Nature and Naturalization

What does it take to be considered “Native to a Place”? My father was second generation born and raised within one mile of my Great Grandfathers prairie homestead. I was third. When the USDA was promoting the CRP program (planting native grasses) my father told me, “I just don’t think Native Grasses will do-well here.” Perhaps surprisingly, programs like CRP demonstrate that such false assumptions are naive (not native at all). The North and South Americas are both huge, connected to each other , and uniquely isolated from other land forms. The controversy regarding when the very first humans achieved the American Continents rages on, but the evidence seems to point repeatably to the longer rather than the shorter; From 15,000 - then 20,000 - then 30,000 years ago. Now it is possibly 130,000. If a generation is 30 years, cultural ecological adaptations of between 500 and 4300 generations passed developing a unique and specific relationship with these lands. It is hard to wrap our heads around isolated human acclimation on such a long and broad scale. With stone tools and fire – particularly fire, Original Peoples carved out an ecological niches much more attentive to Mother Nature than is easy for our “modern” Euro-centric culture to imagine. The rich fertile soils the Pioneers “discovered” were those modified and improved through cultural use of fire, sequestering huge quantities of CO2. While the industrial revolution pumped out CO2, Original Peoples were pumping carbon into and enriching soils throughout the Americas.

Books of Influence

I grew up in Kansas grass and weeds, the third generation born and raised within three miles of my Great Grandfather's original farmstead. So to answer the question of what books shaped my vision of the future and role of Regenerative Agriculture, my perspective starts in the middle of muddy farm ponds, high winds, thunderstorms and pastures of the tornado and bible belt of the USA. Against those experiences the books that tickled my imagination have been judged and measured. Maybe they will tickle yours. As best I can I list them here in chronological order as I discovered them: The Boxcar Children, My Side of the Mountain, Tarzan Novels, Kinship With All Life, Huck Finn, The Day on Fire, The Whole Earth Catalog, Invisible Man, The Machine Stops (Forrester), Desert Solitaire, Ishi in Two Worlds, John Barleycorn, Trout Fishing in America, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, Malabar Farm, Charles Kellogg-The Nature Singer, Small Is Beautiful, Tracker (Brown), Standing by Words , One Straw Revolution, A Pattern Language, Memories Dreams Reflections, Two Ears of Corn, 1491, 1493, Progress and Poverty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, The Invention of Nature, Germs Guns and Steel, Sapiens, The Ministry for the Future, The Dawn of Everything. Other books took me in other directions, but these seem to have roots tangled in how I imagine the future of Regenerative Agriculture in particular. Read any good books lately?

Images, and the future of agriculture

I have carried with me, over the last few decades, an image of myself in my old age (upper 90’s at least). In that picture I sit comfortably in an overstuffed armchair. A colorful native woven wool blanket lays over my lap. Perhaps there is a cat in my lap — or maybe not. But essential to the photo are the two dozen (or more!) beautiful radiant women of several cultures and complexions, arching in age from say 2 to 108, who stand pressed closed or leaning against my chair. A couple, maybe the two-year-old, and another, play at my feet. What unites these females, and is the theme of this scene, is their utter and joyful adoration of – myself! (I think it might be better to avoid confusion if we scratch the cat.) As backdrop to this scene is a walled bookcase – full of – books! I’ve been drawn to thinking of that bookcase, and what it might contain by a question posed recently as I sat in the back of the audience, to three finalist candidates vying for the position of “Director of the Chico State University Farm.” The question was something like “Name one or more books that have influenced your vision of the future roles of Agriculture.” Their answers surprised me, as do my own. I have ambitious visions for the future of Agriculture, and I prejudice in strong favor of Regenerative Agriculture. But tracking where those expectations come from range wild and wide.