[div class="excerpt"]
Theory & Science (2007)
ISSN: 1527-5558
The Monopolization of Biodiversity: Terminator Bioscience and the Criminalization of the Harvest
Brian Wolf
Department of Sociology
University of Idaho
bwolf@uidaho.edu

Abstract
This theoretical work explores the interrelationship between science and industry by looking at a specific process of genetic modification and how it is related to a specific form of social organization: monopoly capitalism. A great deal of controversy and dissent has been generated in recent years as several agribusiness giants have pioneered a way to end a seed’s ability to reproduce itself. This so-called scientific advance has been dubbed “terminator” technology. This work links the science behind terminator technology with the requirements of the monopoly capitalist system and its quest to commodify and control all aspects of nature. This is a synthesization of two theoretical works pertaining to a critique of the monopoly capitalist system and dialectical biology. It highlights the unsustainable problems with seed technology and the dangers of having living organisms’ biological codes monopolized by a few centralized industries. Additionally it underscores the importance of macro sociological theory in understanding the threats posed to the environment through the criminalization of the harvest.

Introduction
Since the dawn of modern civilization humans have sustained themselves and the harvest by preserving seeds for sowing in subsequent seasons. Agriculture The symbiosis and co-evolution of humans and our crops form the cornerstone of modern civilization. The Aztecs, ancient Chinese, as well as dozens of other civilizations along the Fertile Crescent engaged in a process of selective breeding of preferred seed stock to produce crops with the most desirable phenotypes (Diamond, 1999). The process of cross-pollination and hybridization of seeds continues through current epoch, becoming increasingly sophisticated through the application of science and technology. Today, science can alter the actual genetic makeup of a plant species. Along with these advances, multinational corporations who claim control over this technology (and subsequently, the plant’s DNA) have been seeking ways to protect this technology as intellectual property (Herring, 2007; Yoon, 2006; Clement, 2004). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the nearly commonsensical practice of seed saving is rapidly becoming criminalized and if a handful of agricultural giants have their way, staple grains of the human diet will be genetically rendered sterile and unable to reproduce themselves. A recent biotechnological process of genetic manipulation called “terminator” prevents plant seeds from reproducing and giving the patent holder complete control and intellectual domain over the seed’s DNA. Proponents of this technology, through their global trade group, the International Seed Federation, laud this technology, indicating that it incentivizes the development of new and more efficient plant hybrids (ISF Press Release, 2003). Critics call the monopolization of seed DNA and the criminalization of replanting crop seeds a theft and an aberration of nature. Physicist and environmental activist, Vandana Shiva has linked the practice of criminalizing and claiming intellectual property on nature and seed DNA to the social relationships engendered under colonialism and dubbed the practice a form of neo-imperialism.

A half-century after the Bengal famine [where, under British colonial rule, most of the food grown was exported for trade and for the UK, instead of feeding hungry local people], a new and clever system has been put in place which is once again making the theft of the harvest a right and the keeping of harvest a crime. Hidden behind complex free-trade treaties are innovative ways to steal nature's harvest, the harvest of the seed, and the harvest of nutrition (2000).
Since the genesis of capitalism and the enclosure of feudal and aboriginal lands for food production, the melding of science and industry has resulted in spectacular advances in agricultural production alongside potentially disastrous consequences to the environment (Foster, 1999). While there is nothing new in the relationship between technology and nature, this article explores how the manipulation of a plant’s genetic makeup and ability to reproduce is irreversibly unnatural and fundamentally disastrous. The forced expropriation of food is also not a new endeavor. The structural relationships fostered under colonial and imperial modes of production have seen indigenous people starve while they export cash and staple crops to the core of the world-system.

The complex set of social relationships that underlie science and society are difficult to grasp to the causal observer. Large agricultural firms such as Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and ConAgra are some of the largest employers of botanists, chemists and other life scientists. Much of their research centers on engineering or facilitating the increase in larger quantities of food while using less physical labor. On the surface this seems to be a necessary and noble endeavor aimed at averting Malthus’ classical yet flawed claim that the earth’s bounty could only support a half-billion people (Preston, 1999). The global population is clearly expanding in terms of absolute numbers (as well as waistlines). Couple this with fewer people working on farms and the results lead to more people working in factories and labs manufacturing the next great gizmo. To enforce the message that investments in science is for purely benevolent means, many of the agricultural firms public relations literature contains discourses discussing that they are working hard to meet the caloric needs of a growing world.1 This image construction seems aimed at preemptively averting criticisms of their scientific practices and easing the publics mind about the safety of their food. Beneath this veneer lies a much more complex set of relationships that reveals ecologically unsustainable ambitions. To fully grasp the logic and reasoning behind an otherwise illogical and unsustainable development, we must examine the material relationships that are behind this technology.

Here it is theorized that the seemingly unnatural development and application of terminator seed science is the necessary result of a late stage of capitalism termed “monopoly capitalism.” The scientific advances enabling terminator seed technology are best understood utilizing a contemporary Marxist perspective that examines the interrelationship between seed technology and monopoly capitalism. This ultimately unsustainable technology and unnecessary application of scientific knowledge is brought under new light when considered in relationship to the social processes that brought it into existence. To fully capture the criminalization of the harvest we must consider not only the intellectual efforts involved in creating an organism that lacks the ability to reproduce itself, but the structure of the global capitalist system it has emerged in.

Frankenstein’s Botanical Cousin
In monopoly capital’s quest for complete control over the world market, there has been a large amount of intellectual and material resources devoted to employing science and technology to commodify all food sources around the world (Foster, 1999). This has led to some disturbing technological developments in biotechnology and hybridization in “agricultural science.” These technologies threaten to disturb the primary interactions between humans and the environment in severely altering the planet’s ability to feed and sustain the human population. According to a press release issued by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), a technology has been developed by Delta & Pine Land Company, a large commercial seed breeder, in corporation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that could potentially sterilize the seed produced by all crops, preventing the seed from being replanted (1998). More recently, the ability to control and police the modified organism has been brought into question (Herring, 2007). The technology of this terminator gene has profound implications for both food safety and the basic ecology of the global food supply.

The technology patent to market the terminator seed has since been bought by Monsanto, a transnational corporation bent on controlling the entire world’s seed markets. Dubbed by Monsanto as "the Terminator" and by others as "the neutron bomb of agriculture," this new technology has profound implications for agriculture and the environment. Moreover, it is directed at the world's poorest farmers and communities relying on a delicate balance between food production and ecological concerns (Hawthorne, 2003). This technology has been touted by the industry as the end to world hunger, but its lasting effects could easily spell just the opposite; ecologists and environmental activists have already foreseen the alarming potential for global famine and environmental destruction that this new technology poses as cross contamination could permanently sterilize unmodified crops (Mack, 2002). The development of a seed that produces only once is the ultimate sign of the madness that plagues the entire system of food allocation under the illogic of capitalism. The reason the Terminator seed is being produced is because agribusiness, under monopoly capitalism, needs to control the entire system of food distribution to maintain profits. The Terminator can provide the vehicle to these profits and an effective monopoly over the code of life.

Terminating the Environment
The invasion of biotechnology onto the farm spells lasting effects for food resource distribution and the environment. This technology has no real benefit to the consumer or the farmer and is unabashedly an instrument of appropriation by corporations as a method of control. This hybrid is produced only to prevent the germination of anything a farmer might grow in her field. This strips the productive, life giving quality from the earth and turns it over to a research lab. This product will mean much more than massive profits and high food prices. Besides violating the age-old techniques of farming, the engineered seed also poses immediate risks to the environment and entire ecosystem as well. It has already been shown that genetically altered seeds can spread its sterile pollen to other plant species also making them unable to reproduce or otherwise altering the genetic makeup of the species. Molecular biologists reviewing the technology are divided if there is a risk of the Terminator function escaping the genome of the crops into which it has been intentionally incorporated. Many biologists warn that there is a threat of the crops moving into surrounding open pollinated crops or wild, related plants in fields nearby (Shand and Mooney, 1998). There have already been dozens of instances of genetically modified foods creeping into the general food supply and threatening food safety. In the case of the Terminator seed, the means of this "infection" would be by way of pollen from Terminator altered plants. Given nature’s incredible adaptability, and the fact that this technology has never been tested on a large scale, the possibility that the Terminator may spread to surrounding food crops or to the natural environment is a real risk of potentially limitless proportions.

The Terminator seed works by genetically altering the composition of a hybrid seed and stopping its ability to produce a new generation. Hybrid plant varieties are genetically manipulated to produce inferior second generation seed, while the Terminator "switches on and then off" the plant's reproductive processes (Monsanto, 1998). The proponents of terminator technology, mainly agribusiness monopolies such as Monsanto and ConAgra, insist that it will protect their investment in engineered traits that will help feed the poor and hungry as well as great potential for profit. They claim the traits engineered into the new seeds will increase the quality and yield of crops, resulting in more food per acre in a world where arable land is at a premium. New traits will also give crops protection against weeds, they say. The seed industry regularly works in concert with pesticide and herbicide companies to develop plant hybrids that are resistant to chemicals so that they can be liberally applied over farmers’ fields without killing them. The seed industry also points out that no one is forcing farmers to buy their seeds. Despite these proponents claims to be serving everyone’s best interests, this technology is aimed at privatizing nature and commodifying one of the last metaphorical commons; the ability for seeds to pollinate themselves, free of charge.

The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism in Agriculture
Classical economists prefer the reductionistic models of the free market that portray the capitalist economy as one that thrives under competition. Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, in their book Monopoly Capital (1966), have shown this to be just another myth of the marketplace. In this landmark work they show that the capitalist economy, to deal with the contradictions of the market, has led to greater centralization and concentration of capital. This then results in a few non-competing and monopolistic firms in all major industrial sectors of the economy. Under monopoly capitalism firms compete not on price, but on more trivial things such as brand identification, advertising, and product differentiation (Magdoff, et. al., 4). This process has occurred later in agriculture than in other industrial sectors (ibid). In recent years concentration in agribusiness has accelerated at an incredible rate. When Monsanto’s Terminator seed is placed on the global market, conditions will be set that will mandate that only one or two firms will control the seeding of the entire world’s food supply.

The terminator seed not only violates the fundamental principles of ecology, but thousands of years of farming principles. The logic and needs of capitalism run counter to ecological sustainability in every direction and is an integument on the rational production of food. Karl Marx was perceptive in noting competitive capitalist production concentration of “the historical motive power of society” while “disturb[ing] the metabolic interaction between man and earth” (Capital, 637). It is easy to characterize the producers of this technology as mad-scientists and purveyors of some Frankensteinian creation. Unfortunately this is an all too necessary creation needed to support monopoly capitalism and transnational corporations profit motives. Monopoly capitalism refers to the stage in capitalism where all industries are controlled by a few producers acting in concert to maximize profits through cornered markets.

While Marx is correct in describing capitalism’s ability to pervert and destroy nature’s remarkable ability to reproduce itself, an even more pervasive capitalism has invaded agricultural production in recent years. Baran and Sweezy have termed this monopoly capitalism where a few producers control entire markets and gain enormous returns on technological investments:

We must recognize that competition, which was the predominate form of market relations in the nineteenth century Britain, has ceased to occupy that position, not only in Britain but everywhere else in the capitalist world. Today the typical economic unit in the capitalist world is not the small firm producing a negligible fraction of a homogeneous output for an anonymous market but a large-scale enterprise producing a significant share of the output of an industry, or even several industries, and able to control its prices, the volume of its production, and the types and amount of investments. The typical economic unit in other words, has the attributes which were once thought to be possessed only by monopolies (Monopoly Capital, 6).
While this view characterized industrial sectors in the postwar period, Heffernan notes that monopoly capitalism has only now begun to assimilate agriculture (59). Until recently, farming under capitalism operated under the tenets of competitive capitalism where farmers operated independently and competed on price. In the 1980s, a nationwide glut of agricultural goods on the market forced prices to fall rapidly. Farms began failing and huge agribusiness firms began gobbling up most farming assets. With the usurpation and concentration of farming assets into the hands of monopolistic corporations, the downward pressure on retail prices for food reversed. Since the glut, a few monopolistic firms have come to dominate the nation’s food production and stand to gain a sizable share of the world market. With the domestic market locked up, agribusiness has set its sights on the periphery and emerging economies, and one or two corporations stand to dominate the international seed market. The Terminator seed is an excellent vehicle to accelerate this transformation.

Monopoly capitalism in other industrial sectors depends on “planned obsolescence” to make sure that people buy the same product in different packaging every few years. Just like computer operating systems or cars, these products are purposely built to expire or become obsolete every few years. The Terminator seed would be useless after just one use. The Terminator seed enables companies to develop patents on seeds of the world’s staple crops and then force farmers to buy again, new, each year. Corporations distrust the uncertainty of the free market so the Terminator will ensure a large return on investment in biotechnologies because we all need to eat.

The traditional American farm runs on the principle of self-sufficiency. During harvest, farmers preserved seeds to save for the next year’s crop. Seed companies have been working hard to prevent farmers around the world from saving their own seed from plants originally grown with seed bought from these companies. Once monopoly capitalism fully takes hold, the seed producers will have the muscle to stop this practice. They are also trying to find ways to encourage farmers around the world—in the U.S., Europe and especially the huge markets represented by farmers in South America, Mexico and Asia — to switch to genetically engineered, proprietary seed instead of relying on the eons old practice of saving their own locally produced and conventionally bred seed. If they can produce and offer their "improved" seed cheaply enough to convince even poorer farmers from developing countries to switch, they will have captured much of the global market. The Terminator will ensure that this market—these farmers and the communities and countries they feed—will be completely dependent on the company to continue to eat. Once Monsanto annihilates any competitors in the market they will be free to raise prices on their seed at will.

If the current trend continues, an ever smaller number of larger corporations such as Monsanto will be producing more of the world's seeds. This control will give them enormous power to control prices, to dictate farmers' seed choices, to affect agricultural practices and to control the world's food supply. If profit driven seed companies find they can make more money from terminator seeds than traditional ones, what would stop them from simply discontinuing the production of cheaper, viable seeds? Once a corporation has a monopoly, or a few corporations act as monopolies, they can ensure that no alternatives to what they offer will exist in the market.

The Science of Capitalist Agriculture
Biotechnology is touted on Wall Street as the latest industry generating an incredibly high return on investment. Biotech firms have re-crafted nature to fit the needs of profit and they are doing it at an incredible rate. Middendorf, et. al., note that biotechnology under capitalism only recognizes the need for profits and not human need for food, or its effect on the environment (87). The infusion of scientific technology into agriculture has been around since the genesis of industrial capitalism. Soil science and agricultural technologies came about with the demands of capitalist agriculture for the increased productivity of soil (Foster and Magdoff, 33). Research laboratories came about with the concurrent rise of monopoly capitalism. With the infusion of principles of monopoly capitalism into the global system of agriculture, laboratories have begun making synthetics at an even more alarming rate. The primary goal of these laboratories is not to advance the interests of science, but to turn scientific knowledge into the production of capital. As Foster states:

These scientific laboratories provided a whole range of synthetic products, based on the development of new molecular arrangements, out of the essentially limitless number of those theoretically possible. This resulted in new forms of matter, many of which were created with commercial purposes in mind — from a new way of coloring fabric to a new way of killing bacteria. Unfortunately, this progress in physics and chemistry was not accompanied by an equally rapid expansion in the knowledge of how such substances might affect the environment (Foster, 1994:110).
With the Terminator seed, science has taken something fragile and part of the natural life cycle, and turned it into something alien to the soil in which it grows. In science’s attempt to mimic nature, perfect it, and profit from its bounty, science has unleashed a biological monster on the farmers’ field.

Levins and Lewontin examine in their important, yet controversial, work “The Dialectical Biologist,” the interrelationship between biology and human action (1985). Arguing that the work of scientists is inherently political, they reject reductionistic and hierarchical portrayals of nature and argue that nature is a coevolutionary, dialectical process:

An organism does not compute itself from its DNA. The organism is the consequence of a historical process that goes on from the moment of conception until the moment of death; at every moment gene, environment, chance, and the organism as a whole are all participating...Natural selection is not a consequence of how well the organism solves a set of fixed problems posed by the environment; on the contrary, the environment and the organism actively codetermine each other. (89)
In other words, one cannot adequately theorize a scientific advancement without understanding the impact of the advance on the environment, nor can one understand biology without understanding the material basis that fostered the advancement’s origins. The manipulation of the basic reproductive abilities of a plant’s genetics is reflective of an intrusion into nature’s by powerful relationships engendered under a monopoly capitalist system.

The chief consequence of technological innovation to increase on-farm productivity has been to make on-farm productivity less and less important in determining agricultural value (Levins and Lewontin, 213). Agribusiness needs to have large value-added commodities purchased as inputs to production and reduce the amount of value added on the farm. Pressures on farmers to reduce labor costs are compounded by losing control of the productive process of the land and what crop species to grow.

Because farmers are a small, although essential part, of the production of foods, the conditions of their part of production are set by the monopolistic providers and buyers of farm inputs and outputs. The agricultural research establishment, by serving the proximate demands of farmers, is in fact a research establishment captured by capital. The farmers are only the messengers of the messages written in corporate headquarters (Levins and Lewontin, 215-16).
Why would such a product be developed when it seemingly violates the fundamental logic of farming itself, especially when Third World hunger is a rampant problem? The answer lies in the logic of global agribusiness under monopoly capitalism. The development of biotechnologies, such as the Terminator seed, increases market concentration. Investment money will flow where a profit can be made. The Terminator offers a new way to capture and corner agriculture primary goods markets. When a firm is the first to develop or steal a patent for a new technology they capture a substantial portion of the market and often have a monopoly on it (Middendorf, et. al, 87). If agribusiness can lock up markets for staple foods grown in the third world, capitalists can receive and incredibly high rate of return on research investment, regardless if the technology provides for any genuine human need.

The reason these unnecessary technologies are being developed is because of the requirements of monopoly capital. Monopoly capitalism depends on massive technical change, which requires a lot of money to be directed at research and development of products. Another disturbing relationship in the political economy of agriculture is that these technologies are developed at massive public expense and then turned over to private enterprise. The USDA developed the Terminator seed as corporate welfare to the seed industry. This, however, is not the only way agribusiness has stolen nature from the general public. Many of their proprietary seeds are no more than genetically altered versions of older, reliable, conventionally bred strains that have been in the public domain for many, many years. Most crops are genetic products of thousands of years of selective breeding by indigenous peoples. Change a gene to give a seed resistance to some new strain of disease, the logic goes, and the seed no longer belongs to the people to grow and save as they like, but rather is the property of the seed company.

In the past several years the world community has been outraged as some multinational seed companies have brazenly tried to claim ownership of whole species of food plants based on the logic that they had altered a gene in a member of that species and, hence, now owned its whole genome. Of course it is frustrating to capitalists to produce and market something that naturally exists and reproduces on its own. To control this practice, agribusiness has generally had the law on its side. Corporations have used plant patents, gene licensing agreements, intellectual property laws, investigations and lawsuits against farm families to keep their monopoly. These firms claim that farms infringe on a seed company’s monopoly on seed varieties and use these tactics in order protect their interests. The new Terminator technology could render even these modern, legal measures of control obsolete. It is potentially so powerful, so effective and so flawless in its applicability that its corporate owners and licensees will literally have complete biological control over the food crops in which it is applied.

Conclusion
What has been presented is a theoretical framework to contextualize the development of an ultimately unsustainable scientific advance. Science, despite claims to “value freedom,” has long been used for endeavors other than strictly altruistic ones. The development of Terminator technology is not only a misuse of scientific talent; it is ecologically irresponsible and socially barbaric. Yet in the context of the monopoly capitalist system, as framed by Baran and Sweezy, it appears to be quite logical. In the convolution between agriculture and the capitalist economy scientific advances tend to be entwined with the needs of the capitalist mode of production it developed under. As the system of food production, distribution and consumption continues to be monopolized by a few oligopolistic firms, harvests will continue to be criminalized and technologies, such as the one detailed here, will become more commonplace.

The Terminator seed is reflective of how the technology of monopoly capitalism is making it more difficult for anything natural to survive on the planet, including humans. The development of the Terminator seed is about subjugating the world’s farmers and creating a loss of freedom for everyone else. We have seen how the technical application of science onto the planets productive nature threatens to destroy that very productive capacity. The Terminator technology has blurred the line between genius and insanity. It is one more example of how the global system of capitalist agriculture is overrunning basic tenets of sustainability and common sense for the imperative of profit maximization. Marx believed that capitalism sowed the seeds of its own destruction. The Terminator seed could not be a more appropriate metaphor. The global system of capitalism cannot continue on this downward spiral much longer. The world must soon recognize that we can sustain ourselves without altering the genetic makeup of nature. If we do not, famine, war and complete environmental apocalypse loom in the distance.

http://theoryandscience.icaap.org/content/vol9.3/wolf.html [/quote]

It would be better without the "Terminator-Monsanto-Terminator" chant but essentially a good analysis.

I give him an "A" for effort. This is a good start, I think. There are some bright spots in it, but most of the assumptions are wrong.

This is very promising:

[div class="excerpt"]An organism does not compute itself from its DNA. The organism is the consequence of a historical process that goes on from the moment of conception until the moment of death; at every moment gene, environment, chance, and the organism as a whole are all participating...Natural selection is not a consequence of how well the organism solves a set of fixed problems posed by the environment; on the contrary, the environment and the organism actively codetermine each other.
)
In other words, one cannot adequately theorize a scientific advancement without understanding the impact of the advance on the environment, nor can one understand biology without understanding the material basis that fostered the advancement’s origins. The manipulation of the basic reproductive abilities of a plant’s genetics is reflective of an intrusion into nature’s by powerful relationships engendered under a monopoly capitalist system.[/quote]

This is close to the mark:

[div class="excerpt"]Many of their proprietary seeds are no more than genetically altered versions of older, reliable, conventionally bred strains that have been in the public domain for many, many years. Most crops are genetic products of thousands of years of selective breeding by indigenous peoples.[/quote]

Actually, it seems that GMO firms are not actually altering the properties of the crops, but merely putting markers in the DNA in order to own them.

The recap of capitalist agriculture is also something that people need to understand.

A stack of slick magazines shows up at the farm every month - gourmet foodie magazines, organic gardening, country lifestyle, etc. all upscale shit geared to yuppies. Looking through them last night they all have articles about "seed saving." Not sure what they are talking about, an they don't explain at they are talking about. Not having to buy seeds? Saving varieties? That doesn't make much sense, as so many crops don't grow true to variety from seed. What is the alternative to "seed saving?" Throwing them "away?" Throwing them away is how seeds naturally get dispersed. What does "saving" them mean? Save them from what? But they talk about it as though it were some sort of sacred ritual, and the key somehow to "breaking the grip of corporations on our food."

Didn't know the yups had latched onto this, we ain't too trendy around here. Fuckers could poison anything. Maintaining diversity in a gene pool certainly is important but those pissant hobbyists ain't gonna be the ones to do it any more than herp hobbyists are gonna save endangered species. Vasilov would spit on these amateurs.

Edit: Looks like another presumptuous affectation.

CSA, organic, seed-saving - ignore all of the chatter and look at what actually happens. Suburban yuppies gain control over land and resources. New entrepreneurial shit happens, and public funds are diverted into the hands of the "progressive" and "enlightened" few.

all of this shit is just a bone for the petit bourgeoisie, keeps 'em busy and out of opposition with the big boys. They can be 'on the side of the angels' in their own minds while not rocking the boat at all.

http://www.urbanfarmonline.com/

I found this magazine when looking for articles on Hantz and actually bought a copy in horror. All I can think of when I see this shit is Marie Antoinette dressed up like a shepherdess.

Pets Gone Green

http://www.shopanimalnetwork.com/images/products/BTP_PGGcov_160.jpg

In Pets Gone Green, New York Times best-selling author, Eve Adamson explores how we, as responsible pet owners, can have a positive effect on the environment. This revolutionary new book outlines strategies from your first steps to reduce your carbon footprint (and pawprint) to tracking the bigger, greener, cleaner picture, and just to make sure your book purchase is guilt free, Pets Gone Green is printed on recycled paper with an environmentally friendly soy-based ink. With original art by Willy Reddick, inspiration "green" quotes, and the stamp of approval from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Christine Keith, best-selling author and star of the Real Housewives of New York City Bethany Frankel, and Dog Writers Association of America president Deb Eldredge this beautiful book is a must-have for any pet owner in search of a completely green lifestyle.

http://www.shopanimalnetwork.com/product.aspx?cid=46&pid=1198

OK here is the "Hungry Locavore" - featured blogger touting the virtues of "eating local" and various other wacky ideas to solve food problems. Now, kids, how many inconsistencies can you spot in this article?

Food Souvenirs
By Judith Hausman, Urban Farm Contributing Editor

What does the Hungry Locavore bring home from her travels? Local specialties, of course! Food souvenirs are fun to buy, encourage story-telling at home and are use-up-able, unlike those straw market beach bags or tiny Eiffel towers that just shout, “What was I thinking?”

Now, I do live outside of New York City where you can get everything (no, really, everything … believe me!)—all I’ve schlepped home and more. So why bother? Because as much as the taste or luxury of the souvenir, I treasure the search, the interaction and the memories that come up in sharing those finds with friends at home.

I have, in fact, seen Maggi porcini soup cubes (my secret ingredient for mushroom soup or risotto) in a good local Italian deli nearby, but what fun to look for them in a neighborhood in Milan or a supermarket in Florence, pretending to shop like a local. The great story I can tell my guests was thrown in for free with the heart-shaped, ash-covered goat cheese I brought home from Paris. The cheesemonger asked if I wanted to have a hard heart or a soft heart when I picked it out! (“Personal Use” is the gray area for bringing cheese through customs, by the way).

When I sip jasmine tea, I can recall the shy shop girl in the quiet Beijing tea shop, who tried to figure out my Chinese-American friend’s accent. We smelled and selected several teas, and I know we made her day with our purchase. I won’t forget my last stop on the way to the Munich airport at a bakery that specialized in big, brown rounds of chewy rye. That way, it was as fresh as possible when I unpacked it from my duffel at home. Black cardamom pods, masala for grilled meats and packets of biryani seasoning came home from India with me. The wife of a professor accompanied us through her own market, directing us which to buy.

I’ve never had trouble packing the food souvenirs to bring back. I wrap them in a precautionary plastic bag and then cradle them in layers of laundry. Of course, most jars and bottles will need to be checked through.

Domestic food souvenirs are even easier to transport: huckleberry jam from the Pacific Northwest, Meyer lemons from a friend’s California tree, dried Hatch chilies from New Mexico and, hey, real New York bagels travel beautifully. I once took them to Norway for a homesick friend and ate them on a Bergen hilltop with locally smoked salmon.

If you’re traveling by car, never leave home without a little cooler and some cold packs. You never know when you might run across something yummy (I brake for cherries, for example) to chat about with the grower or producer and then to show off at home, complete with a bonus story. This year, I brought back Maine honey, purchased directly from the curly-haired beekeeper, and Martha’s Vineyard smoked bluefish, caught when those dagger-toothed fish were running just offshore. The only thing is, I don’t think the extra pounds I brought back from New England oysters, lobsters and cheeses count as food souvenirs, do they?

http://www.urbanfarmonline.com/community-building-and-resources/urban-farm-bloggers/urban-farmer-judy-hausman/food-souvenirs.aspx

Judith Hausman
As a long-time freelance food writer, Judith Hausman has written about every aspect of food, but local producers and artisanal traditions remain closest to her heart. Eating close to home takes this seasonal eater through a journey of delights and dilemmas, one tiny deck garden, farmers’ market discovery and easy-as-pie recipe at a time. She writes from a still-bucolic but ever-more-suburban town in the New York City 'burbs.

Tanya Piedra

Location: Miami, FL

Day Job: Real Estate

The Digs: Backyard, Containers

Crops: Basil, Bell Peppers, Broccoli, Cucumbers, Lettuce, Rosemary, Tomatoes

Animals: Cats

Why I'm Getting Dirty: I spent my summers on my grandparents farm. Loved it! It was a working farm but, my gradmother had a kitchen garden and she taught me so much. But my favorite chore was feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. I never forgot the unique feeling of independence they had, they never went to a Publix! Never used chemicals in the food they grew or the animals they raised for personal use. I want a little bit of that back, so I am researching turning my zero lot line yard into a kitchen garden. I just listed a neighors home, I cant beleive she is selling it and would love to have the 1.2 acres,loads of fruit trees, kitchen garden, zoned Agricltural, in the middle of the city! She has a garden to die for, she teaches and works with the Urban Oasis here in Miami she has inspired me to make the most of my little piece of the world! So my journey begins!

http://www.urbanfarmonline.com/blog/viewbio.aspx?apid=188674

I am going to subscribe. I never laughed so hard in my life.

Apple Harvest
Cherie Langlois

When Brett and I moved to the country two decades ago, we envisioned having a sunny little orchard where we would harvest bushels of apples, pears and other delicious tree treasure each year. Unfortunately, this orchard of our dreams didn't come to fruition because:

1. We don't do "sunny" all that well here in western Washington. (Most of August and September have been a somber reminder of this).

2. We didn't research orchard care or plan our orchard carefully enough before planting our first four semi-dwarf apple tree victims. (The poor little things languished due to too much shade, super soggy ground and over-zealous deer pruning services.)

After we eventually moved the two stunted survivors to a sunnier, dryer spot away from the deer and beside our vegetable garden, these heroic trees surprised us by actually growing again. They even started producing a smattering of apples each year - no thanks to my husband and me, who continued to neglect them while we focused our attention on the farm's animal inhabitants.

Fast forward to two winters ago: We decided to give our orchard dream another go by planting five new trees, this time taking care about where we placed them and taking a vow that we would care for them properly (or at least try). Two plums, two cherries, two pears and three new apple trees. Take another leap to this past Saturday, and I can't believe it, but here I am happily plucking a respectable crop of apples from our diminutive new trees, as well as from the two hardy survivors.

It's a perfect autumn day: sky of cloudless blue and golden sunshine warming my back, the apples with their skins of blushed pink or red, green and greeny-gold filling my bowls and pots. Each variety - Liberty, Keepsake, Chehalis and Gala - has a different appearance and taste, but they're all crisp, sweetly tart, fresh and wonderful.

I've always loved picking apples, eating them right from the tree or in fragrant apple pie, and in recent years, turning them into sweet apple butter and applesauce. I've picked apples on a U-pick farm in the valley and from a gracious neighbor's tree down the road, but these are the most apples my very own trees have provided, and all I had to do was step out my back door to gather them. I wind up savoring this extra-special harvest experience as much as the apples themselves.

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-editorial-blogs/cherie-langlois/apple-harvest.aspx

On a very exciting note, we have invited a landscape architect friend of mine (we went to college together) to come over and redesign our back patio and gardens. If all goes well and our budget allows, we’ll be getting a new backyard sometime next year.

The idea is to create a sort of courtyard feel right around the backdoor. Right now, the patio is almost too big and is just an uninteresting rectangle with grass growing right up to it. There’s no buffer between our lawn and the brick patio. We spend a lot of time out there and hope to create a much more intimate space. My friend will probably laugh at us as we describe our vision: a new patio, retaining walls that have built in benches, a raised perennial border, a fire pit, some new trees and shrubs to "close in" the space, a low fence (hopefully) to keep the chickens and dogs out of the new beds, and, maybe, a redo of our pond.

The possibility of all this is so exciting. It will be so interesting to see it all on paper and find out if she thinks our vision is possible.

I hope she doesn't try to talk us into using those "stone" patio pavers that are all the rage right now. I can't stand the brick pavers we have now. They just get covered in moss, weeds come up in the cracks and, though I’m sure it was level when it as installed, it isn't now. The dips and valleys hold water and mud and make it too easy to trip. I have a sneaking suspicion that those new pavers would do the same 10 years down the road.

I think we want to do patterned concrete. My aunt and uncle have a patio like this. There are seams to allow for expansion and contraction, but there are no little groves for weeds to take hold. If anyone out there has experience with this or has on opinion on what we should or shouldn’t do, I'd love to hear it. Advice, please?

http://www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-editorial-blogs/jessica-walliser/planning-dream-garden.aspx

Isn't it awful? The Bay Area is riddled with this kind of person too. It's the New Rococo movement.


http://solnushka.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/10053314marie-antoinette-depicted-at-the-petit-trianon-versailles-playing-at-being-a-shepherdess-posters.jpg

For some reason your farmer stories reminded me of this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRK4ypGWkpo

The suburbs are potemkin villages.

The 'giddy', it hurts.

You meanie!

Judith Hausman also wrote this book with two "farmers": http://www.rainbeauridge.com/cms/content/view/79/121/

http://www.rainbeauridge.com/cms/images/stories/Over_the_Rainbeau/OTR_Cover_IPPY_400.jpg




Making a Dream a Reality

Rainbeau Ridge, a “real and accessible” farm, is located in Bedford Hills, NY, forty miles northwest of New York City.

In 2002, owners Lisa and Mark Schwartz set out to create a place where people young and old could feel at home, connect to the land, sense the awe of nature, gain a comfort with animals and with the cycle of life, and could learn to cook, eat and savor locally produced cheese and produce. See Mission of Rainbeau Ridge.

Childhood sweethearts growing up in Poughkeepsie, NY, Lisa, a former management consultant, and Mark, a young retiree from the financial industry, are now co-farmers. Years of endless drives through the Hudson Valley’s countryside gave them their appreciation for land and likely planted the seeds that “someday we’ll own a farm”. But neither had ever done farm-chores. Furthermore, they now lived in Westchester County, not frequently known for its farms. Mark’s fondness for cows was fueled by annual visits to the Dutchess County Fair so it was no surprise that Destiny, the Kerry calf, was his 50th birthday present! But to realize their dream in the heart of Bedford was no small challenge.

“We were living like suburbanites but I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful land here. It’s pretty amazing what you can extract from a backyard,” Lisa recalls. So ten years ago, with her young children as her partners, she constructed a chicken coop, took up horseback riding at her daughter’s insistence, planted a small garden, fell in love with farming and never looked back.

<snip>

Looking to the future, the couple sees the progress made as just the beginning. “I don’t want to grow to the point of losing control, but we are on the verge of expansion. This is just a little of what we hope to accomplish over the next ten years. CAP will grow, the education program will expand and we’ll add to the cooking program too,” says Lisa. “And maybe a TV show too,” muses Mark.


You're doing it wrong Two Americas, you need to be doing a television series on goat shit in Northern Westchester.

I have had very limited exposure to this sort of people and when I do encounter them I have usually resorted to heavy drinking. It's all downhill from there.

I'm at work. It's too early. Stop that.

I just an hour ago got fed up with Adobe - the constant updates blah blah - and uninstalled their crap. Now I can't see your video. It must be Flash.

"Locavore" is a state of being, something that you "are" - deep down inside, the way you feel. It is not related to what you actually do, apparently.

Eat local means that YOU, in Moscow, are to be denied wheat from the Ukraine, while WE - the special people, the locavores - jet around sampling the gourmet cuisine of the world. It is still local, because wherever we are we eat what is there. It is much more efficient, you see, for one person to fly to Italy so they can eat local than it would be to ship trainloads of grain from the Ukraine to Moscow.

Think of how beautiful the world would be if everyone would just adopt our lifestyle!

Every farming region has now been invaded by people like this. They come with money, so the first thing they do is put up a big beautiful house, while the farmers around them are all living in old run down farmhouses. Here in Michigan they have managed to siphon off public dollars - claiming to be "alternative agriculture" and "organic." They also now have exemptions from MDA inspection and regulation - a goofy bill passed a couple of months ago creating this "cottage industry" category for agriculture. If they declare themselves to be in that category they don't have to have soil and water inspection, food safety inspection, etc. Now, here is the interesting thing - to qualify they have claim $15,000 or less in annual gross farm income. WTF? How can that be "farming?" But they have all applied and been accepted. That means that they are being supported on grants and public funds, and/or have some significant money from elsewhere. You couldn't make your house payments on $15,000 - and that is gross income. That would mean about $150 net income per month. Of course they do get free labor and child labor, in the form of "internships" and "family education."

http://www.locavores.com/ You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one here where I live. They are worse than scientologists. More later!

The farm dog is hanging out with me today, and the two of us have been pondering just exactly how we could "go green." She does like to chase farm vehicles around and bark at them, so I thought maybe if we trained her to chase yuppie joggers and cyclists that would save a lot of energy and "reduce the carbon pawprint."

the 2 ladies doing their bland food topics on NPR skit. This one featured Betty White.

"Quinoa"

What is that actual show on NPR - The Edible Table? The Precious Shopper? The Splendid Garden? Something like that.

I was working on an agricultural tourism project out West, and the owner set up a day where I could go around and "meet the farmers" they were working with. I had already met some interesting characters out there and was looking forward to it. Wish I had filmed it now. I swear, you could just film it straight and have a great comedy. "Artisan purveyors" they called them, not farmers, and they didn't grow things, they "hand-crafted" them. First stop was a woman with some sort of small greenhouse attached to her house, growing herbs. Her husband was actually a farmer, grew pears, and I wandered off into the orchard and talked to him for a while - as fascinating as the few dozen pots of organic herbs were. Next was a goat farm - some trust fund babies from back east with a couple dozen animals, making artisan cheeses. They had a nice dog I played with. They had a bunch of interns wrestling the goats around all day, and that is the first time I realized that if you are "organic" and "sustainable" you can get free labor on your farm. Then a winery with a fancy restaurant where a renowned gourmet chef was creating dishes with the "bounty of the local harvest" or whatever the catch phrase was. That mostly amounted to using local herbs and artisan cheeses so far as I could see. They "featured" local fruit, but it is pretty hard to not use local fruit when you are in Washington - just pick it up at Safeway. One of the kids in the kitchen was a great pizza dough spinner and flipper, so I spent most of my time in there taking pictures of him. They were all very passionate about something or other. I found it excruciatingly boring and pretentious. You aren't supposed to make jokes, I discovered. It is all very serious business.

I read VGN every month and there were two interesting articles this month that relate to this thread.

"Eat local" - The eat local craze sweeping the country has caused a demographic shift in the customers at produce stands, with a wealthier, more sophisticated, and more demanding crowd showing up now. The main pressure from them is for more attractive looking produce, and the seed companies are scrambling to come up with new, prettier and more colorful hybrids to meet the demand. Going backwards there.

The greater farming community is like a dumb, but reliable and accurate machine - it cranks up to give people what they actually want, rather than what they think they want or claim to be doing. Garbage in, garbage out. The yuppies may think they are going for "sustainable" and "green" blah blah, but the farmers have to grow what they are actually asking for and buying, not what they are imagining about themselves or claim to be doing, and they are asking for and buying "pretty."

"Seed saving" and potato blight - The blight is becoming a serious problem again after being held in check for decades. It is probably the most aggressive and dangerous crop pathogen. Organic farms, hobby gardens, urban farms and other boutique operations are the source, as they are not managing for the disease and are antagonistic to the agricultural infrastructure, and this is causing outbreaks around the country. One real bad practice that causes the disease to spread - saving seeds year to year from infected plants.

This is pretty funny: http://www.plantexplorers.com/twiningvine/article_info.php/articles_id/4



Consequences of Not Saving Seeds

Unfortunately heirlooms are becoming extinct. Every time a dying gardener cannot pass seeds onto someone else or a Mom and Pop operation is bought out, we loose. This loss of our genetic heritage is receiving increasing media attention through the protests of others. New varieties replace old standbys in our trusted seed catalogues. We all can fondly remember a favorite variety that can't be found in any seed catalogue and regret not having some seed. One variety of potato was offered to the people of Britannia. This concern is historically valid as the 1846-1848 potato blight left over 1 million dead and lead to the mass exodus to the Americas. Ireland's population today has not recovered as there are fewer people in Ireland today as there were 150 years ago. This is a local consequence of not saving seed.


If only the Irish had been as smart as a yuppie gardener! They could have avoided the famine!!11 It's amazing how many things a person can get totally wrong in just a few sentences.

There is such a fundamental flaw in the logic there. The motivation for the activity is described as "preserving heirloom varieties" but the methods produce the opposite result. On the one hand the author is lamenting the breeding of new varieties, and pining for the old ones, but on the other hand he is recommending the very method that produces new varieties and claiming that as a good thing - supposedly "preserving genetic diversity" by that method.

This...

[div class="excerpt"]Unfortunately heirlooms are becoming extinct. Every time a dying gardener cannot pass seeds onto someone else or a Mom and Pop operation is bought out, we loose. This loss of our genetic heritage is receiving increasing media attention through the protests of others. New varieties replace old standbys in our trusted seed catalogues. We all can fondly remember a favorite variety that can't be found in any seed catalogue and regret not having some seed.[/quote]

...directly contradicts this...

[div class="excerpt"]Select the healthiest, most desirable, best bearing plants (at least two) to keep genetic diversity within that variety. The reason why at least two are selected is due to:1) Self incompatibility where the plant will not recognize its own pollen so subsequent fertilization will not occur. Apples are a classic example, and 2) Inbreeding suppression which is the decreased vigour resulting from self-pollination of normally open-pollinated plants In serious seed saving circles, as many as 200 corn plants are planted in block shaped plots to maximize pollination where the seed collected is from plants within the innermost square. This is due to the nature of corn other plant types may only have 100 plants sown such as brassicas, but with tomatoes and lettuce flowers self pollinate without difficulty. [/quote]

This...

[div class="excerpt"]The Benefits From Saving Seeds: Experimentation - see the results of cross pollination or mutations as a learning experience or to obtain some interesting new varieties.[/quote]

...contradicts this...

[div class="excerpt"]]The Benefits From Saving Seeds: Keeping heirlooms alive - unique, time proven varieties earn this distinction. As hybrids become popular, heirlooms are dropped by seed companies.

Consequences of Not Saving Seeds: Unfortunately heirlooms are becoming extinct. Every time a dying gardener cannot pass seeds onto someone else or a Mom and Pop operation is bought out, we loose. This loss of our genetic heritage is receiving increasing media attention through the protests of others. New varieties replace old standbys in our trusted seed catalogues. We all can fondly remember a favorite variety that can't be found in any seed catalogue and regret not having some seed. [/quote]

Varieties cannot "become extinct" - species can become extinct.

Here is an example from history that illustrates this. When the colonists came here from Europe, it was impractical to bring fruit trees or cuttings across the ocean. That meant that they could not bring those "treasured heirloom varieties" over. Instead, they were "seed savers." They brought bags of seeds. Each of those seeds produced a new variety - the dreaded "new hybrid" that is "threatening genetic diversity."

There has to be some fundamental misconception underlying this seed saving idea, or some yuppie fantasy. I notice in the article that the evil Monsanto is contrasted to some pretty absurd hobby activities, as though those were the two choices:

[div class="excerpt"]Mechanical means of separation by means of mesh, cheese cloth, muslin, spun polyester cages or paper caps. Cages are effective for plants requiring insects for pollination (sunflowers, brassicas, carrots, etc.) but pollinating insects must be added to each cage. Not any insect cannot be used. Bees seek the hive, once they have loaded up on nectar, with a single mindedness proving to be very inefficient. Hover flies and other nonsocial pollinators may be a better choice. If worse comes to worse, hand pollination using a Q-tip, artists' brush, the anthers itself, or a good old fashioned shaking must be done. Paper caps are mainly used for corn where the pollen filled tassels and silk covered ears are both covered. Pollen from the same variety is collected from tassel bags, mixed to prevent inbreeding depression, and then sprinkled over the briefly exposed silks. The ears are then recovered. Many seed savers pollinate corn this way. Larger blossoms of squash, melons, and cukes are kept closed with tape, opened for pollination, and resealed until fruit forms. Pollen must be fresh as once dry or frozen it is rendered ineffective. The life span can extend a day or two in the fridge.[/quote]

What is being described there, by the way, is exactly the same methodology as the evil "conventional" plant breeders use.

[div class="excerpt"]Unfortunately politics come into play as big seed companies, such as Monsanto, AgrEvo, Norvaris, Dow, DuPont, and Zeneca have eroded the genetic pool with limited parent stock for their hybrids. Disease resistance is compromised in these new and improved hybrids. Farmers cast off their generations old varieties and bought hybrids with promise of economic gains.[/quote]

Disease resistance is one of the traits breeders try to achieve. Aren't "new and improved varieties" exactly what the seed savers are doing? Right in the article how to control pollination is extensively discussed - ergo, "limiting parent stock for their hybrids."