WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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I grew up on a farm floor.

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There were mosquitoes and snakes
and alligators, poisonous spiders.

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And I loved it.

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My dad had big dreams for this place.

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It took a lot of sweat and injury to turn that jungle
of scrub brush and palm meadows into orange groves

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but he didn’t seem to mind.
He was devoted to his work

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and to our family.

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He taught his girls to drive
tractors and ride bikes.

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Dad loved to tackle with anything mechanical. There
was always a piece of equipment in his hands.

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If it were in a soccer
wrench it was (inaudible).

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[music]

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It was all so simple then.

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He thought nothing would ever change.

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[sil.]

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Fred Kirschenmann is a man with a machine.

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He’s not a tested pilot or a
politician or a talk show host.

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He’s a farmer.

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For this day and all those good things,
for the earth and all it gives us

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for each other and for this
food we are grateful. Amen.

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Well this farm here in North Dakota has been
in our… in our family for three generations

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and I left the farm and then I came back because
I was worried about some of the problems

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we were having here. But when I got back here I
discovered that the problems that we were having

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in our farm are problems that agriculture is having
throughout North America. And if we don’t do something

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about those problems, where somebody is not
going to have (inaudible) food to eat.

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If he wouldn’t have come back I
would’ve had to quit farming

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and what he has done now, not only for
himself but for the whole family.

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What he has done is tremendous.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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The number of auctions which we have had
dramatically increased in the last 20 years.

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Farmers have not been
able to sell the land.

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We are just working as far as

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we can to stay here and
keep… keep the family farm.

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The only reason I think I
stay on the farm house

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because I know the land I’m –the place I’m living
at, my great grandfather…grandfather homestead.

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It means something to me.

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I think it’s a best
occupation in the world.

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(inaudible) we’re going to put
this side, 225 and now that’s 225.

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Most people know that we
are losing family farms.

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What many people don’t know is we’re
also destroying the very resources

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that we need to grow food and so we’re at
crisis in agriculture. We had cross roads.

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Right there, $10,000 even number 35,
thank you sir. We have to ask our self,

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do we want to simply continue to do what we are
doing and destroy the future for our children.

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Or do we want to do
things in different way.

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Since the 1950S

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we’ve grown most of our food in this
country using manmade chemicals.

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These farm chemicals are
specifically designed

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to fertilize the crops and to kill pests.

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Chemicals have made it possible for farmers
to specialize in growing one crop,

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like we eat with corn or soya beans. Growing the same crop
every year is very efficient from a production stand point.

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The American food system is the
most successful in the world.

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Chemical agriculture is now so widely used

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that it’s called conventional agriculture.

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In North Dakota conventional
farmers depend on sprays

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like 240 and Treflan to kill
weeds and Parathion and Carbaryl

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to kill insects.

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The most commonly used
fertilizer is anhydrous ammonia.

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Like most farm chemicals anhydrous ammonia

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is manufactured out of petroleum. It gets injected
into the ground where it releases nitrogen

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that crops need in order to grow. The
only drawback we got with anhydrous

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is little more dangerous, as
you can see inhalation hazard,

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this suffocate you down right now.

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If you take a whip of that it will put you down your
knees, it’s really – the only thing if it gets burned,

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you have to put, fill with water.
That’s why we have water tank,

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two water tank fitted down here; in case we get burned we
had to get for water, whole right away. Like a dry cough.

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[sil.]

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Yeah we would do this inside a building and it will
take you about 15 seconds and you’ll be all done.

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There are other problems
associated with chemical farming.

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And not all of them are so obvious.

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Over time conventional practices

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break down the soil into
finer and finer particles

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making it more vulnerable to erosion. On the dry
and windy period this has serious consequences.

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Before the rain and snow come a week ago you could
see every tractor working in the field a mile away

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and this whole country was just a big
cloud of dust going up in the air

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and… and the operators in the tractors
depending on which way the wind was going,

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they couldn’t even see use of implement behind and or they couldn’t
see in front because it was just such a cloud of dust coming up

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from that dry soiling.
Conventional farming practices

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produce gases that may
contribute to acid rain,

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depletion of the ozone
layer and global warning.

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Agricultural chemicals have contaminated the ground
water in 38 states. And down the Great Plains

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we’re losing an average of 15 to 20 tons of top
soil from each acre of farm land every year.

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And the time since Europeans came to this
land we’ve lost half of our too soil

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and most of that has been last in the
last 40 years. So if we continue

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to farm the way we have, we could
potentially lose all of our top soil

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in another 40 or 50 years.

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Contrary to some folks that think we can solve everything with
technology, if you don’t have soil you’re not going to produce food.

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We’re absolutely depending on soil. If we don’t have
soil we don’t eat, the answer is simple as that.

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[sil.]

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Concerned for the future of his dad’s farm,

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Fred came back to North Dakota in 1977.
Then he did something

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no one had ever done before
on such a large scale.

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He converted the three thousand acre of farm from
conventional agriculture to organic agriculture.

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[music]

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Good morning. Hi! Fred. How are you doing?

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I discovered that some of the claims that
people in organic agriculture were making

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that, that type of agriculture, what’s more
sustainable that it had less detrimental effects

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on the soil appeared to be true.
And it started to bother me

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that we had all of this land and
trusted to our family back here

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and we’re not farming by those methods. Which to mean
that we were taking the best care of that we could.

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And they came in with that
fertilizer and we’ll use that,

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saying that this was something to
supplement your soil that it was,

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but it was not supplementing, it
was depleting, it was drying out,

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taking out more strength
from… from your soil. And …

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and that is why we went
to this organic farming.

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And the local people said
it can’t be done, you know,

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you can’t farm organically in North Dakota and… and my
father was what would people do before they had chemicals.

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On the surface farming organically means

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growing food without chemicals.
On a deeper level

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it is a totally different system of
producing food and working with the earth.

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Everything we do on this farm is
geared to soil and to soil health

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because it’s healthy soil which is going
to produce healthy productive crops.

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And that in turn is going
to produce healthy food.

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Our whole farm management practice is
geared to making the soil more productive,

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making it more fertile; we’re
turning the nutrients to the soil,

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improving the soil structure. Soil is everything.
Well I’ll… I’ll show you the difference between…

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between the soil that… that we’ve been farming
and soil that’s been farmed chemically.

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[sil.]

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You know this is soil
that’s been farmed with…

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with a chemical system and you can tell it’s…
it’s hard, you know it’s hard to break up,

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it… it… it doesn’t have any structure
it’s… it’s … it’s more like cement.

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And then I you look at the soil here that
what we’ve been farming I mean it’s…

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it’s nice and soft and moist and crumbly

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and uh… so that’s … that’s the difference.

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[sil.]

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Florida is a tough place to raise a crop.

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There are a lot of bugs and they’ll
eat everything they can get hold off.

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Around 1950

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a miracle happened DDT. It was like a gift

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from heaven. You spray it, no more bugs.

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There was a new chemical for everything.
Malathion and Parathion and Heptachlor,

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Dehydronandrolone that was drilled.
He studied chemistry

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at the University of Florida and was convinced
that with modern spray and fertilizers,

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he could produce the crop of history.

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I like to play around farms
see what is going on.

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Mama used to yell at us to get out of this
spay room. We ran around in there anyway.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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Where the conventional farmer relies
on chemical technology to grow food.

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The organic farmer relies on an
intimate knowledge of his land

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for Fred that’s the Prairie. In
1988 when it was so dry here,

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I was walking across, (inaudible) I saw this,
this bright orange, something bright orange

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in the field then I thought uh… somebody threw some
plastic, when we get it and here was this cactus plant

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that was blooming. Never
ever seen it before

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but when the conditions were
dry enough, there was –

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and there are biologist who explain that there are millions different
species that grow in the natural place. And they’re probably right.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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The Prairie survives year after year

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because of the tremendous diversity
of creatures living here.

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All these species work together

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in a self sustaining system that requires
nothing more than the elements of nature

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to keep it going.

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Conventional farms may look like the
native Prairie but they are not.

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They are artificially created environments
only one or two species are grown.

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They need chemicals to survive. Fred
uses his understanding of the Prairie

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to grow food naturally without chemicals.

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[sil.]

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Ask the question, you know what as
nature doing here before we arrived.

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How were animals performing
here before we arrived?

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How was the soil performing here before
we arrived? And try as much as possible

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to understand that system and then
duplicate as far as possible.

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The principles o that system. To me
that just makes good management sense

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and for us at least that… that’s working.

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Good morning.

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Yeah. You’re feeling better today? Yeah. Yeah, good great.
We’re going to put the flax and lentils in today. Uh..

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We’re going to put the flex and Lentils
in on these two small field today.

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[music]

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One of the ways

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Fred imitates nature is to plant
a diverse variety of crops.

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Every year he grows wheat, millet, buck weed,
oats, flax, lintels, clover, rye, and sunflowers.

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Crop diversity has many advantages,
it doesn’t exhaust the soil,

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the way planting the same
crop every year does.

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It also helps control of weeds and insects.
Since the crops are always changed

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pests cants get established.
Costly herbicides and insecticides

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aren’t necessary.

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Another way Fred imitates nature is to restore
the balance that once existed between plants

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and animals on the Prairie.
A hundred years ago

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herds of buffalo roamed this land.
They ate the grass,

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the manure fertilized the soil and new
grass grew. Cows do the same thing

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for Fred’s organic farm that buffalo
did for the native prairie.

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Basically what we’re doing is recycling
of nutrients. When we take straw

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and screenings from our grain and feed it to
our livestock, we’re moving the nutrients

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from the fields to the feed lots.
And then the livestock

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convert that into the nutrients and the manure and then we
hold our nutrients back to our field again, so it’s a cycle.

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And that now when the field is good,
that makes good economic sense.

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If you look at it in terms of long
term sustainability all of the sources

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of conventional fertilizers that we—that
conventional farmers currently use

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are all not renewable resources. I mean we will run
out of phosphorous, we will run out of potash,

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we will run out of petroleum and those are the
basic raw materials that are used for those inputs

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and that’s not a sustainable system. I
don’t think we’ll run of livestock manure.

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[sil.]

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There is basically like two ways to farm.

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One is to press the farm like a machine

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and that approach relies on chemical
inputs to produce the food.

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Conventional agriculture is based on
the belief that nature is flawed.

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And that we cannot rely on nature
to produce the food that we need.

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The other approach

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is to look upon the farm as an
organism as a living being.

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Organic farming operates out of a belief
that nature is our partner, that the farm

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is not factory and that all that we need to do is
to learn from nature and cooperate with nature.

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So instead of the farm being a factory it’s
a garden. This is definitely my garden.

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[music]

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You know a garden

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is a place where humans relate to nature

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in a way that humans receive what
they need to sustain themselves

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and nature has given what nature
needs to sustain herself.

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And so it’s this partnership. I think that’s
what a garden is about and that’s what,

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that’s what this farm is about.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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[music]

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Dad have a lot of faith in technology,

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everybody did back then.

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Technology was going to turn
the farm into paradise.

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In a depth zone cut an edge, he didn’t wait for the
chemical companies to come out with new sprays.

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He just go out to the shop and mixed his own
concoctions. The U.S. department of agriculture

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even had him testing with their
experiments sprays in our groves.

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Dad invented his own sprayer
which did a better job

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of helping every leaf on the trees. He
was determined never to let those pests

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get it to hold again.

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Daddy was always thinking, always planning.

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He never seems to get tired,
but he worried a lot.

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Mama used to get on to him
for biting his nails.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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I believe that the crisis that were in
agriculture today is an old crisis,

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it’s been replayed a number of times.
Deep in the history

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of Western literature is the biblical
story of the Garden of Eden,

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which I believe is our story today
perhaps more than any other men,

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because it describes what happens
when we decide to dominate nature.

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The interesting thing about
the Garden of Eden story

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is that the uh… the thing that
spoiled it was arrogance.

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It was when Adam and Eve decided that
they knew better how to manage the garden

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then the garden itself, you know they didn’t listen to the
garden anymore that’s when they started to get into trouble.

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And uh… and I think that’s the
eternal truth of that story.

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Uh… if we… if we allow our arrogance
to blind us into believing

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that we know how to manage this land better
and don’t have to listen to the land anymore,

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don’t have to have this partnership with it and don’t have to be
husband to it, then uh… then we’re going to be in trouble real fast.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
[sil.]

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
This land has a story to tell. It’s the story
of what happens when we try to make nature

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
do exactly what we want her to do.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:28.000
[music]

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
Where my grandfather, the
way he farmed was to

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
take some native prairie and plough it
up and plant some cereal grains in it

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
and he would raise wheat or barley
or oats in that part of ground

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
and to that part of soil until the nutrients were depleted.
And they would abound in that and break up a new…

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
a new piece of native prairie.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
They called it (inaudible) there
were new machines that made it easy.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
Wheat prices were high and there as the
endless prairie waiting for the plough.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
Acre by acre the grasses were cleared

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
and the raw top soil left exposed.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
In 1930

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
a fear cycle of drought begin
that poached the green plains.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
Then in 33,

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
came the winds.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
[sil.]

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
There was nothing to hold the dry soil
down and it blew over the entire country.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
It blackened the skies over Washington
DC; Ships 500 miles out of sea

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
saw the great clouds of dust.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
The dust bowl, Do I remember them?

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
Do I remember them? I went through them.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
A dust that you couldn’t see the sun,

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
that’s the way the dust were and…
and that blew all our land drifted.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
He didn’t know that when you lose,

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
when you lose or have a danger or something like
that, that the best part of your soil is gone.

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
We didn’t know that. We just figured what (inaudible)
there to be that, that it will be some more

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
but later on we found that
… that was more than that.

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
And lot of our land was hurt,
terribly hurt from the dust bowl.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
[sil.]

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
Fred was born in 1935, during the
worst of the dust bowl years.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
I… I didn’t want him to be a farmer because

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
I… I thought that farming was too hard
in the life for anyone to live on that.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
I wanted to have him a better life.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
So Fred did what his father
wanted and left North Dakota.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
He went to college and
eventually became a teacher.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
[music]

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
Meanwhile the years following World War
II, brought great changes to the farm.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
Industry discovered

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
that chemicals manufactured for battle could
be convert it for use in agriculture.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
(inaudible) became weed killers,

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
chemical weapons became insecticides.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
And the same process used to
make explosives out of petroleum

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
was used to manufacture fertilizer.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
[music]

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
America (inaudible) to
Ploughshares without passion.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
Farms that only a decade earlier
were buried under clouds of dust,

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
spraying back to life with a new chemical
products. There was a new market,

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
you know agriculture was the new market and the input materials
were very cheap. So it was a salvation for the farmers.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
It seemed like it was the silver
bullet that everybody was looking.

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
When the new pesticides

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
and chemicals were introduced it was…
it was very dramatic I mean for example

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
one time you couldn’t control
the Colorado potato beetle

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
and went it with DDT and it was really
miraculous or you had houseflies

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
in dairy barn that you couldn’t
control and you sprayed with DDT

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
and immediately the barn
was clear off… off flies.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
We went through the dust bowl and
which –wreck part of our soil.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
And then we went through the hard times

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
and a dollar was so hard to make.
When you had one that you didn’t know

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
where to use it to be sure
that you’ll have another one.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
And… and they… they came out with that
fertilizer and told, what it will do for us

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
of course I mean we were longing
for that and I was open for that.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
My father after the first year of
using the chemical fertilizers

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
made this blanket statement he said I could never farm without fertilizer
again, you know he was just convinced obviously we had to do it.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
[music]

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
Chemicals turned farms into food factories.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
Before the war Ted had been happy to get
10 to 12 Bushels of wheat to the acre.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
Now with chemicals he could get twice that.
We all wanted

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
what was a part of, what seemed like this
fantastic new dream of the green revolution

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
and what we all wanted from that
was cheap food produced abundantly

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
that would be readily available to feed the whole
world. I mean what more noble goal was there.

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
It’s just that we didn’t recognize
some of the unanticipated consequences

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
from suing those technologies.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
It was within three years after we started
using DDT heavily against houseflies

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
and potato beetles we started
observing the evolution of resistance

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
in a lot of the different tests
that we had in… in agriculture.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
We started noticing outbreaks of
some pests that we never had before,

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
like red mites and orchids had
never been a pest before and then…

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
then cotton for example, yeah we control above,
we then we had an outbreak of these caterpillars

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
that were coming on, and so in many crops

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
we were now getting
resurgences various pests

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
that we never had before when we
started a heavy use of pesticides

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
and of course then we had bird
kills and fish kills and,

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
and fish being contaminated with high levels of pesticide
and we had to dump or destroy all of that fish

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
and so there were lot of these
problems that we’re coming on

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
with the growth and the use of pesticides.
After the oil crisis of the mid1970s.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
The cost of chemicals started to arise.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
Mounting environmental problems on farms
were now compounded by financial problems.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
It was during this time that one of Fred’s
students introduced him to organic agriculture.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
You know I was very much aware

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
that the kind of agriculture which we had been practicing
here was highly dependent on petroleum resources

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
for fertilizers and herbicides
and other pesticides.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
All of the analysis which I had seen by geologist
indicated that we were going to run out of oil

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
and it didn’t take an economist to figure out that if
you, we’re going to become more and more dependent

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
on the resources that we were
going to running out off,

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
that you were going to be in trouble economically somewhere down…
somewhere down the road. And so when I, I mean the phone ring

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
and I… I was sitting on the end of the table,
I reached over there are I took the receiver

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
and it was Fred talking and we
talked a little bit and then he…

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
then all of a sudden he said

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
what would you think that if I come home
and farm with you? Well I… I put down…

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
I put down dropped the receiver at that
point. And I said what’s wrong with you.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
So Fred left his successful
career as a University professor,

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
moved his family back to North Dakota and
converted part of the farm to organic.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
We began our transition as soon as we got
back here to the farm which was in 1977.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
The results were remarkably
successful and uh… so we concluded

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
after that first years experience that, you know
this is a piece of cake, there’s no problem

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
and so the next year we went whole Turkey and did the whole
farm organically and that was a mistake, it was a big mistake.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
I thought that he was going to,
that he was going to wreck us

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
or ruin us because we thought… we thought
I thought that there was no hope

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
to raise a crop without fertilizer. Well, yeah you
know there were times when we were discouraged,

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
I… I guess maybe discouraged is
a wrong term; there were times

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
when we were scared. You know
we—when we started this,

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
there was really was no information available
about doing that in this place on this scale.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
Because there was people used to laugh oh,
oh. Where Fred goes and maneuver there,

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
doing his weird thing, now they go oh.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
I think the fourth year into
the farming organically.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
My father was doing some chisel ploughing in the farm.
And he stopped the tractor and walked over to me

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
and he said come on over here, he
said I want to show you something.

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
And he reached down to me took a handful of the soil and
he said just look at that, he said just look at that soil

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
if this way of farming does that, then that’s where that nailed, it doesn’t make
any difference about anything else, which is that to the soil and that’s worth it.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
He showed me difference with this
organic, I mean that I would…

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
I would never found no money,
unless I would – I wouldn’t do it,

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
at no time, would I go back to…

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
to… mechanical fertilizer.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
I have not thought about doing
anything else since I’ve been here.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
When I was in higher education I
usually after about five or six years

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
and in one place I got bored.
This is not going to get boring.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
Because it changes all the time, Mother Nature always is
changing, you know there are some philosophers over the years

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
that have said the real trick to life is not to
get bored and if you don’t want to get bored

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
you can do this, it works.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
[sil.]

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
[music]

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
The harvest is my favorite
time of the year.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
The trees are so fat with fruit; I thought
they look like carols, waiting to be melt.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
Dad would drive to the ground to take
oranges from few different trees,

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
to see if they were ripe, we
girls were the official tasters.

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
Dad would peel off the top half
an orange to cut a little hole,

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
then we squeeze it and drink the juice out of
the hole. If it had that certain sweet flavor

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
we know it’s time to pick. Then everything
went like gangbusters, all the oranges

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
had to get off the trees
before they turned.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
Dad was so proud of his inventions. It had
taken a year of hard work to grow them,

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
but the harvest made it all seem worth it.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
No matter what the cost.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
[sil.]

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:23.000
[music]

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
It’s really pretty simple, organic agriculture
does work and it can work on a large scale.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
We demonstrated that here. Our yields are better
than they were when we were farming conventionally.

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
Nature really does provide everything that we need;
it’s just that it’s a different way of farming.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
There are lot things that are personally
satisfying, I found this way.

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
The fact that we’re enriching the
soil while we are producing food,

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
we’re not contaminating the ground water, we’re
building a future that…that we can be proud off.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
[music]

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
(inaudible)

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
Growing food with the chemical system

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
requires so much capital. That many good farmers
who have worth the land all their lives,

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
can’t afford to keep going.
Fifteen number 115.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
The prices there as far as
the expenses are concerned,

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
but we’re not getting as much
for the grain in comparison

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
so if we need expenses
that’s usually (inaudible)

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
Good pretty honest people cost $240,100.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
That isn’t that, another either. They
wish make them, they still make it –

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
[sil.]

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
Uncle $3. They got… they got money to buy –

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
I guess from the time was a
child I was wanting to farm,

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
but today my own children I … I really
hate to see them going to farming

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
or to the battle and the struggle we went through
in the last 10 years I don’t know if it’s worth it.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:58.000
(inaudible)

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
sold it $300 thank you, number, number 117.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
In my office I have 43 people who do nothing
but work with farmers on financial stuff.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
That’s all they do, it’s a biggest program
in my whole department. And that’s a shame.

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
You know this is something closely wrong with
that. Our last training program for those people

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
we had to get them training on how
do farmers qualify for footsteps.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
1966 (inaudible)

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
box 920 forever.

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
My girls I want them to
get away from the farm.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
I don’t… I don’t want them to be here.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:53.000
Anywhere (inaudible)

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
I just love farming.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
As farmers go broke and lose their farms.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
The land from that farm gets
added to land of larger farmers.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
Over 80% of agriculture production now is
produced by less than 20% of the farmers.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
And that will continue.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
[sil.]

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
Conventional farms must get bigger
to survive financially. Bigger farms

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
means management will move off the kitchen
table and into corporate offices.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
This will mean a more industrial
approach to growing food.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
In Russia they have tried this larger farm,
look there, look at Russia, without food

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
(inaudible) they’re starving. And that’s what
our government is trying to do something.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
Get the big large farms,

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
that isn’t going to work. Maybe in the world but
I’m done. You know farming is a different business

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
it’s not like you go in and punch a
clock at 8 o’clock in the morning

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
and punch it on your way out at five.
I mean if you don’t have

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
that personal emotional attachment
to the land you’re not going to do

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
the same kind of job that you would,
you know if you were just working

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
for a big corporation eight to five, I
mean what… what difference would it matter

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
to you if you got 30 bushel of wheat,
50 bushel of wheat, 10 bushel of wheat.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
You know if you gave me this farm
and said it’s yours free and clear,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
get all your equipment the
(inaudible) it’s yours you run it.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
Should I lose it? Right away because I
don’t know how, you don’t know how,

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
none of us know how except
Fred and people like Fred.

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
It’s a skill. I mean it’s a skill
just like being a tax lawyer.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
You know so

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
if we lose the skill of the people
then uh… then it’s just land.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
[sil.]

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
We’re losing our seed stock; we’re losing
our human resource in agriculture.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
Every time that a farmer is not
replaced, you know we lose wisdom;

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
we lose the wisdom to farm the land, manage the land to
occupy. And that wisdom is very difficult to replace.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
When you don’t learn how to manage land properly
from a text book, you learn it from other people

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
that have managed it properly because
managing land is a very local thing,

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
you know the way I manage
the land in this field,

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
this soil is different from a field 20 miles
from here, because the soil is different

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
and so you have to learn it locally,
you can’t learn it in general,

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
we have to learn it specifically
and uh… so the loss of the farmer

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
will be a very uh… dramatic loss and one
that will be very difficult to recover.

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:08.000
[music]

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
[sil.]

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
My dad could have done
many things with his life.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
He could have been a lawyer
or doctor or a violinist.

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
But he chose to be a farmer. He
figured that the most noble thing,

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
he could do is to help feed people.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
Dad had a vision for the future,
he wanted to grow the best oranges

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
in Florida and he wanted
to pass the farm on to us.

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
He thought planting technology and hard
work was going to making that possible.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
Our daddy really wanted was,

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
a better world for us girls.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
And for a little while we had it.

00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:03.000
[sil.]

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
[music]

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
We of course stand today on the threshold

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
of two potential revolutions in
agriculture. One revolution started

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
by that little group of verified organic farmers
has now been recognized as having great potential

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
to economically benefit farmers and
environmentally benefit the nation.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
The other potential revolution
is being promoted largely

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
by the agribusiness industry. That revolution
was recently described in an article

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
that graphically described what a farmer
will look like, in just two decades.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
Tiny sensors, robots and artificial intelligence
will automate farming’s physical labor

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
and production decisions. You
will use more chemicals,

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
but they will be benign biological ones.
Microscopic sensors

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
in livestock rumens, utters
and wombs will provide

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
the necessary data for robots to customize
feeding, breeding, milking, medication

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
and birthing routines. Mankind will have
cracked the animal communication code by 2010.

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
They will be able to communicate with us

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
and we will understand it. After being
hooked up to all that electronic hardware

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
and customizing the
feeding, breeding, milking,

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
medication and birthing routines one can
only imagine what they are going to tell us.

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
Now the question before us this morning

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
is not which of these revolutions is possible
clearly they both are. The question is

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
which revolution will we want?
Which revolution will we choose?

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
Which revolution is sustainable?

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
Ini mini money moe,

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
catch a—ini minie money moe

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
catch the tiger by the toe, ini…

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
How will we grow our food in the future?
Would it be with Biotechnology

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
with Robots and Genetic Engineering?
Or will it be another way?

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
The choice we make in the market place
today will determine that future.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
[sil.]

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
Food is the most basic thing for all
of us and if we don’t become involved

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
in understanding where the food comes from?
What it means for us?

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
How it effect our lives? And how we can en
sure the sustainability of food production

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
into the future, so that our children
also will have an adequate amount

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
of good wholesome food. Then
it will not only destroy

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
our national security but it’ll
destroy our quality of life.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:08.000
[sil.]

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
How you doing Fred you old dry farmer you?
Good to see you.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
This is Fred, Fred… How you doing…? Fred
spends his winters working with people

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
who share his concerns together they’re building
an alternative to the conventional food system.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
One that will be sustainable
economically sound

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:35.000
and capable of producing all the
food we need now and in the future.

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
In our civilization today we’re deluded into
thanking that change takes place in Washington

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
and change takes place in Conagra and
in it really doesn’t change takes place

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
in local communities by small
groups of people who are committed

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
to a different kind of future that’s how change
happens. If you forget everything else I said tonight,

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
that I would like to have
you remember is that uh…

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:10.560
the food and agriculture system is everybody’s business, you know, we
all got to get involved in this; farmers can’t do this by themselves.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
[sil.]

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
Mr. Gentleman, your timing
could not be more auspicious

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
because we are playing roulette
with the future of the earth.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
And in the Agriculture
sector we find our self,

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
operating more in chance than choice

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
and this has to be changed. The
World’s Agriculture future

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
is very much in doubt. During the 20
years of the existence of my program

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
the United Nations Environment program.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
The World has lost some 480 billion tons
of top soil that’s roughly equivalent

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
of the crop lands currently
under cultivation in India.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
Planet at risk, nutrition
at risk, humanity at risk.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
Which revolution will we choose?
Will we embark on a course

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
that leads us to make yet another assault on
nature with our new technological capabilities?

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
Or we will finally make our peace with the
earth and learn to live with the limits

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
which are intrical racial to her organisms.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:38.000
[music]

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
How did it last year?

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
Well we had uh… the early crop was really
good because we had right here in this area

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
we had very timing rains and uh… as a matter of fact we had… we had the
best yielding crop in the history of our farm last year for, for we.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
Really? Yeah. How much? 46% an acre.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
Wow! That’s Red River
Valley stuff that’s nice.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
Yeah, and for hydro spring that wasn’t winter
that was hard to explain. Oh! Very good.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:48.000
[music]

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
I still get Goosebumps

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
when the first plants come through the ground
in the spring. This is something about watching

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
the power of nature come back to life. Yeah,
you put these little bed seeds in the ground

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
and a week later you’ve get a,
life pushing up through the soil.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
That’s always been a very
exciting part of being in a farm.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
[music]

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
I often wonder if Dad

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
would wanted to farm a different way.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
But I never got the chance to ask him and
I never even got the chance to know him.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
In January 1960,

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
he suddenly became sick.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
His livers, kidneys everything
started to clear all at once.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
He went to the best hospitals in
the country. The Johns Hopkins,

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
to the Mayo Clinic, nobody knew what it was

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
and that was that.

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
Daddy died in July on my first birthday.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
He was 40 years old.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:23.000
[music]

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
When I would ask what happen
to him people always said

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
we don’t know what killed your father.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
[music]

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
[sil.]

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
I think the Garden of Eden myth

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
is one of the most relevant
myths for our society today.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
I think what the story tries to tell us is that we’re
living in the garden. The garden is for all of us.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
It says that the garden will supplied
all our needs not all our desires

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
but all our needs. There is only two
things that would require to do

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
to keep the garden then to stay in
the garden and one is to service it

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
and to care for it, and the
other is that we should not eat

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
Now, the story makes it pretty clear that eating
of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
and evil is being like God. And that
means that when you serve for ourselves

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
the right to determine
what’s good in the garden

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
in other words we decide how to arrange creation
rather than accepting the garden on creations terms.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
And the story makes it very clear

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
that if we don’t accept the garden
on its own terms or creations terms

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
then all kinds of curses will follow.
The garden will be cursed,

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
the animals will be cursed, the plants will be cursed, the soil
will be cursed our relationships to one and another will be cursed

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
and that all follows from
that center sandwich –

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
essentially it’s the center of
arrogance that’s the original thing.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:38.000
[music]

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
If you act out of arrogance you’re
going to bring curses on yourself,

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
so if you decide to refrain from acting out
of arrogance then you could be bring lessons

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
back into the garden.
Nature will heal herself

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
if we relate to her in a mutually enhancing
way if we take care of her and service her

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
then she will restore herself
and in the process restore us.

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:10.000
[sil.]