The L and Report A publication of The Land Institute / Number 79 / Summer 2004 Contents

India Looks West, Through Smog by Stan Cox ...... 3

Sending Our Idea to School ...... 7

Exporting Cheap Corn and Ruin by Michael Pollan ...... 11

Our Broken Bond and Promise to Animals by Bernard E. Rollin ...... 12

New Books ...... 15

Plain Beautiful by Suzanne Winckler ...... 16 Our Mission Statement At the Land ...... 19 When people, land and community are as one, all Hiring for a Big Idea ...... 21 three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are Prairie Festival ...... 22 exploited. By consulting nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute Thank You to Our Contributors ...... 25 seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned while promoting a Memorials and Honorary Gifts ...... 26 community life at once prosperous and enduring.

The Writers and Photographers ...... 28

Earth-centered Stan Rowe, 1918-2004 The Land Report is published three BOARD OF DIRECTORS: by Wes Jackson and Ted Mosquin ...... 29 times a year. Strachan Donnelley, Terry Evans, Pete Ferrell, Editor: Scott Bontz Jan Flora, Charles Francis, Prairie Festival 2003 Audio Tapes ...... 30 Associate editor and production: Dan Glickman, Wes Jackson, Elizabeth Granberg Eulah Laucks (Emeritus), Graphic design: Arrow Printing Mary Laucks, Conn Nugent, Direct Results ...... 31 Arts associate: Terry Evans Victoria Ranney, John Simpson, Printed by Arrow Printing Co. Donald Worster, Angus Wright

Friend of the Land Registration ...... 31 STAFF : Ron Armstrong, Marty Bender, Scott Bontz, Stan Cox, Lee DeHaan, Jerry Glover, Elizabeth Granberg, Stephanie Hutchinson, Cover: Martin Stupich . Hay near Wes Jackson, Grant Mallett, Pass Creek, Carbon County, Steven Lancaster, Patty Melander, Joan Olsen, Bob Pinkall, Wyoming. Harris Rayl, Steve Renich, 2440 E. Water Well Rd. Tiffany Stucky, David Van Tassel, Above: Scott Bontz . Buffalo Ken Warren, Darlene Wolf Salina, KS 67401 gourd on the prairie. (785) 823-5376, phone (785) 823-8728, fax [email protected] www.landinstitute.org

ISSN 1093-1171

The Land Report 2 India Looks West, Through Smog

Stan Cox

When I first breathed the dusty air of Hyderabad, India, Economist Doug Henwood estimates that outsourcing to it was 1980. Hyderabad, like India, was regarded as all countries is responsible for only one out of every 20 “underdeveloped.” But along with the dust, there was U.S. jobs that have gone missing since 2001. hope in the air. At the same time, new information technology jobs The Green Revolution was staving off famine, and it in Hyderabad are far too few to propel a significant por - would be more than a decade before thousands of farmers tion of the population into the middle class. To read the began committing suicide by drinking the pesticides that Western press, one might get the impression that most had bankrupted them. Smallpox was gone, and HIV had working people in India’s major cities are sitting all day not yet arrived. Millions had reliable, safe water supplies in air-conditioned offices tapping at keyboards. They are for the first time, thanks to the replacement of hand-dug more likely to be in hotter, grimier jobs, perhaps slap - wells with drilled wells, but aquifers weren’t yet being ping stucco on those new office buildings or manufac - sucked dry. More and more of Hyderabad’s rickshaw- turing those air conditioners. wallahs were sitting at the controls of auto-rickshaws The stimulus created by Hyderabad’s “weightless rather than pedaling, underfed, toward the grave, but the economy” extends far beyond the newly created, infor - city’s atmosphere had not yet turned deadly. mation-based industries. In tandem with the growth of In 1982 I returned to the United States and left an more mundane industries, it is working a superficial India seeking a way out of poverty without surrendering transformation on the city, while taking a heavy toll on its economic independence. By 1996, when I came to its 6 million inhabitants, their air, their water and their live in Hyderabad for another four years, Gandhian self- land — right down to the bedrock. reliance appeared to be crumbling, and representatives of U.S., Canadian and European companies were all That was then, this is then over town, dealing joint ventures and trying to make I returned to Hyderabad yet again in the winter of 2002- them stick. 03. Back in 1980, it had been a dust-brown and chloro - Not a part of that invasion force, I was in the city phyll-green city, but these days, the business districts are working for rupee wages. But as a fellow foreigner, I almost completely smog-and-concrete gray in the day - had plenty of chances to meet business people. On time and lighted like Vegas at night. The internal com - arrival in the city, they were pumped up with high- and bustion engine holds Hyderabad in its grip more tightly low-tech dreams. But most of them left, deflated, within than did the royal line of Nizams who ruled the city months. At farewell parties that cluttered the social cal - until the 1950s. endar, they would tell me, “You just can’t work with The cautious opening of India’s economy has liber - these people. They are unbelievably difficult.” I would ated enormous amounts of capital, both old and new. suggest, to little effect, that maybe they just weren’t Today, through the traffic, you can reach clothier, jew - ready to roll over, bow down, bend over backward or eler, appliance store, restaurant, coffee shop, pub or, of perform whatever gymnastics are required of govern - course, car dealership without leaving a circular main ment and business people in more “business-friendly” route that traverses the twin cities of Hyderabad and countries. Secunderabad. This central loop of new, black asphalt And sure enough, India’s stubbornness has begun to and still unblackened concrete is trimmed with green pay off — in a way. The excesses of a few corporate plants, sodium-vapor streetlights and billboards for cell giants like Coke have provoked ire from the Himalayas phones that are guaranteed to “change your life.” But a in the north to Kerala in the far south, but Western com - quick turn down any side street shows that, for most panies in the booming “information sector” are being people, living conditions haven’t changed significantly compelled to share the spoils of exploitation with their since 1996 or 1980. A trip across the river to the Muslim Indian counterparts. Old City of Hyderabad is a 20-year trip back in time, Hyderabad is one of the hubs of India’s “outsourc - except that the air is much worse. ing revolution,” with vast numbers of people working in If you leave the loop and avoid Hi-Tec City, home software development, call centers, medical transcrip - of Hyderabad’s weightless economy, on the city’s west - tion and other mind-over-matter industries. The out - ern fringe, the same old problems persist. Lack of access sourcing boom has caused something close to panic in to water is now an annual crisis. Last year, both major the United States, though the loss of white-collar jobs to reservoirs that supply the city with water had dried com - India is small relative to the U.S. work force size. pletely four months before the start of the monsoon in

The Land Report 3 Stan Cox . Hyderabad two decades ago. Now imagine more cars, without U.S. pollution con - trols.

The Land Report 4 June. The April-to-June summer sees fierce competition tossed out the ruling party at the national level. Both for electricity between televisions and air conditioners in upsets have been attributed to a widespread awareness Hyderabad and irrigation pumps in rice paddies far to among India’s poor that only the elites and parts of the the south and east. Meanwhile, sanitation systems are middle class have benefited from India’s economic groaning. Air quality, as quantified on scoreboards at boom. major intersections, is frighteningly bad. Last year, Naidu brought in a massive new polyvinyl chloride plant that was to have been built in the neigh - Technology, high and low boring state of Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Indians, even middle-class people, live in very close Control Board had banned the operation, citing the quarters with the ecological consequences of growth and deadly chemicals that are the inevitable inputs and out - consumption. But it’s the super-rich in both India and puts of PVC plastic production. Naidu was more than the United States who make the economic and political happy to step in and welcome the plant. But to win final decisions that set the courses of their societies, and they government approval over environmentalists’ objections, can afford to accumulate capital with single-minded the Indian company behind the project, Chemplast vigor while shielding themselves from environmental Sanmar, has recently had to develop a “public awareness insults. Partly as a result, ecological thinking rarely fig - campaign.” The campaign will likely go without a hitch; ures in the economic policies of either nation. Once in a Indians’ love affair with plastic is as passionate as that while, prospects of ecological crisis might furrow brows of any of the world’s peoples. in Upper Manhattan or Jubilee Hills, a suburb situated In 1980, most of the output of India’s economy was high above the dense haze of Hyderabad’s central city. biodegradeable, but today India has waded deep into the But such crises are already killing people in places like Age of Plastic. And as if Hyderabad and other cities Patancheru. weren’t already being buried under it, India welcomes About 12 miles west of Hi-Tec City, too distant to waste plastic from around the globe, to be recycled be seen from the top floors of its high-rise, high-band - along with mercury, batteries, old ships, computers and width office buildings, lies Patancheru, a village as I incinerator ash. knew it in 1980, now both a city and a hellish industrial Any junk might be imported. In 2002, a public out - park. There, as in Hi-Tec City, sophisticated, often cry stopped the importation of World Trade Center rub - expensive products are born, but in a much less appeal - ble into India. People had been told that the shipments ing way. Many of the companies operating in and were just the usual sort of garbage that arrives regularly around Patancheru, most of them Indian-owned, make in Indian ports. As a result, more than 150,000 tons bulk pharmaceuticals or intermediate compounds to be entered the country before the cargo’s origin became exported to the West for processing into finished drugs, widely known. The intense reaction against dumping of including antibiotics and chemotherapy ingredients. the rubble had more to do with its karmic than its poi - When methamphetamine labs are busted in small- sonous content. Nevertheless, specialists say that all town U.S.A., officials are faced with a dangerous remains of the towers — a nerve-center for the kind of cleanup of highly toxic intermediate chemicals. Many “clean” economic growth that’s fueled mainly by the legal drugs are also made from nasty intermediate com - global movement of electrons and photons — contain pounds, requiring companies either to take expensive some extremely dangerous compounds that were pro - precautions during manufacture or let the dangerous duced when its carpets, plastic construction materials steps in the process be done by companies in countries and furnishings, computers, etc., were melted, pulver - like India. And in Patancheru, despite fairly strict pollu - ized and incinerated. tion laws, factories continue to pipe their waste directly into nearby ponds and lakes. It might be green, but it still has a cost In addition to the poisonous intermediates, the lakes To his credit, Naidu invested heavily in parks and gar - are polluted with arsenic, lead, mercury, chromium and dens around Hyderabad. They are open to all and very various pesticides. Nevertheless, with water shortages popular. But even the characteristics that we associate common, people often draw from the lakes for house - with desirable public and private urban spaces — “well- hold use. lighted,” “green,” “freshly painted,” “accessible,” Indian states are encouraged to compete in making “clean” — entail the consumption of resources and pro - deals with companies, foreign countries and develop - duction of wastes. ment agencies. Hyderabad is the capital of the state of Along the road to Hi-Tec City lies a square mile of Andhra Pradesh, whose chief minister, Chandrababu prime real estate, once a hunting ground for the city’s Naidu, was the World Bank’s best pal in India and the ruling family, that has been walled off as a national park nation’s champion dealmaker until his defeat in the May where children can see what the region was like before 2004 elections. Those were the same elections that the goat, the plow, the automobile and the computer. But

The Land Report 5 at the perimeter is a 30-foot-wide swath of path winding — and huge billboards stay brightly lighted all night, between beautiful gardens and high, ornate stone-and- each one consuming more electricity in the wee hours of iron fences, among native boulders, and up and down one morning than a back-street shop uses in a month. stairways. It attracts large numbers of fitness-conscious One day in early 2003, I walked along a wide, walkers every evening. pleasant stone path that stretches for miles along the The making of this course took two years. Stone shore of the Hyderabad’s central lake. I reached the end masons and other workers lived in huts of cardboard and and found workers busy breaking up big granite blocks palm fronds by the path and walls they were building. to extend it. No one had to tell me where those blocks By early 2003, only a few of the laborers remained, put - came from. ting on finishing touches. But with the path already in Scattered around the countryside near Hyderabad use, they had been forced to crowd their huts and fami - and far beyond are high hills — actually piles of gargan - lies onto a traffic island next to the park, spoiling the tuan boulders, some as big as houses, in often bizarre view instead for passing motorists. But none could see and beautiful formations. That region of India has been what else enables the city’s parks, its central loop road exposed to the elements longer than most other land on and Hi-Tec City: people somewhere breathing paint fac - earth, and those rocks, being harder and more erosion- tory fumes, sacrificing their water supply, or seeing their resistant than any surrounding material, have survived village flooded by a hydroelectric project. for billions of years. But a decade-long frenzy of blast - In the back streets of the city, conservation is still ing, cutting and pulverizing has flattened and scarred the rule. Proprietors of small shops, just as they did in large parts of the countryside. In a geological or even 1980, make sure to keep their fluorescent lights turned historical eye-blink, most of the ancient rocks for many off unless a customer comes in, and buildings are still square miles around Hyderabad will be gone, reincarnat - allowed to turn soot-black before they are washed and ed as roads, overpasses, park walls, office towers, and repainted. But around the central loop and along the the mansions of software and call-center tycoons in route between the airport and Hi-Tec City, which is the Jubilee Hills. only territory seen by most foreign officials and In this way, a “weightless economy” can crush investors, scarce water is lavished on annual flowers in granite. the road’s median — deep-rooted trees being long-gone

Stan Cox . People made home in sections of pipeline before its burial for sending reservoir water to the city of Hyderabad.

The Land Report 6 Sending Our Idea to School

For help in reforming agriculture, we reach into the Matthew Arterburn formative ground of higher education with our Natural Washington State University Systems Agriculture graduate fellowship program. Students working toward master’s and doctoral degrees Molecular mapping of regrowth perform studies that advance our development of agri - trait for wheat culture patterned after natural ecosystems. This research Thinopyrum elongatum, a perennial, might otherwise not take place because it is perceived regrows after producing seed, unlike too risky, too lengthy, or unnecessary for today’s domi - its relative, annual bread wheat. nant forms of agriculture. And students can take advan - Tons of soil per acre are lost annually tage of major universities’ resources. due to tillage of soils for annual crops. Introducing a The program also plants the seeds of our ideas at single chromosome from Th. elongatum makes annual these schools, both during the research and afterward as wheat regrow, a great illustration of the genetics of these bright young people move on to their life’s work. regrowth and their significance for erosion control. My We aim for a worldwide interdisciplinary network of project will search for the gene or genes on this chromo - research groups interested in Natural Systems some responsible for the regrowth trait. This will help in Agriculture. making a perennial wheat that will preserve our soil, As our own work progresses, we are able to award and will also further understanding of flowering plants’ fellowships to students increasingly in tune with The life cycles. Land Institute’s aim. They receive up to $9,000 annually. Five to nine fel - lows have been added each year, and most fellowships Elena Beyhaut are renewed for two to three years. University of Minnesota Each year we bring the fellows to Salina and then on to our renovated schoolhouse in rural Matfield Finding a good inoculant for Illinois Green, Kansas, to finish a weeklong workshop. They bundleflower share their ideas, and hear ours and those of guest Productive, widespread use in agricul - speakers from a wide range of fields and schools across ture of the wild legume Illinois the nation. The formal talks go all day, interspersed with bundleflower will require its inocula - tours of the surrounding Flint Hills, the largest remain - tion with a good rhizobium. Rhizobia ing tallgrass prairie in North America, including institute are bacteria that help the plant use board member Pete Ferrell’s cattle ranch. Informal dis - nitrogen from the air and consequently enhance soil fer - cussion continues over locally prepared meals and into tility. My field tests, in Kansas and Minnesota, are for the night with conviviality. inoculants broadly effective with different bundleflower For the rest of the year, fellows are back at work genetic materials. The best rhizobium will improve and study, and we at ours, until all gather again to trade bundleflower’s contribution to perennial agroecosystem notes on how to make agriculture more like an ecosys - sustainability. tem. We have awarded 48 fellowships since the program began in 1998. More information about it, including Kevin Murphy how to apply, plus fuller, more technical descriptions of Washington State University the fellows’ work, are at www.landinstitute.org. Following are sketches of work by the 2003 and The role of root toxins in establish - 2004 winners who were at the June workshop. ing perennial crops Some crop roots exude toxins that suppress competitors. This allelopathy might affect weed control and crop plant interaction for perennial poly - culture agroecosystems. I will screen 200 annual and perennial lines to document inhibition of weed root growth, and for using the trait in our breeding of perennial wheat. This could help in the establishment of perennial polycultures.

The Land Report 7 Scott Bontz . One of our new graduate student fellows, Rafael Otfinowski, examines soil rich in organic matter. The samples were pulled from several feet down in a never-plowed prairie north of The Land Institute.

The Land Report 8 Aaron Colson Valentin Picasso University of Minnesota Iowa State University

Production and ecosystem effects of Functional diversity in establishing perennial cropping perennial polycultures Buying and using fewer chemicals, NSA aims to mimic prairie with producer income should rise with diverse plant functional groups: cool- NSA. Perennial crops also are season grasses, warm-season grasses, expected to reduce soil erosion and legumes and composites. I will study the loss of phosphorus and nitrogen that degrade the nat - for two years after seeding whether functional diversity ural environment. I will design perennial crop systems, increases production of biomass and seed, and how it and compare them with alfalfa and a rotation of corn affects maintenance of plant communities over time. and soybean. Production and environmental effects will Plots include eight perennial species — Illinois bundle - be documented by measuring biomass, water use and flower, Maximilian sunflower, gamagrass, intermediate nitrogen use, plus transport of the nutrients phosphorus wheatgrass, alfalfa, clover, orchardgrass and switchgrass and nitrogen, soil erosion, soil quality, and volume and — planted in monocultures, and polycultures of two, rate of runoff. three and four functional groups, grown in two Iowa locations. Measurements will include production, species abundance, weed invasion and soil quality properties. Caterina Nerney University of California at Berkeley Meagan Cocke Comparing food chains in wild and Cornell University domesticated sunflowers Plants are eaten by herbivores which Shifts in nitrogen fixation according in turn are preyed on and parasitized to soil fertility by their natural enemies. Many plants With their ability to build soil fertility have developed close relationships by fixing nitrogen from the atmos - with those enemies to regulate herbi - phere, legumes are critical to NSA. As vores. This dynamic is important for ecology and for soil fertility increases, legumes reduce agriculture, yet it is poorly understood. I will study this nitrogen fixation and often lose in annual crop sunflower and its wild progenitor, and ground to grasses. Maintaining a legume component in make comparisons in the wild Maximilian sunflower NSA to support nitrogen demands for grain production and domesticated Jerusalem artichoke, both perennials. will be challenging. I will measure the nitrogen fixation My aim is to learn the relative importance of plant char - of annual and perennial legumes along a soil fertility gra - acteristics regulating parasitism of sunflower herbivores, dient in both monocultures and mixtures on central New often considered pests in agriculture. This should aid in York farms. This will help decide legume composition of designing NSA. (For more, and an illustration, see page NSA at different stages of soil fertility development. 14 of Land Report 77, fall 2003.)

Rafael Otfinowski Chasity Watt University of Manitoba Washington State University Does crop diversity reduce root Perennial chickpea for Natural pathogen infestation? Systems Agriculture Over time, perennial plants become Little is known about the potential of host to root pathogens, losing their perennial chickpea as a crop. I will vigor and productivity. Especially vul - collect data on important traits for use nerable are monocultures of crops, of this legume in NSA. The assess - where pathogens are able to grow and ment will be made in the differing infest large areas rapidly. In my research with smooth land and climates of eastern Washington and central brome, a perennial forage grass, I will test the hypothe - Kansas. sis that growing perennial crops in mixtures, mimicking native prairies, prevents the accumulation of root pathogens and helps maintain yield.

The Land Report 9 Lois Braun Jo Anne Crouch University of Minnesota Rutgers University

Nitrogen fertilization and beneficial Contrasting the evolution of patho - fungi for hybrid hazelnuts genic fungi in farm and prairie The ecosystem models for NSA in To broaden understanding of how Minnesota include oak savannah and harmful fungi have evolved in agricul - forest, in which two species of native ture, I will compare several lineages hazelnut bushes are significant. of the grass pathogen Colletotrichum Hybrids between high-yielding European hazelnuts and graminicola from agricultural monocultures against these natives, which are adapted to the region’s extreme those in the diverse perennial grasslands of Kansas. It weather, soils and diseases, have been selected for nut might be possible to determine the effect of plant production in hedgerows between mowed alleys of species diversity on pathogen adaptation and disease mixed species, mimicking features of the oak savannah. development. Does host plant population structure, life I aim to find the hazlenuts’ nitrogen requirements and and physiology influence pathogen development and whether inoculation with beneficial fungi will help habitat specialization? Can the evolutionary history and transplants survive. ecological dynamics of C. graminicola inform how to control it, and perhaps other pathogens? What can we learn from how populations of this fungus survive in Julia Olmstead diverse natural grasslands? Iowa State University

Genetic comparison of annuals and Lucia Gutierrez perennials for production Iowa State University Key to NSA will be perennial crops with high production sustained in Genetic diversity in cultivated bar - varying environments. The genetic ley and wild relatives basis of biomass and grain production NSA will require breeding perennials. in annual crops has received considerable attention, but In any breeding program, genetic comparison of annuals and perennials for these impor - diversity is key. It is not clear how tant traits has not. I will compare genetic markers asso - much genetic variation there is in an ciated with sustained and high production in the annual annual crop plant compared with Medicago truncatula and a perennial of the same genus, perennial relatives. I will study that variation in cultivat - alfalfa. This will help us understand the usefulness of ed barley and two wild relatives. I will also determine annuals as genetic models for perennials. It will also the best method of measuring this diversity: genetic help plant breeders to develop marker-assisted selection variation seen in DNA analysis or observation of plants’ techniques for sustained yield in perennial crops. physical characteristics. Mimicking of the prairie must include its genetic diversity, and this research will help reach that goal.

The Land Report 10 Exporting Cheap Corn and Ruin

Michael Pollan

Americans have been talking a lot about Meanwhile, the small farmers strug - trade this campaign season, about global - gling to hold on in Mexico are forced to ism’s winners and losers, and especially grow their corn on increasingly marginal about the export of American jobs. Yet lands, contributing to deforestation and even when globalism is working the way soil erosion. it’s supposed to — when Americans are Compounding these environmental exporting things like crops rather than pressures is the advent of something new jobs — there can be a steep social and to Mexico: factory farming. The practice environmental cost. of feeding corn to livestock was actively One of the ballyhooed successes of discouraged by the Mexican government the North American Free Trade until quite recently — an expression of Agreement has been the opening of the culture’s quasi-religious reverence for Mexico to American farmers, who are now selling mil - maize. But those policies were reversed in 1994, and, lions of bushels of corn south of the border. But why just as it has done in the United States, cheap corn has would Mexico, whose people still subsist on maize driven the growth of animal feedlots, which contribute (mostly in tortillas), whose farmers still grow more to water and air pollution. maize than any other crop, ever buy corn from an Cheap American corn in Mexico threatens Zea mays American farmer? Because he can produce it much itself — and by extension all of us who have come to more cheaply than any Mexican farmer can. Actually depend on this plant. The small Mexican farmers who that’s not quite right — it’s because he can sell it much grow corn in southern Mexico are responsible for main - more cheaply. taining the genetic diversity of the species. While This is largely because of U.S. agricultural policies. American farmers raise a small handful of genetically While one part of the U.S. government speaks of the nearly identical hybrids, Mexico’s small farmers still need to alleviate Third World poverty, another is writing grow hundreds of different, open-pollinated varieties, subsidy checks to American farmers, which encourages commonly called landraces. them to overproduce and undersell Third World farmers. This genetic diversity, the product of 10,000 years The river of cheap American corn began flooding of human-maize co-evolution, represents some of the into Mexico after NAFTA took effect in 1994. Since most precious and irreplaceable information on Earth, as then, the price of corn in Mexico has fallen by half. A we were reminded in 1970 when a fungus decimated the 2003 report by the Carnegie Endowment says this flood American corn crop and genes for resistance were found has washed away 1.3 million small farmers. Unable to in a landrace under cultivation in southern Mexico. compete, they have left their land to join the swelling These landraces will survive only as long as the farmers pools of Mexico’s urban unemployed. Others migrate to who cultivate them do. The cheap U.S. corn that is driv - the U.S. to pick our crops — former farmers become ing these farmers off their land threatens to dry up the day laborers. pool of genetic diversity on which the future of the The cheap U.S. corn has also wreaked havoc on species depends. Mexico’s land, according to the Carnegie report. The Perhaps from a strictly economic point of view, free small farmers forced off their land often sell out to larg - trade in a commodity like corn appears eminently er farmers who grow for export, farmers who must rational. But look at the same phenomenon from a bio - adopt far more industrial (and especially chemical- and logical point of view and it begins to look woefully water-intensive) practices to compete in the international shortsighted, if not mad. marketplace. Fertilizer runoff into the Sea of Cortez starves its marine life of oxygen, and Mexico’s scarce With the Prairie Writers Circle, The Land Institute water resources are leaching north, one tomato at a time. invites and distributes essays to more than 200 newspa - Mexico’s industrial farmers now produce fruits and pers and web services. For more, see At The Land, page vegetables for American tables year-round. It’s absurd 19, and www.landinstitute.org, which has all of the for a country like Mexico — whose people are often essays. hungry — to use its best land to grow produce for a country where food is so abundant that its people are obese — but under free trade, it makes economic sense.

The Land Report 11 Our Broken Bond and Promise to Animals

Bernard E. Rollin

When Noah rescues breeding pairs of animals from the holes, and creating as little friction as possible, techno - Deluge, one finds the notion that the lives of all animals logic “sanders” such as antibiotics, vaccines and air han - rest in human hands. Elsewhere in the Bible, which dling systems allowed us to force square pegs into round expresses this and other concepts undergirding Western holes profitably. The huge costs were to animal welfare. civilization, domestic animals — cattle, sheep, asses, “Get big or get out” went the new mantra, and uni - goats and other farm creatures — are singled out as the versity departments of animal husbandry changed their beneficiaries of special human attention. We are obligat - names to animal science. One of my agricultural col - ed to give them environments suiting their needs and leagues called this frank disavowal of traditional ethics natures, protect them from predation, provide them med - “the worst thing that ever happened to my department.” ical attention and help them in birthing. In turn, they What had been a symbiotic contract was trans - supply us with their toil and their products, such as milk formed into patent exploitation. In industrialized con - and wool, and sometimes their lives. But while they live, finement agriculture, animals no longer can express their they live well. Without human care, the lives of defense - biological or psychological natures. Sows, 600-pound, less farm animals would be, in Hobbes’ unforgettable highly intelligent animals, are kept in crates 2 feet by 3 phrase, “nasty, brutish and short.” feet by 7 feet, with no room to stand, turn, groom them - This ancient symbiotic contract is the basis for the selves or interact, until they display what the industry theory and practice of animal husbandry, a word derived absurdly calls “vices.” Laying hens are kept in tiny from the old Norse phrase “hus/bond,” bonded to the cages, sometimes with one bird walking on six others, household. Indeed, so powerful and appropriate is the and are unable to dust-bathe, build nests or escape can - contractual relationship between humans and domestic nibalism. Dairy cattle are kept confined or tied. And so animals that when the psalmist searches for a metaphor on. for God’s ideal relationship to humans, he chooses the Without environments suiting their natures, confined shepherd. In the hauntingly beautiful, too familiar words animals are plagued by new diseases either nonexistent of the 23rd Psalm — I say too familiar because we or unimportant under husbandry, including liver abscess - sometimes forget what it tells us about our obligations es in feedlot cattle caused by low roughage diet. to animals: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. / Attention given individual animals has vanished He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: / He lead - under the replacement of labor by capital and with the eth me beside the still waters. / He restoreth my soul. tiny profit margin per animal. An excellent — and Our power over animals and our interdependence create depressing — example of this phenomenon was submit - a bond that would appear unbreakable to all but the ted to my monthly ethics column in the Canadian sadists and psychopaths for whom the anticruelty laws Veterinary Journal : are intended. Yet, despite the seminal and symbolic significance You [as a veterinarian] are called to a 500-sow of husbandry, it has shown itself vulnerable to the farrow-to-finish swine operation to examine a relentless march of modernism and technology. In the problem with vaginal discharge in sows. There mid-20th century, the bond created by the ancient con - are three full-time employees and one manager tract with farm animals was severed. overseeing approximately 5,000 animals. As you After World War II, agricultural scientists feared a examine several sows in the crated gestation shortage of food for many reasons: The Depression and unit, you notice one with a hind leg at an unusu - the Dust Bowl had driven farmers off the land; farm al angle and inquire about her status. You are land was being appropriated for spreading urban and told, “She broke her leg yesterday and she’s due suburban development; there were projections of to farrow next week. We’ll let her farrow in unprecedented population growth; and the war had here, and then we’ll shoot her and foster off her exposed rural youths to a far more exciting life than they pigs.” Is it ethically correct to leave the sow could experience in agricultural communities. with a broken leg for a week while you await Industrial approaches to agriculture were developed her farrowing? to assure increased production, and the values of effi - ciency and productivity supplanted the values of hus - I spoke to the veterinarian who had experienced bandry and way of life. Whereas husbandry was about this. When he offered to splint the leg at cost, he was putting square pegs in square holes, round pegs in round told that the operation could not afford the manpower to

The Land Report 12 Scott Bontz . Goliath, who claims the record of world’s tallest horse, visited Salina in July. The Percheron from Texas is 6 feet 5 inches at the shoulder.

The Land Report 13 separate this sow and care for her. It was then that he vigorously. I asked him why. “Hear me coughin’?” he realized confinement agriculture had gone too far. He replied. “Well, last January a young calf fell through the had been brought up on a family hog farm, where the ice in my pond. I jumped right in after her. She’s fine, animals had names and were provided individual hus - but I got pneumonia and chronic bronchitis!” bandry, and where the injured animal would have been In contrast, one of my colleagues in animal science treated or, if not, euthanized immediately. told me the following story about his son-in-law. The Finally, workers who know, understand and care young man had gone to work for a confinement swine about animals, who are, in the words of one of my agri - operation. One day he found sickness in the barn of culturalist friends, “animal smart,” have been replaced feeder pigs. Having grown up with pig husbandry, he by underpaid, inexperienced and in many cases uncaring was familiar with the disease and how to treat it. He workers with no real feeling for animals. As the same approached his boss for permission to do so. friend put it, whatever intelligence exists is in the sys - “We don’t treat sick animals,” he was told. “We kill tem’s mechanization, not in the workers, despite that them by knocking them over the head with a crowbar.” human-animal interaction has been shown to be a major Appalled, he disregarded policy, purchased the rele - factor in both animal welfare and animal productivity. vant medication with his own money, and came in on Western cow-calf ranchers are the last significant his own time to treat the animals, which were cured. group of husbandry agriculturalists in North America. When he told his boss, the response was, “You’re fired!” As the president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s — although when he could prove he had spent his own Association once remarked at a seminar on animal wel - time and money, he was able to keep his job with a rep - fare, “If I had to raise animals the way the chicken peo - rimand and warning. Within a year, he had left agricul - ple do, I would get the hell out of the business!” These ture altogether and become an electrician, commenting people have been characterized as romantics because to his father-in-law, “This is not agriculture.” they still worry about husbandry and way of life over We have, in essence, turned our backs on our con - maximizing profit. They may well be extinct in a few tract with agricultural animals. We have bred them to decades. depend on us, and we are dishonoring that dependency. I was visiting a number of these ranchers in The psalmist could not honestly pen the 23rd Psalm Colorado and Wyoming during a year that they were today. It would have to read like this: The Lord is the seeing a good deal of scours, a diarrhea in calves. I manager of Mega Hog Farms; I shall not fare well. / He asked them, “How many of you have spent more money leadeth me into small crates: / He maketh me to lie on treating scours than the calf is worth?” Every one concrete slats on my own excrement in a space smaller replied in the affirmative. One woman was antagonized than I am. / He driveth me mad. by the question. “So what?” she snapped. “That’s what We are too busy using technology to assure that ani - we do!” One man told me that this was “part of my bar - mals have productive lives to worry about whether they gain with the animals.” live decent ones. At another encounter with cattle producers, one man coughed severely throughout my talk. As I explained the Drawn from the writer’s talk to the 2004 North notion of husbandry and the good shepherd, he nodded American Veterinary Conference.

The Land Report 14 New Books

To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and vides recommended readings and web sites. The prairies the Struggle for a New Brazil covered are found within government land of many By Angus Wright and Wendy Wolford sorts, and on numerous working ranches, in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wright, a Land Institute board member who teaches Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma environmental studies at California State University in and Texas. Sacramento, and Wolford, who teaches geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tell how, “scrupulously avoiding dependence on a single leader,” Food for Thought: Towards a Future for Farming 350,000 poor, landless families have faced down author - By Patrick Herman and Richard Kuper ities and private gunmen to move onto and win redistrib - ution of more than 20 million acres of farmland in The authors represent the French radical farmers union Brazil, a nation with a vast gap between the rich and Confederation Paysanne, which argues for local food poor. The authors, who tell personal stories of many production by small, independent farmers, both for food involved in this movement, say it speaks to an “urgent quality and society. This English adaptation argues that need in Brazil to find an alternative system of politics, a the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy and different way of organizing the fight for the ‘right to the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on have rights’.” They say those involved have greatly Agriculture have for most farmers meant loss, with improved education and health care. They also say this agribusiness thriving at their expense. It says the social approach might offer the best solution to environmental and environmental prospects are dire, and argues for problems both in the Amazon and elsewhere. alternatives: to outlaw dumping of food on world mar - kets effectively, to control the amounts of food pro - duced, to share its production fairly among regions and The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the countries, and to encourage rather than to outlaw the use Environment in an Age of Terror of import controls. By David Orr

Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Oberlin College, proposes a constitutional amendment Civilization to safeguard nature and to protect the rights of future By Richard Manning generations to healthy ecology. He advocates increased emphasis on environmental study in higher education, Manning, a contributor to The Land Institute’s Prairie and he sees our current state reflecting “an uncon - Writers Circle, argues that as hunters and gatherers we strained managerial and well-armed plutocracy intent on were smarter, stronger, more sensually alive. Drawing global plunder.” Orr attacks “Skeptical Environ- on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeolo - mentalist” author Bjorn Lomberg as “scientifically dis - gists and philosophers, he says the development of agri - honest,” praises Wendell Berry’s commitment to agrari - culture 10,000 years ago was a devil’s bargain that went an ideals, and, in an essay called “Leverage,” critiques against nature’s grain and our own, bringing wealth but what he calls a patchwork of U.S. environmental regula - also disease, imperialism, slavery, erosion, pollution, tions and the nation’s libertarian tendencies. overpopulation, famine and war. Manning is pessimistic about political reform. He advocates hunting animals for food and hopes that movements like urban green mar - Prairie: A North American Guide kets and organic farms can lead to better nutrition. By Suzanne Winckler

Winckler describes and provides directions to more than 300 prairie sites, scant and scattered survivors of grass - land that once covered much of central North America, and which are the model for The Land Institute’s agri - culture. The information includes site size, management, phone numbers and characteristics. Winckler also pro -

The Land Report 15 Plain Beautiful

By Suzanne Winckler

One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been is overwhelming experience is to get frothed up. Taken by Cimarron National Grassland. It is 108,175 acres of flat - surprise by the potency of flatness, the overwhelmed ness, short grasses and ghost-gray sages on the high writer is then convinced nobody else is going to believe plains near the town of Elkhart, Kansas. level ground could really be so powerful unless he or Many people have written about the plains and the she hammers the experience. sublime feelings that come from standing on a flat So far I’ve found no one who writes so steadily and place. In Prairy Erth: A Deep Map , William Least Heat- convincingly about the plains as Willa Cather, because Moon, in addition to his own musings on the subject, she is as simple and direct as the places she describes. has compiled an impressive collection of observations My favorite single quotation is from the artist from other writers about prairies and plains. Thomas Hart Benton: “For me the Great Plains have a The tendency is to overreach, to pile on the adjec - releasing effect. They make me want to run and shout at tives and torque the metaphors, in ways more appropri - the top of my voice. I like their endlessness. I like the ate for describing rococo landscapes, like mountains. I way they make human beings appear as the little bugs think this happens because the natural response to an they really are.”

George Jerkovich. Sky, wheat, harvest, Saline County, Kansas.

The Land Report 16 I spent a sunset at Cimarron National Grassland, love. The plains are not really flat. To the contrary, they and returned the next morning for sunrise. Watching the are full of contour and undulation, an endless variation passage of the sun, especially as it nests on the horizon, of dunes, swales, coulees, potholes, moraines, gullies, is one of the stellar attractions of flat places. There are, rimrocks and buttes. In their rumpledness, the plains after all, not a lot of other visual distractions. I think I remind me of the bed I never make. will never tire of watching the sun come up and go Point of Rocks was a natural vantage for Plains down on the plains. Indians looking for bison and interlopers, and for the I stood on the rim of Point of Rocks. It is a bluff of interlopers — such as people traveling on the Cimarron ancient Jurassic shales higher by 110 feet than every - cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail — to look for Plains thing else in the vicinity. This promontory projects from Indians. From this perch, the view is long and the earth the surrounding landscape like the prow of an ocean a dish. I would have described the sun that evening and liner. morning, as it pulsed and puckered on the horizon, Point of Rocks demonstrates a point that flatlanders except I would get all frothed up. such as I constantly make when defending the terrain we The high plains, consisting of most of Nebraska,

The Land Report 17 western Kansas, western Oklahoma and the Texas assuaged the feelings or frustrations of people in quest Panhandle, all of which parallel the eastern slope of the of prairies. Rocky Mountains, is essentially the Rockies reconstitut - I have become accustomed to long drives between ed. This flat, high country is composed of vast fans of virgin prairies. And I am settling into the reality of corn, sands and gravels carried off the Rockies over the past soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, milo, beets, sunflowers, feed 30 or so million years by wind, water and gravity. lots, pig parlors and vast warehouses full of chickens I was born on the high plains in west Texas. and turkeys. This is where our food comes from — so Although I’ve had happy times in Boulder, Durango, we are all implicated in what has changed the landscape San Cristobal de las Casas, Huehuetanago, Cuzco and — and the food is raised by people, who, like any other other cities perched in high places, I’ve had no strong socio-economic subset, are by and large sweet, industri - desire to live in any of them. This suggests that I ous, complicated and slippery of stereotype. imprinted on flatness at an early age. I do not deny that At least the shape of the land remains pretty much precipitous landscapes are gorgeous in their own way, intact — the oceanic swells of southern Iowa, the shock - but I have come to realize a simple thing about myself. I ing flatness of the Platte Valley in Nebraska, the equally like my mountains lying down. impressive levelness of western Minnesota, the serpen - One summer, when I was living in Nebraska, some tine curves around Chicago, the sleeping-giant shapes of friends and I were talking about a trip out to the Black the Flint Hills in Kansas, the incline of the high plains Hills of South Dakota, but the more I considered the as they end in the Pine Ridge of northwestern Nebraska. prospect of all that verticality, the more I pressed for I cannot say which piece of sculptured earth I love Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, in the empty, more. undulating Sandhills of western Nebraska. I’d been there One of my favorite memories of flatness harks back once, so I knew the terrain was flat enough, with enough to a trip I made in Illinois in October 1994. I had spent topographic relief in the form of magnificent sand the day out on the Grand Prairie, a huge swath of black dunes, to make me happy, even ecstatic. soils in east-central Illinois that supported what is said Besides the unfurled eastern skirts of the Rockies, to have been the tallest of the tallgrass prairie in North the other places eroded to near flatness that I love are America. The Grand Prairie, 80 miles wide and 100 the glacier-shaped farmlands that once were prairie in miles long, lies south of Chicago and east of the Illinois western Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. I am so especially River. The 13 million acres of tallgrass prairie are all but enamored of Iowa that I have become something of a gone. It is prime farmland and nearly flat. liability for my husband at cocktail parties. I ended up late in the day at Weston Cemetery I have brought numerous animated clutches of peo - Prairie, about 25 miles north of Bloomington-Normal. ple to puzzled silence with talk of, for example, my rap - The cemetery is a tiny vestige of the Grand Prairie, tures at Wearin Prairie in the utterly flat bottomlands of a five-acre plot of wild, woolly grasses and wildflowers the Nishnabotna River, in southwestern Iowa, or at amid a lonesomeness of cornfields. Rochester Cemetery Prairie on the rolling sandy banks There was the flat earth, the horizon unobstructed of the Cedar River, near Iowa City. by mountains or structures, and the sky. An autumn Iowa, I tell them, is a voluptuous body in repose. front was moving in from the west, and the sun set This observation embarrasses or disconcerts most against a wall of bruised blue-black clouds. I stood out people, who wish to think of Iowa as a prim, flat and in the dark all by myself, happy in the knowledge of the featureless landscape. Virtually the whole surface of little bug I really am. Iowa is the product of glacial activity over the past 2 million years. Glaciers are the primal sculptors, doing Appeared in The New York Times on May 12, 1996. for landscapes what Rodin, Brancusi, Moore and Lachaise have done for the human form. The human body, like the prairie, is flat in some places and curvaceous in others. It is these incremental topographic variations that make both forms so appeal - ing. I nonetheless have difficulty convincing people of the commonality between, say, “The Kiss” by Rodin and Sheeder Prairie, which lies on the bosomy glacial plain just west of Des Moines. The great lament among those of us who love gla - cial landscapes is that their cloak of prairies is all but gone. Much of the disrobing took place a hundred or more years ago, but even that passage of time has not

The Land Report 18 At the Land

Natural Systems Agriculture ice added it to our regular distribution. See the essay on page 11. Deborah and Frank Popper on the demise of We planted almost two acres of sorghum experiments. the American farmer got similar benefit from the Atlanta One study seeks plants with good crop traits. Another Journal-Constitution . Jim French on the might of capital will compare rhizomes, the underground stems of peren - and the Agriculture Department besting what’s right in nials, in plants that survived winter and those that did - the beef industry appeared in the Cleveland Plain n’t. A third block of sorghum is from seed made by Dealer . The Miami Herald published Dan Nagengast’s about 140 hybrids grown in the greenhouse by crossing essay on the wholesomeness of food production. quality grain plants and winter-hardy plants. This Other recent essays: David Van Tassel on wind expands our sorghum gene pool diversity, which previ - power, Jake Vail on the emptying Plains, Matthew ously had been based on about 24 hybrids of annuals Miller on food labeling, Stan Cox on Monsanto’s patent - and perennials. It’s a crucial step in building a base for ing of biology, Craig Holdrege on genetic engineering breeding. of food crops, William Rees on fuel prices, Angus We transplanted Maximilian sunflower to 900 small Wright on meddling with nature and Fred Whitehead on plots this spring, and they are doing well. This experi - the demise of rural humor. ment, our largest yet with the species, will allow us to All essays are at www.landinstitute.org. identify plants with the most croplike characteristics. In a smaller experiment, we transplanted seedlings Exposure of two species from the genus Silphium . These are cousins of the sunflowers and might have potential as Publications new perennial crops. In fact, the growth and vigor of National Geographic’s May issue cover story on the Silphium integrifolium in our original observation plots Great Plains included The Land Institute, with a picture has been so impressive that we are planning to comb of Wes Jackson and long perennial roots to demonstrate Kansas roadsides for additional diverse germplasm. how our work is different. The photographer, Jim Richardson, also showed his chronicling of rural Cuba, Kansas, over 30 years — our kind of time frame. New Faces Scientist Stan Cox’s review of the book Quality Improvement in Field Crops appeared in Journal of Strachan Donnelley was elected to our board of direc - Environmental Quality 33: 1576-1577. tors. He is founder and president of the Center for Former institute scientist Jon Piper was writer for Humans and Nature. Before that he was president of the topic “Ecology and Agricultural Sciences” in The Hastings Center, a bioethics organization. He has Encyclopedia of Plant and Crop Science written about evolutionary biology, ethics and philoso - Cindy Cox, an institute graduate fellow who will phy, for which he has a doctorate. become a staff member next year, was co-author of a Tiffany Stucky, a recent graduate from Kansas State study on wheat cultivar mixtures for managing diseases, University with a degree in horticulture, is our green - in Phytopathology 94. house manager. Grinnell College in Iowa supported biology major Presentations Dan Lesh to learn from us and help with field work this Staff scientists gave 30 undergraduate students and oth - summer. ers our weekend crash course — called the Short Course — on Natural Systems Agriculture. Prairie Writers Circle At our schoolhouse in Matfield Green, Kansas, we assembled more than 20 people to discuss moving socie - We reached a milestone with these essays on ecology, ty toward realization that humans are more ignorant than farming and culture, sending No. 100 this spring. As knowledgeable, contrary to how they try to run the with the others, we e-mailed it for free to more than 200 world. This has long been a topic for us, and the gather - newspapers and a dozen web sites. ing was stimulating a exchange. We also had a big circulation success, at well over In June our science staff and NSA graduate school 1 million, with Michael Pollan’s piece on subsidized fellows met with visiting scholars for an annual week - U.S. corn exports threatening Mexican culture and corn long workshop. One day several speakers connected itself. It ran in the Los Angeles Times , whose wire serv - environmental and human health: Aaron Blair, of the

The Land Report 19 Scott Bontz . Tiffany Stucky National Cancer Institute, on a long-term study of agri - arranges Maximilian sunflower culture and health; Warren Porter, professor in zoology for planting in 900 small plots. This experiment will allow us to at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on the ecologi - identify which individuals of cal effects of low levels of toxins; Elizabeth Guillette, this wild, perennial are best for on pesticides affecting the health of Mexican children; breeding crop plants. and Don Wyse, of the University of Minnesota, linking landscape use to human health. Staff members gain as much as fellows from this weeklong mixer for mind, mission and home-cooked food while the Flint Hills around Matfield Green bloom with wildflowers and warm-season grasses. It’s a high point at The Land Institute each year. For description of the program and the students’ projects, see page 7, and www.landinstitute.org. With the Center for Humans and Nature, a New York group that has interests overlapping ours, we con -

The Land Report 20 vened in Matfield Green about 20 scholars to discuss for three days “Mississippi Watershed: Land, Water, Hiring for a Big Idea People.” For an international nursing conference at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, we hosted a symposium Our big idea will provide food while improving human linking landscape to human health. health and sustainability worldwide — not immediately, Land Institute staff members also spoke at but in time with global warming and growing popula - Schumacher Society, Yale University, Amherst College, tions. The soil that feeds us needs protection from ero - Smith College, Wilson College and Purdue University, sion and chemicals, which in turn affect our water. We White Earth Reservation, University of San Francisco, are developing an agriculture that feeds people and Carnegie Mellon University and Marquette, Nebraska. saves soil. On August 27 in Louisville, Kentucky, we will par - We need to double our staff and programs and their ticipate in “Inspired by Nature: A Public Forum on funding. Thoughts Toward a Sustainable Future.” For details, see A new development director will work in a modest, the calendar on www.landinstitute.org or call us at 785- farmlike complex on 580 acres in Kansas with a band of 823-5376. funny, friendly, smart, hard-working, committed envi - Our scientists, plus allies including Wendell Berry, ronmentalists. Full of hope and expectation, their con - will spend Nov. 3 in Seattle explaining “Perennial versations range from social justice to Aldo Leopold to Solutions to the Annual Problem.” This will be at the crop science. joint annual meeting of the American Society of If idea-motivated, practical people and our idea Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America and could become your commitment, browse www.landinsti - the Soil Science Society of America. More than 4,000 tute.org, go to the job description from the home page, people from government, industry and higher education, and let us know your skills and interests. both teachers and students, are expected to attend. For more details see www.asa-cssa-sssa.org/anmeet/.

Visitors German Public Radio came for a documentary on High Plains water. Will Brinton of Woods End Laboratory, Maine, is a compost pioneer now exploring practice of it on a large scale for organic farms. Retired Johns Hopkins University physician Edward Dodge, who grew up in South Africa, and Methodist minister Kennedy Mukwindidza of Zimbabwe, are inter - ested in African agricultural ecosystems. Fifteen people bicycling from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., for Bike-Aid, an effort by the human rights organization Global Exchange, got out of the sad - dle for a day. We explained our work, and they theirs. They hoed corn for us, and we gave them campground, bathrooms and a home-cooked meal.

Electronic newsletter We now produce Scoop , a brief newsletter sent electron - ically every six weeks to tell about Land Institute activi - ties . We offer it to those who have provided e-mail addresses. You may subscribe by e-mailing [email protected] with “subscribe” in the subject field.

The Land Report 21 Prairie Festival

Last year 600 people celebrated the Prairie Festival with night feature will be a “town hall” discussion, moderat - us, about double recent turnouts. This made the gather - ed by institute board Chairman Conn Nugent. ing of folks who care about sustainable living and our land even more exciting and encouraging. Here’s what is Art in store Oct. 1-3. You are invited to join us. Earl Iversen will show his photographs of grass-roots art projects made over years of travel across the nation. See Speakers the opposite page. The University of Kansas professor’s Dan Glickman, U.S. secretary of agriculture 1995-2001, work has appeared in many collections and solo serves on our board. He is a native Kansan who repre - exhibits, and was featured in the book Backyard sented the Wichita area in the U.S. House for 18 years. Visionaries: Grassroots Art in the Midwest . Now he leads the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. By festival time he will have moved to direct Music the Motion Picture Association of America. Former institute intern Ann Zimmerman will play and Michael Pollan, director of the Knight Program in sing her homegrown songs for us between talks, and science and environmental journalism for the University will join the band Calliope for the barn dance Friday of California at Berkeley, has written about food produc - night. Jamming may continue around a bonfire after - tion for the New York Times Magazine and authored the ward if weather permits. books The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World and Second Nature. He also contributes to our Food, books and lodging Prairie Writers Circle. See page 11 for his essay about Saturday’s supper again will be Kansas-grown fixings the havoc U.S. corn subsidies wreak in Mexico. prepared under the direction of Donna Prizgintas of Judy Wicks founded Philadelphia’s White Dog Cafe, Southern California, who has been chef to Hollywood which buys produce in season from local organic farms celebrities. At other times through the festival food will and supports a foundation for promoting the local econ - be sold from our Red Barn. omy. She co-founded and helps lead the national You will also find there speakers’ books, and audio Business Alliance for Local Living Economies . Inc.com tapes of their talks. named her one of the country’s 25 most fascinating As always, festival-goers may camp in our field. entrepreneurs “because she’s put in place more progres - A tentative schedule and registration form follow. sive business practices per square foot than any other.” We hope to see you. William H. MacLeish, son of poet Archibald MacLeish, wrote The Day Before America: Changing the Nature of the Continent, an environmental history of life before European arrival, The Gulf Stream: Encounters with the Blue God and Uphill with Archie: A Son’s Journey. His essay “Walking Behind the Cinnamon Bear” appeared in Land Report 78. Percy Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer who also has served in the Saskatchewan Legislature and been a stri - dent voice for farmer rights, recently in a long quarrel with Monsanto over the patenting of genes and organ - Pollan Schmeiser Wicks isms, which made the news worldwide. Wes Jackson is a geneticist and The Land Institute’s president. His critical and inspiring talks are a regular festival feature. Jackson wrote the books New Roots for Agriculture , Becoming Native to This Place and Altars of Unhewn Stone . The institute science staff will present its annual show-and-tell on progress in breeding perennial grain plants and why they are needed. And graduate students we fund will tell about their work. You may share your thoughts too. The Saturday Jackson Glickman MacLeish

The Land Report 22 Earl Iversen . LV’s garden, Kosciusko, Mississippi.

The Land Report 23 Prairie Festival Schedule

Friday, October 1 3:30 p.m. Judy Wicks, “Building an Alternative to 5 p.m. Early registration at office driveway, camp - Globalization.” ing setup. 4:30 p.m. Land Institute staff recognition, dedication 6 p.m. Gathering of current staff and former interns of Marty Bender Natural Area, music by on office patio. Ann Zimmerman. 8 p.m. Dance in Big Barn. 6 p.m. Catered supper for those who make reserva - tions by September 24. Saturday, October 2 7:30 p.m. “Town Meeting of the Prairie,” an all-com - 7:30 a.m. Registration opens at the Red Barn. ers discussion of The Land Institute’s future 8:30 a.m. Land Institute research exhibit and tour, at and mission. the orchard. 10:30 a.m. Welcome and introduction. Sunday, October 3 11 a.m. Dan Glickman, topic to be announced. 9 a.m. Reports from our Natural Systems Noon Lunch. Picnics for sale at Red Barn. Agriculture graduate fellows. 1:30 p.m. Michael Pollan, “The High Cost of Cheap 10 a.m. William MacLeish, “Where in the World Food.” Are We Going.” 2:30 p.m. Percy Schmeiser, topic to be announced. 11 a.m. Wes Jackson, topic to be announced.

Registration

Saturday Names of those attending: Friends of the Land ...... ______x $12 = ______Others ...... ______x $16 = ______Sunday ______Friends of the Land ...... ______x $ 6 = ______Others ...... ______x $ 8 = ______Student rate, $10 for weekend, ______not including dinner ...... ______x $10 = ______Attending: I Saturday I Sunday ______Children under 12 attend free . . . ______x $0 = ______Street ______Dinner Saturday evening, City ______to be paid by September 24 ______x $10 = ______Vegetarian (not vegan) meal? I Yes I No State ______Zip ______Enroll as Friend of the Land, one year, Phone (day) ______tax-deductible, $35 minimum. (You are (night) ______already a Friend of The Land if you have given since September 30, 2003.) ...... $ ______E-mail ______Additional tax-deductible contribution ...... $ ______How I learned about Prairie Festival 2004: Total enclosed $ ______

Credit card information We will not confirm your reservation. Programs, I Visa I MasterCard I Discover Exp. _____/_____ nametags and meal tickets will be at the registration desk. No refunds. No. ______I Send map. Signature ______The Land Institute To register by phone, call 785-823-5376 from 8 a.m. to 2440 E. Water Well Road, Salina, KS 67401 5 p.m. Central Time weekdays. Phone 785-823-5376, fax 785-823-8728

The Land Report 24 Thank You to Our Contributors, February Through June 2004

Thousands of tax-deductible gifts, from a few to thou - spread ideas as we work together toward greater ecolog - sands of dollars, are received each year from individuals ical sustainability. and private organizations to make our work possible. Thank you to you, our perennial friends. Our other source of revenue is earned income from The first section of contributors below lists Friends interest and event fees, recently about 6 percent of total. of The Land who have pledged periodic gifts. Most have Large and small gifts in aggregate make a difference. arranged for us to deduct their gifts monthly from their They also represent a constituency and help bank account or credit card. They increase our financial stability, a trait valuable to any organization.

Pledges Marie E. Huffman S DeVere E. Blomberg J Claire Lynn Schosser Ross and Lorena Blount A Mrs. Nancy A. Jackson Peter C. and Helen A. Schulze Egon and Diana Bodtker Angela A. Anderson Dorcie McKniff Jasperse James R. and Katherine V. Smith Gregory A. Boris and Joan L. Reddy Jennifer R. Atlee Jimmy R. Jones Lea Smith George H. and Elizabeth B. Bramhall Patricia A. and Tim C. Ault-Duell K Robert and Clara Steffen Kenneth J. and Linda L. Branch B Robert G. and Judith Kelly Bianca Storlazzi Lindsey K. Brandt William C. and Terry B. Baldwin Raymond C. and Marianne D. Toby Symington Rosemary F. and Kenneth J. Brown William Beard II Kluever T Thomas L. Brown Chris Bieker Keith W. Krieger Gene Steven and Patricia A. Thomas Willis E. Brown Charles R. and Dianne E. Boardman L Margaret Thomas and Tom Brown Amadea Bruen-Morningstar and Dr. Dennis M. and Jean C. Bramble J. Han and Eva Marie Lankhorst David P. Thompson and Meg Gordon Bruen D. Gordon Brown and Charlene K. David R. Leitch Eastman Charles A. and Joanne B. Bryan Irvin-Brown Robert M. Lindholm V Carl G. Buhse Professor E. Charles Brummer Jonne A. Long Valerie M. and Roger R. Vetter Janet D. Bunbury C Kenneth C. Louis and Sherri A. W Megumi F. Burr Jim and Carressa Carlstedt Resetar John and Bette Sue Wachholz Steve and Ginny Burr Merry P. Carlstedt M Kenneth G. and Dorothy L. Weaber David Burris and Meredith McGrath, James P. and Marianne G. Cassidy Michelle C. Mack and Edward Ted Robert B. and Judith S. Weeden D.V.M. Suzanne Casson Schuur Darrell G. and Lois I. Wells C Lorna W. and D. Douglas Caulkins Grant W. Mallett and Nancy Tilson- Jo M. and Stephen R. Whited John and Kay N. Callison James Cooke Mallett Dan and Dayna L. Williams-Capone Curtis L. Carroll Richard E. and Anne E. Courter James R. and Nanette M. Manhart Charles Windham Daniel J. Cartaina Kenneth L. Cramer Andrew F. Marks and Tamara Y Dale M. Carter, M.D. David S. and Kim Criswell Zagorec-Marks Debra B. Young Jack L. and Martha A. Carter D David E. Martin Robert L. Cashman and Paulette M. Shawn and Jamie Dehner Peter Mason and Paula Wenzl Individual Gifts Lewis Al DeSena, Ph.D. and Mary H. Thomas R. and Nina L. Mastick Barry Chapman and Jessie P. Norris DeSena William A. and Julia Fabris McBride A Roland R. and Jacqueline L. Fred and Arlene Dolgon R. Michael and Debra L. Medley Rami Aburomia Chapman Barbara T. Dregallo Sara Michl D. Wallace and Gena D. Adams- Hal S. and Avril L. Chase Nathanael P. and Marnie Dresser Howard Walter Mielke Riley Gerald E. and G. Carlene Childs E Suzanne Meyer Mittenthal Gerald H. and Joanne P. Anderson James R. and Anna R. Cole Jean A. Emmons Bonny A. Moellenbrock and Michael Robert J. Antonio David C. and Frances E. Coleman James P. Erickson I. Lowry Alan Arnold Nancy Cook Arlen and Lana S. Etling John H. Morrill Paul Atkinson Kathy Covert and Pat Kraker Claryce Lee Evans N Jason Auernmeimer John and Sage F. Cowles F Charles Nabors Carl Awsumb Larry and Zella K. Cox Eric Farnsworth Karen Owsley Nease B Robert A. and Lavina Creighton Douglass T. Fell William D. and Dorothy M. Nelligan Juanita R. Bachmann Lawrence Curtis Rebecca V. Ferrell and Michael J. J. Clyde and Martha Nichols Walter T. and Virginia A. Bagley D Golec O Marian J. Bakken Mark and Bernice D’Souza Andy and Betsy Finfrock Richard and Christine Ouren Dr. Jack E. Barbash Dale G. Dannels and Betty Lindsey Dana K. Foster P Roberta L. Barnes Dr. William D. and Kristine B. Davis John K. Franson Harold D. and Dorothy M. Parman Ruth D. Basney Jordan and Gail Dawn G C. Diane Percival Eugene J. Bazan Rodney T. and Jeannette M. Debs Jane A. Gauss Robert L. and Karen N. Pinkall Thomas and Kimeri Swanson Beck Sabino L. and Janice C. DeGisi Jared N. and Cindi M. Gellert Q C. Dustin Becker Sara E. Dick Timothy C. Gibbs Jerry L. Quance and Marcia A. Hall David E. and Nancy Bedan Thomas M. and Esther M. Donahue Nils R. Gore and Shannon R. Criss R Carolyn B. and Roger L. Benefiel Strachan Donnelley, Ph.D. and Charles G. and Patricia A. Grimwood Charles P. and Marcia Lautanen The Rev. Garner J. and Harriet F. Vivian Donnelley H Raleigh Berg Henry S. and Linda A. Dreher James F. Henson Thomas L. Rauch and Joyce Alan R. and Miriam Straus Alan R. Drengson and Victoria Frederick T. Hill III Borgerding Berkowitz Stevens David L. Hodges and Elizabeth David C. and Jane S. Richardson Danny Beveridge James F. and Mary N. Dudley Knight David Rosenthal Elena Beyhaut Eileen Duggan Gary R. and Michele Howland Wolfgang D. Rougle Henry D. and Mary G. Blocher

The Land Report 25 Lawson Dumbeck and Anthea Elisabeth Gibans Charles F. Howe James Koplin Lawrence John B. Gilpin John R. and Susan G. Howell Dennis Michele and Stephen P. Phyllis Dunn Daniel R. and Rhoda J. Glickman J Koski E Stephen R. Gliessman Wes Jackson Mark M. and Jean Bowers Thomas A. and Ginnie Eddy William S. and Barbara N. Goebel James L. Janzen and Carol Knieriem Kozubowski Chris Edmonds Tate T. and Audra J. Gooden Alex Jensen Verna and Conrad O. Krahling Stefan C. and Margaret E. Smith Jenna B. and David E. Goodling Lawrence and Mildred Jensen Dr. Douglas A. and Patricia A. Einarson Pete A. Y. and Elizabeth E. Gunter Sarah M. Jilka Kramer William L. and Helen Elkins H Ben F. Johnson IV and Pauline H. The Rev. Ellyn Kravette Gwendolyn J. and Dennis L. Elliott Joel C. and Joyce L. Hanes Dale Amanda J. Kreiss Professor Emanuel and Hazel L. Walter S. Hanson Max D. and Helen F. Johnston Nelda B. Kubat Epstein Duane K. Harms Daniel G. Jones Gregg C. and Gretchen P. Kumlien Thomas H. and Terry L. Erickson- Katrina R. Hayes The Rev. W. Paul Jones Keith A. and Marian J. Kuper Harper Joan E. Hedquist K Wendell D. and Judith A. Kurr Elizabeth Miller and Carl D. Evans Eric and Mary Herminghausen Marc Paul Kahgan Adele Kushner Garrison and Katherine D. Evans Michael T. Hernke Dr. Patrick C. Kangas L F Barbara J. Hibbard Dr. Michael G. Karl, Ph.D. and Mark and Robin Lacey Ole Faergeman, M.D. William E. Hine Jr. Shawna Lea Karl Duane and Christine Lahti Rafael Andres Ferreyra and Liliana Sarah Jack Hinners and Christopher Michael and Violet Kasper Harriet Dove Landon Ferreyra Ferrer P. Pakso Tim and Sharon Keane Gerald F. and Alice Lange Margaret M. and William J. Fischang Robert K. Hitchcock Patricia C. and Edward G. Kehde Konney J. Larwood and Patricia J. Dr. David R. and Nancy C. Flatt Ruth C. Hodges Gretchen Ann Kehrberg Mettler Jan L. and Cornelia Flora Jon Hoefler Angeliki V. and Charles M.H. Keil John E. and Martha J. Laubach Brian E. Ford Dr. Stanton F. and Carol Hoegerman John A. and Martha Jane Kenyon George W. Lawrence Robert H. and Kathryn M. Foulkes Joyce M. Hofman Jerry S. and Renee A. Kidd Winfred M. Leaf Charles A. and Barbara L. Francis Phillip and Hope Holtzman Kurt R. Kiebler Marietta and Alden K. Leatherman Norman C. and Margaret A. Frank John J. and Gloria J. Hood Kelly Kindscher Carla A. Bouska Lee Ana C. Franklin Nancy F. and John F. Hope Nance Klehm Mary L. Lehmann G Leo M. Horrigan and Margery Don Kluever Daniel J. Leistra Brant and Mary Ellen Gaul McIver Gigia L. and Victor G. Kolouch

Memorials Gerry Bausher David and Jenna Goodling Eddie and Eleanore Koether Gwendolyn Elliott Mark and Katie McManus Mr. and Mrs. R.P. McManus Velvan Melson Cathy and Nathan Melson Gene and Dottie Tyner Pat and Sunny Murphy Honorary Gifts Kristie L. Avery Shombi Sharp Shantila and Tsun-Hsien Bhagat Henry D. and Mary G. Blocher Jeffrey Hedquist Joan Hedquist Carl Heusler Anonymous The Melanders Phyllis Dunn and Beverly Magnuson

The Land Report 26 Richard D. and Virginia L. Lepman Victoria M. McMillan Jean G. Nicholas Frank R. Pommersheim and Anne G. Judy and Dennis R. Lilly Kenneth I. McNeff Jonathan and Alison Nichols Dunham Edwin D. and Susanne M. Lindgren Dorothy F. McNeil Stephanie J. and John G. Nicholson Nora Pouillon Leslie P. Livingston and David D. Michael and Laurel McNeil Galen R. and Rudene G. Niedenthal R Miller, M.D. Roger A. and Lovie Ann Melkus James C. Nore Benjamin Reder Randy L. Lodjic Cathy and Nathan Melson O Charles Reitz Bernard E. and Diana C. Long Thomas E. Mertz Frank X. O’Sullivan and Hattie D. Stephen C. Richards Lois A. Lorentzen Ryan Michael Gresham Roger M. Richter M Allan and Jan Milbradt Jeffrey P. and Maria L. Osborne Curtis C. Ridling Rick A. and Leslie B. Machado Jennifer D. and Matthew L. Miller Susan B. Osofsky Delores M. Ringer Beverly Magnuson Philip T. and Kathlyn Miller P Lake and Susan Robertson Susanne L. and Walter J. Maier Grover C. Mitchell and Harriet G. Herbert Panko Drs. Lila W. and Albert Robinson Dr. Francis R. and Margaret P. Hodges Patrick P. and Chardell Parke Barbara C. Robison Manlove Richard Moore Dr. Kelly A. and Sandy Parker Peter J. and Ellen M. Rogers Robert G. and Melissa Ann Marsh Kenneth A. and Faye Morley Laurence D. Parnell Frederick Rossi Michael Paul and Minnie Sweeden Margaret C. Moulton Jack Parr William R. and Jane Roy Martin Kirsten Mowrey Maurice E. Parr Don Russell and Susan Morley Patricia Ann Martin and Kern K. Barbara L. Mueller Steven D. Patterson Robert E. and Ann Adams Russell Keng Lisa C. Mueller Jeni L. and Richard J. Pearce S O. R. and Lorna L. Maslenikov Joji Muramoto Kenneth V. and Ana M. Pecota Dr. and Mrs. William E. Salmon James Mason Patrick M. and Sunny K. Murphy Dr. Gregory K. Penniston Mary Sanderson-Bolanos Lillian D. Mason and Aaron Paden N Dale Perkins Marjorye Savage-Heeney and Barney Scott Mathieson Hiromichi Nagashima Carol Jean and Brian D. Petersen J. Heeney Jr. William J. Matousek Thomas R. Neet Jr. Daniel W. Pettengill Thomas M. and Mary L. Scanlan Robert and Janet Mayers Frank Neitzert James V. and Rose M. Picone Alvin E. Schmedemann Newton C. McCluggage, M.D. Alison Nelson Mary Lee Plumb-Mentjes and Michael J. Scully Marion McConnell Pamela S. Nelson and Michael A. Conrad V. Mentjes Randy S. Selig Mary McCormick Spindler James Irvin Plyler and Bethany Gerald L. and Jean L. Selzer Lane and Janet M. McDonald Arthur K. and Connie S. Neuburger Beliveau Shombi Sharp Richard P. and Marjorie T. McManus Herbert and Pamela Neumann Susan E. Pokorny Betty Jo and Douglas D. Sheafor

Martin Stupich . Glen Canyon dam and bridge against seeping sandstone, Arizona.

The Land Report 27 Florence R. Shepard Z David G. Shier Dr. Dewey K. Ziegler The Writers Dick L. Siemer and C. D. O’Leary- Randall L. Ziglar Siemer Karl S. Zimmerer and Medora D. Lola and John G. Smith Ebersole and Photographers Sharon Nickel Snowiss John L. and Patsy Zimmerman Armando Solano David A. and Ann B. Zimrin David R. and Susan Burford Solenberger Organization Gifts Martin Stupich is a photographer based in Albuquerque, J. David Soltman and Judy A. Howard Alliance for Community Education New Mexico. He makes pictures for the Library of Sidney L. Sondergard BELIN Editions Congress and state historical offices, and is now docu - Barbara E. Songer Bennington State Bank menting landscape for a history of the Great Divide basin David F.W. South Briggs Construction James H. and Carol Sue Spence Buckley Donor Advised Fund of the in southern Wyoming. Robert Staffanson Center for Ecoliteracy Stan Cox is The Land Institute’s senior scientist. Janie H. and Kirk N. Starr Focus Marketing Inc. Michael Pollan is director of the Knight Program in Richard J. and Peggy Stein Garfield Farm Museum Claude Stephens Hackett Timber & Livestock science and environmental journalism for the University Samuel B. Stone and Marsha De Roy A. Hunt Foundation of California at Berkeley, author of three books, includ - Rosier J. M. Kaplan Fund Inc. ing The Botany of Desire, and a contributing writer for Paul A. Strasburg and Terry Saracino Kansas Health Foundation January Suczynski Kinnickinnic Realty Co. the New York Times Magazine and our Prairie Writers Persis B. Suddeth Lansing Dental Clinic Circle. He will speak at our Prairie Festival on Oct. 2. Matthew and Elaine Brown Sullivan LeFort-Martin Fund of Chicago See page 22. Nolan G. Sump Community Foundation Johnathan C. Sundstrom Mason Family Foundation Bernard Rollin is university distinguished professor Mrs. Marian F. Sussman The Natural Gardener Inc. at Colorado State University, where he is a professor of Connie S. Swan and Robert A. New Seasons Market Klunder Oregon Odyssey philosophy, animal sciences and biomedical sciences, David K. and Shelli A. Swanson Paramount Seed and serves as the university bioethicist. Among his writ - L. F. Swords Prairie Moon Nursery Inc. ings are Farm Animal Welfare: Social, Bioethical, and T Provident Organic Farm Jonathan Tate Sandhill Farm Inc. Research Issues , and, with G. John Benson, The Well- George H. Taylor and S. Candice Sinsinawa Dominicans Being of Farm Animals: Challenges and Solutions . Hoke Southwest Medical Associates Inc. Suzanne Winckler is a free-lance writer in Mesa, Robert B. and Nelda R. Thelin St. Joseph Foundation Rich Thibodeau Touchstone Consulting Arizona. She has written Smithsonian history and natural Robert Ernest Thompson Turtle Foundation history guides, and bird books. Her new book is Prairie: Wayne G. and Donna Jean Thurman Wallace Genetic Foundation Inc. A North American Guide. See page 15 for more. Charles J. Transue Samuel Lee Winship Fund, Boston Patricia A. Traxler and Patrick Fdn. George Jerkovich, Salina, makes panoramic photo - Wallerius graphs, concentrating on the Kansas landscape. His Janice M. Tucci Donors of Time and Goods work can be viewed at www.courtyardgallery.com, the U Walter F. Utroske Free State Brewing Co. Courtyard Gallery in Lindsborg, Kansas, the Strecker- V Wes Jackson Nelson Gallery in Manhattan, Kansas, and the Bluestem Robert Himmerich y Valencia, Ph.D. Donna Prizgintas Gallery in Salina. and Eva Valencia de Himmerich John H. and Sally B. Van Schaick Fellows Workshop Earl Iversen is a professor at the University of Stanley Van Steenvoort Kansas. His photos of grassroots art will be displayed W Wendell Berry David E. Wagoner and Arwen Aaron Blair Oct. 1-3 at our Prairie Festival. See page 22. Donahue Alan Busacca Peter Jonker directs the Environment, Science and Jeffrey S. Walberg and Katherine M. Tim Crews Technology Programs Extension Division at the Beauchamp Pete Ferrell Carol N. and William E. Walker Gary Grant University of Saskatchewan, and with Stan Rowe wrote Kevin Walker Elizabeth Guillette Sand Dunes of Lake Athabasca: Your Adventure in Richard T. and Barbara R. Ward Gene Kelly Learning. Lee Weidman Paul Micheli Steven Wernicki Chris Picone Ted Mosquin is a naturalist and ecologist now retired Orval L. and Mary C. Weyers Warren Porter in Lanark, Ontario. Joseph F. and Sharon A. Whelan Peter Simonson Aaron Paden is a photographer for the University of Brent C. and Ruth Anne White Margaret Smith Richard W. and Jo Ann Wilbur Don Wyse Kansas. Dr. Julia Willebrand Jara Wind Sarah B. Woellhof Dorothy P. Wonder Parker Worley Richard H. and Sherrill Worthen Y Bruce and Vicki Yarnell

The Land Report 28 Earth-centered Stan Rowe, 1918-2004

Wes Jackson

Professor J. Stan Rowe died April 6 at his home in tific study of how to live on Earth are organisms and British Columbia after a stroke. Stan, 85, was an ecolo - ecosystems. gist, environmental ethicist and writer. He was also my These are two examples of the work of what was an teacher. I never had a formal class from him, but if I had eminently useful mind, and now that “encompassing to pick three people whose thinking has affected my world” that Stan understood so well has claimed him. professional work the most, one of them would be Stan Rowe. One way he shaped the lens through which I see the world is his comparison of the “outside” view, of the Earth as unified, with the “inside” view, which sees all sorts of things as separate. The latter “common sense” view is the one most of us have. If we were small enough to enter a cell and look around with binoculars, we would see things like crystals and regard them as nonliving and things on the move as living. That would be the view from the inside. The view from the outside would show that all are essential parts of the living cell. Just so, all Earth is alive, not just the biosphere, a less useful term than ecosphere, which is both organic and inorganic. Both biosphere and the attendant idea of biophilia come from the faulty organism-centered view from the inside. This bio-bias leads us to regard the Peter Jonker inorganic world as what Stan called “loose stuff lying around that we then tend to play fast and loose with.” My world has been different since Stan pointed this out. Another’s remembrance Here is a second shift he made in my thinking. Before the terms biosphere and biophilia came crashing Ted Mosquin down for me, Stan had written a paper in which he developed the “volumetric criterion for thinghood.” This insight he drew from J.H. Woodger, a disciple of Alfred Stan Rowe was born on June 11, 1918, in the rural ham - North Whitehead’s “organic” philosophy, and from let of Hardisty in southern Alberta. He had a happy James K. Feibleman’s Laws of Integrative Levels . childhood in a prairie landscape later described in one of Feibleman outlined twelve general laws applying to the his many writings, Growing up in Granum . He was edu - hierarchy of structure, from atoms to molecules to cells cated at the Universities of Manitoba and Nebraska, and to tissues to organs to organisms. What comes after worked as a research forester with Forestry Canada for organisms? Scientists proposed a variety of categories. 19 years, specializing in silviculture and ecological site Stan settled on ecosystem. He did so after asking what classification. In 1967 he became professor of plant the other levels in the hierarchy had in common, and ecology at the University of Saskatchewan. Stan had noted that it was contiguous volume, “things” unto lived in New Denver, British Columbia, in the 1940s themselves, like a rock. Species don’t have contiguous when, as a conscientious objector, he was assigned to volume, and neither do populations and communities, teaching the children of the interned Japanese. After which are sprinkled around within ecosystems. An retirement from academic work, he devoted himself to ecosystem’s slab of space/time, whatever its shape, does writing in the emerging field of environmental ethics have contiguous volume, and so Feibleman’s laws apply. and eventually returned to live in New Denver. Ecosystem is a better concept than environment, He used his superb literary skills and extensive eco - which, as Stan pointed out, is a vague term in which the logical and philosophical knowledge to create a body of center is on ourselves as something that belongs to us. literature about the deeper values of the living Earth, its He advocated acknowledgment that we belong to an ecosystems and organisms. Articles from the 1980s were “encompassing world … that sooner or later … claims published in the book Home Place: Essays in Ecology . us.” It follows that the most important entities for scien - Stan authored the widely used book Forest Regions of

The Land Report 29 Canada and The Level-of-Integration Concept and Ecology, which in 1961 introduced the ecosystem con - Prairie Festival Tapes cept to forestry. At his death, a book to be titled Earth From September 27-28, 2003, at The Land Institute Alive!, was nearing completion. Many of his inspira - tional ecological and philosophical essays are at http://www.ecospherics.net/. Stan also made four creative and beautiful science Tape Quantity videos, available from Waterhen Film Productions, for Natural Systems Agriculture round robin high school and adult audiences. In these he narrates the Land Institute scientists ______story of the ecology of the Earth and describes the The End of Empire meaning of the ecocentric valuation perspective. David Korten ______I was fortunate to have worked as co-author with Reading from Citizenship Papers Stan on A Manifesto for Earth, published in January- Wendell Berry ______March quarterly journal Biodiversity . He had been An untitled talk extremely pleased to have seen this in print two days Winona LaDuke ______before his stroke. The article is at http://www.ecospher - Writers Corner with Angus Wright, Amy ics.net/pages/EarthManifesto.html. Fleury, Bill Sheldon and Wendell Berry ______I first met Stan back in 1954, when he was working Farming Well on his doctorate in forestry and I, an aspiring undergrad Charlie Melander ______botanist, landed a summer student assistantship with The Memory Economy him, digging soil pits and carrying out ecological Mas Masumoto ______quadrat sampling for a forest site study in the boreal Life on the Farm: 100 Years Hence forests of northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I recall Wes Jackson ______him getting out of his sleeping bag each morning, and with a tiny mirror hung on aspen branch or trunk, shav - Total individual tapes ______x $8 = ______ing while reciting or singing nature poems of Wordsworth and others. Complete set of tapes ______x $60 = ______Music and song were always important to Stan. In U.S. handling and shipping: $2 for first tape, his youth he played the clarinet. Upon moving to New 50 cents for each extra, $18 maximum ______Denver he joined the choir and helped form an offshoot, For Canada and Mexico, double shipping fee ______the “Golden Oldies.” He was noted for his ability to sing in perfect harmony — which is the way he knew the For overseas, triple shipping fee ______Earth, as a participant in a living symphony of evolving Sales tax for Coloradans: add 4.25 percent ______nature. Total ______Beyond his formidable intellect, Stan was a kind, wise, cheerful and gently witty person, an inspiring Orders are by air mail and guaranteed for delivery in teacher to students and his many friends. He made this 60 days. Payment methods: checks and money orders observation about himself: “Not a misanthrope, but a for U.S. funds, and MasterCard, Visa and Discover. defender of Earth against the excesses of anthropes.” Card purchases can be by fax or phone. Mail orders to: Stan is survived by his love, Katherine Chomiak, his former wife, Julia, two children and three grandchildren. His presence among us will be sorely missed. 10332 Lefthand Canyon Drive, Jamestown, CO 80455 Phone: 303-444-3158 / Fax: 303-444-7077

Name ______Address ______Phone ______

MasterCard
Visa
Discover Exp. date ______Card No. ______Signature ______

The Land Report 30 Direct Results

In a recent year, individuals and foundations made $64 billion in charitable donations to nonprofit organiza - tions. Consultant Arthur Franzreb reported the Eisenhower Cabinet studied the amount of taxes that would have been necessary to deliver to charities what they were getting from charitable contributions. By the time the money went through the bureaucracy and got back to nonprofit organizations, taxes equal to nine times more than donations would have been required. The specifics might have changed over the years, and you probably have a guess about whether government processes cost less now. Charitable contributions made directly to organiza - tions that support your values and priorities can be the most cost-effective way to get good work done. Nonprofits can operate frugally and deliver solid results, and they are accountable. We hope you’ll keep in mind The Land Institute’s values, goals and promise of long-term achievements to benefit coming generations. Please join us to leave the world a little better than we found it.

Yes! I want to be a perennial Friend of The Land LR79 Our research is Here’s my tax-deductible gift to support The Land Institute’s programs. opening the way to a new agriculture — farming mod - Please Print eled on native prairies. Farmers using Natural Name ______Systems Agriculture will Address ______produce food with little fer - tilizer and pesticide, build - City ______State ______Zip______ing soil instead of losing it. If you share this vision and I authorize The Land Institute each month to would like to help, please I Transfer from my checking account (enclose check for the first monthly payment) consider becoming a I Transfer from my savings account #______Friend of The Land. I Charge my credit/debit card To become a Friend of the I $3 per month I $5 per month I $10 per month I $15 per month I $30 per month Land and receive The Land Report please send your I $60 per month I $80 per month I $100 per month I Other $______per month gift today. Clip this coupon Deduct my tax-deductible gift on the I 5th of each month I 20th of each month and return it with your pay - ment to: I prefer to make a special gift of I $35 I $55 I $125 I $500 I $1,000 I Other $______since I am unable to make a monthly commitment at this time. The Land Institute Payment Method: I My check, made payable to The Land Institute, is enclosed. 2440 E. Water Well Road Salina, KS 67401 Charge my I Visa I MasterCard I Discover

Account # ______Expiration Date ____ /____

Signature ______Monthly Giving: We will transfer your gift on the date you select and will continue until you notify us otherwise. You can change or cancel your monthly donation at any time simply by calling or writing The Land Institute. We will confirm your instructions in writing.

The Land Report 31 Aaron Paden. Rebecca Bruce, a University of Kansas student, on Prairie Festival the Prairie Festival’s morning prairie walk last year. Michael Pollan I Dan Glickman I Wes Jackson Judy Wicks I Percy Schmeiser I William MacLeish October 1-3, Salina, Kansas
See page 22 for details Non-Profit Organization 2440 E. Water Well Rd. U.S. Postage Paid Permit #81 Salina, KS 67401 Salina, KS 67401

Address Service Requested

If the date on your label is before 11-3-03, this is your last issue. Please renew your support.