the irresistible fleet of bicycles

For those of you who have been following the farm bill for months, or if you’ve just noticed how contentious and complicated it is, here is a good list (see policy platform below) of the programs developed that have direct bearing on our capacity as a nation to feed ourselves proper, healthy food. 

When you think that we spend approximately 14 million dollars per hour on the Iraq war, it becomes difficult to fathom how incredibly stingy and inadequate the allocations are for programs which are critical, critical! to the survival of our agricultural economy, and the transition to sustainable practices.

Here is a snapshot of the 2008 farm bill policy platform.

Severine reports on a mid-April train ride.

Did you know that it’s forbidden to take a bicycle on Amtrak?

This blog post has little to do with rural revivals or sustainable agriculture–or does it?

Bikes on trains is in fact a micro-parable of exactly the kind of transportation paradigm that we are working towards…I support bikes on trains as unambiguously as I support solar powered choclate.

I have been working on reducing my use of the car, and the dependency culture that it tends to incubate in our V-8 society–so usually I don’t drive anywhere. In California, I used to take a foldy bike on the BART, down to the Zipcar station or City Car Share, and in NYC I take the foldy bike in the Subway or in the taxi, and even on the airplane–Airhitch anyone?

So imagine my horror and total shock to discover that bikes are forbidden on Amtrak. Really.

Bikes, even folding bikes that are far smaller than a hockey bag, far smaller than golf clubs, far smaller than all of the innumerable chattels of the travelling public–bikes are not allowed on Amtrak–by virtue of being bikes. Instead the policy is that you must box your bike and pay fifteen dollars (in cash) to have it sent under the train.

This is a situation which must be remedied. I worked for a summer in Scotland and every weekend took my bike on a train to a ferry to another train on adventures all around the hebredies and highlands. On Virgin I could have my bike and wireless internet! Sometimes I was suppsed to have reserved a place for the bike, or it had to go in a certain compartment. But over the course of three months NEVER was I denied access to the train I wanted to catch. Not even once.

While my googles looking for activism about bikes on trains yielded little–I wanted to make sure everyone in the greenhorns blog world (and there are apparently 150 readers per day) knows about the tremendous resources that do exist for cyclists and other alternative transportation junkies–Bikes Aboard, seat61.com, Bikes not Bombs, Rock the Bike,  Two n Fro–fancy pants and formal shoes with bike clips on the bottom, bike blenders, bike touring, Ginger Ninjas–also the bike programs that use pedal power to pump well water, or grind grains in Guatemala, and let us not forget the phemonmenon for whom the blog is named: Critical Mass. Generally the critical mass is self-organizing by city, similar to Food not Bombs, but there is a great directory of critical mass at critical-mass.info.  

As the tremendous success of Paris’s bike rental program shows, the ridership for sustainable conveyance modalities is untapped–people are willing to break free of car culture–if only we can be given a chance.

If anyone out there is interested to start a campaign for BIKES ON TRAINS with me–please email severine@pixiepoppins.org

p.s. Amtrack does neither allow rabbits on board–needless to say with four of the former, it took me three hours to cry my way to the top of the bureaucracy in Penn Station and finally just break all the rules and get on the bloody train with a red cap to help it happen.

This is very last minute, but we wanted to alert the young farmers out there to a great opportunity to participate in International dialogue about small-scale production, traditional methods, and cross-cultural knowledge exchange. Maybe some of you have heard of it, or applied already, but this year will be the third edition of Slow Food’s Terra Madre. This conference of farmers, chefs, educators, and students from around the world will be held in October in Torino, Italy. Please learn more here: www.terramadre2008.com.

You must apply to attend, and if selected as a delegate, all of your expenses in Italy are covered by Slow Food. The applications were due April 30, but they are secretly still available until tomorrow. Make haste! Those from the US can apply online here: http://www.slowfoodusa.org/events/terra_madre_2008.html.

There is a special emphasis this year on young (under 35) farmers!

Unleash the depths of your agricultural knowledge on the

Webportal for Young Farmers Wiki!

We are in the initial stages of creating a webportal for young farmers. Its an online funnel that provides young farmers, apprentices, and new entrants into sustainable agriculture with resources necessary to begin farming or to expand their practice.

So far, Wiki pages include Case Studies, CSA’s, incubator farms, farm link programs, events, farm and food related blogs….and more! Please contribute at your leisure by going the the website : http://foryoungfarmers.wikispaces.com/ (once you create a log-in you are free to edit the pages).

local food farmer friends.  please join us in greenhorns fundraising festivities. may 2 2008 at Mission Pie (intersection of 25th st/mission st) from 7 to 10PM.  suggested donation is 100 dollars. if you can’t pay come help, volunteering is encouraged and welcomed! please contact Joylynn at joylynn@coconutdaughters.com or Severine at severine@pixiepoppins.org for more on this. fundraiser question hotline: 1 510 295 9842.  let’s grow the next generation of organic farmers! 

Severine reports from a bike excursion.

I just went on my bicycle over to the Farm Aid offices for a visit, and ended up eating pie, talking about strategic take-over of suburbia by determined and principled mothers working fearlessly to expand their domestic humanism out to the edge of the lawn, and beyond.  In Dirt We Trust.

They kindly gave me a bunch of Farm Aid swag– FARMERS kick ASS tote bag with neon green ink. And in the book pictures of their incredible rock concerts.

WOW! rock concerts.

I think that the lovelies over at Superforest are scheming to help us set up a rock concert of our own.

Dear allies, advisors, activists, agriculturalists.

Thank you for being a part of this network. You may well have already helped us feed fundraiser guests, wash dishes, stuff envelopes, or overcome existential crisis. We are so grateful for your advice, contributions and tremendous hard work.

Together we form a sizable, growing piece of the young farmer movement. Our greenhorn cornucopia is interwoven by microscopic hyphae, fiber-optic savvy, ancient genetic impulses, and a motivation that cannot quite be explained in economic terms. We are the future of farming in this country.

We are spreading the awareness that young farmers are a uniquely potent demographic of fearless agency. We are a cavalry of sustainability. We are gentle rangers sleek as foxes, searching out the cubbies of deep soil, nestling in dens and defending our turf. As we roll out over the countryside in tractors, pickups, and bicycles, our ears are tuned to the whistle of the hills, deaf to the incredulity of monoculture capitalists. We are the avant guard of the next phase in American agriculture, the next nurturers of this great land that feeds us.

By hook or by crook greenhorns get access to the land, access to the knowledge, access to the spiritual certainty at the core of a farmer’s life. We’ve tasted the magic.  We planted the magic. And we do it lovingly, for the sake of the sweet downy underbellies of baby chicks, for the clod crumbling of seed beds, for the mineralized sparkle of pickaxes in new orchards, for the fair air, the smooth wheelbarrow, the speckled egg, the tiny paw-prints, the stillness of morning and stars fading.

And, as you know, we are making a feature-length documentary film! We’ve posted our trailer online (watch the trailer here) and have submitted a 23 minute short to the Slow Food on Film Festival.  We can pick up the camera again once we raise $300,000.  Yes. It is a lot!  We’re sending out our prospecti, made of recycled materials, which include a DVD of the trailer, the NY Times article, a Nominate a Farmer form, the film’s budget, stickers, seeds, and a few production stills.  Also an address where donors can send the money! If you’d like to donate to this valorous vision, please email Severine at severine@pixiepoppins.org. 

We’ve been delighted recently with some encouraging press and hope this will help our fundraising efforts as well as spreading the message on young farmer’s burgeoning prowess in America. 

The New York Times Leaving the Trucker Hat Behind

The Huffington Post The Greenhorns: A New Breed of American Idol 

and The Ethicurean Sowing the Seeds of Revolution

Thank you for being a part of the fleet. Please do send in any comments, suggestions or existential quandaries so that we can include them in our emerging philosophy, political platform, and rhetorical megaphone. May this season bring just enough sunshine, just enough rain, and just enough adventure.

yours in the revival, 

The Greenhorns.

Things to look forward to:

>>Poster+ Post-Card Production: 

 A “Serve your country food”- recruitment poster

Young farmer census to determine how many young farmers already exist in America. We already have about 2,000 young farmers in our database, but are hoping to get a fairly accurate, quantitative accounting of our demographic. We’ll distribute these post-cards and invite young farmers to mail them into our headquarters. This way we can map where in the country the young farmers are and how the word spreads geographically. This might be happening in collaboration with Organic Gardening magazine.

>>Young farmers policy platform:

The Greenhorns are co-authoring an open letter to the presidential candidates about what young farmers need to succeed in feeding the next generation of eaters + citizens.

>>Young farmer mid-summer rabbit roast:

On the eastern seaboard, Saturday, July 12, we’ll be having a mid-summer’s rabbit roast. There will be watercress sandwiches, barn dance, and performance by fabulous young farmers and famous musicians.

Bales of Hay. Mustard dribbles. Interactive young farmer policy exhibit. Radio piece production. Tomatoes? If we are lucky.

>>Young Farmer Conference at Stone Barns in Tarrytown, NY :

5-6 December 2008, www.stonebarns.org 

With workshops, speakers, toolkits, seed swap, video events, film screenings, barn dance, canoodling, and yummy yummy food.  More details as they emerge.

>>To nominate a farmer, click here www.thegreenhorns.net/nominate

47 acre educational farm in Queens is looking to add one full-time, year-round worker. Primary responsibilities will be to assist farmer in vineyard and vegetable production, but must be willing to do general labor work as required. Some weekend work and seasonal attendance at farmer’s market. Farm experience and interest in organic and sustainable practices preferred. Gladly willing to train an inexperienced but enthusiastic and hard-working assistant. Tractor driving experience a plus; must drive standard transmission. Starting ~ $12/hr. Background check, clean driving record, two week trial period.

Description of Farm

The Queens County Farm Museum occupies New York City ’s largest remaining tract of natural, undisturbed farmland. Encompassing a 47 acre parcel in Floral Park, this remarkable piece of land is among the last vestiges of a 400 year history of agriculture as a way of life and livelihood in New York City . The farm is expanding its farming operations and is committed to sustainable practices. To embrace the history of agriculture is to acknowledge the ecological and social importance of agriculture in our present lives. The Farm Museum recognizes the interdependence of the health of our farm and the health of the community of New York City . The farm is home to a two acre vineyard, a small orchard, a 4000 sq foot glass greenhouse and 3000 square feet of cold frames. We are currently developing a comprehensive composting program, refurbishing our cold frames to grow market vegetables in the winter, and expanding our fruit and vegetable fields. The farm is also home to laying hens, goats, sheep and pigs.

Contact Michael Grady Robertson, mgrobertson@queensfarm.org

King Corn airs this week on the Emmy-winning PBS series Independent Lens.

Broadcasts begin tonight!

Check local listings, learn more about the world of corn, get lost in the corn maze, and go behind the scenes on the new PBS website for King Corn.

We urge those of you who haven’t yet called your representatives about the farm bill to take a look at the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition website and call the numbers on the site–we need to seal up the dealio with 15 million for beginning farmer funding (see this action alert to get started). Maybe, or maybe we ‘ll have a better time under Obama–that is the kind of question to ponder I suppose, to each his/her own conclusion. That is the democracy I’m into, not monopolist throatclenching hegemony.

Aimee Witteman, a young famer and young policy wonk down in Washington, works as a grassroots organizer for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (SAC). She has shared the following policy recommendations for the beginning farmer and rancher initiative (policy recommendations below). These funds would trickle down via grants made to organizations like Farm Beginnings, Land Stewardship Project, California Farm Link, and MOFGA farmer among others. These organizations run trainings, make loans, connect aspiring and retiring farmers, help interface with land-owners, and provide mentorship, support and business planning advice to new growers. More about such organizations can be found on the foryoungfarmers wiki.

Aimee and the SAC have a clear vision for how federal monies could best be leveraged for the good of the young farming demographic in the US. Sustainable Agriculture requires sustainable infrastructure, its similar to the situation of disposable vs. reusable. Buying that mason jar is costly, but afterwards you can carry around leftovers, hot tea, tap water, home-made beer…

As we become more actively engaged in the poltical process –with the changing of the guard in Washington this is a much tamer pony to bridle–it is important for us to clearly articulate how we would like these monies to be spent. Please do get in touch with us about the particular challenges in your region.

Think big with your requests–agribusiness is subsidised federally, and super-market organic is subsidized by bourgeouisie. Less pesticides is certainly a wonderful improvement, but we mustn’t be tricked by our compassionate economist friends who would lead us to believe that retail cost reflects total cost–or that cost reflects efficiency. Industrial agriculure is not effiicient, it is not cost effective. It is costing us our soil, our health, our countryside, our drinking water and our children’s prospects.

In Norway and Ireland wonderful programs exist to incent/reward organic production, and friends in Cork are getting 50% cost share from the government to build an organic beer brewery. In Switzerland the farmers are paid to leave the flower heads intact for pollinators, to maintain buffers on the forest edge, to allow the swallows to nest. The Natural Step project help farmers along a trajectory of sustainable management starting with IPM and ending up with input reduction, on-farm fertility management and grey water.

We must push for such programs here—and the Greenhorns are putting together our own policy platform to submit to the Obama campaign. Your contributions will make that document reflective of your region. Please be involved. We must change the system, outlive the system, plan beyond the system, and inhabit a future we create for ourselves. Please email us your comments to farmer@thegreenhorns.net. We’ll send you a draft document if you do.

BEGINNING FARMER AND RANCHER INITIATIVE

Background:

New farmers and ranchers are much more diverse than previous generations. In addition to next-generation farmers from multi-generation farm and ranch families, this new generation includes former farm workers, people from non-farming backgrounds such as mid-life career-changers, and college graduates who have chosen farming as their first career. They include more women than ever before as well as families with Hispanic, Somali, Hmong, and Eastern European backgrounds.

This diverse new generation of farmers and ranchers has very different challenges and needs than previous generations. Adequate access to training, technical assistance, land, credit and markets are critical to their success, however current farm policy is clearly deficient in these areas. The future health and vitality of agriculture, the food system, and rural communities will depend on public policies that encourage this new generation to work in agriculture and manage land sustainably.

Specific Policy Recommendations:

Since 1990, Congress has begun to incorporate provisions into the farm bill that are specific to beginning farmers and ranchers, especially in the area of farm credit. These nascent efforts should be expanded in the 2008 Farm Bill. The new farm bill should include a beginning farmer initiative that provides significant and concrete to help in creating new farming opportunities for small and mid-scale family farmers, including:

The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program should be reauthorized and granted at least the $15 million a year in farm bill funding provided in the House version of the bill. The BFRDP is a competitive grants program supporting education, extension, and technical assistance initiatives directed at new farming opportunities. The BFRDP supports collaborative local, state, and regionally-based networks and partnerships to supply financial and entrepreneurial training, mentoring and apprenticeship programs, “land link” programs, and education and outreach activities to assist beginning farmers and ranchers, including targeted funds for socially disadvantaged producers.

A Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account (IDA) pilot program should be made available in at least 15 states with at least $5 million in annual mandatory funding. An IDA program uses financial training and matched savings accounts to assist those of modest means to establish a pattern of savings. In the case of beginning farmers, the account proceeds may be used toward capital expenditures for a farm or ranch operation, including expenses associated with purchases of land, buildings, equipment, or livestock, or toward acquisition of training.

The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Down Payment Loan Program combines the resources of the Farm Service Agency, the beginning farmer, and a commercial lender or private seller, allowing limited federal dollars to be spread to more beginning farmers and ranchers. The 2008 Farm Bill should include the House bill’s provision that reduces the interest rate to 1%. The final farm bill should also reflect both the House and Senate version’s other improvements to the program, including reduced loan rates and down payment requirements, deferred first year payments, and an increase in the existing $250,000 maximum allowable farm sales price to $500,000 on the maximum allowable portion of farm sales price eligible for the down payment loan to better reflect current market realities.

The Beginning Farmer Land Contract Pilot Program adopted in 2002 promotes private land contract sales as a way for retiring farmers to transfer land to new farmers. The 2008 Farm Bill should include the House and Senate provisions that make the pilot program a permanent nation-wide program option. In addition, the final farm bill should include the House language that extends the current 2-year limit on payment guarantee, and include a new option for a standard 90% guarantee of the outstanding principle.

The 2008 Farm Bill should adopt the Senate provision that includes New Farmer Research funding as part of rural and agricultural entrepreneurship priority within IFAFS.

The 2008 Farm Bill should include a Risk Management Education Emphasis, as included in both the House and Senate bills that emphasizes making grants for risk management for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.

Conservation and Stewardship Incentives for New Farmers and Ranchers can help new farmers get a good start in agriculture, while getting more ‘bang for the buck’ out of conservation programs by creating a whole generation of conservation excellence.

The 2008 Farm Bill should:

Retain but strengthen conservation loan authorization by adding a priority for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and adding a priority for loans to help convert to sustainable or organic production systems, as included in the Senate bill.

Include the 15% bonus up to 90% cost share for beginning farmers and ranchers and socially disadvantaged producers, as written in the Senate version of the bill.

Reserve a 5% set-aside each for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers in all farm bill conservation programs for the first portion of the program year.

Offer special incentives for existing owners of CRP land returning to production to rent or sell to beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers using sustainable grazing practices or fully compliant conservation cropping systems, as included in the House bill.

Authorize $15 million in annual mandatory funding for the Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, the funding level authorized in the House bill.

Rename the USDA Small and Beginning Farmer Office and Interagency Council the Office of Small Farms and Beginning Farmers and Ranchers, and give the office new duties that reflect recent GAO recommendations for better data collection, coordination, and goal setting, as included in the Senate bill.

This is a terrifying speech given by Monsanto excecutives about their communication strategies. Keep in mind that Monsanto and the other biotech-baddies have managed to control American’s perceptions of genetic engineering for the past 10 years at least. The story hasn’t changed even though none of the promises of increased yield, drought tolerance, salt tolerance, increase nutrition–none of these benefits has been achieved thru biotechnology–they have been achieved with traditional breeding.