Lentil Underground (28 page)

CHAPTER 17

The first section of this chapter was reported at the 2012 Montana Organic Association Conference, held at the Holiday Inn in Helena, Montana, from November 29 to December 1—augmented by interviews conducted before and after the event. The middle section, “All the Wealth of the Earth,” is based on unreleased video footage recorded for the Alternative Energy Resources Organization's Sustainable Agriculture Curriculum Development Project, 1993–94. Quotations and factual information presented in the final section are taken from interviews conducted in 2012 and 2013. Sources on the limits of the “food miles” approach to conscientious consumption are cited in the bibliography.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

On the Industrialization of American Farming:

Berry, Wendell.
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture.
San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977.

Hauter, Wenonah.
Foodopoly.
New York: New Press, 2012.

Pollan, Michael.
The Omnivore's Dilemma.
New York: Penguin, 2006.

Schlosser, Eric.
Fast Food Nation.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

On Nitrogen Pollution and Marine Dead Zones:

Diaz, R. J., and R. Rosenberg, “Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems.
Science
321 (2008): 926–29.

Eggler, Bruce. “Despite Promises to Fix It, the Gulf's Dead Zone is Growing.”
Times Picayune,
June 9, 2007. http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/06/despite_promises_to_fix_it_the.html.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(MEA).
Washington, DC: Island Press, 2005.

Tilman, D., K. G. Cassman, P. A. Matson, R. Naylor, and S. Polasky. “Agricultural Sustainability and Intensive Production Practices.”
Nature
418 (2002): 671–77.

On Jon Tester's US Senate Race:

Continetti, M. “How the West Was Won: Is Montana Senate Candidate Jon Tester the New Face of the Democratic Party?”
Weekly Standard
12, no. 7 (2006). http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/846btide.asp.

Egan, Timothy. “Fresh Off the Farm in Montana, a Senator-to-Be.”
New York Times,
November 13, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/13/us/politics/13tester.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2.

Lowery, Courtney. “The ‘Good Guy' Running for US Senate.”
New West,
August 29, 2005. http://newwest.net/main/article/the_good_guy_running_for_us_senate/.

On the Life and Work of Joseph Epes Brown:

Brown, Joseph Epes.
The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953.

Brown, Joseph Epes.
The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian: Commemorative Edition with Letters while Living with Black Elk.
Edited by E. Brown, M. Brown Weatherly, and M. O. Fitzgerald. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2007.

PROLOGUE

On the 2012 Drought:

Eligon, John. “Widespread Drought Is Likely to Worsen.”
New York Times,
July 20, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/science/earth/severe-drought-expected-to-worsen-across-the-nation.html?pagewanted=all.

Scheer, Roddy, and Doug Moss. “Dust Bowl Days Are Here Again.”
Scientific American,
June 9, 2013. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dust-bowl-days-are-here-again/.

US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. “U.S. Drought 2012: Farm and Food Impacts.” http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-news/us-drought-2012-farm-and-food-impacts.aspx#.Ufk-rFOKQfo.

On Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz and 1970s Farm Policy:

Critser, G. “Up, Up, Up!” In
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World,
7–19. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.

Friedmann, Harriet. “The New Political Economy of Food: A Global Crisis.”
New Left Review
197 (1993): 29–57.

Friedmann, Harriet. “The Political Economy of Food: The Rise and Fall of the Postwar International Food Order.”
American Journal of Sociology
88 (1982): 248–86.

On the Problems with Grain Monoculture:

Manning, Richard.
Against the Grain.
New York: North Point Press, 1994.

Pollan, Michael.
The Omnivore's Dilemma.
New York: Penguin, 2006.

Scott, James C. “Taming Nature.” In
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed,
262–306. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.

On the Agronomy and Ecology of Lentil Farming:

Biederbeck, V. O., C. A. Campbell, V. Rasiah, R. P. Zentner, and G. Wen. “Soil Quality Attributes as Influenced by Annual Legumes Used as Green Manure.”
Soil Biology and Biochemistry
30, nos. 8–9 (1998): 1177–85.

Campbell, C. A., R. P. Zentner, F. Selles, V. O. Biederbeck, and A. J. Leyshon. “Comparative Effects of Grain Lentil–Wheat and Monoculture Wheat on
Crop Production, N Economy and N Fertility in a Brown Chernozem.”
Canadian Journal of Plant Science
72, no. 4 (1992): 1091–107.

Chen, Chengci, Karnes Neill, Macdonald Burgess, and Anton Bekkerman. “Agronomic Benefit and Economic Potential of Introducing Fall-Seeded Pea and Lentil into Conventional Wheat-Based Crop Rotations.”
Agronomy Journal
104, no. 2 (2012): 215–24.

Miller, P. R., Y. Gan, B. G. McConkey, and C. L. McDonald. “Pulse Crops for the Northern Great Plains. II. Cropping Sequence Effects on Cereal, Oilseeds, and Pulse Crops.”
Agronomy Journal
95, no. 4 (2003): 980–86.

Miller, P. R., B. G. McConkey, G. W. Clayton, S. A. Brandt, J. A. Staricka, A. M. Johnston, G. P. Lafond, B. G. Schatz, D. D. Baltensperger, and K. E. Neill. “Pulse Crop Adaptation in the Northern Great Plains.”
Agronomy Journal
94, no. 2 (2002): 261–72.

On the Limitations of Locavorism and the “Food Miles” Approach:

DeWeerdt, S. “Is Local Food Better?”
Worldwatch Institute,
2009. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6064.

McKie, R. “How the Myth of Food Miles Hurts the Planet.”
Observer,
March 22, 2008.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving.

Schnell, S. M. “Food Miles, Local Eating, and Community Supported Agriculture: Putting Local Food in Its Place.”
Agriculture and Human Values
30 (2013): 615–28.

Weber, C. L., and H. S. Matthews. “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States.”
Environmental Science and Technology
42, no. 10 (2008): 3508–13.

CHAPTER 1

On the Land Sharing/Land Sparing Debate:

Fischer, J., Berry Brosi, Gretchen C. Daily, Paul R. Ehrlich, Rebecca Goldman, Joshua Goldstein, David B. Lindenmayer, et al. “Should Agricultural Policies Encourage Land Sparing or Wildlife-Friendly Farming?”
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
6 (2008): 380–85.

Perfecto, Ivette, and John Vandermeer.
Nature's Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation, and Food Sovereignty.
Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2009.

Scherr, S. J., and J. A. McNeely. “Biodiversity Conservation and Agricultural Sustainability: Towards a New Paradigm of ‘Ecoagriculture' Landscapes.”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B—Biological Sciences
363 (2008): 477–94.

Tscharntke, T., Yann Clough, Thomas C. Wanger, Louise Jackson, Iris Motzke, Ivette Perfecto, John Vandermeer, and Anthony Whitbread. “Global
Food Security, Biodiversity Conservation and the Future of Agricultural Intensification.”
Biological Conservation
151, no. 1 (2012): 53–59.

On the History of Grain Agriculture on the Great Plains and the Agricultural Treadmill:

Cochrane, Willard W.
The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979.

Cronon, William.
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West.
New York: W. W. Norton, 1991.

Matheson, Nancy. “Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Agriculture.”
AERO Sun Times,
November/December 1983: 9–12.

Matheson, Nancy. “There's No Taste Like Home.”
Montana
Magazine,
January/February 2000: 39–44.

On the 1980s Farm Crisis and the Cost-Price Squeeze:

Davidson, O. G.
Broken Heartland: The Rise of America's Rural Ghetto.
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996.

Harl, N. E.
The Farm Debt Crisis of the 1980s.
Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990.

On the Environmental and Health Impacts of Agrichemicals:

Carson, Rachel.
Silent Spring.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.

Harrison, Jill.
Pesticide Drift and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.

Pimentel, David, H. Acquay, M. Biltonen, P. Rice, M. Silva, J. Nelson, V. Lipner, S. Giordano, A. Horowitz, and M. D'Amore. “Environmental and Economic Costs of Pesticide Use.”
BioScience
42, no. 10 (1992): 750–60.

On Climate Change and Agriculture:

Jensen, E. S., Mark B. Peoples, Robert M. Boddey, Peter M. Gresshoff, Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen, Bruno J. R. Alves, and Malcolm J. Morrison. “Legumes for Mitigation of Climate Change and the Provision of Feedstock for Biofuels and Biorefineries: A Review.”
Agronomy for Sustainable Development
32 (2012): 329–64.

Lappé, Anna.
Diet for a Hot Planet.
New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.

Lemke, R. L., Z. Zhong, C. A. Campbell, and R. Zentner. “Can Pulse Crops Play a Role in Mitigating Greenhouse Gases from North American Agriculture?”
Agronomy Journal
99, no. 6 (2007): 1719–25.

Vermeulen, S. J., B. M. Campbell, and J. S. Ingram. “Climate Change and Food Systems.”
Annual Review of Environment and Resources
37, no. 1 (2012): 195.

On the Chicago Counterculture and the Weather Underground:

Berger, D.
Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity.
Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2006.

Gitlin, Todd.
The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.
Rev. ed. New York: Random House, 1993.

Miller, James.
Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago.
Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

The Weather Underground.
Directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel. New York: Docurama, 2004. DVD, 92 min.

CHAPTER 2

On the Commodity Payment System and Its Consequences:

Imhoff, Daniel.
Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill.
2nd ed. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2012.

Winders, Bill.
The Politics of Food Supply: U.S. Agricultural Policy in the World Economy.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

On the Early Organic Farming Movement in the US:

Belasco, Warren.
Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.

Conford, Philip.
The Origins of the Organic Movement.
Edinburgh, Scotland: Floris Books, 2001.

On Agroecology, Green Manures, and Biological Nitrogen Fixation:

Altieri, Miguel A.
Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture.
2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995.

Altieri, Miguel. “The Ecological Role of Biodiversity in Agroecosystems.”
Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment
74, no. 1 (1999): 19–31.

Crews, T. E., and M. B. Peoples. “Legume Versus Fertilizer Sources of Nitrogen: Ecological Tradeoffs and Human Needs.”
Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment
102, no. 3 (2004): 279–97.

Gliessman, Stephen R.
Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems.
2nd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2006.

Magdoff, Fred, and Harold van Es.
Building Soils for Better Crops.
3rd ed. Beltsville, MD: Sustainable Agriculture Network, 2010. http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-for-Better-Crops-3rd-Edition.

Peoples, M. B., H. Hauggaard-Nielsen, and E. S. Jensen. “The Potential Environmental Benefits and Risks Derived from Legumes in Rotations.” In
Nitrogen Fixation in Crop Production,
edited by David W. Emerich and Hari B. Krishnan. Agronomy Monograph Series 52. Madison, WI: American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America (ASA-CSSA-SSSA), 2009.

Vandermeer, John.
The Ecology of Agroecosystems.
Sudbury, MA: Bartlett and Jones, 2010.

CHAPTER 3

On Black Medic and Ley Farming:

Bell, Lindsay W., J. Lawrence, B. Johnson, B. O'Mara, and D. Kirby. “Ley Pastures—Their Fit in Cropping Systems.” GRDC Advisor Updates. Canberra, Australia: Grains Research and Development Corporation. March 3–4, 2010. http://www.grdc.com.au/Research-and-Development/GRDC-Update-Papers/2010/09/LEY-PASTURES-THEIR-FIT-IN-CROPPING-SYSTEMS.

Chen, Chengci, with Jess Alger, Bob Bayles, David Buschena, Clain Jones, James Krall, Jon Kvaalen, Roy Latta, and John Paterson.
Survey and Economic Analysis of Montana Farmers Utilizing Integrated Livestock-Cereal Grain (Ley Farming) Systems.
Project Final Report. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. US Department of Agriculture, 2009. http://mysare.sare.org/mySARE/ProjectReport.aspx.

Clark, Andy, ed. “Medics.” In
Managing Cover Crops Profitably.
3rd ed., 152–59. Beltsville, MD: Sustainable Agriculture Network, 2007. http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Managing-Cover-Crops-Profitably-3rd-Edition/Text-Version/Legume-Cover-Crops/Medics.