know personally.

Interviews will take place at the Granges, at private homes, public places, or any other location that is agreeable to both the interviewee and researcher. All interviews will be digitally recorded for eventual transcription.

E. Informed Consent Procedure

Informants whom I request to be involved in formal interviews will be verbally explained the reason for consent procedures. Whenever possible I will provide a copy of the consent form to the participant for review before the day of the interview. Interviews will not be conducted until the informant has 1) completely heard and/or read the consent form 2) had a chance to ask questions and 3) formally agreed to the consent by signature on a paper form. [See Attachment C: Informed Consent]

F. Provisions for Subject Data Confidentiality

All interviewees will be informed that the information they provide should be public and of a nature that can be shared with anyone. He/she will be encouraged to only provide information that is acceptable as such. Before transcripts or audio files of interviews are made available to anyone aside from myself and my advisor, the documents will be offered to the interviewee for review. Should the interviewee consider any data inappropriate for release, this data will be removed from the final transcripts/audio files. I will not disclose to any outside party an interviewee’s desire not to speak on a subject, to speak off the record, or to have data removed from a transcript/audio file.

G. Statement of Potential Research Risks to Subjects

There are no foreseen risks to the subjects of this research. I will ensure that all interviewees have sufficient opportunity to affirm that any presentation of their story is acceptable to them.

H. Statement of Potential Research Benefits to Subjects

I. Investigator Experience

Please see Attachment D: Nikkilee Carleton Curriculum Vitae

Attachment A: Initial Grange Contact Letter [DRAFT]

June XX, 2009

Dirigo Grange #13; Patrons of Husbandry 6 Noble St Brunswick, Maine 04011

Sabbathday Lake Grange #365; Patrons of Husbandry  370 Sabbathday Road  New Gloucester, Maine 04260

Dear Grange Master Name:

With Warm Regards,

Nikkilee (Lee) Carleton

329 Preble St, #1

South Portland, ME 04106

leensylus@mac.com

603-986-0739

cc: Maine Grange Office

146 State St.,

Augusta 04330

**SURF proposal will also be provided with this letter
Attachment B: Interview Guiding Questions

I would like to do more archival and literature research before I compose my guiding questions. This will provide me with a strong base of knowledge regarding the Grange, so I have a better idea of what sort of questions there are to ask.

My current I believe my interview questions will be in regards to four general areas:

General memories regarding personal or family interaction with the Grange.
Observed organizational advantages and shortfalls of the Grange relative to agrarian-community support.
Understanding or considerations of why the Grange saw precipitous decline in membership in the mid-twentieth century and how this related to or impacted farming methods or community structure.
Observations of the contemporary shifts in agriculture and how (or if) he/she feels the Grange or the ideals of the Grange could support this social movement.

Attachment C: Informed Consent

Informed Consent for Participation as a Subject in Research Study:

“Maine’s Historical Grange and

How It Might Inform Modern Farm Communities”

Introduction:

Please read this form and ask any questions that you may

have before agreeing to take part in this research study.

Purpose of the Study:

Interviews will be conducted over the summer of 2009. At the end of this research period I will create a report about the Granges historical role in farming communities, taking into consideration what aspects are similar to the needs of modern small farm communities. This report will be hopefully be presented to the Granges as well as provided to the leaders of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), or any other interested farming organization.

The total number of formal interviewees will be between 4-10.

I am an undergraduate research fellow at the University of Southern Maine (USM) who is directly supervised by a USM faculty mentor.

Description of Study Procedures

If you agree to be part of this study, I will ask you to do the following things:

Meet with me over the summer of 2009, during which you may…

Be interviewed one or more times

and

Be voice recorded, photographed, and/or quoted

and

Be contacted by phone, physical mail, or email

Risks to Being in Study:

There are no foreseen risks to the subjects of this research. I will ensure that you have sufficient opportunity to affirm that any presentation of your story is acceptable to you.

Benefits to Being in Study:

Payment and Costs:

Your participation is completely voluntary. You will not receive payment or reimbursement for your time or transportation.

I do not expect there to be any cost to you. I will arrange to meet with you in locations and at times that are convenient to you.

Confidentiality and Privacy of Data:

Audio clips, photographs and some quotes or general conclusions from your interview will brought together into a poster and/or oral report. This will be presented at the University of Southern Maine’s Thinking Matters Conference in the spring of 2010, and to any organization – including the Grange – who is interested in the results. You are welcome to attend any of these presentations, or request one for yourself.

Voluntary Participation/Withdrawal:

Your participation is voluntary. If you choose not to be a part of this research, it will not affect your current or future relations with the University of Southern Maine.

You are free to withdraw at any time and for any reason.

Contacts and Questions:

The primary researcher conducting this study is:

Nikkilee (Lee) Carleton

You can contact me at-

phone: 603.986.0739

address: 329 Preble St #2, South Portland, ME 04106

email: leensylus@mac.com

The faculty mentor for this project is:

Dr Kreg Ettenger

If you have any questions or believe you may have suffered a research-realted injury, please contact Dr Ettenger at-

phone: 207.780.5231

email: kreg.ettenger@maine.edu

If you have questions about your rights as a research subject, you may contact-

William Harrison, Director

USM Office of Research Compliance

phone: 207.780.4517

email: usmirb@usm.maine.edu

Copy of Consent Form:

You will be given a copy of this consent form and I will keep a copy on file for future reference.

Please Sign Below

Study Participant (Print Name):______________________________________

Participant or Legal Representative Signature: _____________________________

Date: ____________________

Attachment D: Media Release Form

~UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE~

RELEASE AND AUTHORIZATION TO

PHOTOGRAPH, FILM, VIDEO TAPE AND AUDIOTAPE

I hereby grant full permission to Nikkilee Carleton to use the following items that I have initialed:

__________ Photographs

__________ Film

__________ Video

__________ Audiotape

__________ My name

__________ Other (describe) ________________________________________

I agree that the item(s) I checked above can be used in any way or manner including the following (cross out any you do not wish to allow):

Photographic,
Print,
Video,
Electronic, Digital, or Other formats developed in the future

This permission is solely related to the project titled “Maine’s Historical Grange and How It Might Inform Modern Farm Communities”

I understand that I am giving up all my rights of privacy or payment or other compensation, except for my rights in the case of negligence by USM or people working with USM.

Name_____________________________ Date____________________

Address___________________________ Telephone____________________

____________________________

Signature______________________________

_____ I would like to be contacted if the above is to be used for any other future project.

Attachment D: Nikkilee Carleton Curriculum Vitae

Education:

USM , Gorham, ME

Degree to be completed in 2010. Major Anthropology, Minor Environmental Sustainability, and Completion of Honor’s Program Requirements

Southern Maine Community College, South Portland, ME

Courses included: Taxonomy of Herbaceous Plants; Natural History of the Casco Bay Bioregion; Nature and Culture; Botany; Contemporary World Problems

Humboldt Field Research Institute, UMaine Extension, Eagle Hill, Steuben, ME

Medicinal Plants for Naturalists, a one-week seminar presented by Dr James A Duke, of the USDA and the University of Maryland.

New Mexico College of Natural Healing and Bear Creek Herbs, Silver City, NM

Ten month program in herbal medicine; including courses in taxonomy, plant identification, local ethnobotany, wildcrafting, medicine making, cultivation, sustainability, issues of invasive plants, herbal-medicinal history, and many other issues. We spent a great deal of time in the field with our teachers and local traditional healers, discussing plants and ecosystems throughout the mountains and canyons of New Mexico and Arizona.

Western New Mexico University, Silver City, NM

Core Curriculum

Conway Adult Education, Conway, NH

Introduction to Medicinal Herbs

The Farm Midwifery Education Center, Summertown, TN

Midwife’s assistant program

Oregon School of Midwifery, Eugene, OR

Doula Certification

Kennett High School, Conway, NH

Awards Included:

Presidential Award; National Honor Society; Johns Hopkins Excellent Student Recognition; Excellence in Science; Excellence in Algebra

Community Experience:

Thinking Matters Symposium, 2009, USM

Poster: “Presumpscot Ethnography: A River Shaping Lives”

Selected to be displayed at the 2009 USM Presidential Inauguration

The Presumpscot River holds great significance for the Southern Maine region. An ethnography of this place can reveal that not only is the river important for the recreational and ecological services that it provides today, but also for the stories and myths that surround it. A sense of place cannot be established exclusively within the present, and the Presumpscot has been important to many people for thousands of years. Those who love it today feel connected with those who loved the river in the past. There seems to be not just a desire, but almost a feeling of obligation to return the river to its deepest splendor – something owed as much to those in the future as to those in the past.

My ethnographic research over the past year has examined the many ways that the Presumpscot inspires a sense of obligation and connection to place. This research is based on my personal experience in a local restoration group, and multiple interviews with people whose lives have been shaped by the river and those who are working to shape its future. The presentation of collected audio and visual data will be used support my analysis of the Presumpscot ethnography.

Milkweed Farm Coop, 2009-ongoing, Brunswick, ME

Co-establisher and assistant manager.

On land I have lived and worked on over the summers of 2007 and 2008, we have established a farming coop that should provide vegetables, pork, eggs, chicken, and milk to ten (+) families. The owners of this small family farm and I are working to organize and develop the coop in an alternative paradigm to the CSA, with a requirement of work-shares rather than a significant monetary buy-in. My focus is the coordination of all-farm work-project days, educational events in canning, bread baking, and herbal apothecary, and the establishment of strong community around the food-growing system.

Mama’s Garden, 2007 – ongoing

My business, growing and gathering medicinal herbs and cut flowers for farmer’s market. Also doing private organic landscape gardening in greater Portland, with a focus on edible landscaping.

Presumpscot River Watershed Coalition, Summer 2008

Riverfest Co-coordinator

The first annual Riverfest was planned as a community outreach event, in the hopes that the efforts of the Coalition would be more prominent to the public. The event included speakers, music, informational tables, children’s activities and service activities. For this internship I also created a comprehensive contact compendium and a promotional bookmark for PRWC to distribute at the event.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Week, 2008, USM

Secretary of USM student chapter. Event Co-coordinator.

Week included speakers, discussion panels, films and informational tabling at the Portland Campus Center. I was active in planning the entire week, and had full responsibility for one day.

Thinking Matters Symposium, 2008, USM

Speaker: “Agricultural Development in Nepal”

The Himalayan nation of Nepal is heavily dependant on domestic agriculture for food as well as growth of the economy. In a nation where malnourishment and poverty are commonplace, the expansion of the agricultural sector and its increased efficiency is paramount. This article reviews the historical setting and modern efforts and expectations for agricultural development in Nepal. Thru analysis of United Nation Development Plans, and other current and historical reviews, I trace the process of success and error undergone in this unique nation. Though progress has been slow, and there is still much to be done, there is good cause for hope.

WMPG Radio, USM, Fall 2007

Part of a panel discussion on Bird Flu in Maine, with a focus on informing the community about my research on how small farmers in Maine can protect themselves in the case of an outbreak of H5N1 requiring the culling of large flocks of domestic birds.

ME Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, 1999 - ongoing, Unity, ME

Fair Event & Set-up Volunteer

ME Public Broadcasting, 2003 - ongoing, Portland, ME

Pledge Drive phone volunteer

Ameri-Corps Internship at Wolfe’s Neck Farm, Summer 2006, Freeport, ME

Environmental and Organic Farming Education, including curriculum and activity design, for ages 5-14 (with a focus on 9 and 10 year-olds).

Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, 2006, Booth Bay, ME

Event Volunteer

Ripple Effect, 2005, Portland, ME

Event Volunteer

Greene Handcrafted Gardens, Summer 2005, Cape Elizabeth, ME

Two years experience in all aspects of organic landscape work.

Students for Environmental Awareness (SMCC), 2005, South Portland, Me

President, Two Semesters

Oakridge Organic Farm, Summer 2004, Neenah, WI

Full season managing farm and CSA.

Black Tail Ranch, Spring 2004, Wolfe Creek, MT

Head Chef and Baker, on ranch and for back country trips.

Also worked managing gardens and animals.

Tin Mountain Association, 2001, Madison, NH

Volunteer Educator

Recognition, Scholarships and Awards

Dean’s List USM College of Arts and Sciences, Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Spring/Fall 2008, Spring 2009

Treworgy Scholarship, 2008, 2009

Honors Praxis Award, 2008, 2009

Dorothy Montgomery Scholarship, 2009

Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship, 2009

Tags:

Quotes from Brown Project. 5/30

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:51:01 GMT

Some really great quotes I have been reading about the Grange:

The Grangers sought to “reinvest the farming class with a sense of dignity and pride in the value of husbandry, in contrast to the morally bankrupt livelihoods of Gilded Age “speculators and middlemen."

The Grangers believed "rural Americans were primarily motivated by a "rural mentalite" which privileged notions of cooperation, kinship and family over individual profits and the dictates of the market...they saw the centrality of the household as the primary base of production and focus of economic activity, and the importance of standards of community--standards build upon traditions of common labor, notions of common rights, and recognition of the common good."

~Brown, E. “Ritual and Community: The Maine Grange.” Unpublished Masters Project (University of Southern Maine, New England Studies), 1992.

Tags:

Grange Project 5/30

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:48:02 GMT

Hello all. An update that this blog will now begin to focus tightly on my field work, which officially starts next week. I will let you know what I am learning about the Grange as I move along, and show you what I am writing an compiling. Happy Reading!

Tags:

Theoretical Introduction (Thesis Proposal Section) 5/19

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:09:12 GMT

Theoretical Introduction:

True sustainability, both social and ecological, is not simple to establish. It has taken millennia for the Earth’s diverse ecosystems to develop, and research shows that it is this diversity that supports the resilience of the biomes. Resilience means that the community as a whole is able to withstand stressors and shifts. Stated directly, we see that diversity leads to sustainability.

At the root of the evolution of diversity is adaptation. As a species adapts to a specific niche it is able to most effectively and efficiently use a set of available resources. As more and more species develop to usurp specific niches, every resource is taken advantage of, and the “waste” of each process becomes a new resource. This is the root of sustainability: a community that is well adapted to the site and to one another.

The ability to share acquired understanding is, in many ways, what makes us human. It also can be at the root of being able to live sustainably upon the land. Over generations, a community passes on a growing understanding of how to use resources and manage waste. The inherent test in this system is that if a society does not find a sustainable balance, their culture will no longer have the ability to persist. But sometimes generations of adaptation are disrupted by outside forces. Maine’s agriculture system is a fine example of this. Close to four hundred years ago settlers entered the landscape with a primary focus on farming. Maine, in many ways was an ideal setting for an agricultural society. These families spent nearly ten generations adapting to specific locations. Each farmer learned his soil, his sun, his rain. He established crop systems and husbandry models that were low-input, and low-impact. There were many ecological missteps, as we can see them today, and the people surely struggled in their survival. We must recognize, though, that four hundred years is not very long in establishing a culture.

On the whole, early New England farmers had a primary consideration for the sustainability of the land, for it was the land the directly provided sustenance for the family and future generations. These farmers came to understand their land. Each husbandryman had to know what crops would provide a balance between production and ensuring soil fertility for the next year, he had to find effective pest strategies for his particular issues, and develop crop varieties that worked in his fields. All of this was slightly different for each farm, and even more unique across regions. Each landscape required individual adaptation.

In the past half-century or more, these local adaptations have been, for the most part, disregarded and left unpracticed. In an effort to increase production and decrease the cost of food, agriculture has become an industry of monoculture. This has had significant implications not only for the farmers, but also for the land. The pliability of local adaptation is lost with universal mechanization and commodity mono-crop production. We have seen an incredible decline in the number of farms in Maine (and nation wide), and the autonomy of the farmer has been lost. Powerful forces have pushed the average farmer into making decisions that not only are unsuited to his land, but unsuited to his family and community. The past fifty years of agri-business have disrupted the three centuries of adaptation that came before. Where once a farmer would have grown up on a farm and in a community that was rooted in the adaptive traditions of agriculture, today very few have this advantage.

Recently the USDA published census data showing that the number of farms in Maine is increasing at a rate of 13 percent. This is nearly three times the national average. It is clear through empirical observation that the farmers, who are establishing new farmsteads today are not investing in industrial farm systems. Instead, these farmers seem to be leaning toward a low-input, low-impact, family and local community focused methodology – something more akin to what was in place before the Green Revolution. But these farmers do not have the benefit of having grown up immersed in the traditions of small-scale agriculture. Fifty years of agribusiness have created a “generation gap” of farming traditions.

To reestablish sustainability, it seems, it would be beneficial to try to regain some of the adaptations that were established in the first three centuries of New England settlement. In other words, new farmers can benefit from learning what came before. Reconnecting modern farmers with those who remember the methods in place at the beginning of the twentieth century is a way of preserving a culture. Within this culture are generations of adaptation to this landscape and the inherent sustainability that they can impart.

Tags:

Late night up dates 5/16

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Sun, 17 May 2009 03:12:40 GMT

Hello to all. There seems to be a few of you out there who read this regularly, I fantasize about who you might be. I wanted to let you all know that the fellowship I applied for was granted to me. (See fellowship proposal a few entries back.) So I am very excited about that. I will be starting work (officially) on the first of June. But I need to get IRB approval first, and hope to visit the Bethel historical society - which currently has a display about the Grange, and meet with Stane Howe - author of "A Fair Field and No Favor" the book about the Maine State Grange, and I want to write a letter to the two Granges...it seems there will be no summer vacation at all this year. C'est la vie! It feels good to be working on a project that is entirely mine, and that I believe will be good for my community, and that so many people around me seem to support. I feel like I am getting somewhere, like maybe I will be able to do something I actually care about after I graduate. We shall see. I'll keep you updated.

Tags:

Free Write (5/6)

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:46:28 GMT

What is my focus? What am I setting out to do and why?

The ideal of this research project is bring the broad, overarching ideas I have come to regarding community and ecological sustainability together with a real world illustration of the processes involved. I have a strong theoretical base of ideas regarding what is necessary for our social order to be reinstated to a place that is in balance with the biotic world around us and the needs of all of us as individuals. These ideas are based on social history. I will discuss this social history and the theory that I have come to believe is implied. The base of this discussion will be the oral history and ethnographic data I will gather. This project can be envisioned as a tree. My ethnographic data and oral history are the leaves of this tree. These leaves are supported by the twigs of local social, economic, and environmental shifts. These twigs are supported by the larger branches of national and global changes. The trunk of this tree is my “big idea” about what it takes to make true sustainability. This idea can hold up the branches and the twigs and the leaves. But if any section along the way is injured it can no longer hold up the rest. For example, a global economic shift – a big branch – that can impact many twigs – education, food systems, local economies, family organization, etc – these twigs, if brought down by a big global shift, can no longer support the leaves of individuals and communities. I will begin with the stories of those leaves. I will ask- about lives, about satifaction, sustainability, unmet needs, lost hopes. I will try to find a common thread between these stories, and then seek the corresponding “twig.” What it a failed food system, or education that brought all of these people to a common place of success or failure. Then, following the tree back downward, is there now a branch that can be described as being the common source of this success or failure? At what point did the people, the leaves loose contact with the central trunk of sustainability?

Hmm… maybe this metaphor works maybe it does not.

I know that I want to use real people’s words to put a “human face” on the social and ecological changes the world is facing. I am confident in my social theory. I know there is a whole lot of data to back it up. I want to use a lot of this data, but I want the discussion to be based on real people. Their needs. Their desires, Their sense of loss. Their hope.

What is still unresolved? What are my questions?

On the one hand…On the other hand…

Hmm. I feel like I have a lot figured out. I don’t want to say everything (well sort of I do), but I feel pretty complete at this point. But just that sense makes me know that there must be something I am over looking. I must be over confident. There is always something new to consider. Some way to make the work better. I sort of feel like at this point I need to get out and do some doing before I know what the other issues are, what the other questions are. It is not that I think my idea is perfect and wont change and has nothing more to be considered. No. I just don’t know what the next hump will be to get over, and I don’t know that I am going to be able to get any closer to it with paper and discussion. Maybe, but maybe I’ll just over think it again and get myself all convoluted.

Well the one thing I know that there is to consider is how comprehensive this work will be. The three tiers that I am currently hoping to encompass are: oral history in the Granges, ethnography with modern local farmers, and a sort-of socio-political examination of historical milestones. But, as has been suggested to me, my thesis would likely be plenty weighty just examining the Granges. I could save the ‘big’ synthesis for a master’s thesis. Yup, I could. And I certainly see the validity in that. But in that I have to come face to face with some significant personal fears: A master’s degree? Oh how I dream of thee. Even a PhD. But come on really? I’m a single mama. Just this undergrad has felt like some sort of selfish, extravagance? More years of school? It seems much more likely that these years of school will get me right back to landscaping and cooking- pay bill, make sure sy is taken care of. I know that I can make my path. But this is my fear and my sense of guilt. So the idea of deciding to put off this ‘big’ idea, that has taken so much to get into order, to coalesce- my whole life really. To put it off to be worked on at some later time that I fear will not come- when I have the opportunity to do it right now. It just is hard for me to embrace that sort of letting go…

Titles:

Social History, Oral History and How They Speak to Modern Sustainability

Global Social History, the Traditional Role of the Granges, and the Modern Shift to Sustainable Farming in Maine

Reexamining Adaptive Traditions: How the Historical Visions of the Maine State Grange Can Support the Modern Sustainable Agrarian-shift

Tags:

Free Write: I know where I am! (4/29)

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:31:34 GMT

I know where I am! That seems amazing. In many ways it seems no where near where I was at the new year, but at the same time, where I was then felt very ethereal. I had nothing to really get a hold of. Now it seems like I have become grounded. I am not exclusively in my head any more. My hands are in the soil, and I am listening to my community and watching the landscape. This is what I was looking for early in the semester, it seems, but I didn’t even know it. I knew I needed to find some way to express these big ideas I have about community and sustainability and how people interact with the land. But early on I was coming from the place where I had never even put all of those big ideas into my own words. Certainly never put them down on paper. It took this process of understanding my own head (and heart) to get to something simple, yet complete. Once I got all those big ideas out only the page, it gave me some perspective. Why does it matter if people are interacting with the place around them? Where do I see that interaction taking place in my own community? How can I support my community in embracing this rooted posture? My early thesis proposal described all the problems. How we got inot this mess. Then my next proposal seemed to be saying, we’ve got to make it better, we need to create something that is energetically different. But I had nothing of the tangible how. That was something that I struggled with. How do I make a difference? How do I do it in a way that works with my community, supports my family, and nourishes my need for research? Now here I am. I have this project. I took the tiny off-hand comment from one of my Socratic dialogues… the granges? What are the granges? And now it has snowballed into this cohesive project. My professors support it, my farming community is hugely excited. I love this idea because it feels entirely mine, and entirely supportive of the rest of my community. I wrote the proposal for the SURF grant and that was a great micro-process in this bigger thesis process. That proposal forced me to focus. The proposal was worked and reworked and I had several professors who I hold in highest regard just entirely giving me every criticism they thought the work needed. That was not easy. But at the same time, it felt really good to know that they were taking the time and effort to give me a critique like I feel I have rarely gotten before. This makes me feel like they see this work as valuable and that I am getting to a place in my relationship with them where they know they can be critical. And it is hard to hear the criticism, but I had to keep in mind that I hold these professors in such high regard because of the work that they do, and so they have much to share. And it felt good to bring their ideas into the work, but keep it my own- not just entirely change things to their exact suggestion.

Tags:

Free Write: Embrace it all! (4/15)

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:17:34 GMT

Where I am right now:

Try to keep in my mind that my life is also my ethnographic research. In my Socratic dialogues it has been suggested to me that I try to get the SURF grant to make my co-op happen. But my co-op will happen if I let it - if I acknowledge it. I need the resources to help me with my research about the Granges. By the same count, another advisor suggested that, again, I need to reign myself in. Too many projects too many ideas. Know myself, know my limitations. Pick something and do it well. Perhaps I fear falling into being only a farmer. And I don’t mean that in the sense that a farmer is anything less than imperative and prestigious. But it is not all I want to do. Farming is my subsistence. It is being the change I wish to see. But I also want to be active in inspiring the change for the rest of the world. So I want to put energy into research over the summer, but I also know I need the farm. I believe this is likely my lot for the rest of life, busy with the farm and family at home, and also extending myself with supporting the shifts to sustainability outside of my home. Perhaps this is how I should look at the work facing me this summer. This is what I will need to do for the rest of my life. I need to find a balance in organizing my farm and its community, while also maintaining my research efforts. I feel like I am increasingly drawing the two in parallel. That is the important part: ensuring that the two are not so disparate that my life is entirely a dichotomy. But these are the two facets that I have always idealized my life embodying, so this summer is my jumping off point. Now is the time to embrace it all.

Tags:

Fellowship Application Personal Statement

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:04:02 GMT

My passion is people and the landscapes on which they depend. There is so much to consider in how societies have evolved to interact with and subsist upon biomes. Examining the shifts and changes of various cultures gives us a deeper understanding of what is viable - ecologically and socially. I believe this knowledge must inform contemporary social evolution toward more equitable and sustainable systems in every region.

The way humans garner resources is one of the most fundamental aspects of any society. For me, of most interest is the way the people interact with the plant world. Therefore, I see examining agricultural traditions as providing deep insight into the values of a society. Further, I believe, changing something as fundamental as how food is grown can have wide-ranging repercussions.

My feelings about culture and food-systems come from years of travel and a wide array of educational venues. Additionally, I have worked on various sorts of farms: from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), to farms serving markets, restaurants and nurseries, to farms focused entirely on feeding the family and immediate community. As an Americorps volunteer in 2006 I worked for Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport, Maine, designing and teaching curriculum to elementary school groups and summer campers. I sought to impart my enthusiasm for ecology, food systems, farming practices, and ties between them.

My passion for supporting communities in shifting toward healthy food-systems has led me to take part in organizing, volunteering for, and attending many events and efforts for local activist groups. In the spring of 2008, as the Secretary of USM’s fledgling chapter of Amnesty International, I brought food-security activist Logan Perkins of Food for Maine’s Future to speak on the Portland USM campus. I have attended and volunteered for MOFGA’s Common Ground Fair for ten years. In 2007 I conducted an honors research project on how small farmers could be protected in the case of an outbreak of bird-flu in Maine. This culminated with the distribution of informational fliers to local feed stores, as well as a radio broadcast on WMPG where I focused on informing farmers of their rights and best strategies during an outbreak. At Thinking Matters 2008 I presented a research project titled “Agricultural Development in Nepal.” This region is a particular interest of mine, and I feel there is a great deal of sustainability and human rights work to be done in the developing world. Currently, I am part of starting a CSA cooperative in Brunswick that is focused on food production, as well as building stronger ties between the land, farmers, and community who share the harvest.

Outside of the immediate farming community, I have done other academic and non-profit work. In the summer of 2008 I was an intern for the local environmental group Presumpscot River Watershed Coalition (PRWC). My primary effort was to increase public awareness of the efforts and goals of the Coalition. This was accomplished through organizing the first annual PRWC Riverfest, designing a promotional bookmark for the Coalition, and compiling a comprehensive list of all the member organizations and their objectives to be used on the PRWC website. Following this internship I did coursework with Dr. Kreg Ettenger where we conducted ethnographic interviews regarding the culture around the Presumpscot River. This process required gaining IRB exemption and culminated for me in the presentation of a 2009 Thinking Matters poster. This poster has been selected for display at the USM presidential inauguration.

These efforts reflect my strong desire to support the community around me in shifting toward a more sustainable way of life. The granting of a SURF award would allow me to focus even more deeply on my academic work in this regard. I seek a balance of research and activism in my life. The activism comes easily, for I know I am changing the world with how I live each day and the community I am consciously creating for my young son. Ethnographic research to support these efforts is my career goal. Ultimately, I see this fellowship award and the Grange project as an incremental and valuable step in the direction of the professional work I aspire toward.

Tags:

Fellowship Application

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:58:59 GMT

Abstract:

This research investigates the historical role of Maine Granges to determine how understanding them as a precedent can assist the efforts of current agricultural communities. At one time the Granges served as centers of community life and as an impetus for sharing knowledge and technology between isolated farmsteads. What impact did the Grange’s efforts have on farming practices, the farmer and his/her community? What aspects of the Grange system might be applicable today? An ethnographic, oral history, and archival examination of two Maine Granges and the agrarian communities they supported – the Cumberland County towns of New Gloucester and Brunswick – will provide insight into these questions. The result will be a report shared with modern farmers, Granges, and the organizations working toward re-establishing a culture of small-scale agriculture in Maine.

Introduction:

For over one hundred years the Maine State Grange was a primary cultural and organizational center for agrarian communities. The Granges brought farmers together for education, cooperative dissemination of goods, a common voice against corporate and legislative powers, and support of community in isolated rural areas. These doctrines of the Grange describe some of the biggest concerns of current small farmers, who I have come to understand personally through immersion as part of the community. The number of Maine farms today is rapidly increasing and most are re-instituting low-input, low-impact practices typical of the agriculture during the heyday of the Granges. As a result, many of the struggles of these farmers are like those faced at the inception of the Grange.

Traditionally, farmers have the benefit of immersion in a culture of farming that has been established through generations of adaptation. Today, family farms lack such a culture because the line of wisdom has been interrupted by fifty years of modern agro-business. This disjuncture can be somewhat alleviated through examination of the successes and failures of an historical system - such as the Granges - which attempted to confront many of the same concerns as contemporary small farmers. For the Maine farmers returning to more traditional practices, a deeper understanding of what has come before can enable a more effective shift toward locally organized, sustainable agriculture.

Objectives:

Significance:

This research is the first of two summer fieldwork projects that will be the basis of my USM Honors Thesis examining the current state of farming in Maine and the momentum toward a more sustainable and community-focused food system. My understanding is that the farming system in place during the heyday of the Grange is akin to the “alternative” system currently emerging in Maine: the trend is toward regional innovation that fits the demands of the land and local community. Farms are shifting to a smaller scale and greater diversity (economic, in the crops being grown, and in the value-added adjustments) than their industrial counterparts of the past fifty years. Rather than focusing on fulfilling a limited, commodity-based objective, these farms are directly serving the surrounding communities and the farmer. This evolution (or as some would see it, regression) can potentially be supported through understanding what was historically known about the land and methods of small-scale, locally-focused agriculture here in Maine. By examining the history of the Granges I hope to better understand what role these institutions played in the agrarian communities and what potentials there are that such a system could support current farmers and their communities.

New Gloucester and Brunswick have personal significance to me: the former is the site of my family’s homestead, farmed for over two hundred years, and the latter is where I farm today. I have family members in New Gloucester who are life-long members of the Grange and will provide an inlet to that community. In my farming community of Brunswick I am regularly faced with how little we know about historical farmers and their methods. Both these towns have significance in the history of the Grange and embody an interesting dichotomy of farm communities. New Gloucester represented a relatively isolated, highly agrarian community. Brunswick was agrarian, but had the temper of a busy mill and fishing economy. Brunswick is significant in the history of the Granges because the first Master of the Dirigo Grange (in Brunswick) was an organizer of the Maine State Grange. New Gloucester stands out as a community with three Granges, and is adjacent to Lewiston, where the Maine State Grange was formed.

Methods:

Initial research will focus on examination of historical documents, contemporary publications, and discussion with pertinent experts. I have been in contact with Dr. Stanley Howe, Historian for the Maine State Grange, who has offered to support my research; he is an expert informant for this ethnography. With an initial understanding of Grange history, I will undertake an ethnographic examination of the Grange communities in New Gloucester and Brunswick, including field interviews, collection of oral history, and participant-observation at Grange activities. I will also be busy with participant-observation in the contemporary farming community through the interactions of the farm cooperative I am a part of establishing. These conversations will share information about the research I am conducting and gather ideas about what aspects of the Grange seem to be applicable currently.

Work Plan:

While the informal gathering of information and resources is currently on going, the first official effort of this project will be to garner IRB approval for the research. The first two weeks of the SURF session will be spent examining archives, visiting the Bethel Historical Society, as well as in discourse with experts such as Dr. Howe. Visits to the Granges and local historical societies as well as conversations with on-site historians will direct me toward appropriate informants for ethnographic interviews. I will begin field interviews no later than the last week of June. Throughout the summer I will be working at the Brunswick Farmer’s Market and on various farms. This will provide the opportunity to have informal conversations with today’s agricultural community. The final two weeks of the project will be spent analyzing the compiled information and creating a written ethnography.

Tags:

Annotation: "Farming in ME..."

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:58:21 GMT

Quimby, B. “Farming in Maine a Growing Buisness: Demand for Organic Foods Help Spark a Surge in Production and Sales Since 2002.” Portland Press Herald 6 February 2009. Retrieved on 6 April 2009 from http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=237359&ac=

Tags:

Annotation: "History of the Grange"

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:59:12 GMT

Howe, S. “History of the Grange.” Maine State Grange. 2006. Retrieved 3 April 2009 from http://mainestategrange.org/grange/index.php?q=node/4

Tags:

Stream of Consiousness

http://culturalsustainability.gaia.com — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:57:26 GMT

Now comes figuring out what I am passionate enough about to be able to put my work into. I understand all of these things that I have been writing about. I have gathered understanding for years and brining it all together, cited and with direction feels good. But here I am, still looking at it saying ‘so what?’ So what if all of these things are true about where our society is and how we got here? What can I do about it? My thesis needs to lead me to the place of doing. I want to get a job when I am done with school. And not cooking or landscaping. Something related to my degree. My thesis may not get me that job per se, but I want it to help me focus on what exactly I want that work to look like. A non profit? Do I start my own? Is there some one else doing enough of what I care about? I think it is food. Examining how our food culture impacts our social and physical well being. I can do an ethnography. I want to follow food from a small farm to the table. What are the traditions that follow it along the path. What does this family say for grace? What is the old way of canning beans? What are the tomato sauce recepies? How do the kids interact with the porkchops from the pig they chased as a piglet? How does all of this impact the strength of the family? The strength of the community. Perhaps one of the biggest questions I have now is : how do I synthesize ethnographic data with other research. I don’t want to only write what I saw. I want to put it in the context of wider research from the rest of the world. Comparative statistics, development policy, corporate influences. What are the precedents for this- synthesizing ethnographic understanding with other information? I’ve never read an ethnography like this. One impediment is my knowing that you can not go into field work with the goal of proving something. I can not be looking for the “right” people to say the “right” thing to support the view of my thesis. This bias would be blinding. The fear, when I have other information to include is that I would bring the biases from the other research into my ethnographic work.

Ethnography:

What does this mean? Surely it has evolved over time and also holds different meaning depending upon the region where the researcher was trained, eg old world anthropological work has a much different lean than that from north america.

Consider the emic and the etic. Insider, outsider. Who has the ‘better’ ‘realer’ perspective? An outsider is objective, but can they really understand? An insider understands, but can they be objective?

But must I be objective? Ofcourse, to some degree, to be a respectable bit of research, it seems the scientific community demands some degree of or atleast the guise of objectivity. But perhaps Oskar Kawagley’s work with the Yupaiq is a fine example. He grew up in the community, trained outside of it and then not only ethnographically examined it, but also is working inside of it to implement change he feels is for the better. I wrote a review of this book, and in my paper one of my most overarching points was that Kawagley did service to all ethnography by suggesting answers. It seems too often ethnographers explain the culture and all the problems they may be facing, but then stop short of suggesting solutions. But this person, who has worked so hard to understand the culture, must have insight in to ways that the society could stabilize its self. Is it no negligible to fail to share this knowledge? I think researchers do not because they feel like their work will be disregarded by the scientific community for being empathetic.

Tags: