What’s All the Fuss About Raw Milk?

When it comes to food choices, there is no end of subjects to debate. Soft cheeses versus hard cheeses. Cabernet versus Zinfandel. Pasture-fed versus corn-fed beef. Broccoli versus asparagus.  Poached versus scrambled eggs.

But one particular food topic is nearly guaranteed to generate more emotion than any of these: raw versus pasteurized milk.

And this debate isn’t just about which tastes better, even though it’s generally conceded that raw milk tastes richer and creamier than pasteurized milk, and makes more sophisticated-tasting cheeses. It’s about which is safer, which is healthier, which is more sustainable to produce.

Maybe it is because milk is the first food most of us are fed, first from our mothers, and then from cows, that there is an important emotional component attached to milk—in the bonding it helps promote between mother and baby and in the nutritional benefits it confers on children. Certainly in the view of public health officials, the fact that milk is heavily consumed by children makes its safety a high priority.

Whatever the reasons, a widening gulf has sprung up between those who advocate and those who oppose raw cow’s milk.

Sally Fallon, the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, an organization that promotes not only raw milk but diets rich in pasture-fed meats and cod liver oil, feels raw milk is so nutritionally beneficial to children and adults alike that she considers it to be “a magic food.”

On the other side, John Sheehan, head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s dairy division, has declared that drinking raw milk “is like playing Russian roulette with your health.”

The subject might well remain one of those emotional theoretical debates—with individual consumers making their own personal decisions about whether or not to serve it to their families-except for one important reality: the FDA has felt compelled to enforce its view of raw milk as a terribly dangerous food via an aggressive enforcement campaign and via its influence with state departments of agriculture and public health.

As just one example, it conducted an undercover investigation of Maryland food club in 2010 and 2011 that made raw milk available to its 900 members, and eventually via a federal court action put the Pennsylvania farmer supplying the milk out of business.  It has also teamed up with state agriculture agencies in Georgia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California to raid raw milk producers and food clubs, and put farmers on trial for allegedly violating regulatory restrictions on raw milk distribution.

The divergent views on raw milk are reflected in the legalities around raw milk, which vary widely from state to state. Roughly ten states allow retail sales of raw milk, while another twenty allow sales direct from dairy farms. And about twenty prohibit its sale. Yet among these twenty, most allow distribution via cooperative arrangements known as herdshares and cowshares.  The FDA’s authority comes into play when raw milk crosses state lines.

What is the truth about raw milk? Here are a few of the questions that most commonly come up, with answers from both sides of the issue.

1. How risky is raw milk compared with pasteurized milk? It’s difficult to make an accurate comparison because we don’t have good data either on the number of people drinking raw milk or the amount that is sold. One survey carried out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in 2007 showed that about three per cent of consumers in each of a dozen states said they were drinking raw milk. Whatever the numbers, the reality is that dairy as a category is considered one of the least dangerous, say, compared to leafy green vegetables, eggs, and tuna, according to the Center for Science and the Public Interest. Its list of most dangerous foods, from 2009, didn’t include milk (though it did include cheese and ice cream).

   I have analyzed data from the CDC, going back to 1973, and found that the number of reported illnesses from raw milk generally ranges between 50 and 150 each year, out of a total of about 24,000 reported illnesses from food-borne pathogens. Even at the high end, raw milk would still account for only about one-half of one per cent of all food-related illnesses.

   Opponents of raw milk say that the numbers don’t tell the whole story. They argue that a larger proportion of raw milk illnesses hit children than do illnesses from other foods. The illnesses can be more severe as well. An outbreak of illnesses from E.coli O157:H7 in raw milk from a dairy in Oregon sickened 19 people last March and April, including four children who were hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a dangerous complication that can damage the kidneys.

2. Does raw milk confer certain health benefits that pasteurized milk doesn’t? Advocates of raw milk say the heat of pasteurization destroys certain proteins and beneficial bacteria that help alleviate all sorts of chronic conditions, including Crohn’s disease, autism, asthma, and allergies.

   They point to two large-scale studies out of Europe in recent years—one of 8,000 and another of 15,000 children- indicating that raw milk helps reduce the incidence of asthma and allergies.

   Raw milk opponents say the European studies weren’t conclusive. Moreover, they say that raw milk has nearly the same nutrient composition as vitamins and minerals.

3. Is raw milk more sustainable economically and environmentally?America has lost about 90% of its dairies since 1970, in significant measure because the prices processors pay for milk destined for pasteurization—currently in the range of $1.50 to $2 a gallon- aren’t high enough for small-scale dairy farmers to make a reasonable profit. Because raw-milk dairies sell directly to consumers, avoiding all the middlemen, the dairies can realize much higher profit margins, especially since raw milk sells for more than pasteurized milk at retail—on the order of $6 to as much as $12 or $15 a gallon. And because raw dairies mostly put their cows out to graze on grass, rather than being fed grain, their operations are more environmentally sustainable, it’s said. The financial and ecological benefits of raw milk have attracted dozens of new small raw dairy providers in places like California and Wisconsin.
4. What to do? In my experience, the decision to try raw milk is one that is invariably made as part of a larger commitment by individuals to reduce their reliance on processed foods (pasteurized milk can be said to be our first processed food), and broaden their use of foods sometimes referred to as “nutrient dense” foods.  I suggest, in making your own decision, doing some reading—there’s a huge amount on the Internet pro and con. There’s my book as well, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights.

If you are uncomfortable, put off your decision, or decide against it. If you decide to go ahead, check with friends and neighbors for references to the best local sources. Generally, stick with producers that have been in business more than just a couple or three years, and have a clean record. Also try to go with sources that conduct regular testing of their milk. Ask for a tour of the farm, to gauge the attention given to safety and sanitation. Then, start out slowly, with small amounts of raw milk at a time—just a couple ounces each day for the first week or two, to test your reaction.

The controversy over raw milk doesn’t seem likely to end any time soon. Rather, the market appears to be expanding, and the government’s determination to limit access appears to be increasing.

More butting of heads, and glasses, seems in order.

Additional Sources:

• Real Milk site of the Weston A. Price Foundation
• The Bovine, from Canadian  raw dairy farmer and activist Michael Schmidt
• The Complete Patient, a blog from writer David Gumpert
• Real Raw Milk Facts, an anti-raw-milk site from food safety lawyer Bill Marler

David E. Gumpert reports and writes about health and food issues. He is the author of The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights, which includes a preface by Joel Salatin. His popular blog, The Complete Patient, has over the last five years been instrumental in launching a national discussion about government-imposed restrictions on the availability of nutrient-dense food and in highlighting an emerging debate over food rights.

In a world where the polluter (ie,an agrichemical company that holds a patent on a particular plant seed) can bring a patent infringement lawsuit against the party who is the recipient of that pollution (ie, a farmer whose native (unlicensed) seed becomes inadvertently contaminated by the patented seed of a nearby farm, through pollen drift, and other accidental means), is a clear sign that we are approaching the cliff. Are we sheep that follow the herd blindly over the abyss, or are we thoughtful human beings capable of taking corrective action to avert such a disaster?

It’s sad that such fundamental concerns over the allowing of living things to be patented (and thereby controlled) was decided by the supreme court. Not, as more appropriate, within the halls of congress and the executive branch, where such important, and far reaching implications far exceed the legal domain. Now decades later, the scene is set for this absurd legal battle to play out, the pollutee preeminently taking legal strike to avoid future harm from the alleged future polluter. Nonetheless, the outcome of this lawsuit may provide some indication whether we will walk as beast, or as man toward our intended fate.

For now, Federal Court Judge Naomi Buchwald will have to decide…

Here are two videos discussing this case from outside the courtroom in New York City.

This is a longer video by veteran filmmaker, Jan Weber: OWS FDN Monsanto

We are honored to present the following members of The Collective:

Kathleen Bauer, Good Stuff NW

Anthony and Carol Boutard, Hillsdale Farmers Market, Portland, Oregon

Anthony and Carol Boutard, co-owners of Ayers Creek Farm, an Oregon Tilth, certified organic farm, located just outside Portland, grow a variety of specialty grains, fresh shell and dry beans, orchard fruits and berries, and winter vegetables, that not only taste better, they are less likely to be commercially available in the supermarket. They also sell their food directly to select restaurants, and to eaters who shop at the local Hillsdale Farmers Market. Disclosure: we purchase their food at the farmers market, and can personally attest to their freshness, and taste.

Liz Crain, Author of Food Lover's Guide to Portland

Liz Crain, author of the popular book, The Food Lover’s Guide to Portland writes about Pacific Northwest food and drink for online and print publications. In a town bursting at the seams with artisan bake shops, micro-breweries and micro-distilleries, food carts, neighborhood restaurants, and cheese shops, Crain’s guide is an indispensable tool for quickly navigating the local food culture.

Harriet Fasenfest, author of A Householders Guide to the Universe

Harriet Fasenfest is fiercely loyal to discovering the deeper truths about life, and to growing, cooking, and preserving fresh food. In her lifetime she has owned small restaurants, continues to teach on a wide variety of food subjects, especially relating to food preservation, and householding, and her recent book, A Householders Guide to the Universe, and her DVD, Preserving With Friends are both required resources in any serious food enthusiast’s library collection.

Michele Knaus, Friends of Family Farmers

Michele Knaus, executive director with the nonprofit organization Friends of Family Farmers (FOFF), meets with small farmers across the state, and understands the challenges that they face. Her organization is involved in supporting food policy initiatives to help Oregon farmers maintain their profitability, and to thrive. A graduate of Portland State University Master’s Degree Program Leadership for Sustainability Education, she is also involved in educating eaters about our food system at their monthly Friends of Family Farmers InFARMation (and Beer!) event.

Don Wachlin, Fourth Generation Farmer; Schlichting Century Farms

Strawberry Picking at Schlichting Century Farms

Over the past several years, Rebecca and I have been touched by his warmth and generosity, and have benefited from his help on projects for CUPS. As a fourth generation farmer, he had a passion for farming, and an intimate knowledge of his community. In a written tribute to her dad after his passing, Mary writes:

“Dad would help anyone—as long as they could get through to him on his dang cell phone, or find him—fitting in favors between the thirty odd jobs he juggled along with the full time job of being a farmer, store owner, and family man.”

That was the kind of man that he was. Perhaps his daughter Mary summed it up most succinctly, describing him as: “a hardworking farmer who lived a good life.”

The average farmer in this country is 57 years old, and aging upward. Farmers, like Don Wachlin, who work tirelessly in the field to produce good food, and are solid members of their community, represent our unsung heroes.

Don Wachlin: 1948-2011

And for that reason, flu experts like Robert Webster worry that A(H5N1) virus could mutate and become the next great flu pandemic killing massive numbers of people. The last big one to occur, in fact the biggest epidemic in human history, the 1918 “Spanish Flu”, resulted in upwards of 100 million deaths worldwide (some credible sources peg this number closer to between 20-40 million), killing 2% of those who became infected with the virus. As World War 1 was ending, in less than a year’s time, the global flu pandemic killed more people than those who died from the war itself. Although the A(H5N1) virus has infected only a comparatively small number of people (in the hundreds since 1997), the virus is significantly more lethal than the 1918 flu virus subtype H1N1, killing 50% of those who become infected, though fortunately not known to be transmissible from person to person.

In order for a pandemic outbreak to occur, a virus must mutate in just the right fashion to allow for human to human transmission to easily occur, be highly pathogenic, and target a largely virgin population, those not possessing protective immunity from prior exposure. The H1N1 variant met all three conditions in 1918, though scientists still are not sure exactly why. The normal flu virus in many ways represents an ideal candidate for widespread disease transmission because the virus mutates rapidly, at least partially evading the bodies native immune response, and can be readily spread from person to person through air, and casual human contact. Characteristically, although tens of thousand may die each year from the (common) flu strains, because we have built up a fair degree of immunity from previous exposure, it poses the greatest danger to the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems.

Not true with the A(H5N1) virus and the 1918 H1N1, they mainly target those whose immune systems are the strongest; it is the infected person’s heightened immune response that causes much of the internal damage that results from the virus infection. Although this virus has shown signs of attacking organs throughout the body, including the brain in other species, in humans, like other influenza viruses, it targets mostly the lungs.

Recently, the Hong Kong government ordered a large population of chickens from their live poultry markets destroyed because the virus turned up in dead chickens that were tested.

A rift may have developed between infection disease researchers, and The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, created in 2004 to ensure that published information does not contain secrets that could help rogue states, or terrorist groups develop their own biological weapons. This has become a more urgent concern when two separate teams of researchers successfully modified the H5N1 strain into a highly infectious, human transmissible strain, and in their (as yet) unpublished report submitted for review, detail how they accomplished this feat.

From the researchers perspective, there is strong resistance to even a hint of censorship; the goal of science is to solve problems, and the ability to freely share timely information amongst colleagues is its lifeblood. By understanding how the virus can become more virulent, the hope is that this information will lead to development of an effective vaccine, better treatments, and to sound an early warning when naturally occurring mutations evolve in nature toward a recognized, more dangerous state.

Understandably, at least on the surface, the advisory panel wants to limit the type of information that gets published, and shared with other experts, for fear that information could provide a recipe for terrorists to develop their own weaponized avian flu virus. For an interesting interview with the lead author of this report, read this New York Times article: Security in Flu Study Was Paramount, Scientist Says. In addition, this NYT article Debate Persists on Deadly Flu Made Airborne talks about the A(H5N1) virus experiments at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, and with Ron Fouchier, their lead virologist whose team successfully altered the already lethal virus into the capability of a deadly pandemic strain.

Infectious disease experts expect another pandemic disease will kill millions of people—if not from an A(H5N1) avian flu virus— other viruses that exist in nature, as they mutate or suddenly come into contact with human populations, are a constantly evolving threat.

Lest one not forget, Mother Nature possesses her own weapons of mass destruction, and she knows how to deliver them.

Additional Background Information:

A Public Policy Expert Looks at the Bird Flu Threat

The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett

Recently, as harvest peaked with beauty and bounty, I have been putting a lot of thought into what will essentially be my final post of this amazing journey via CUpS. And while I am excited to share the final sequences of my personal transformation and discovery of our nation’s food system and communities, I wanted to share with you some of the most meaningful and inspirational words spoken by the tremendous people I encountered on this trip. Here are just a few. Enjoy.

- Greg David, Activist and farmer, Jefferson Wisconsin

The Smith Family, Grassland Farm, Skowhegan Maine

Dick Hall, Dairy Farmer, and his wife, East Dixfield Maine

“When I was farming with my grandfather he made all of the decisions. Right down to the littlest of details. I vowed I would never be that way. When I bought this farm from my father he said ‘Son, you will never make a go of it.’ But somehow I did.” - Dick Hall

Mimi Arnstein, Wellspring CSA, Marshfield, VT

George Schenk, Founder of American Flatbread, Waitsfield, VT

Meghan Sheridan, Executive Director, Vermont Fresh Network

Gene Baur, Founder, Farm Sanctuary, Watkins Glen, NY

Meagen Kresge, Gather Round Farm, Cleveland, OH

Gretchen Mead, Founder of the Victory Garden Initiative, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Mark Shepard, New Forest Farms, Viola, Wisconsin

Ari Rosenberg, Lots to Gardens, Lewiston, Maine

Art Thelin, Dairy Farmer, La Farge, Wisconsin

Reed Doyle, Seventh Generation, Burlington, VT

Catherine Bagley and Gerry Smith University of Michigan - Chelsea, Michigan

Dolores Watson, Environmental Activist, Cleveland, Ohio

Next come the raspberries!

Because of our unusually cool weather this year (yes, ironic, we in the Northwest were chilling out while the majority of the country faced a severe heat wave), the berry picking season didn’t open until July 1st in my area. That’s late. But it made the wait all that much more sweet with anticipation. The first day of July fell on a Friday this year, but no concern – there’s always time for berry picking! I’m lucky to live less than 10 miles from several berry farms, and I like visiting them all, for each has their special varieties on the vine.

First stop was Rowell Ranch which has been growing berries for over a century. Upon arrival there is a small stand which lists the varieties that are currently ripe for picking, and also the ones that will be ready in a week or two. They offer picking buckets, or you can bring your own. I find out that the Willamette red raspberries are ready, and I head off for the marked rows.

I find an empty row – not empty of raspberries, of course, but of pickers – and begin. I work the row back and forth, in a melodic fashion, no staccato movements, just slow and thoughtful. Raspberries are a tender fruit and due diligence will pay off. Though it is relatively early, around 9am, the sun begins to beat down and the heat waves slowly make their way up from the dirt rows in the distance. Looking at the 6-7 foot bushes, many raspberries are hiding under the many leaves of the vine. I gently lift several limbs of vine with the backside of my left arm and discover oodles of ripe jewels the color of rubies! As I gently collect them and let them fall into my bucket, I hear the running of feet and excited voices as young pickers just feet away, but hidden from sight by the thickness of the bush. They exclaim excitedly about what they have found. Mommy, here’s one! Here’s one! Can I pick it? Can I eat it?!

Berry picking is a special time to get away from the day to day rush. Being out amongst the rows becomes a meditative state, it’s just walk, lift, pluck, and place into the bucket. It’s a great way to be in touch with your food, learn about the seasonality (and wonder) of berries, support your local farmer, and friends and family (and other eaters) will be ever grateful, too.

There’s no time like berry time.

Route 12 near Melstone, Montana

In the triple digit heat, I made the decision to remove my protective biking attire. My cargo shorts, helmet, gloves, socks and shirt were now stowed away in my bags. I was now riding my bicycle in nothing more than padded spandex underwear (which I had rolled up tightly and resembled a Speedo), sandals and a pair of cheap sunglasses. In a land where people wore jeans, boots, and rancher hats all year round – I stuck out like a sore thumb. And I didn’t give a damn.

10 miles east of Melstone, Montana, a stiff wind barreled into my path. The air was hot – yet it felt fantastic. I belted long fits of loud and insane laughter into the abandoned countryside where nobody could possibly hear me. In late August my psyche had started to take pleasure in the pain and agony of loneliness and physical torture. Come September, anything less than a gruesome day of biking, had become boring and left me thirsty for something dangerous.

According to Wikipedia, Melstone, Montana is a town along U.S. Route 12 with a population of 136. The town was established in 1908 as a base for operating crews on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, then under construction in Montana. Although the railroad was abandoned in 1980, Melstone survives as a community center for farmers and ranchers in the lower Musselshell River valley.

To my naked eye, Melstone, resembled a trailer park, slowly rotting into barren soils. Mobile homes were faded and stood cockeyed and ready to fall. Dilapidated wooden structures in which I couldn’t identify were abandoned and had been left to rot for what must have been decades. Finding a place to sleep felt nearly impossible and coming across a good food story was no longer on my radar. In eastern Montana, finding shelter was my only priority.

A handful of washed out pickup trucks with peppered tailgates were parked in a gravel parking lot outside the Melstone Café and Bar. I parked my bike against the side of the building. Thinking wisely, I knew that if I had planned on making it out of Melstone alive, I had better get dressed before I announced my presence. Something told me that the people inside the bar would not welcome a young man wearing nothing more than a Speedo and a suntan.

Anxiety shot up from gut and out through my arms as I pushed the door open. Without a sound to be heard, a hard light was casted into the dark and smoky barroom and onto three rugged looking men. The sun beating on their leather like skin, each of them turned and stared directly at me in a synchronized fashion. The awkwardness of my presence lingered in the air. It was so thick you could have cut it with a knife and served it for lunch. My entrance felt like a lifetime, but it was merely a few seconds. The men looked away quietly and went back to their booze. Ready or not I knew this was my opportunity to talk with one of our nation’s most stoic and proudest contributors to our food system. The American cattle rancher. Once again, and in the loneliest place imaginable, I had found my story.

Without a word spoken between us, how did I know these men were ranchers and responsible for producing a small fraction of the 25 billion pounds of beef produced in the U.S annually? All it takes is a bit of basic math to understand the equation. Montana is ranked 4th in the United States in terms of landmass with a staggering 147,042 square miles. When it comes to human population, 46 out of Montana’s 56 counties are considered “frontier counties” with an average population of 6 or fewer people per square mile. During my visit in 2009, Montana had more than 2.6 Million beef cattle grazing the countryside. I didn’t need to be a genius to figure it out.

Feeling nervous I sat down, ordered a Bud Light bottle and a glass of ice water. Wrapping my hands around the frosty bottle of beer, I could feel my body temperature drop. I drank them both to the very bottom in less than two minutes. In silence the men tapped their beer bottles on the counter. The reflection in a mirror behind the bar allowed me to observe the men inconspicuously. My intuition told me that everyone was eager to know who in the hell I was and what I was doing in Melstone. I ordered another beer.

“You the kid out there on route 12 riding a bike in his underwear?” asked the man next to me. I could smell the whiskey on his breath 4 bar stools down. His voice deep, speech slurred and eyes glazed over from drinking more than his share.

Sometimes you just have to take chances. In the dark and smoky bar I made a risky attempt at fitting in with a little barroom humor. “Well sir, I highly doubt anyone else is dumb enough to ride a bicycle through this part of the country. So I guess that would be me.”

I held my breath and waited for a beer bottle to come crashing over my head. Instead, I heard a small bit of laughter coming from the two other men at the end of the bar. I finished my beer, tapped my empty bottle on the bar, indicating that I was thirsty for another round. And I was.

Well I’m Bill and these men over here are Tim and Greg. “I passed ya about a few miles back in my truck. Around here, a guy on a bike is worth 60 points. But with all that gear you got tied down on that rig, I’d say you’re worth at least 100.”

Tucking away a smart ass response, I decided I had better not bite off more than I could chew and thanked Bill for not turning me into road kill. Seconds later, the phone rang and the bartender answered.

“Nope, I haven’t seen him. If he comes in I’ll tell him to get home right away”

With a proud smile, the bartender hung up the phone, looked at Tim and said:
“Your wife just called looking for ya. I covered your ass, now you owe us all a drink.”

Tim took a long swig from his Budweiser and said “Well then I guess you better get the us all a shot”.

While performing a small victory dance, the bartender turned around, grabbed a handful of shot glasses, and poured 3 shots for his regular customers and one for himself. Uncertain, he walked back over to Tim and quietly said “what about the guy on the bike?” All eyes were now on me.

“Yeah go ahead, get him one too!”

I gave a small head nod and took the stiff shot of Crown Royal down to the pit of my stomach. It burnt like the dickens and seconds later my nerves were at ease.

“So what brings you and your bike out here anyway?” Asked Greg.

“I am biking across America visiting farms and learning more about our food system.”
Deep and weary breaths were passed down from rancher to rancher.

“So are you one of those whacky environmentalists?” Bill asked.

Bill’s question did not catch me off guard. Things in eastern Montana were now far different than my stops in progressive-thinking towns across the Northeast. To say the least, eastern Montana was a very conservative state and outsiders were not widely accepted. I brought with my bicycle a different point of view and that seemed to scare the shit out of people. Because I wasn’t visiting the frontier state on an all inclusive hunting expedition– locals had often assumed that I was in town to stir up some dust and preach my “whacky environmentalism”. In Roundup, Montana I had an intimidating encounter with a man who looked me dead in the eye and called me a “nigger loving, tree hugging, hippie”. I had simply made the mistake of announcing that I voted for President Barack Obama in the 2008 election and that I had raised money for The Nature Conservancy.

There was only one road in and out of Melstone, Montana. My body could have easily disappeared in the Montana desert. I answered Bill’s inquiries with caution.

“I am just a guy riding a bicycle across America interested in agriculture and local food.”
The bar became silent. I figured that before I get into any more trouble I had better start working on my sleeping arrangements. Do you know a good place for me to pitch my tent? I asked the bartender. Out of nowhere a woman who had been sitting quietly and unnoticeably in the corner of the café raised her voice and declared “I’ll go get a room ready. I’ll be back in 30 minutes.” The bartender looked at me and said “According to my wife you’re staying with us.” I ordered the men at the bar another round of whiskey and lightened the mood.

“You’re not going to find a whole lot of local food out here in Montana.” Bill shouted with a smirk on his face.

“You see, here in Montana you can buy a hat made in China but you can’t buy a steak from a cow that was raised right down the road. The USDA has this whole system bent to hell.” Bill was right. In America, regulations are a major bottleneck to the meat producer hoping to earn a living by way of direct sales. Montana laws mandate that all livestock, poultry and meat and/or meat products be inspected under state and/or federal law before being sold for human consumption. After you shake out the cost of this inspection which requires hefty fees, packaging, labeling, marketing and often times requires a producer to travel several hours to the nearest slaughter facility; there is little opportunity for a rancher in Montana to make a whole lot of money in the deal. Never mind the impossible task of finding a customer base in a region as scarcely populated as Montana. This equation is partly why Cargill (Our nation’s largest private corporation) supplies about 22% of the US domestic meat market and rakes in over 100 billion dollars of revenue each year.

Strict regulations put on by the USDA that interrupt the logical workings of our food system was nothing more than a common cry shared by the most of farmers I had met nationwide. But when it came to beef, I was looking at an entirely different machine. Before I continue, take a moment to chew on a few facts in which Bill had hinted towards during our conversation.

In 2009, the year I had stumbled upon Melstone:

• U.S. commercial slaughter accounted for 33.3 million head (26.5 million steers and heifers and 6.2 million cull beef and dairy cows).
• The retail equivalent value of U.S. beef industry was valued at more than 73 billion dollars.
• The total U.S. beef consumption weighed in at 26.8 billion pounds.
• U.S. beef exports (commercial carcass weight and value) registered at 1.935 billion pounds and 2.9 billion dollars.
• U.S. beef exports 7.4 percent of its total production to foreign countries.

That’s a lot of meat and money moving around now isn’t it? It wasn’t until I shared a few cold brews with Bill that I truly understood how industrialized our food (specifically meat) chain had become. The wee hours of 2 AM had arrived before Bill was done bestowing his rancher wisdom onto me. One comment resonated with me far more than the others. “What I would like to know is why we are importing meat from Australia? We don’t need all that kangaroo shit coming into our country when we have plenty of the good meat right here in Montana. We shouldn’t be eating any food from any other damn country – especially meat. We have more damn hamburger here in America than we know what to do with.”

Bill had me thinking. And once again he was speaking the truth. After I had left Melstone and started on an endless trail of research regarding beef imports and exports did I started to see the writing on the wall. Or should I say printed on the label? For me, trying to make sense of our food system in 5 months time was a full blown chore in of itself. Understanding the inner workings of the food industry… was impossible. Because it just don’t make sense. Per Bill’s gripe with beef imports, I came to learn that in the year 2005 the United States imported a staggering 260,000 metric tons of Australian beef (PDF). That’s more than 570 million pounds. If you think that is a sizeable portion of meat – Wrap your head around this: According to the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) U.S. imports are projected to grow to 1,748,000 metric tons (3.85 billion pounds), an increase of 277,000 metric tons (610.6 million pounds) or 19 percent over the next 10 years.

So… where’s the beef? One needs to look no further than America’s fast food industry. Namely, the golden arches of McDonald’s (one of Cargill’s largest clients). In 2002 McDonald’s starting rolling out Australian beef to over 400 restaurants in the southeastern portion of the U.S.- McDonald’s senior director of U.S. food and packaging, John Hayes told Beef Magazine that the multi-billion dollar fast food joint was “supplementing the domestic lean beef supply for those restaurants at a 25% rate” – Anyone who has stepped foot in the corporate arena knows that Hayes’s response was an elusive way of admitting that it was cheaper to buy lean beef in Australia rather than the United States. To a business executive at McDonald’s – shipping cheaper beef into America is a wise decision and protects the corporation’s bottom line. To a hard working cattle rancher in Montana: It’s just a bunch of kangaroo shit.

4,300 miles and 5 months on a bike had me asking countless food producers one question. What is wrong with our food system? Farmers of all scales and practices seemed to have their own personal opinion. Organic dairy farmers, Garin Smith back in Skowhegan believed that a major part of the problem is USDA regulations that make access to local food a challenge. Mimi Arnstein at Wellspring CSA claimed a disconnection between humans and Mother Nature was to blame. And conventional dairy farmer Art Thelen felt that there was nothing wrong with our food system at all. With brute force Bill had woven his relentless voice into the fabric of my story. “America needs to get hungry! That’s the only way to fix our food system.” Bill shouted with anger.

Get hungry? “Huh!” I thought to myself. I had witnessed young children in Cleveland, Ohio eating value meals. Overweight and piling on the pounds like cordwood. And even in the challenging economic climate of 2008, people were still spending their nickels and dimes on steaks and burgers nationwide. In fact, more than 5 billion pounds of beef were purchased by commercial restaurant operators. Here comes a good old fashioned mind boggler… In 2009, there were roughly 300 million people living in the United States. That same year, the meat industry slaughtered more than 26 billion pounds of beef. That’s 86 pounds a meat for every American. That’s nearly a quarter of a pound of beef a day. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like plenty of food to go around. According to Feeding America.org 1 in 6 Americans face hunger (50 million or more). And they provide emergency food assistance to approximately 5.7 million people per week. And if that doesn’t leave you scratching your head, I suppose I should remind you that somewhere between those who have plenty and those who have none, America is wasting nearly 100 billion pounds of food each and every year. At this point in the game, learning the truth about our food system was nothing short of painful.

What’ll be? Asked the bartender – I was caught in a battle between severe hunger and my moral values as I scoured the food menu. Meanwhile, Bill’s words had been going round and round in my brain — making my decision impossible. From that barstool in Melstone, Montana the homemade menu looked less like sandwiches and dinner meals and more like a strategic poker match. The pot set at 73 billion dollars in beef sales as the government dealt the cards. The corporate food glitterati sat pretty smiled and went all in with their multibillion dollar revenue streams and pocket aces. Meanwhile, the American rancher was forced to quietly fold his cards and get back to work. The games is played and wagered not by plastic chips, but rather, 26.5 million steers and heifers and 6.2 million cull beef and dairy cows about to meet their fate – each with their own denomination and predetermined value. The game looked and felt unfair. But it didn’t matter. I knew that in the end nobody wins. Common sense told me that if we continue to gamble away our food system and treat our food like a game without pride or compassion — We will all be standing in line, waiting to be led to the slaughter.

I think I’ll just have another beer.

Nathan Winters rode a bicycle across America to discover first-hand why our food system had grown to be unsustainable, and to find alternative solutions. He traveled into the homes and communities of organic, conventional, urban and Amish farmers and community organizers. This ongoing series—to be posted every other Wednesday— represents select material from The Unconventional Harvest, a work in progress, by Nathan A. Winters. If you are a book publisher interested in working with Mr. Winters, you may contact him directly though his website or on twitter.

Emily Stiegelmeier, Blue Blanket Organics. Selby, South Dakota

Sheryl had the gift of gab and took a shine to my ambition by way of bicycle. Over a fresh catfish dinner and a few cold Hamm’s lagers I mentioned two things: I was in need of a good food and farming story for my research and I wanted to ride in a massive combine. All through South Dakota, large combines roared through the endless crop fields and extracted only what was needed for harvest: wheat for flour, sunflowers for seed, and corn for grain or ethanol, just to name a few. The word “harvest” sounds so pure and natural (just ask any food marketing team) but the picture painted in my mind seemed complex and more like an engineering marvel.

A combine harvester is poles apart from picking berries from the bush. In most cases these machines run a farmer nearly a quarter of a million dollars. They are filled with advanced technology and GPS systems to ensure quality yields and efficiency. If you want to get a solid understanding of the direction agriculture has taken in the past 100 years, go online and take a closer look at the evolution of the combine. I wanted to play with this mammoth toy.

Sheryl’s response was music to my ears, “I know someone you need to meet.” The next morning Sheryl called Emily Stiegelmeier and arranged a visit.

Emily is among the scant 7.7 % female farmers growing crops in the moonlike landscape that is South Dakota. Of that small percentage my guess is that she was probably one of the very few female farmers who were growing grains on a large scale. The story got a few degrees hotter when I learned that her 4,000 plus acres were farmed with no-till practices and certified organic. If you ever find yourself on a long stretch of remote highway in South Dakota, stop and take a look around. More than likely you are surrounded by farmland that is growing a genetically modified crop. Of the 31,300 farms in South Dakota, only 103 of them were certified organic. My encounter with Emily was the equivalent of finding the needle in the South Dakota haystack.

For most of you reading this: 4,000 acres is more farmland than you have ever seen.

In the Great Plains, 4,000 acres is a drop in the bucket. Ranchers and farmers across the prairie regularly own 10,000 acres or more. During my visit to South Dakota in 2009, the state had lofty production yields and was responsible for roughly:

4.6 million acres of corn
4.2 million acres of soybeans
3.8 million acres of hay
3.0 million acres of wheat
2.5 million acres of alfalfa
510,000 acres of sunflowers
90,000 acres of oats
65,000 acres of millet

Anyone who grows vegetables (or any crop for that matter) with organic practices knows and understands how difficult it can be to achieve high quality yields and avoid failure. Pests, blight, diseases, and drought count for just a fraction of the obstacles and complications organic farmers are desperately trying to mitigate. Now close your eyes and multiply that by a few thousand. Blue Blanket was no organic veggie plot with a few interns trying to get ahead of the potato beetles. This was large-scale crop production without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic sprays.

Emily and I jumped into her large V8 pickup and zoomed away in search of her daughter, Rachel, who was out in a distant field stacking large round bales of alfalfa. En route, I looked into the sideview mirror of Emily’s truck and for the first time in weeks, I took a good hard look at myself. My skin was a deep shade of brown and the end of my nose was pink with sunburn. For the first time on this journey, and after 3,000 miles of biking, I realized that I was skinny. The few extra pounds I had accrued in my year-long schmooze-fest in Los Angeles the year before were gone without a trace. Knowing that I was in the best shape of my life, I smiled as tiny particles of gravel kicked up into the wheel wells and disappeared into the cloud of dust in our trail.

Emily was a tough nut to crack. She wasn’t the type to volunteer information to a total stranger. And with what seemed to be a sense of wisdom, she stayed reticent when answering my questions. But soon enough she gave me a bit of insight to her background. She was a graduate of Cornell University, where she received an agriculture degree in plant sciences. “How could someone attend college in the bohemian and free-spirited atmosphere of Ithaca, New York, and move to the conservative and remote, middle of nowhere, South Dakota?” I thought to myself. When Emily was finished with her formal education, she was convinced that there was a more meaningful way of life that didn’t include running off and finding a high paying job. She wanted to make a difference in the world. And so she enrolled in the Peace Corps. It was there and through her selfless volunteer efforts where she met her husband, Tim. “I came to South Dakota as an imported bride.” Emily said with a large smile. I smiled back and thought, “Wow. People do some crazy things for love.” For a split second I thought about what it would be like if I were to move to South Dakota…and then the thought passed.

For years, the Stieglemeirs grew their crops in a conventional fashion. Using sprays and toxic chemicals to combat unwanted obstacles in production seemed to be a logical way to farm. In 1984, however, they transitioned to organic practices. Why did the Stiegelmeier’s decide to transition to organic methods and become part of a miniscule group of organic South Dakota farmers? Many farmers, like Organic Valley dairy farmer Dick Hall (whom I met back in Maine) transitioned in hopes of finding financial salvation. For the Stiegelmiers, the decision was driven by a different motive, one that was in line with a trend among a large group of educated and compassionate people I had met on my journey: parenthood.

“When my husband started reading the labels on the chemicals we were using, we were bothered by all of the safety protocols that came along with working with the sprays. They told you to wash your hands over and over and they instructed you to wash your clothing separately along with all kinds of other nonsense. I was pregnant at the time and it just felt wrong. My husband looked at me and said, ‘We should not be handling these chemicals on our farm’.” Emily paused and added, “I lost my husband not long ago in a farming accident.” We shared a few seconds of silence and I expressed my sympathy.

We met Rachel driving in an older tractor carefully stacking 1,200 pound round bales of hay. “How many people can we fit in this tractor” Emily asked her daughter. With a big smile, Rachel replied, “We’ve had five people in here before. Climb on in.” Rachel, in her early 20s was the third of Emily’s seven children. She spoke with a very matter-of-fact tone and was nothing short of talented when it came to her task at hand: stacking 180 bales into 28 uniform piles with a huge claw-like device. Ultimately, these bales will be winter food for her 170 cows and 150 calves. (Grass-fed beef is a value-added income to the Stieglemeier homestead.)

With the tractor humming with both deep vibration and deafening noise, I admired the vast landscape and enchanting view of the land. I tapped Rachel on the shoulder and asked, “Do you find this to be therapeutic?” She quickly repeated my words with slight mockery. “Therapeutic? Ha! Yeah, I think about a lot of things while I am up in the tractor. Like that rain cloud over there. You know how they say that every time you take the time to wash your car it always rains?” Yes, I replied. “Well, every time we cut hay on this field, I swear it always finds a way to rain”.

To offset her frustration, I paid her a compliment. “You’re pretty good at this!” She looked back over her shoulder, smiled at me and said, “That’s because I have had 10 years of practice. But you know, all of these questions are really hurting my average of 1 bale for every 90 seconds.” Point taken.

Emily and I hopped back into her diesel rig and made our way to another 160 acre “quarter section” of her property, where John (the hired man) had been harvesting wheat in their prized combine. As we made our way, I kept my eyes acutely aware of the endless fence posts that defined property lines and separated fields. Every few hundred yards, I would catch a quick glimpse of an old car tire hanging from a post that read “NO TOXIC SPRAYS”.

The setting was idyllic. Mother Nature was drenching fields of wheat with a hard sun that beamed through Emily’s windshield and heated the dashboard until it was too hot to touch. The trail of dust increased and my smile felt permanent.

When we arrived at the combine, John hopped down from the cab of the massive piece of machinery with grace and walked over to greet me with a firm handshake. He was nothing like what I had expected. He was young and vibrant. He didn’t wear a farmers’ cap. He had light blonde hair and blue eyes. Rather than looking like an old-school South Dakota farmer, he resembled a young Steve McQueen. Given his days of long field work, his attire consisted of a sturdy pair of blue jeans, a good pair of boots, and a plain white T-shirt, which he claimed kept him cool in the hot summer sun.

Smitten as a kitten, I hopped into the massive combine and John yelled, “Let me give you a quick walk through on this bad boy before you start touching anything.” Looking around the cab I felt like I was sitting inside of a pinball machine. There were endless switches, gauges, and buttons of all shapes and colors. It had an air conditioning unit and a decent stereo system to help pass the time. All that was missing was a flat-screen TV and high-speed internet. And this was an older model. When it was confirmed that I could behave rationally and not flip any switches without John’s consent we began slicing our way through windrows [long lines of raked hay or sheaves of grain laid out to dry in the wind] of wheat that had been drying on the ground. Directly behind our heads sat the large bin, the hopper, that stores the harvested wheat. It holds nearly 300 bushels of wheat before it is dumped into a truck and taken to the local grain elevator. Each acre was rendering roughly 35 bushels. Basic math told me that each hopper could yield roughly 8.5 acres of harvest. The pile of wheat behind my head was worth about $2,400. Looking around at the seemingly infinite acreage to be harvested that summer I saw dollar signs. I also saw a lot of work.

I asked John how many hours he planned to work each week. “I have been averaging over 70 hours a week. Of course with the rainy days you scale back, but on a good harvest day I might put in a good 20 hour work day.” John said. For a farm kid from South Dakota like John, a 20-hour shift in a combine was hardly unusual. For me, this was a culture that I had never dreamt that I would come to know and understand. I chuckled and said a silent prayer that John relaxes in winter months. Something told me that he finds something to keep himself occupied. Something also told me that 70 hours a week of work in the hot sun is a good reason newbie farmers in South Dakota are an endangered species.

“When did you decide you wanted to be a farmer?” I asked. “I was just born into it I guess. Growing up, my dad was a dairy farmer and he did that until I was about 9 years old. These days he works for another farmer about 60 miles outside Selby. I used to work for that farmer too, but I couldn’t stand the chemicals they used on their fields. Those chemicals affect their minds and the way they think. They don’t know it and they don’t believe it, but I can see it when I talk to them. I like organic farming because it eliminates the harmful chemicals.”

At this point I could hardly believe my ears. I was starting to put things into perspective. Looking at John and his rugged hands that maneuvered the combine, it dawned on me that I was seeing a young, large-scale farmer who was roughly half the average age of the American farmer–age 57–willing to admit that he felt agribusiness was allowing farmers to use chemicals that were harmful to not only their bodies but their minds as well. In the cab of a John Deere combine, I saw that we don’t need cerebral food journalists and documentaries to educate young and future farmers about the health risks attached to chemical-based agriculture. We need more young farmers like John, with their boots, dirty hands, and sunburnt necks, to stand up and speak from the heart.

A pseudo-date of fishing and cheap beer on the Missouri River with Sheryl had been arranged for later in the afternoon and I needed to part ways with the folks at Blue Blanket. John and I met Emily at the end of the long field. I knew that my time with Emily was now short and I wanted to ask her one last question. “How would you define sustainability?” She paused, sighed deeply, and said, “There are a lot of people out there who are trying to define sustainability. ConAgra and similar outfits are defining sustainability to suit their needs. They try and paint this picture that says organic agriculture is not sustainable because you cannot be economically successful. I would say that not only have we maintained the farm here at Blue Blanket but we have also grown. We have done a lot of hard work and there have been some long days, but we have also had quite a bit of fun doing it. Anyway, our definition of sustainability includes keeping people on the land-including our children.”

There are more than 2.1 million farms in America. The large agribusiness entities such as Cargill, Monsanto, and ConAgra have convinced many of these farmers that we need genetically modified crops in order to feed the world. These corporations do not care about the American farmer. They only profit from their exploitation. But in the small town of Selby, South Dakota, population 642, it was clear that our country was experiencing a new paradigm shift within our rural communities, where farmers like Emily didn’t give a damn about the industrial food cartel. Pardon the mixed metaphors, but Emily is not only the needle in the haystack, but she is a diamond in the rough.

Nathan Winters rode a bicycle across America to discover first-hand why our food system had grown to be unsustainable, and to find alternative solutions. He traveled into the homes and communities of organic, conventional, urban and Amish farmers and community organizers. This ongoing series—to be posted every other Wednesday— represents select material from The Unconventional Harvest, a work in progress, by Nathan A. Winters. If you are a book publisher interested in working with Mr. Winters, you may contact him directly though his website or on twitter.

I stood waiting in front of the New Forest Farm cider making facility and tasting room. With a big smile on his face, Mark Shepard rolled towards me in an older model Subaru. Before I could even introduce myself and shake Mark’s hand, he reminded me that I was late. It was true. I was late. However, Mark wasn’t the one who had to climb the hills of Vernon County on a bicycle. I took Mark’s reminder with a grain of salt.

Mark Shepard owns and runs New Forest Farm and its 140 acres of trees, shrubs, vines, canes, perennial plants, fungi, hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts, various fruits and other woody crops scattered throughout the landscape. Mark and his family had transformed what was once a typical row-crop farm into a commercial-scale permaculture mecca.

What exactly is permaculture? This lingering question led me to Viola, Wisconsin to stay with Mark Shepard. One of the most ambitious and passionate permaculture designers in the country. According to Wikipedia, permaculture is “the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.” According to Mark Shepard, it is merely common sense and the future of food and fuel production. At first glance New Forest looks more like a wild jungle of brush, tall grasses, and weeds rather than any type of productive farm. I would soon understand how harmonious and productive Mark’s wild and abundant landscape could be. Understanding the design behind symbiotic relationships were the key.

Mark and I climbed into his car and drove around the property for preliminary tour. Weeds and grasses made loud scratching noises as they scraped the bottom of the floorboards. As the old Subie bounced up and down, Mark got me up to speed on his impressive background and diverse repertoire of skills that included extensive training in both mechanical engineering and ecology, coupled with a certification in permaculture design from Bill Mollison, the founder of the international Permaculture movement. Mark has also developed and patented various pieces of equipment used in the process of cultivation and harvesting vegetables, fruit, and nut trees.

Just a stone’s throw away from Mark’s off-grid house, I was introduced to a young couple who were living on the farm. The young girl had a shaved head, wore zebra striped socks and pink tennis shoes. The young man had more hair in his beard than he did on his head. They were building a small structure that would be their summer housing. “I hope the summer winds are calm in Wisconsin,” I thought to myself as I evaluated the young couple’s carpentry skills. To make matters more interesting, the young girl had recently learned she was pregnant. A small glimmer of fear was evident in their eyes; leaving me intrigued and slightly concerned for them both. Two young people building a makeshift structure with no “job” or health insurance during a pregnancy. It felt dangerous, real, and wild.

Mark offered the young couple a snippet of building instructions and we quickly drove off. “I guess those are your interns?” I asked. “We don’t call them interns here. We do things a little bit differently. We didn’t want to run a farm that was based on slave labor in the way of interns. We also don’t want to pay employees, who will ultimately, hurry up to get the job done because they are underpaid. We allow people to come here and work on their own enterprises. As long as their goals fit in within our overall design they are welcome to show up and make a go of it.”

As a young man with no destination or concrete plan in mind, I found my curiousity piqued by Mark’s vision. In the passenger seat of Mark’s car, my imagination travelled ahead to the end of summer. What if I had stayed on Mark’s farm, learning more about permaculture and finding out if I really had the moxie to pursue farming?

I snapped out of my daydream to Mark bellowing in my left ear, “Learning how to farm isn’t about pulling weeds in some farmer’s field for free and having a wonderful summer experience. It’s about knowing how to work the system and how to manage your cash flow.” I nodded and agreed with Mark.“You need to learn what to do when you get a ton of money from asparagus in the spring and don’t make a dime until winter squash is harvested in the fall. We encourage the people who come here to learn both how to grow food sustainably and earn an income on their own.”

Garin Smith on Grassland Organic Farm, Mimi Arnstein back at Wellspring CSA and other farmers I had met along the way had also proven to me that being a farmer went hand in hand with entrepreneurship. Whether you farm with organic or conventional practices and no matter how large or small of a scale in which you operate – any new farmer must be prepared to take on the role of a business owner and manage cash flow. Those who do not… will fail.

Mark’s philosophy was rejuvenating. It gave new and potential farmers a real chance to experience and understand farming. Without the romantic notions of a summer internship on the farm.

Brilliant shades of blue and purple filled the Midwestern sky as the sun gently sank beneath the Wisconsin hilltops. I thanked Mark for his hospitality and wandered off to a grassy field where I pitched my tent for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning I found my typical routine; involving coffee and a lollygag stroll with camera in hand. The discovery of random patches of asparagus, heritage pigs and Mark’s children working in the garden kept me occupied until a large bus pulled up and dropped off a group of tourists who had come for a tour of New Forest Farm. Farm tours are one of Mark’s value-added income sources and one of his many special talents. The crowd was a made up mostly of middle-aged men and women wearing khaki’s and sunscreen. Before the tour began I couldn’t help but eavesdrop just a little bit. Michael Pollan, factory farms, Organic Valley, and genetically modified crops were all topics that were tossed around. Back at Tantre Farm in Michigan, farmer Richard Andres described groups of people such as this as the “tip of the real food antenna” educated and looking to break free from the industrial food model. Suddenly, with his distinct and assertive voice, Mark demanded attention from the crowd. He was able to herd the cats in just a few seconds.

Mark began his tour describing shelter belts, chestnut blight, and saving seed. Within just a few minutes the inevitable happened. One of the tourists asked if the biotech behemoth Monsanto was interested in permaculture. Mark didn’t feel the need to badmouth Monsanto (at least not during this tour) but he did make an interesting point about the seed industry itself. Why is it that crop farmers have abdicated their responsibility for breeding their own stock? “Livestock farmers still do their own breeding. They take care of their herd and make sure that only the prize bulls are implemented. The cows that don’t perform are pulled out and the cows that aren’t prized get castrated and turned into beef. Why should plants and seeds be any different?” Mark then pulled out what appeared to be rehearsed joke. “One thing that is really interesting about sexual reproduction is that most species really enjoy it. So it’s not all that difficult to become successful at reproduction.”

Mark changed the subject and kept the tour moving, as he pointed over to a field in the distance and said “If you look over there you will see a field with barley and yellow sweet clover. We give that field an entire year off. Our two main annual crops are squash and peppers, which we have in rotation. We are growing that field of barley not for food or feed but for the sole purpose of soil building.” Mark began to reference the conventional method of composting where many farmers would harvest the barley, chop it up, put it into big piles and call it compost. Stir the compost a few times, put it in a front end loader and spread it on the field. “That makes no sense to me. What we do is mull it in place and let it rot on the field and eliminate all of those steps. For one year all we do is produce organic matter, creating a nice thick layer of compost ready for our squash”. Mark Yelped.

Mark’s ingenuity had the crowd going. His jokes drew full-size bouts of laughter and as the tour continued, the tourists would often look at each other with amazement as “This is amazing!” and “Wow! This is absolutely brilliant” “Do you have a model that you are using or do you just make this stuff up like a genius as you go along?” asked a woman from the crowd with highlighted hair and painted nails. Mark answered without hesitation, “In this country there is no traditional model for all of this stuff. In fact, when it comes to producing some of the many crops that we have growing here I tend to annoy the top researchers of each crop. The asparagus and the chestnut people know that I am doing this all wrong.” Mark uses the word “wrong” followed by a long pause – waiting to hear if anyone has picked up on his condescending remark. A few chuckles are drawn and he continued on. “They think I am just some crackpot in Southwest Wisconsin. In other places of the world this is and has been the traditional way of doing semi-nomadic agriculture. What we have now in modern agriculture is the ability to plant in a linear design and the luxury of mechanical harvesting. But that will not sustain us and the model that we use should always be modeled around nature.” Mark’s rhetoric and the natural landscape of New Forest Farm had rattled my emotions and had sent my brain to a faraway place where the smell of the natural world was untouched and in its original and natural state.

I looked around at the mosaic of species, plants and food growing in abundance,a cool breeze passed through. I saw that the natural world is made up of an infinite labyrinth of sizes, shapes, and vast ecosystems. And straight lines are not native to planet Earth. Everything at New Forest started to make perfect sense. And while most farmers were busy planting crops in a linear fashion and compartmentalizing production, Mark Shepard was bypassing all of the nonsense that comes with modern food production.

Mark whisked the group over to the next ecological attraction and broke into one of his interesting storytelling sessions. “Does anybody know what this is?” Nobody (including me) able to identify the plant Mark pointed out. “This is a Siberian Peashrub” (Which I later learned is a small perennial shrub generally used for medicinal purposes.) “I was up in Saskatchewan at a series of conferences where they brought me in as the crazy agro forester from the states.” I could see why they would feel that way. When Mark got on a roll and started in on one of his discoveries, he appeared to be a bit of a madcap. “The Canadians were having a problem with Siberian pea shrub that had been invading all of their canola fields.

Canola is big business in Canada as most of our bio diesel comes from their crops. They were all trying to figure out how to eradicate this Siberian Pea shrub and I was trying to figure out how to harvest it. I said to them, ‘Here is a plant that is kicking your butt and invading your canola fields. Why not plant it on purpose?!’ It grows its own nitrogen, has a wood property, which you can burn as biomass and has more oil, nutrition, protein, vitamins and minerals than canola. What’s the problem? They were just absolutely stunned that I would actually say such things.” The message that Mark was trying to deliver at both the Canadian conference and to the farm tourists, was that permaculture is not about a bunch of happy little hippies in the backyard growing a few potatoes. Mark was talking about production agriculture for our essential resources. “Once all of the mega corporations realize that perennials are the most economical way to grow carbohydrates, protein and oil they will be on it quick.” Making a sly joke, Mark added “Especially when oil prices go through the roof.” That comment drew quite a few mm’s from the crowd.

Mark seemed to have everyone’s tail over a teakettle just waiting to see and hear what was next in queue. Leaving nobody disappointed, Mark began explaining the beauty of his apple trees. Anyone who has eaten an apple from both the supermarket and the backyard knows and understands the difference in appearance. The grocery store fruit will be perfect in shape, waxy, and without blemish… or flavor for that matter. The fruit from the backyard often come with scars, scabs, and mushy bruises, and are filled with a zesty of flavor. What most consumers do not consider is the cost of production and inputs for a fruit producer, especially the organic fruit producer. Non-synthetic sprays, time, and labor do not come cheap to the fruit farmer. Trying to convince consumers to buy apples with a blemish or two was child’s play to Mark. The real challenge was to try and convince farmers themselves to change their practices by minimizing time and money spent on production and maximizing their profits via the work done by Mother Nature. “Why is it that organic apple growers are spending forty bucks on inputs to produce a twenty dollar box of fruit?” Mark asked. With the crowd captivated and silent he shouted, “It doesn’t make any sense. That doesn’t work. The answer is because they are striving for the ‘Grade A’ fruit. I ask, Why?!’ Why would a farmer want to lose $10,000 an acre to produce all of that fruit? What I do is spend nothing on sprays and the only costs I incur is the cost of harvest; which is minuscule. I can still get Grade A fruit. Sure, I won’t get as much Grade A fruit as the person who spends thousands on sprays; but I can take the apples that drop to the ground and feed them to my pigs.

The apples that are still on the tree but look too ugly for the super market can get pressed into cider, which then gets fermented into alcohol.” Cider making dates back to 1300 BC. On New Forest Farm it was Mark’s new and cherished enterprise. Using blemished apples to produce hard cider and pig food was logical, but didn’t strike me as all that brilliant. What did impress me was Mark’s vision to turn apples into bio-fuel. “We know that Brazil gets a ton of alcohol and is fueling their cars from their sugar cane industry. Why can’t we do the same with apples?” Mark exclaimed. “Think about it! Unlike corn where we need to take starch and convert it into sugar, an apple is jam packed with sugar. Yes, you will get less ethanol per acre from apples than you would from corn, but the energy that it takes to accomplish the end result is far more efficient, profitable and sustainable.” Mark then yells “Apples are just one example.” Mark continued to rant.

Amish farmer Daniel Kline impressed me with his rotationally grazed livestock. Meagan Kresge inspired me by way of turning an abandoned parking lot into a small farm. But Mark Shepard’s vision was on a completely different level. A level that seemed unreachable to most individuals and inconvenient to many farmers. Mark Shepard was not preaching the gospel of sustainable agriculture. He was trailblazing a path for a new paradigm of food and fuel production. What he said made both dollars and sense.

With a few odd looks from the crowd, Mark began to extrapolate the meaning of his passions and hammered home his point by making a valuable observation. “There is a market for anything that you could possibly grow in a diverse ecosystem. Don’t believe me? Walk into Wal-Mart, go to the pill section and read the labels on back of the bottles. You will find things like burdock root and thistle flower. If Wal-Mart is carrying these products I can assure you that it is not a niche product and that it is in fact a huge industrial product.”

My neighbor across the way is selling corn for $2 a bushel and I am selling thistle flower for $13.50 a bushel. I don’t have to spend any money on planting or fertilizing thistle! The point is not to get stuck spending time, money and resources trying to save something that wants to die. The only two things that are always asked in agriculture are 1. How do I kill this thing that wants to live? And 2. How do I keep this thing alive that wants to die? We waste so much time trying to figure out the answer to those two simple questions.”

Smiles showing and energy flowing, the crowd of tourist got back on the bus and returned to their lives somewhere else. Most likely, places that were nothing like New Forest Farm.

Mark, his wife, their two children and the two eccentric “non-interns” and I made our way inside for dinner where the pros and cons of taking a personal journey came rushing up to greet me. Just before my mind had dipped into a betwixt spiral and before we dug our forks into a plate full of food, everyone, but me, joined hands and began singing the popular Shaker song ‘Tis the Gift to be Simple’ written by Elder Joseph Brackett. It goes like this:
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I had never heard that song. For all I had known these people sitting around me were the only ones who could possibly have known the words and for a moment I was convinced that they had made the song and it’s lyrics up entirely on their own. For a nanosecond I was starting to wonder if I was visiting a sustainable farm or if I had made my way onto some bizarre permaculture cult.

I was feeling torn and uncomfortable. On one hand, the information that I had been absorbing during my time at New Forest was invaluable. On the other, knowing that I knew so little about permaculture in comparison to Mark was testing the waters of my emotional comfort zone. Here I was – a touted “food hero on a bike” discovering and sharing information surrounding our nation’s farmers and food system. I had major press articles written about my journey and had thousands of people following me online. I had even started writing this book. Everywhere I had gone people were asking me to share my experiences and tell enlightening stories about what I had come to learn and know. At New Forest Farm I was nothing special. At least that is how I felt. In fact, I was feeling as though I had little value to add to the conversation. Hell, I was raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; a state founded by famous Quaker, William Penn and had never even heard the Quaker hymn we all shared before dinner.

Admitting to myself that I was feeling insecure and out of place was not an easy task. But I did it. And I was humbled. New Forest Farm was a brilliant place. I struggled to find more than one good reason to leave. However, I had just arrived to a brand new place psychologically that left me with a lingering sense of confusion and doubt. I needed to be alone. I returned to my campsite and the next morning I got back on my bicycle and set out on another back country road- a familiar and safe place that had become my sanctuary for personal exploration.

Nathan Winters rode a bicycle across America to discover first-hand why our food system had grown to be unsustainable, and to find alternative solutions. He traveled into the homes and communities of organic, conventional, urban and Amish farmers and community organizers. This ongoing series—to be posted every other Wednesday— represents select material from The Unconventional Harvest, a work in progress, by Nathan A. Winters. If you are a book publisher interested in working with Mr. Winters, you may contact him directly though his website or on twitter.