The Land ReportA publication of The Land Institute / Number 81 / Spring 2005

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Our Mission StatementWhen people, land and community are as one, allthree members prosper; when they relate not asmembers but as competing interests, all three areexploited. By consulting nature as the source andmeasure of that membership, The Land Instituteseeks to develop an agriculture that will save soilfrom being lost or poisoned while promoting acommunity life at once prosperous and enduring.

ContentsThree Simple QuestionsJerry Glover.....................................................................3

Working Wilderness: A Call for a Land HealthMovementCourtney White ................................................................6

Warning: This Diet is Not for EveryoneMarty Bender and Stan Cox ..........................................10

The Fountain of Experience ..........................................13

Toward an Ignorance-based WorldviewWes Jackson ...................................................................14

At the Land....................................................................18

All-American, All-OrganicDeborah Rich.................................................................20

Thanks to Our Contributors...........................................21

Prairie Festival Audio Tapes .........................................24

The Writers and Photographers.....................................26

The Land Report is published threetimes a year.

Editor: Scott BontzAssociate editor and production:Darlene Wolf

Graphic design: Arrow PrintingArts associate: Terry EvansPrinted by Arrow Printing Co.

Staff: Ron Armstrong,Marty Bender, Scott Bontz,Cindy Cox, Stan Cox,Lee DeHaan, Jerry Glover,Stephanie Hutchinson,Joan Jackson, Wes Jackson,Patricia Johnson, Steven Lancaster,Grant Mallett, Patty Melander,Bob Pinkall, Harris Rayl,Steve Renich, John Schmidt,Tiffany Stucky, David Van Tassel,Ken Warren, Darlene Wolf

Board of Directors:Strachan Donnelley,Terry Evans, Pete Ferrell,Jan Flora, Dan Glickman,Wes Jackson,Eulah Laucks (emeritus),Mary Laucks, Conn Nugent,Victoria Ranney, John Simpson,Donald Worster, Angus Wright

Cover: Judd Patterson.Peregrine falcon.

Above: Judd Patterson.Snowy plover eggs.

2440 E. Water Well Rd.Salina, KS 67401(785) 823-5376, phone(785) 823-8728, faxtheland@landinstitute.orgwww.landinstitute.org

ISSN 1093-1171

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Three Simple QuestionsJerry Glover

hill overlooking the Arkansas River. Most of the catalpatrees growing in Holly are offspring of those planted inthe early 1900s by Uncle Roy and his father at theChampion Mill.

The mill’s stone foundation and wooden structure,with its many cranks, pulleys and sieves, remain sound.But the mill, now a state historical site, runs only forbrief times each year, to grind souvenir-size bags offlour for tourists—I’ve bought several myself. The restof the year Frenchman Creek lacks enough water topower the mill.

Frequent drought and the temptation of federal, pro-duction-based subsidies drove many of the area’s farm-ers away from dryland production to irrigation. That irri-gation water is pumped from the High Plains aquifer,upon which Frenchman Creek flowed for millennia. Theaquifer’s level largely sets the creek’s, and when theaquifer falls below a certain point, the creek goes dry.

So within a few generations of the first plowing ofthe prairie, local residents find themselves in possessionof a fine looking but largely inoperable flour mill.

It’s an awful thing to lose a river. It’s worse to loseseveral.

In 1897, my great-great grandfather, ThomasJordan, retired from farming and bought the ChampionFlour Mill, powered by the waters of Frenchman Creekin Champion, Chase County, Nebraska. The mill’s foun-dation was laid in 1886 with stone salvaged from anabandoned cattle corral. That foundation nicely symbol-izes the region’s transition from a sustainable economybased on native grass to a doomed one based on extrac-tion. A few rainy years in the early 1880s, which settlersmistook as the norm, plus the nutrient riches of freshlyplowed prairie, yielded bumper crops that sparked fur-ther sod busting. Ranches were displaced, corrals aban-doned and flour mills built to accommodate wheat.

The Willises, a farm family, were neighbors to theJordans. Maude Jordan, my great-grandmother, marriedher brother’s best friend, John Willis. My great-grand-parents and Maude’s brother, Roy, eventually ended upin Holly, Colorado, near the Kansas border, where Igrew up in their midst. All three are buried in Holly on a

The Champion Flour Mill’sfoundation came from a corral,symbolic of the shift from a sus-tainable economy based onnative grass to a doomed onebased on extraction.

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reduce the growing of annual crops to gambling in arigged game.

From family conversations, photos and journals, it isclear that Thomas Jordan loved the region, its communi-ties and its people, and expected a long stay for hisdescendants. But today, only a few generations after the“great plow-up,” few of them remain, and none, as far asI know, are farmers or millers. Like millions of others,they largely fled the increasingly industrial landscapeand left their communities to fade.

When not occupied by milling, Thomas Jordanserved as the first secretary of the Chase CountyTelephone Co. Were it possible, I would ring up mygreat-great-grandfather and, after reporting that “No,electric trains never made it to Chase County,” ask thathe and his neighbors consider three questions in seekinga long-term strategy for living on the High Plains: Whatwas here? What is required of us here? And what willNature help us do here?

These three seemingly simple questions drive ourwork at The Land Institute. Nature’s ecosystems, nearlyeverywhere we look, feature perennial vegetation grow-ing in mixtures—the prairie of Chase County, Nebraska,is but one example. With that answer serving always asour reference point, we can take corrective action when

Meanwhile they provide grist for the current economy,also built on a seemingly rock solid foundation, but alsoultimately inoperable.

On the day my great-great-grandfather bought thatflour mill, the High Plains aquifer supported not onlyFrenchman Creek but also the Arkansas and Smoky Hillrivers in western Kansas. Little more than a centurylater, the Arkansas and Smoky Hill rivers no longer flowthere for much of the year. Ecologists reported in theMarch 2004 issue of BioScience that the sewage effluentfrom Great Bend, Kansas, 180 miles from the Coloradoborder, now serves as the headwaters of the Arkansas.

Irrigation wells, each often pumping 1,000 gallonsper minute, account for more than 90 percent of takingsfrom the aquifer. More than 80 percent of westernKansas homes depend on the rest removed. But thereand in parts of Nebraska and eastern Colorado, theaquifer has fallen 50 to 100 feet, faster than the naturalrecharge rate of a few inches per year can fill it. TheKansas Geological Survey estimates that pumpingwould have to decrease by more than 80 percent to besustainable. This would allow water for homes and live-stock but for little else. We now know that the rainyyears of the early 1880s were the exception, and that,without irrigation, the long dry spells of the High Plains

The Jordan family about 1890,from left: Fannie, Maude,Thomas, Roy and Emma.Thomas expected his descen-dants to stay on the HighPlains, but, like others, mosthave fled the increasinglyindustrialized landscape.

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The Champion Flour Mill damas it appeared in 1900.

we get the second question wrong. When dryland farm-ing of short-rooted, short-lived annual crops repeatedlyfailed the High Plains, we should have looked back tothe prairie for solutions rather than digging ourselvesdeeper into the extractive economy.

The prairie would have instructed that from theregion’s dry, hot winds we protect most of its wealthbelow ground, as perennial roots. Deep and long-lived,the roots can support the aboveground harvest on whichwe rely, even during most dry years, whether the harvestis beef, bison or, eventually, grains harvested from theperennial crops being developed by Land Institute plantbreeders.

We aren’t entirely sure what will be required offuture Jordans of the High Plains: Will they primarily beranchers, farmers of perennial grains or a combinationof both? We do know, though, that without a High Plainsaquifer and without rivers, Nature won’t help them domuch. To save that aquifer and those rivers and to devel-op a strategy for living anywhere, it is critical that thecurrent Jordans—whether on the High Plains or else-where—begin asking and answering those three seem-ingly simple questions.

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Working WildernessA Call for a Land Health Movement

Courtney White

Ethics vs. KnowledgeThis thought received a boost a few weeks later arounda campfire at the CS Ranch.

I believed, as many conservationists still do, that toend overgrazing would take getting ranchers to adoptsomething like Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic,” in whichhe argued that we are obligated to be good stewards ofnature. The question for this lofty goal was how.

I decided to ask my host, Julia Davis-Stafford. Yearsago, Julia and her sister talked their family into switch-ing to progressive ranch management on the magnifi-cent 100,000-acre CS, in northeastern New Mexico. Itwas a decision that brought the ranch to flourish eco-nomically and ecologically. In fact, the idea for myquery came when Julia expressed strong support for anew beaver dam on the ranch. The Davis family seemedto have embraced Leopold’s land ethic big time. So, overthe crackle of the campfire, I said, “How do we getother ranchers to change their ethics, too?”

“We didn’t change our ethics,” Julia replied. “We’rethe same people we were fifteen years ago. Whatchanged was our knowledge. We went back to school, ina sense, and we came back to the ranch with new ideas.”

Her point, I now see, is incredibly important.Knowledge, not ethics, is the key to good land steward-ship.

In my years as an activist, I have visited many well-managed ranches, and some poor ones, in a wide varietyof terrain. I’ve met a variety of ranchers as well. Andthey do have an environmental ethic. Often it is power-ful. But many lack new knowledge.

The same is true of many conservationists. After all,it has been a long time since many of us were in school,and land management knowledge, like most knowledge,does not sit still for long.

If conservationists could go “back to school,” whatwould we learn? Leopold had an idea: the fundamentalsof land health, which he described as “the capacity ofthe land for self-renewal.” He described conservation as“our effort to understand and preserve this capacity.”

By studying the elements of land health, conserva-tionists could learn that grazing is a natural process. Theconsumption of grass by ungulates has been going on inNorth America for at least 66 million years. Not by cat-tle, of course, but as domesticates they can be managedto mimic bison, re-creating a relationship between grassand grazer that can be ecologically sustainable.

During a tour of a well-managed ranch in New Mexico,we were taking a break under a large pinon tree when Iwas asked to say a few words about a new map. I rose abit reluctantly—the shade being deep—to explain thatthe map was important for how it showed rangelandhealth.

The map had been commissioned by an alliance ofranchers concerned about urban sprawl into the500,000-acre Altar Valley south of Tucson, Arizona. Itexpressed the intersection of three variables: soil stabili-ty, biotic integrity and hydrological function—soil, grassand water. It displayed them in three conditions: stable,at risk and unstable. Deep red meant an unstable, orunhealthy, condition for soil, grass and water, whiledeep green meant stable for all three. Other colorsshowed conditions between.

In the map’s middle was a privately owned ranchcalled the Palo Alto. I told of visiting the place recentlyand being shocked. As writer Ed Abbey would say, ithad been overgrazed to being nearly totally “cowburnt.”

The blood-red splotch on the map continued wellbelow Palo Alto’s southern boundary. But this was not aranch. This was the Buenos Aires National WildlifeRefuge, land that had been cattle-free for nearly 16years . . .

That was as far as I got. Offended at suggestion thatthe refuge might be ecologically unfit, a young Tucsonenvironmentalist cut me off. She said she knew therefuge, having worked hard to heal it from decades ofabuse by cows.

I countered that the map did not blame anyone forcurrent conditions, nor did it offer remedies. All it didwas answer a simple question: Is the land functioningproperly at the fundamental level of soil, grass andwater? For part of the refuge the answer was no. Forparts of adjacent privately owned ranches, deep green onthe map, the answer was yes. Why was that a problem?

I knew why. I had strayed too near a core belief ofmy fellow conservationists: that the ecology of “protect-ed areas,” such as national parks, wilderness andwildlife refuges, could not compare poorly with “work-ing” landscapes. And when the tour resumed, on a ranchthat would undoubtedly rate deep green, I saw in theyoung activist a need to rethink the conservation move-ment in the American West. From the ground up.

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them through numerous pastures every seven to 10 daysor so. Ideally, no single piece of ground gets grazedmore than once a year. This ensures recovery time.

The keys are control, which can be done with fenc-ing or a herder, and timing, in which the moves are care-fully planned. In fact, overgrazing is more a function oftiming than numbers of cattle.

The Davis family had expanded their knowledge tomaintain their ethic and stay in business. As the camp-fire embers burned softly into the night, I wondered ifconservations could do the same.

Land Health StandardMy friend and fellow activist Dan Dagget tells a storyabout an environmental studies professor who took stu-dents for a walk in the woods near Flagstaff, Arizona.

We could also learn that many landscapes needoccasional pulses, by what we see as disturbance, tokeep things vibrant. Many of us know that fires can ben-efit an ecosystem, because they reduce tree density, burnup old grass and aid soil nutrient cycling. But manydon’t know that small floods can help, as can drought,windstorms and even insect infestation. And nearly allof us fail to understand that grazing can as well.

Traditionally, Western ranchers employ the“Columbus school”: Turn the cows out in May and godiscover them in October. Left alone, cattle will loiter inand degrade riparian zones before grazing upland grass.This unmanaged grazing has been a chief cause of theregion’s damage.

The CS and other progressive ranches bunch theircattle together and keep them on the move, rotating

Courtney White. Which side ofthe fence is healthier? Whichside held cattle? The answer forboth: the right side. Cuba, NewMexico.

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Rangeland Health was the touchstone for a newconsensus among scientists and ranchers. In 2000 camea federal publication called Interpreting Indicators ofRangeland Health, for assessing uplands on 17 points,including gullies, soil compaction and plant diversity.The interagency National Riparian Team developed asimilar approach for stream banks and wetlands. Andrecently scientists at the U.S. Agriculture Department’sJornada Experimental Range in New Mexico publishedprotocol for measuring rangeland health to support “arange of societal values rather than to support any par-ticular value.”

This was what I tried to communicate to the youngactivist under the tree that hot summer day—that arangeland health paradigm as represented by the mapcould let us heed Leopold’s advice that anything whichdegrades an area’s “land mechanism” should be cur-tailed or changed, while any activity that maintains,restores or expands it should be supported. It should notmatter if that activity is ranching or recreation.

Land of ContrastTo understand land health better, I visited a fence sepa-rating the Navajo Nation, and its cows, from ChacoCulture National Historical Park, an archaeological pre-serve in northwest New Mexico. Cattle-free for morethan 50 years, Chaco’s condition became a teaching toolwhen a biologist used the boundary to illustrate the dan-gers of too much rest from disturbance such as grazingand fire.

I invited along Kirk Gadzia, educator and range spe-cialist, to help me see the contrast. We walked slowly upand back along the fence. On the Chaco side we sawmany forbs, shrubs and other woody material, some of itdead. We saw few young plants, few perennial or bunchgrasses, lots of wide spaces between plants, lots of oxi-dized, gray plant matter and a great deal of poor plantvigor. We saw both undisturbed, capped soil—bad forseed germination—and lots of evidence of soil move-ment such as gullies. We saw a greater diversity of plantspecies than on the Navajo side, more birds, more seed

Stopping in a meadow, the professor pointed at theground and asked, not so rhetorically, “Can anyone tellme if this land is healthy or not?” One student finallyspoke up: “Tell us first if it’s grazed by cows or not.”

A kayaking lawyer told me that a workshop betweena ranch and a wildlife refuge rearranged his thinking.“I’ve done a lot of hiking and thought I knew what landhealth was,” he said, “but when we did those transectson the ground on both sides of the fence, I saw that myideas were all wrong.”

These two instances illustrate a recurring theme inmy experience as a conservationist. To paraphrase afamous quote by a Supreme Court justice, environmen-talists can’t define what healthy land is, but know itwhen they see it.

That inability to define is changing. In 1994 theNational Academy of Sciences published a book calledRangeland Health: New Methods to Classify, Inventoryand Monitor Rangelands. It defines health “as thedegree to which the integrity of the soil and ecologicalprocesses of rangeland ecosystems are sustained.” Itgoes on to say, “The capacity of rangelands to producecommodities and to satisfy values on a sustained basisdepends on internal, self-sustaining ecological processessuch as soil development, nutrient cycling, energy flow,and the structure and dynamics of plant and animalcommunities.”

Before land can support a value, such as livestockgrazing or hunting, its basic ecology must be workingproperly. Before we talk about designating critical habi-tat for endangered species or expanded recreation, weneed to know the answer to a simple question: Is theland healthy at the level of soil, grass and water? If theanswer is “no,” then all our values might be at risk.

Or, as book co-author Kirk Gadzia likes to put it, “Itall comes down to soil. If it’s stable, there’s hope for thefuture. But if it’s moving, then all bets are off for theecosystem.”

New Mexico rancher Roger Bowe says, “Bare soil isthe rancher’s No. 1 enemy.” I think it should alsobecome the No. 1 enemy of conservationists.

‘It all comes down tosoil. If it’s stable,there’s hope for thefuture. But if it’s

moving, then all bets areoff for the ecosystem.’

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herd all of their cattle as one pool in a long arc throughthe mountains.

Pool riders guide the thousand head with border col-lies and the occasional temporary electric fence. Theymove the herd every 10 days or so, which gives the landplenty of time to recover. With no need for it anymore,the ranchers removed hundreds of miles of barbed wirefence, a boon to wildlife and backpackers alike. Stevealso employs livestock handling of a gentleness thatwould make John Wayne roll his eyes.

Forest Service conservationist Dave Bradford alsowent back to school, and was determined to measurethis new thinking’s effects. He monitors the range fre-quently, and publishes the results often. Through quite abit of research he also uncovered “before” photographsof the range’s condition.

Steve and Dave were my hosts for the day, and I wasas eager to see the evidence of their labors as they wereto show it off.

What I saw was initially shocking. The herd’s pas-sage days before left the trail looking tornado-struck:shattered brush, trampled grass, muddy pulp and ubiqui-tous cow poop. It was not a Sierra Club calendar wilder-ness.

“This look great!” Dave said while we climbed asteep hill. “Look at all this disturbance. Come back herein a month and you would never know the cattle wentthrough here, it’ll be so lush.”

The new director of a local conservation organiza-tion, whom I had invited along for cultural bridge-build-ing, said, “People call me all the time and complain.They’re hikers. They don’t think there should be cows inthe wilderness.”

“What do you tell them?” I asked.“I tell them it’s a working wilderness.”Steve led us to a high meadow where we found a

small pack of cattle that had broken off from the herd.After lunch we drove them down the mountain in a rushof snapping branches, adrenaline and hard work. It wasSteve’s sly way—I realized when we reached the bottom,exhausted and exhilarated—of teaching us about values.

But before that, we lunched among the meadow’sblooming wildflowers and admired the view. Each ofus—rancher, federal manager and activist—shared thesame thought: What a treasure this land is! Sitting therereminded me why I became a conservationist: to explorethe solace of open spaces; to look and learn, and teachin turn; to celebrate cultural diversity alongside biologi-cal diversity; and to revel in nature’s model of goodhealth.

And to try to understand, as John Muir did, thatevery part of the universe is hitched to everything else.

production, and no sign of manure or overgrazing.On the Navajo side we saw lots of plant cover and

litter, lots of perennial grasses, tight spaces betweenplants, few woody species, a wide age range among theplants, little evidence of oxidization and lots of bunchgrasses. We saw little evidence of soil movement and nogullies. We also saw less species diversity, a lot of poorplant vigor, much compacted soil, fewer birds, less seedproduction, a great deal of manure and many signs ofovergrazing.

“So, which side is healthier?” I asked.“Neither one is healthy, really,” said Kirk. “Not from

a watershed perspective, anyway.” He noted that thegrazing effect on the Navajo side was heavy; plants werenot being given enough time to recover before being bit-ten again. They lacked the vigor that would show underwell managed grazing.

However, Kirk thought the Chaco side was worse,primarily because of its gullies, capped soil and lack ofplant litter. “The major contributing factor to this condi-tion is the lack of tightly spaced perennial plants,” hesaid, “which exposes the soil to the erosive effects ofwind and rain. When soil loss is increased, options forthe future are reduced.”

“But isn’t Chaco supposed to be healthier becauseit’s protected from grazing?” I said.

“In my experience in arid environments around theworld, total rest from grazing has predictable results,”Kirk said. “In the first few years, there is an intenseresponse in the system as the pressure of overgrazing islifted. Plant vigor, diversity and abundance often returnat once, and all appears to be functioning normally.Over the years, however, if the system does not receiveperiodic natural disturbance, by fire or grazing, forexample, then the overall health of the land deteriorates.And that’s what we are seeing on the Chaco side.”

Then Kirk placed a caveat. “Maybe land health isn’tthe issue here,” he said. “It may be more about values. Isrest producing what the park wants? Ecologically, theanswer is probably ‘no.’ But from a cultural perspective,the answer might be ‘yes.’ From the public perspectivetoo. People may not want to see fire or grazing in theirpark.”

WorkingWildernessNot long ago I rode a horse into the West ElksWilderness, high above Paonia, Colorado. I wanted tosee an award-winning cattle operation in action, and tolearn more about the compatibility of ranching andwilderness values. I also wanted to see pretty country.

So did Steve Allen, who took his family to Paonia inthe early 1970s as part of that era’s back-to-the-landmovement. Switching from farming to ranching in thelate 1980s, he went “back to school” for progressivemanagement. Then he persuaded five other ranchers to

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Warning: This Diet is Not for EveryoneMarty Bender and Stan Cox

gence by indulging even more lustily in foods that themajority of the world’s people can afford to eat onlysparingly if at all. And we agricultural scientists can tryto predict the environmental consequences.

Let’s start with Worldwatch’s estimate that 1 billionof Earth’s inhabitants are overweight, and assume thatthey each eat 56 grams of animal protein a day. That isthe average in Western countries, and most overweightpeople eat Western diets. To follow the AtkinsNutritional Approach—as it’s officially known—theirdaily animal protein consumption would rise to about100 grams.

To let 1 billion dieters claim an even bigger share ofthe world’s current animal protein would be neither fairnor feasible. They already eat, on average, more thantwice the animal protein as do non-Westerners. So tosupply them with more, we’d have to boost production.

That increase would be steep. The current popula-tion of about 6.5 billion people consumes approximately182 billion grams of animal protein per day. Adding 44billion grams would require that the world’s meat, dairy,poultry and seafood industries increase output by 25percent.

The dieters would no longer get much of their pro-tein from plant sources—grains being too heavily “pol-luted” with carbohydrates—so somewhat less landwould be required for producing food crops. Still, thenet result of the big switch to animal protein wouldrequire almost 250 million more acres for corn, soy-beans and other feed grains. That’s because feedinggrain to animals and then eating the resultant meat,milk, eggs or farm-raised fish is much less efficient thaneating plant products directly.

Finding a quarter-billion acres for adequate feed-grain harvests would mean at least a 7 percent increasein cropland worldwide, at a time when farmers arealready using most of the better land. Much of the newlyplowed acreage would likely be marginal, prone togreater erosion and in need of extra-generous applica-tions of fertilizers and pesticides.

A livestock population explosion would worsen theair- and water-pollution by feedlots, slaughterhouses,and poultry and hog confinement operations. Trying tospare the land and squeeze more protein from thealready overfished oceans would likely be even moredamaging.

And that’s not all. Cattle and other ruminants getmuch of their food from pasture and rangeland. Weretheir numbers to increase by 25 percent, current grass-lands probably could not bear the entire burden. Most of

“Lose That Extra Weight ... While Eating the Foods YouLove!”

For decades, such headlines were fixtures of super-market checkout lanes, to be taken no more seriouslythan claims of alien abduction. But times have changed.Whatever its benefits or drawbacks, the Atkins diet hasbecome wildly popular for one reason: It offers theprospect of a big, juicy T-bone to frustrated dietersweary of gnawing on rice cakes.

It seems too good to be true, and some critics say itis. The debate is chock-full of meat and potatoes, belliesand thighs, arteries and kidneys. But increased proteinconsumption is also likely to threaten the health of aplanet whose ecosphere our species is already exploitingwell beyond its capacity.

Is the Atkins diet ecologically sustainable? We’llanswer by asking this: What if it were adopted by every-one who needs to lose weight?

Now, to label as unsustainable any individual actionthat could not be participated in universally is highlyconservative. There could be sustainable societies wheresome engage in activities that would not be possible forall, while perhaps compensating with restraint in otherareas. But when we are faced with a strong trend, ask-ing, “What if everyone did it?” achieves two importantobjectives: The result is more likely to be globally sus-tainable than are less conservative approaches thatdepend on just the right balance being struck. And it isfair, in that no one may do what could not be done byeveryone.

If Labels Told AllThroughout history and for most people today, meat hasbeen a luxury, because its production requires moreresources than does the growing of food crops. TheWorldwatch Institute reports that it takes 68 times asmuch water to produce a pound of beef as it does to pro-duce a pound of bread flour, and that animal protein iseight times costlier than plant protein in terms of fossil-fuel energy. The industrialized West has managed to putmeat and dairy products within reach of even its poor-est, but only by drawing on vast reserves of soil, waterand energy.

To the extent that the Atkins diet helps shed excessweight, it benefits individuals and, arguably, society as awhole. But a physician might ponder the long-term costto health care systems if everyone overweight ateenough protein and fat to damage the heart, kidneys andother organs. An ethicist might ask whether people inthe West should address, en masse, their own overindul-

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diet for much of their lives. Half of U.S. grain goes toanimals. Sixty percent of that goes to beef and dairy cat-tle, with most of the rest to hogs and poultry.

With a more rational production system, moderatebeef consumption could actually improve the environ-ment. Cattle, unlike chickens and hogs, can subsistentirely on range, pasture and hay. Extensive researchshows that rangeland and pasture, which consist almostentirely of perennial plants with large, long-lived rootsystems, do not wreak the soil erosion and water con-tamination seen with annual grain crops. This conti-nent’s lands and rivers could dramatically improve bytaking the 60 percent of grain acreage that feeds cattleand converting it to pasture. Our calculations show thatproduction of beef and dairy products might be main-tained.

But without massive deforestation, grass-fed beefstill couldn’t satisfy 1 billion people on the Atkins diet.

Back here in the real world, increases in beefdemand are met largely by stuffing corn and soybeanmeal into feedlot cattle, and the Corn Belt is not aboutto become a more ecologically friendly Pasture Belt. Inan economy groaning under grain surpluses, cattle areespecially prized for their ability to convert 10 poundsof unneeded corn into only one pound of meat, theremainder becoming things like carbon dioxide,methane, manure and bones. It will take changes farbeyond shifts in personal diet to make the U.S. meatindustry more ecologically sound.

With all factors considered, diets emphasizing plantproducts are more likely to be ecologically sound for the

those lands are already fully stocked, and putting moreanimals on them would increase overgrazing and degra-dation. New pasture for, say, half of the additional ani-mals would require 1 billion acres. Most of this addi-tional grassland probably would come by deforestation,which could mean that 10 percent of Earth’s remainingforests would have to go.

Overconsumption in the United States and otheraffluent nations doesn’t exactly qualify as breakingnews, but the Atkins diet puts a new twist in the oldstory. Its advocates have convinced millions of peoplethat one of the most highly visible symptoms of excessconsumption—an accelerating epidemic of obesity—canbest be cured by following a regimen that gobbles upglobal resources even faster.

Weighing That Pound of FleshWe realize that the world’s entire overweight populationis not going to eat this way. Many people lack the desireor the means, or both, to make animal products their pri-mary food, and debates over the diet’s soundness remainunresolved. Sales of low-carb products, which had shotup to $1.3 billion by 2003, appear to be leveling off. Butthe kinds of ecological damage we have described arelikely to occur in direct proportion to the number ofpeople who do adopt such diets, and when making deci-sions, that information should be placed on the scales.

In saying that ecological damage is likely withexpansion of high-protein diets, we assume that addi-tional animals will be raised as current ones are. Thevast majority of American beef cattle eat a grain-based

Where’s the beef: Eating up land for carb-fed, calorie-wasting cattle to give us protein.

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Today’s global economy owes its existence togrowth in consumption, a need that is served well by theAtkins diet. Such nutritional plans emphasize not food,but the individual compounds into which food can bebroken—sugars, starches, proteins, fats, fiber, vitamins,antioxidants—and so open up new vistas for capitalaccumulation.

The atomization of food is the latest in a series of“metabolic rifts,” to use Marx’s term, that have tornthrough agriculture in recent centuries. The first camewith the Industrial Revolution, as essential soil compo-nents like nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter wereexported from the land in food for city dwellers, whosenutrient-rich excreta became waste lost to rivers andoceans. In the early 20th century, using fossil fuel tomake nitrogen fertilizer provided a short-term fix.

A second rift came with the rapid growth of feedlotsand indoor animal confinement operations. Animal hus-bandry and crop production, formerly woof and warp ofthe same agricultural fabric, were ripped from eachother, creating further crises of pollution, soil degrada-tion and poor human nutrition.

Now the very concept of food is fading away, aswhat we eat increasingly is regarded as a simpleagglomeration of nutrients in various proportions.Current low-carb oddities like bunless submarine sand-wiches, crustless pizzas and pies, “mashed potatoes”made of isolated soy protein, breadless Thanksgivingstuffing, and, of course, pork rinds, are leading us downa slippery slope, at the bottom of which we may find theJetsons’ meal-in-a-pill.

With each successive rift in the networks of soil,water, microbial communities, insects, wild plants,crops, livestock and human beings, we have tried toimpose the factory model on living systems, withruinous consequences for the ecosphere. As a way toprotect and improve the human body, the Atkins dietjoins a long parade of profitable but ecologically harm-ful products that displaced something more benign. Inrecent decades, we’ve substituted workouts in fitnessclubs for a few hours of hauling hay bales, shunnedonce-safe tap water for pricey bottled stuff, fought aller-gies with air conditioning, and allowed the Atkins diet totriumph over simple restraint. Design a product thatcombines luxury consumption with notions of healthand vitality, and you can bet—sorry, Dr. Atkins—that itwill sell like hotcakes.

The first, short version of this essay was for The LandInstitute’s Prairie Writers Circle and sent to newspapersaround the country. This is the preliminary for anexpanded revision to appear in a collection of variouswriters’ essays, The Atkins Diet and Philosophy, to bepublished by Open Court.

world than are ones based on animal protein. And it ispossible, with considerable ingenuity and effort, toachieve Atkins protein, fat, carbohydrate and fiber levelson a vegetarian diet. But few if any plants in their nativestate can satisfy those requirements, so vegetarian low-carb diets are heavy in isolated, processed vegetable pro-teins. And the Atkins diet owes its widespread populari-ty to the absence of just such foods. Only if you’re adeeply committed vegetarian could you eat “the foodsyou love” a la Atkins.

Eco-conscious low-carb dieters who expend time,energy and money in seeking out soy sausage or grass-fed beef are to be applauded. But to follow any highlyselective diet is to exercise a privilege typically reservedfor the few. Graham Greene put it best in his novel TheComedians, in which Mr. Brown, the narrator, consolesthe altruistic Mr. Smith regarding Smith’s failed propos-al for a “vegetarian center” in Haiti: “I don’t think theyare quite ripe here for vegetarianism. Perhaps you musthave enough cash to be carnivorous first.”

Chopped Liver and Metabolic RiftsWalk the aisles of any supermarket, and you will seethat Atkins has not only increased resource consumptionbut also provided countless marketing opportunities.

For comparison, let’s pursue a second thought exper-iment. This time, the world’s overweight population fol-lows a well-known, tried-and-true route to better health:� Eat less.� Eat out rarely.� Cook using food in its least-processed form: whole-

grain flour, eggs, moderate amounts of healthful oils,dry beans, home-grown vegetables, rolled oats, etc.

� Limit consumption of animal products.� Drink mainly water.� Avoid between-meal snacks.� Whenever possible, walk, run or bicycle instead of

drive.

Following this prosaic advice may or may not result inweight loss, and it may or may not be ecologically sus-tainable. That depends on the many assumptions andvariables within it. But we can be confident that itwould cause less environmental damage than currentWestern eating habits.

Furthermore, it would not generate friction betweenthe rights of humans and those of other species. It wouldcall attention to the ultimate dependence of humans onnatural systems. It would be more affordable for richand poor alike.

And it would probably trigger an economic collapse.Were hundreds of millions of people to stick to thishighly effective weight-loss program, they would damup the vast rivers of capital that currently go intoagribusiness and the food industry.

The Land Report 13

The Fountain of Experience

Resting travelers might remark about the patternedmetal ceiling of the drug store. It was built in 1917, andhas always been a drug store. Maybe they visited anoth-er attraction in Greensburg, the world’s largest hand-dugwell at 32 feet wide and 109 feet deep. They might askHuckriede to sign a copy of the book Soda FountainWisdom, in which he and the Hunter appear. If they usea cane or walker, the 75-year-old will help them with thedoor.

Huckriede stretches his lunch breaks now. But youcan still find him working the fountain and clerking sixdays a week. He has no plan to retire.

The Formica counter and stainless steel syrup pumpscame to Hunter Drug Store’s fountain in the 1950s. Sodid Richard Huckriede. For 52 years he’s served upmalts, shakes and floats at the Greensburg, Kansas,business.

He pumps the syrups, in flavors like cherry, lemonand vanilla, to mix with soda water and fine ice for softdrinks. Adults tell children, “You’re not getting this outof a can.”

Counter regulars need not say what they want.Huckriede knows them well. But they talk: “Oh, yes …quite a bit of that.”

Aaron Paden

The Land Report 14

Toward an Ignorance-based WorldviewWes Jackson

This is part of what led to a conference we held in2004 called “Toward an Ignorance-based Worldview.”The inspiration started with a letter Wendell Berry wroteto me in 1982. Here are parts of it:

I want to try to complete the thought about “ran-domness” that I was working on when we talked theother day. The Hans Jenny paragraph that started meoff is the last on page 21 of The Soil Resource:

“Raindrops that pass in random fashion throughan imaginary plain above the forest canopy areintercepted by leaves and twigs and channeled intodistinctive burnt space patterns of through-drip,crown-drip and stem flow. The soil surface, asreceiver, transmits the “rain message” downward,but as the subsoils lack a power source to mold aflow design, the water tends to leave the ecosystemas it entered it, in randomized fashion.”

My question is: Does “random” in this (or any)context describe a verifiable condition or a limit ofperception?

My answer is: It describes a limit of perception.This is, of course, not a scientist’s answer, but it maybe that anybody’s answer would be unscientific. Myanswer is based on the belief that pattern is verifi-able by limited information, whereas the informa-tion required to verify randomness is unlimited. As Ithink you said when we talked, what is perceived asrandom within a given limit may be seen as a part ofa pattern within a wider limit.

If this is so, then Dr. Jenny, for accuracy’s sake,should have said that rainwater moves from mysterythrough pattern back into mystery.

To call the unknown “random” is to plant theflag by which to colonize and exploit the known. (Aresult that our friend Dr. Jenny, of course, did notpropose and would not condone.)

To call the unknown by its right name, “mys-tery,” is to suggest that we had better respect thepossibility of a larger, unseen pattern that can bedamaged or destroyed and, with it, the smaller pat-terns.

This respecting of mystery obviously has some-thing or other to do with religion, and we modernshave defended ourselves against it by turning it overto religion specialists, who take advantage of ourindifference by claiming to know a lot about it.

What impresses me about it, however, is theinsistent practicality implicit in it. If we are upagainst mystery, then we dare act only on the most

At The Land Institute several of us get a great deal ofjoy from looking for the relatedness of the seeminglyunrelated. Here is an example: In 1859 Charles Darwin’sOrigin of Species was published. The same year ColonelDrake drilled the first oil well in Pennsylvania. AndJohn Brown was hanged at Harper’s Ferry. Now let’sconnect the dots.

Darwin’s idea of evolution through natural selectionwas sponsored by coal. If it hadn’t been for coal and theinfrastructure that gave slack to this country gentleman,the idea would have had to wait. Its refinement was spon-sored further by coal, and by oil and natural gas. Theimportant ideas in ecology really took off after 1859.

What about John Brown? Coal again. The industrialNorth could afford to be pretty self-righteous aboutopposing slavery in the much more sun-powered planta-tion South. Before the fossil carbon era, slavery of someform or another was widespread.

The slack from energy-rich carbon pools is what hasmade civilization possible. First it was agriculture andsoil carbon, later the cutting of forests. The king of Tyrestruck a deal with Solomon for the cedars of Lebanon tobuild the temple. The Greeks had already done in thou-sands of acres of their trees. By the time ofCharlemagne the onslaught against Europe’s forests waswell under way. Carbon pools exploited. So it went, andso it goes today. Our fossil fuel epoch—some 250 yearsold—is dependent on highly dense and vast pools ofcoal, oil and natural gas.

We tend to think that the ideas of humanity ariserather intrinsically. We seldom pay attention to theirsponsorship, to the slack made available by our speciesskating from one energy-rich carbon pool to another.

Why is this a prologue to what I have to say aboutignorance? Simply this: Before agriculture, long beforethe industrial revolution, we could afford to be veryignorant about what supported us. We didn’t need toknow about nutrient cycling and energy flow within theecosystems of the ecosphere. We didn’t need to knowthat the earth goes around the sun—and still don’t.

Do we really need to know Einstein’s equations?How much do we really need Newton’s calculus? Aharder question. As creatures of the upper Paleolithic wecertainly didn’t need Newton’s calculus back then. Wedon’t need to know about plate tectonics now, thoughI’m glad to know about plate tectonics. In fact, I’m gladto know what’s come in from the Hubble telescope.

But as a consequence of scientific and technologicaltampering, we have created ignorance of things we nowdo need to know.

The Land Report 15

modeler ecologist, wrote, “Structured ignorance is a pre-requisite for knowledge.” Also, “Ignorance is not pas-sive. It requires energy to sustain it.”

By embracing an ignorance-based worldview, atleast we go with our long suit. Knowledge and insightaccumulate fastest in the minds of those who hold anignorance-based worldview. Having studied the exits,their imaginations are less narrow. Darting eyes have thepotential to see more.

At the conference, Wendell said, “Our purpose hereis to worry about the predominance of the supposition ina time of great technological power that humans eitherknow enough already or can learn enough soon enoughto foresee and forestall any bad consequences.” He saidthis supposition is typified by Selfish Gene authorRichard Dawkins’ assertion in an open letter to PrinceCharles: “Our brains are big enough to see into thefuture and plot long-term consequences.”

Wendell said, “When we consider how often andhow recently our most advanced experts have beenwrong about the future and how often the future hasshown up sooner than expected with bad news about ourpast, Mr. Dawkins’ assessment of our ability to know isrevealed as a superstition of the most primitive sort.”

Several people brought to the conference somethingDefense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a newsbriefing: “There are known knowns. There are things weknow we know. We also know there are knownunknowns. That is to say we know there are some thingswe do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns,the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Believe it or not, some thought Mr. Rumsfeld wasreally right on. Mario Rizzo, an author of TheEconomics of Time and Ignorance, said Rumsfeld’s dis-tinctions are important: “I know that I do not knowRumsfeld’s home telephone number. On the other hand,I may arrive in a foreign country and be completelyunaware that there are books or directories available thatwill tell me where to find other English speakers.” So asa result of this uncertainty the poor tourist doesn’t knowwhere to search for those English speakers or how longit’s worthwhile to keep searching. You can see that soonhe’ll be wondering how to find the restroom—andstudying exits.

The conference then took up a Harvard BusinessReview piece called “Wanted: A Chief IgnoranceOfficer.” It said that ignorance management is arguablya more important skill than knowledge management.

What interests me the most about ignorance is thekind that The Land Institute is willing to embrace as wethink about building an agriculture based on the way anatural ecosystem works.

I think I can help you understand by reading froman Aldo Leopold essay called “The Last Stand.” Itdescribes a forest in the Alps that had produced quality

modest assumptions. The modern scientific programhas held that we must act on the basis of knowledge,which, because its effects are so manifestly large,we have assumed to be ample. But if we are upagainst mystery, then knowledge is relatively small,and the ancient program is the right one: Act on thebasis of ignorance. Acting on the basis of ignorance,paradoxically, requires one to know things, remem-ber things—for instance, that failure is possible, thaterror is possible, that second chances are desirable(so don’t risk everything on the first chance), and soon.

What I think you and I and a few others areworking on is a definition of agriculture as upagainst mystery and ignorance-based. I think wethink that this is its necessary definition, just as Ithink we think that several kinds of ruin are the nec-essary result of an agriculture defined as knowl-edge-based and up against randomness. Such anagriculture conforms exactly to what the ancientprogram, or programs, understood as evil or hubris.Both the Greeks and the Hebrews told us to watchout for humans who assume that they make all thepatterns.

How’d you like to receive a letter like that? It took22 years to digest it and to finally put together a confer-ence.

As you can imagine, when we announced “Towardan Ignorance-based Worldview,” it was a source of greatmirth.

To get ready for this conference, I sent out sort of aninvitation. Here’s what it said: “Imagine an ignorance-based science and technology in which practitionerswould be ever conscious that we are billions of timesmore ignorant than knowledgeable and always will be.”

Now, if you know that knowledge is not adequate torun the world, what do you do? What do you do if yourecognize that you are up against ignorance?

You ask before launching a scientific or technologi-cal venture: How many people will be involved? At whatlevel of culture? Will we be able to back out? Scientists,technologists and policy-makers would be assiduous stu-dents of exits.

I have spent a fair amount of my life studying exits,starting with classrooms. How are we going to get out ofhere in case something goes wrong? Such students ofexits would want to know not only how to exit, but alsohow to not leave irrevocable damage.

Knowledge seeking would not stop, but would, asWendell Berry has said, “force us to remember things,cause us to hope for second chances and provide anincentive to keep the scale small.” Acknowledging igno-rance might be the secular mind’s only way to humility.

Harvard’s Dick Levins, a sort of a mathematical

The Land Report 16

I have an example. Several years ago in the NewYork Review of Books, Harvard zoologist Dick Lewintontold about how he and Carl Sagan visited a church-relat-ed college to take the evolutionist view in debate with acreationist. The creationist had a doctorate in zoologyfrom the University of Texas—not a creationist depart-ment, but he was teaching in the church school.Afterward they asked for a show of hands, and foundthat the creationist won overwhelmingly. Lewintonwrote that in the cab going back to the airport, Sagansaid this was obviously a problem of education.Lewinton said it was about cultural and regional history.Then he told how Sagan spent his life trying to changethings through education.

I’ve been around a fair number of universities, andI’ve witnessed friends and the children of friends fromcreationist homes go to college and graduate, some ofthem cum laude, and they’re still creationists. Culturaland regional history overrode education.

I give this example because here is a question thatgoes beyond the available answers: Why? If cultural andregional history overrides educational power, what dowe do? If education isn’t good enough, what do educa-tors do?

Well, maybe it’s time to start with a certain amountof humility and say we’re fundamentally ignorant aboutthe way minds change. Acknowledging that we are fun-damentally ignorant, we now can ask a question thatgoes beyond the available answers, and that’s going toforce knowledge out of its categories.

We would be fundamentally respectful of our origi-nal relationship with the universe. There might even be amore joyful participation in our engagement with theworld.

Adapted from a talk at The Land Institute’s 2004 PrairieFestival.

timber since the 1600s by selective harvesting. A con-tiguous forest of the same kind of timber was clear-cutin the 1600s and never recovered, despite intensive care.Here’s what Leopold says:

Despite this rigid protection, the old slashing nowproduces only mediocre pine, while the unslashedportion grows the finest cabinet oak in the world;one of those oaks fetches a higher price than awhole acre of the old slashings. On the old slashingsthe litter accumulates without rotting, stumps andlimbs disappear slowly, natural reproduction is slow.On the unslashed portion litter disappears as it falls,stumps and limbs rot at once, natural reproduction isautomatic. Foresters attribute the inferior perform-ance of the old slashing to its depleted microflora,meaning that underground community of bacteria,molds, fungi, insects and burrowing mammalswhich constitute half the environment of a tree.

The existence of the term microflora implies, tothe layman, that science knows all the citizens of theunderground community, and is able to push themaround at will. As a matter of fact, science knowslittle more than that the community exists, and thatit is important. In a few simple communities likealfalfa, science knows how to add certain bacteria tomake the plants grow. In a complex forest, scienceknows only that it is best to let well enough alone.

What we are acknowledging here is the integrationof nature’s life forms over a long evolutionary history,and that the entropy law has forced the efficienciesinherent to those natural integrities. We can’t keep trackof this. We have not even named most of the fungi orbacteria. To plow this information-rich world and sim-plify it and then treat it as though there’s only phospho-rus, potassium, manganese, iron, calcium and so on, andthen presume you can just keep on, is acting as thoughknowledge is adequate to run that world.

We live in a very exciting time, but we need a dif-ferent way of thinking. That means we need a kind ofhouse arrest on the destructively dominating thoughtsfrom the architects of the Enlightenment and beyond, tothe Greek and Hebrew dualists. For example, in theearly 17th century Rene Descartes’Meditations on theFirst Philosophy said that we can remake the world inthe interests of humanity with no discussion of negativeconsequences. Imagine if in the 21st century we couldsee the end of the idea that knowledge is adequate to runthe world. This would cause us to feature questions thatgo beyond the available answers. We would learnpatience, and we would enjoy a kind of yeastiness forthought. I think this also would do the absolutely neces-sary job of driving knowledge out of its categories.

The Land Report 17

Judd Patterson. Canada geese.

The Land Report 18

At the Land

StaffJohn Schmidt saw our ad “Hiring for a Big Idea” andjoined us in December as development director andadded to our fund-raising staff. Before, he directeddevelopment and alumni relations at the College ofForestry and Conservation for the University ofMontana Foundation. And before that he worked atRocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Ducks Unlimited.He earned a doctorate in wildlife biology from ColoradoState University, where he taught and was associate deanof the College of Natural Resources. Schmidt was bornand raised in Kansas.

Cindy Cox joined us early this year as a researchscientist. She was one of our graduate student fellows,and recently earned a doctorate in plant pathology fromKansas State University. Her research for developmentof our mixed perennial grains is in disease managementand chromosome biology. Cox’s history with us beganwith research of disease resistance of perennial wheatfor a master’s degree in plant pathology at WashingtonState University. Before that she taught math for thePeace Corps in Central African Republic.

Graduate FellowsWorkshopWe’ll hold the annual workshop for our Natural SystemsAgriculture graduate school fellows June 23-29. LandInstitute staff and visiting scholars give students intenseand diverse lectures, with breaks for talk and presenta-tion of the students’ experiments.

Each year The Land Institute gives stipends of$3,000 to $9,000 each for 15 to 20 graduate students atuniversities around the continent based on what we seeas their potential to shift farming toward our aim ofmixed cropping of perennials. Their studies includeecology, botany, agronomy, soil science, plant pathology,environmental science and plant breeding.

For more, see www.landinstitute.org or write toJerry Glover at glover@landinstitute.org.

Perennial Grain BreedingWe’ve begun developing a research station nearCorrientes, Argentina. This will allow fall-harvest seedfrom Kansas to be sown in the Southern Hemisphere’sspring, doubling the generations grown in a year and sospeed our work. A new staff member from Argentinawill spend the growing season at The Land Institute,then return home in November to carry out our workthere.

In winter, many of the plants that we are breedingrested dormant. The fields were wet or frozen. But inthe greenhouse were hundreds of bright green cropplants and their wild, perennial relatives. We transferredpollen between maturing plants to combine the besttraits of each. We tried new hybrids and, with our earliersuccess, pursued further improvement. There was lesstest-tube nurturing of embryos than early in this process.More of our plants are setting seeds, and more of theseseeds are vigorous.

Threshing and cleaning seed from thousands ofplants busied research assistants.

Now yields that they measured go to a new comput-er program for tracking traits and genetic pedigrees. Wehave also converted old data and developed standardprocedures. We have many generations of plants—andpeople—to think about.

AgroecologyOur long-term agroecology research trial is two yearsold. This 20-year test will help us understand the bene-fits of perennial cropping and how to manage it forexpansion across the agricultural landscape. Seed yield,soil properties, water use and root development are stud-ied in 45 plots over 15 acres of annuals and perennials.We use prototype plants for perennial grain crops, andwill add new perennials until they are fully developed,high-yielding crop species.

We began complementary research on nearby bot-tomland prairie meadow. This will help tell how mix-tures of native perennials can yield abundantly for yearswithout added chemicals. We’re converting part of themeadow to annual crops for a six-year comparativestudy of soil, productivity, and water and nutrient use.Cropland and prairie have been compared before, butnot studied during conversion.

These studies are on farmer Jim Duggan’s large bot-tomland north of The Land Institute. Such native areasare rare and valuable to our research.

The Land Report 19

Presentations ComingJune 4, Matfield Green, Kansas.July 22-23, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.September 8, Springfield, Missouri.September 20-27, Adelaide, Australia.September 23-25, Prairie Festival, Salina, Kansas.For details, see the calendar at www.landinstitute.org.

PublicationsLand Institute President Wes Jackson is one of eightpeople that writer Carl N. McDaniel profiles in a bookcalled Wisdom for a Livable Planet.

PrairieWriters CircleWe expanded our market. About 250 newspapers nowreceive essays by our contributing writers on ecology,farming, culture and related topics.

The latest themes: organic vs. local food, ecologyand dairy farming, the theoretical tradeoff between off-spring and energy consumption, farming by numbers vs.by story, food origin labeling, river restoration, howanti-GMO laws miss (see page 20), destructive streamcleaning, the institutionalization of hunger, the short-sightedness of an aeronautical innovation, and changingpolicy to help land and farm.

All essays are at www.landinstitute.org and free foruse with credit to the Prairie Writers Circle and TheLand Institute.

Electronic NewsletterScoop is a brief newsletter e-mailed every six weeks totell about Land Institute activities.You may subscribe bye-mailing olsen@landinstitute.org.

Short CourseOur weekend Natural Systems Agriculture course forundergraduate students will be May 27-28 in Salina.Call, write or see www.landinstitute.org for attendancequalifications and application.

Green Lands, BlueWatersWe signed on with a large and ambitious effort calledGreen Lands, Blue Waters. This connects universitiesand non-governmental organizations to move farming inthe Mississippi River basin toward more perennialplants and continuous living ground cover, even as TheLand Institute develops mixed perennial grains for useyears from now. The cover will include trees, shrubs,grasses, hay crops and annual plants grown in combina-tion, as well as cover crops between rows. Cropping ofannuals now exposes much of the U.S. breadbasket’s soilto erosion and water degradation for much of the year.

Green Lands, Blue Waters aims for better landhealth to benefit wildlife, human health, farming optionsand profitability, and rural community.

Our partners include the University of Illinois, IowaState University, North Dakota State University, theUniversity of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin,the Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy and ThePractical Farmers of Iowa. This effort is too complex forany one group or government, and pulls together diversepartners.

For more, see www.greenlandsbluewaters.org.

Presentations MadeIn Seattle we presented our work in a full-day sympo-sium for the joint annual meeting of 4,000 agronomy,crop and soil scientists. Wendell Berry spoke at oursymposium, and gave the keynote address for the week-long conference. Also speaking was Steven Jones, whois developing perennial wheat at Washington StateUniversity.

Land Institute President Wes Jackson spoke at theSan Francisco Modern Museum of Art for the openingof a photography exhibit by John Szarkowski, longtimecurator of photography at New York’s Museum ofModern Art. Jackson addressed the influence onSzarkowski of agroecologist Liberty Hyde Bailey.

Two staff members attended the semi-annualMountain Sky Conference in Big Sky, Montana, whichbrings together the natural sciences and medicine, andone participated in the National Sorghum GenomeWorkshop in St. Louis. We made presentations atCornell University, Rutgers University, the University ofManitoba, Burlington County College in New Jersey, theTexas Conference on Organic Production Systems and aMennonite meeting in Kansas.

The Land Report 20

All-American, All-OrganicDeborah Rich

point of critical knowledge about how togrow our food organically. We could vote,today, to require all agriculture to beorganic within 10 years and know that notwe, our children or our poor will go hun-gry due to insufficient crop production.

For 24 years the Rodale Institute inPennsylvania has conducted the FarmingSystems Trial comparing organic farmingside by side with chemical-based farming.Corn and soybeans are the staple crops ofthe trial, just as they are of the United

States. The study has shown that organic yields consis-tently match conventional yields.

Organic has fared well in other tests. Bill Liebhardt,director of the University of California’s SustainableAgriculture Research and Education Program from 1987to 1998, reviewed studies at seven universities and foundorganic yields matched or almost matched conventionalyields.

Decidedly unbalmy North Dakota grows nearly asmany certified organic acres as California—145,500compared with nearly 150,000, respectively, in 2001.

The National Organic Program, which has regulateduse of the word “organic” on food labels since October2002, provides a good starting point for identifying whatpractices would and would not be allowed under anorganic mandate. A national network of organic certifi-cation agencies already exists and, with certified organiccropland in nearly every state, we have a contingent ofexperienced organic farmers at the ready.

I’d like to think that a president would carry thetorch to draft and pass legislation requiring U.S. agricul-ture to adopt organic practices: “All-American, All-Organic.” But few presidents can dare be so bold giventhe lobbying strength of conventional agriculture and itschemical suppliers. Instead, the vote will have to beginwith us, and gather strength state by state.

With the Prairie Writers Circle, The Land Instituteinvites and distributes essays to some 250 newspapersand web services. All essays are atwww.landinstitute.org.

We’re working hard chasing down signa-tures out here in California, but in sup-port of the wrong ballot measures.Instead of backing initiatives to bangenetically modified crops, we should beforcing a vote on whether to require allagriculture to be organic—not only inbalmy, crop-diverse California, but inevery state.

I agree that genetically modifiedcrops likely jeopardize the intricate webthat has evolved between plants, soilmicroorganisms and animals in ways little understoodand difficult to anticipate before being made painfullyapparent. Substituting human judgment for the sieve ofevolution as the determinant of whether the DNA of dif-ferent kingdoms of life should mix ought to give uspause.

But genetically modified crops are merely symp-toms of the underlying problem of industrialized agri-culture and its reliance on chemical pesticides and fertil-izers.

Plants altered to produce their own insecticides, orto withstand herbicide applications, are crop chemicalsin a new and more convenient form. Like their liquid,granule, dust and gas predecessors, genetically modifiedcrops extend the illusion that we can indefinitely feed,clothe, house and transport our populous species withlittle regard for the basic tenet of biodiversity and thenatural systems of nutrient and energy recycling uponwhich all life depends. Outlaw GM plants without a fun-damental change in our approach to agriculture, and ourlaboratories will soon spew out different and equallydisturbing innovations.

We don’t have the time, personally or environmen-tally, to fan out gathering signatures to counter therelease of each new generation of agricultural chemical.We need, instead, to vote once for a system of food pro-duction that promotes the health of the land. We needstate referendums requiring all agriculture to switch toorganic within a reasonable time. By definition, thiswould outlaw GM crops, and nearly all other forms ofsynthetic chemicals.

The past 10 years have made a mockery of the origi-nal rationales offered for radically altering the DNA ofplants: Much of the world is still hungry, we’re still bail-ing out our farmers with a national farm bill that willcost us well in excess of $100 billion, and pesticide useon the major GM crops is increasing, not decreasing.

But during this same decade, we have reached a

The Land Report 21

Pledges

AClifford P. and Rebecca K.R.Ambers

Angela A. AndersonChristopher E. Anderson and SuzanFitzsimmons

Alan G. ArnoldJennifer R. AtleePatricia A. and Tim C. Ault-DuellBWilliam C. and Terry B. BaldwinWilliam Beard IICheri BlackCharles R. Boardman III and DianneE. Boardman

Lloyd D. Brace Jr.Dr. Dennis M. and Jean C. BrambleSheryl D. BreenD. Gordon Brown and Charlene K.Irvin-Brown

Professor E. Charles BrummerCJaneine Cardin and David RitterJim and Carressa CarlstedtMerry P. CarlstedtJames P. and Marianne G. CassidySuzanne CassonLorna W. and D. Douglas CaulkinsRichard E. and Anne E. CourterDianne M. and Gerard CoxKenneth L. CramerEdith A. CresmerDavid S. and Kim CriswellDShawn and Jamie DehnerAl DeSena, Ph.D., and Mary H.DeSena

Dennis R. DimickFred and Arlene DolgonBarbara T. DregalloNathanael P. and Marnie DresserBlythe Dyson and Hannah F. ArpsEJean A. EmmonsJames P. EricksonArlen and Lana S. EtlingTerry and Sam EvansFEric FarnsworthDouglass T. FellRebecca V. Ferrell and Michael J.Golec

Andy and Betsy FinfrockDana K. Foster

John K. FransonGJane A. GaussJared N. and Cindi M. GellertNils R. Gore and Shannon R. CrissDaniel G. and Norma A. GreenHDavid HaskellJames F. HensonCraig A. HepworthBette J. HilemanFrederick T. Hill IIIDavid L. Hodges and ElizabethKnight

John J. and Gloria J. HoodMark L. and Linda K. HowardJohn W. HowellGary R. and Michele HowlandAndrew Hyde HryniewiczMarie E. HuffmanIDana J. InloesJNancy and Scott JacksonMrs. Nancy A. JacksonWes and Joan JacksonDorcie McKniff JasperseMax D. and Helen F. JohnstonJimmy R. JonesTodd JuenglingKRobert G. and Judith KellyBruce KendallConstance E. KimosLeslie KitchensRaymond C. and Marianne D.Kluever

Keith W. KriegerLDavid R. LeitchRobert M. LindholmJonne A. LongKenneth C. Louis and Sherri A.Resetar

MMichelle C. Mack and Edward TedSchuur

Grant W. Mallett and Nancy Tilson-Mallett

James R. and Nanette M. ManhartAndrew F. Marks and TamaraZagorec-Marks

David E. MartinHelen O. MartinPeter Mason and Paula WenzlThomas R. and Nina L. MastickWilliam A. and Julia Fabris McBride

Mildred N. McClellanR. Michael and Debra L. MedleySara MichlHoward Walter MielkeBart P. Miller and Lisa SeamanRobin E. MittenthalSuzanne Meyer MittenthalBonny A. Moellenbrock and MichaelI. Lowry

John H. MorrillNCharles NaborsKaren Owsley NeaseWilliam D. and Dorothy M. NelliganRichard B. and Elizabeth B. NortonODennis A. O’Toole FamilyFoundation

The Osborne & Scekic FamilyFoundation

Richard and Christine OurenPHarold D. and Dorothy M. ParmanSteven PauldingC. Diane PercivalJoan PeterkinRobert L. and Karen N. PinkallQJerry L. Quance and Marcia A. HallRCharles P. and Marcia LautanenRaleigh

Thomas L. Rauch and JoyceBorgerding

David C. and Jane S. RichardsonDavid RosenthalWolfgang D. RougleSClaire Lynn SchosserPeter C. and Helen A. SchulzeSuzanne Jean ShaferWilliam R. and Cynthia D. SheldonJames R. and Katherine V. SmithLea SmithRobert and Clara SteffenGeorge C. and M. Rosannah StoneBianca StorlazziL. F. SwordsToby SymingtonTGene Steven and Patricia A. ThomasMargaret Thomas and Tom BrownDavid P. Thompson and MegEastman

Ruth Anna ThurstonDavid TonerV

Valerie M. and Roger R. VetterWJohn and Bette Sue WachholzKenneth G. and Dorothy L. WeaberRobert B. and Judith S. WeedenAnn E. WegnerDarrell G. and Lois I. WellsKatie WhiteJo M. and Stephen R. WhitedDan and Dayna L. Williams-CaponeCharles WindhamKeith V. and Kathleen M. WoldDonald E. and Beverley J. WorsterDavid WristenYDebra Brown YoungZDavid H. Zimmermann and EmilyMarriott

Individual Gifts

AConstance M. AchterbergMarilyn S. Adam and Ralph TaukeNancy L. AdamsElisa Adler and Alejandro JayoMarian AikmanGregory S. and Jill AllenDr. Michael F. and Edith B. AllenWilliam W. and Joyce H. AllenRobert E. and Sally J. AmbroseA. Bernard AndersonBruce A. Anderson and Anne C.Larson

Frank J. and Jeanette AndersonLaura Elizabeth AndersonProfessor Richard E. AndrusCalvert J. and Edward C. ArmbrechtEdwin L. and Marilyn A. ArmstrongJohn M. ArmstrongKarl H. ArneThomas J. ArnesonStefanie G. AschmannFrank R. and Linda B. AtkinsonPaul AtkinsonDenise Attwood and James R.Conner

BDeWayne BackhusSydney W. and Raymond B.Backstrom

Richard H. and Denise BackusWalter T. and Virginia A. BagleyVictor BaileyGail BakerSarah Joan Baker

Thanks to our contributorsNovember 2004 through January 2005

Thousands of tax-deductible gifts, from a few to thou-sands of dollars, are received each year from individualsand private organizations to make our work possible.Our other source of revenue is earned income frominterest and event fees, recently about 6 percent of total.Large and small gifts in aggregate make a difference.They also represent a constituency and help spread ideas

as we work together toward greater ecological sustain-ability. Thank you to you, our perennial friends.

The first section of contributors below lists Friendsof The Land who have pledged periodic gifts. Most havearranged for us to deduct their gifts monthly from theirbank account or credit card. They increase our financialstability, a trait valuable to any organization.

The Land Report 22

John P. and Agnes M. BaldettiLawrence C. and Mary J. BaldwinRobert and Kathy BangerterHarry L. and Louise M. BannisterAndrew S. Barker and Ana RuesinkBradley H. and Mary K. BarrettMichael D. and Pamela S. BarrettRobert C. Barrett and Linda E.Atkinson

Steven BarryDouglas E. Bartlett and Claire TwoseJerry M. and Carol BaskinConnie BattaileThomas and Kimeri Swanson BeckC. Dustin BeckerRobert E. BeersGeorge BeggsJohn L. Bengfort, M.D.Charles BenscheidtMayrene E. BentleyEdward E. BergThe Rev. Garner J. and Harriet F.Berg

Judith Bergquist and James TrewittDon and Helen BerheimWendell and Tanya BerryEdward and Varsenik BetzigJohn K. BevanDavid F. and P. F. BezdicekOrville W. and Avis A. BidwellEstate of Martha A. BieriGeorge W. and Marie Anne BirdPaul G. BirdsallKeith E. and Mary E. BlackmoreAaron E. and June E. BlairSteven N. and Jane P. BlairWilliam R. and Dianne BlankenshipRobert M. and Margaret E. BoatzMark W., Ellen, Lily and NickBohlke

Emily C. BooneTerry and Patricia B. BoothBruno Borsari and Julie ChiassonPatrick D. and Ann BosoldBill and Ruth BotzowDr. Roger L. and Jan L. BoydNina L. BradleyMarjorie E. BradrickGeorge H. and Elizabeth B. BramhallMary Alice and John E. BrammingRaymond H. and Shirley BrandJames D. and Tina M. BrattRussell and Patricia BrehmMabel C. BreljeJohn A. Brennan, M.D., and ReginaVoss Brennan

David M. Brenner and Anne KimberJoyce BrinkDavid A. and Carolyn S. BrittenhamJack Brondum and PatriciaMcGowan

David Brook and Susan CampbellBradford L. and Lorna C. BrookinsMartin E. BrothertonOwen S. BrownHarlan B. BrumstedCharles A. and Joanne B. BryanPaul T. and Genevieve D. BryantDr. Paul C. and Joni C. BubeRex C. and Susan Schuette BuchananBetty Jo BuckinghamDavid L. and Sandra L. BucknerProfessor Matthew J. BuechnerEverett L. and Dorothy A. BullockJanet D. Bunbury

Jim and Wileta BurchErik P. and Jessyca C. BurkeLaura Burnett and Martin PoirierSheldon E. BurrDavid Burris and Meredith McGrath,D.V.M.

Jerry D. BuschJ. Walker ButinNancy ByrnePatrick F. Byrne and Linda R.Brown-Byrne

CThe Rev. John F. CainDr. J. Baird CallicottMatthias C. and Barbara H.

CampbellRoald and Lois E. CannJames E. and Martha Deford CarnesRobert Carnevale and Denise DeLeoDiana and Robert CarterJack L. and Martha A. CarterMarcheta CartmillProfessor Edward S. Casey, Ph.D.James A. and Margaret M. CashenAddison S. and Jean G. CateLucia L. CateGeorge and Marilynn ChlebakJudith F. ChristyMarshall Chrostowski

Sharon A. ClancyDr. Andrew G. Clark and Barbara M.Andersen

Elizabeth C. ClarkRegina ClarkDavid M. and Debra J. CloutierThe Rev. Frank CoadyDr. Jack H. CochranSuzanne D. and Peter Z. CohenDale K. and Beverly J. ColeSally ColeBruce ColmanMarshal J. and Mary Ida ComptonGeorge E. Comstock and AnneHillman

Kerri ConanDr. Yvonne C. CondellWallace L. and Nancy L. CondonDr. Francis H. Conroy and Linda B.Hayes

Dr. J. Lea Converse and Dr. PaulLessard

Paul L. and Lois ConwayDr. Karen Severud CookMichelle M. and Gary N. CookNancy CookWilliam CoolidgeChristopher W. Coon and ChristinaA. Snyder

Paula Jean CooperDr. Doris E. CoppockJ. Marc Cottrell and Patty SheehanBarbara A. Coughlin and John KevinFallon

Adrienne A. Cox-TrammellPaula C. and Terry A. CrabbsHenry CrewElisabeth Crosby and Paul BeckerHarriett M. CrosbyClaire Hope CummingsWilliam C. Cutler and ElisabethSuter

DSeth M. Dabney and Deborah A.Chessin

Larry A. DaggettVernon L. DahlheimerKenneth J. and Eloise DaleTom Daly and Jude BlitzMary Carolyn DammJoan and Richard G. DarrowProfessor Cliff I. DavidsonHelen M. DavisPeter R. DayMark and Georgia R. De AraujoC. Owen de RisAnthony T. and Lawrie C. DeanRodney T. and Jeannette M. DebsSandy K. and Darrell R. DedrickRoger and Dorothy DeHaanSusan B. DelattreKenneth Van DellenSuzanne P. DeMuthGaret W. DeniseKiKo Denzer and Hannah FieldMari Sorenson and Ed DetrixheCalvin B. and Ruth Ann DeWittRoman DialWill Dibrell and Beverly BajemaMartha DickinsonSandra A. DiSanteJohn M. and Deborah P. DivineJan E. and Deborah Robin DizardBrian Donahue and Faith B. Rand

Where Is He Now?

Staff members at our day-long November seminarin Seattle for the annual meeting of three sciencesocieties met Patrick Bohlen. We were remindedhow much fun he is.

Bohlen was a Land Institute intern in 1986. Hecame from the University of Michigan, then earneddegrees at Miami University and Ohio State, andwas a postdoc at the Institute of Ecosystem Studiesin New York.

Bohlen now directs research at the MacArthurAgro-ecology Research Center in Lake Placid,Florida, where he and his wife, Julie, have putdown roots. They have a little boy and girl—andphotos at the ready. He has a courtesy facultyappointment at University of Florida, and supervis-es a graduate student and a long list of researchinterns—with the experience to be an intern men-tor. They produce a stream of published papers.Bohlen’s scientific interests include biological regu-lation of nutrient cycling; influence of agricultureon ecosystems; how plants, soils and microbesinteract; influence of earthworms on nutrientcycling; and how grazers, productivity and ecosys-tems relate.

He has served on editorial boards, and as LongTerm Ecological Research Network programreviewer for the National Science Foundation, sec-retary of the Soil Ecology Society, reviewer for TheState of the Nation’s Ecosystems for The HeinzCenter, and for many books, and co-chair of theSixth International Symposium on EarthwormEcology in Vigo, Spain.

For you who have supported The Land Institutein one way or another over the years, maybe take amodest amount of credit for “raising” Bohlen. Hepromises to bring his family to visit The LandInstitute some day.

Joan DonaldsonStrachan Donnelley, Ph.D., andVivian Donnelley

Laura Donnelley-MortonPatrick J. DonovanJ. Charles and Evelyn G. DoudnaGordon K. and Jane DempseyDouglass

Cathryn M. DowdMark DoyleMerlin D. and Sandra K. DresherRoss E. and Carolyn H. DuffyMr. and Mrs. Lloyd C. DumenilMyrl L. DuncanGail Ellen DunlapPhyllis M. DunnJoseph Rene DuPontDavid DurandJames N. and Teresa H. DusicEMr. and Mrs. Thomas H. EgolfProfessors David and Joan EhrenfeldPaul R. and Anne H. EhrlichChris and Carol EisenbeisJulie B. ElfvingMyron L. and Deborah L. ElliottDouglas D. and Catherine C.Engstrom

Richard Todd and Kimberly KellingEngstrom

Kristi EnnisKamyar Enshayan and Laura L.Jackson

Melvin D. Epp, Ph.D., and Sylvia K.Epp

Elizabeth Miller and Carl D. EvansMargaret S. and S. A. EwingFDarrell D. and Dorthy A. FanestilDr. Daphne G. Fautin and Robert W.Buddemeier

Pauline R. and Norman MilesFellows

Ms. Chris FenningerProfessor Frederick FerreRichard A. and Miriam L. FerrellEmily T. Fisher and Evan GriswoldJeffrey A. and Mary S. FlemingLaurence B. FloodBernd and Enell FoersterJeremy and Angela FosterNancy D. FraleyChris E. and Leanna Kirchoff FrasierMr. & Mrs. Edward C. FrederickThe Rev. Jim L. and Annabel K.Fredrickson

Leif S. FreemanHarvey J. and SuEllen FriedCyril R. and Donna B. FunkGBrenda GaddWendy GarrisonEugene GaugerMavis M. and George M. GehantJoseph V. and Janette A. GelrothCarolyn Cox GeorgeKendall A. and Karen M. GerdesCharles E. Gessert, M.D., andBarbara Stark

William E. and Julia K. GibsonMark M. GieseSusan E. GilliesEric and Emma GimonBradley M. and Barbara B. GlassMichael A. and Karma E. Glos

John J. and Kathryn L. GlovackJames B. Godshalk Jr. and MarjorieW. Lundy

Mary Helen M. and Timothy H.Goldsmith

James T. and Margaret E. GoodJames P. and Rebecca A. GoodmanMark and Jennie GordonKenneth E. and Shirley A. GowdyJeanne B. GramstorffLewis O. and Patricia J. GrantJohn Emmet and Margery A. GravesCatherine J. GrayJack Gray and Mary Jo WadeWallace and Ina Turner GrayLaurie C. and G. Garner GreenJohn K. and Jean McBride GreeneRobin and John McClure GreenlerGeorge W. Grider Jr.T. McLean and Hope WiswallGriffin

Charles G. and Patricia A.Grimwood

Emily GriswoldMarian D. GriswoldMs. Marion B. GriswoldRobert GroeneveldPhyllis L. GunnPeter GustafsonHChad HadsellPhilip M. and Patricia A. D. HahnFred C. HaighPaula R. and Van B. HallLloyd B. HansenArt and Natalie HansonBenjamin and Lucy Bardo HarmsStephen D. Harris and MicheleMukatis

Julie P. and Philip A. HartPeter G. and Mary Jean HartelJean HassmanKathryn J. Hatcher and Robert B.Ambrose Jr.

Bert and Dawn Haverkate-EnsAndrew M. and Denise E. HedbergPeter Ridgaway Hegeman andPatricia Egan

Warren J. and Rosemary A. HeidrickSteffen A. and Janet M. HelgaasC. Dale HendricksEdgar HenselFrederick G. and Cheryl A. HeppnerDr. Robert A. HerendeenPeter J. HetzelJohn M. and Susan S. HeynemanBarbara J. HibbardJ. David Hill and Martha CooperStephen H. and Marcia Hannon HillTresa C. HillThor Hinckley and Alison WileyClinton R. and Nancy C. HinmanThomas Alan Hirsch and AudrieLaurie Ann Brown

Dr. Allen Gene Hirsh and Rhonda J.Weiss

Douglas L. and Shirley U. HittJon HoeflerKurt Hoelting and Sally Goodwin,M.D.

Kathryn L. Hoffman Rankin andMark L. Rankin

Joyce M. HofmanBrian and Kathy HolckMargaret Ann Holcomb and Richard

T. PruiksmaCraig and Henrike HoldregeJohn M. and Catrinka HollandJenny E. HolmesRobert D. and Lynne W. HoltDonald M. HomanJames C. HormelWilliam J. and Marguerite DesotelleHornung

Shae HoschekKeim T. and Sylvia R. HouserBruce F. and Debra K. HowardJune P. HowardJanna B. HowleyHelene HuberDarrell K. and Bunny E. HuddlestonWellington B. and Marcy HuffakerDeEtte HuffmanJean E. HulbertJon C. and Audrey F. HunstockJoyce G. HuntDaniel P. HunzLinda S. and Terry A. HurstLogan L. HurstJames A. and Sara Lou HutchisonIHunter Ingalls and Mary EmenyGerald J. and Kristin L. IrissarriCharles W. IsenhartJHarley T. and Linnea JacksonMartin A. JacobsM. Allen JacobsonJacobson FamilyPaul G. and Elaine D. JantzenCharles B. and Melanie R. JenneyDr. Charles D. and Gerry JenningsRobert W. JensenHarry J. and Ann L. JettBruce and Judy JohnsonCarl L. and Linda K. JohnsonDuane E. JohnsonLeigh M. JohnsonDr. Michael G. and Gwyn E.Johnson

Stephan H. Johnson and Patricia A.Termini

Gary and Marilyn JonesIleana Z. and Kimball JonesWilliam D. and Elaine JonesLucy JordanCharles R. and Sally B. JorgensenMarilyn JorrieChad JubelaPaul E. and Carol A. JunkKAdrian KaufmanGordon D. KaufmanJim and Sue KeatingAngeliki V. and Charles M.H. KeilJohn R. Keller and Cheryl AnnHickey

Paula C. Kellogg and Gordon W.Sailors

E. Dale Kennedy and Douglas W.White

Stuart and Robyn KermesEdwin Kessler IIIGailmarie Kimmel and Bill TimpsonGeoff KingKen F. Kirkpatrick and Deborah L.Davis

Glennace KirnF. Kirschenmann and C.

RaffenspergerKenneth T. and Marlena D. KirtonThomas KlakJay C. Klemme and Anne S. WilsonDavid Andrew Knapp and Robert C.Freese

Clayton A. KnepleyRob Knowles and Meryl SternDonald and Marianne KokeWalter J. and Barbara J. KoopGayle Joy Kosh and H. RedekoppMark E. KosslerCleo D. KottwitzElizabeth KraseConnie S. KreiderDavid J. and Heidi R. KreiderDavid E. and Roberta J. KrommDouglas D. and Janet G. KruegerLKimberly LabnoH. Lawrence Lack and Lee AnnWard

Peter J. LammersRobert K. and Mary G. LancefieldPaul W. and Pamela P. LanderM. Daniel and Judi S. LaneTom LankenauLloyd H. LarsenSally W. LasaterEulah C. LaucksLouis J. and Ann K. LauxEdward J. LawrencePeter W. LeachJerry F. and Eleanor M. LeeperProfessor Carl LeopoldLaura A. LesniewskiAnne Lesser and Thom LipiczkyJoan LetendreJeffrey S. and Lea Steele LevinCharles A. and Jennifer LewinsohnLawrence B. and Ruth G. LewisRevis C. LewisLouise N. and William Z. LidickerDr. William C. and Kathleen H.Liebhardt

Matthew Z. Liebman and Laura C.Merrick

Anne Lindberg and Derek PorterJoseph G. and Beatrix U. LindquistPaul E. and Carol G. LingenfelterLucy R. LippardCarolyn E. R. LitwinAnn R. LoefflerGary E. and Pamela D. LothsonBarbara and John LounsberryMarilyn D. LovelessPaul M. and Jeanine M. LovellAmory B. LovinsAlice LoydSandra B. Lubarsky and Marcus P.Ford

Anne E. LubbersDrs. Michael and Sue LubbersRobert E. Lucore and Nora CarrollJohn F. and Anne LudemanJohn P. and Lee LuebbeSandra D. LynnMLynn MacDougall-FlemingKenneth R. MahaffeyThomas MahoneyLydia MajorAmelia MallettCharles F. Manlove

The Land Report 23

The Land Report 24

Philip S. MargolisKevin L. Markey and Candice MillerDavid A. MarksMarsha F. and Ric MarshallMarcia Fisher and John BradleyMarston

Bill Martin and Kathleen LeagueFrancis G. and Christine B. MartinDavid MartinezNancy Ambers and George S.Massar

Ernest L. and Kathy M. MassothGrant S. and Cynthia C. MastickWilliam J. MatousekWilliam and Robin Birch MatthewsJohn C. and Susan K. MausJean MaustGordon E. and Evelyn M. MaxwellMarcia S. and Michael W. MayoRichard S. McAnany IIJohn N. and Virginia K. McCallKenneth J. McCarthyPaul E. McClellandRobert J. McConnellKaren I. McCullohJ. Kyle McDowellAlec F. McErlich

Elizabeth McGuinnessCathleen D. and Jim T. McKeenDeborah K. McKinleySara H. McKoyMichael and Laurel McNeilSusan T. McRory and John W.Middleton

James C. and Diana N. McWilliamsCurt D. MeineMargaret G. MellonCathy and Nathan MelsonKirsten MenkingAnne D. MeyerKarl H. MeyerLauree Hersch MeyerRyan MichaelPatricia Ann MichaelisGerald E. MikkelsonT. H. and Kathleen M. MilbyNancy H. Miles and Frank Miles Jr.Elizabeth J. MillerJohn C. Miller and Sandra Bot-MillerRex D. and Sally M. MillerRoss J. and Nancy L. MillerMargot W. and Roger MillikenGail and George MiltonCharles E. MitchellRobert T. Mohler

Barry K. Moir and Laila GoodmanJeffrey L. Moline and Kristin GrothRobert T. and Kay L. MolineThomas W. and Anne H.T. MooreDon and Ann MoreheadQuentin Alan and Shari AnnMorford

James L. M. Morgan and Teresa A.Maurer

Minor L. Morgan Jr. and SylviaAlvarez

A. David MorrowRobert V. MulchAlison G. and Martin L. MurieDebra Dean and James O. MurphyLaura Musacchio, Ph.D.William MushkinCornelia F. and Robert L. MutelGinny and Larry MuttiNPaul M. Nachtigal and Toni HaasKoji and Susan NakaoHarland S. and Corinne L. NelsonRobert NelsonPaul W. NeukirchJoseph F. Neumann

Richard D. and Shirley A. Newsome

Jean G. NicholasWendell K. and Waitstill B. NickellRae Ann NixonBruce J. and Amy W. NobleJorge L. and Patricia O. F. NoboKaren E. Ruff and Michael G. NollDouglas Nopar and JoAnn ThomasKurt N. NordbackCharles L. and Patricia J. NovakOLaura M. O’BrienMichael D. and Colleen M.O’Connell

Thomas S. O’Connor and DaphneWerth

Owen N. and Mary Sue O’LearyMarian O’Reilly and Stephen M.Lockwood

M. OberbilligCliff Ochs and Lucille McCookDavid J. and Jeanne K. OdeMichael and Kathleen J. OldfatherJay Oleson and Jill CodyJane F. and Charles R. OlsenLynn Ortenburger and DennisBottum

Dale and Marla Osborne

Prairie Festival TapesOctober 1-3, 2004, The Land Institute

���� S1 Election Year 2052: A Secretary of AgricultureRuns for President — Wes Jackson

���� S2 The High Cost of Cheap Food— Michael Pollan

���� S3 Corporations vs. Farmers: Whose Plants AreThese, Anyway?— Percy Schmeiser

���� S4 Building an Alternative to CorporateGlobalization — Judy Wicks

���� SU1 The Long Arm of the Land — Land Institutegraduate research fellows

���� SU2 Where in the World We Are Going?— WilliamMacLeish

���� SU3 An Ignorance-based Worldview — Wes Jackson

Total individual tapes ______ x $8 = _______

Complete set of tapes _____ x $50 = _______

Subtotal _______For shipping within the U.S., $2 for first tape, 50 cents for each extra, $18 maximum;for Canada and Mexico, double shipping fee;for overseas, triple shipping fee _______

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Orders are by air mail and guaranteed for delivery in 60days. Payment methods: checks and money orders forU.S. funds, and MasterCard, Visa and Discover. Cardpurchases can be by fax or phone. Mail orders to:

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Jeffrey P. and Maria L. OsborneDavid and Ellen OsthellerJames M. Ouray and Karn AndersonJohn S. and Lee Sayre OvertonGlenn OwensJim and Katie OwensPLouise W. and William R. PapeKarl E. and Elizabeth R. ParkerGregory A. Parsons and Dorothy J.Johnson

Joan Bennett and John C. ParsonsLarry and Vickie PattonLowell C. PaulLisa and Belden H. PaulsonSusan Shaw and George N. PavlakisRichard H. Peckham and Maureen J.Nowlan

Kenneth V. and Ana M. PecotaAlicia L. PedenJoel L. Pederson and Carol M.Dehler

Gregory and Patsy Hanson PennerMilford and V. Lee PennerDennis and Clint PerrinJoy B. and James W. PerryJohn T. Pesek Jr.Paul J. and Karla V. PetersCarol Jean and Brian D. PetersenPeter L. and Rita E. PetersonBernard L. Peuto and Anne Bertaud-Peuto

Leroy C. PhilippiMichael D. PhillipsPaolo PiacentiniLoretta PickerellKaren Odessa PiperBruce M. PlenkJohn A. PollackFrank R. Pommersheim and Anne G.Dunham

Frank J. and Deborah E. PopperKenneth A. PorterKate J. Porterfield and Marvin RauGeorge D. and Alice M. PottsDonna and Darwin PoulosKathy A. Powell and Stephen L.Griswold

Alison G. Power and Alexander S.Flecker

Anne W.B. PrichardQPeter C. QuinnTrucia QuistarcRBradley T. and Nancy Jo RadtkeRuth H. Ragucci, M.D.Victoria Post and George A. RanneyNeal S. and Izen I. RatzlaffL. David and Ann RedmonPatty and Jerry D. ReeceMichael and Susan K. ReedRaymond and Gladys RegierMartha ReidThomas P. and Virginia R. ReidDarrell and Sara ReinkeRichard L. and Joyce ReinkeDavid A. Rettele and Janice K.Baldwin

Douglas W. and Cindy S. RettigMartha Rhea and Jim AllenDavid G. RichMabel C. RichardsonMargaret G. and John P. RicheyRichard R. and Ronny W. Riegel

Thomas F. Riesing and ChristieBerven

Peter W. RiggsMichael E. and Kathleen F. RiordanTheresa M. Ripley and John W.Loughary

Gordon T. and Barbara A. RiskJames V. and Sandra E. RisserCarol I. and James R. RitterJohn E. and Lorraine C. RittmannSusan RobertsDiane C. and Jack A. RobertsonDr. E. R. RodabaughDavid A. RodgersAdam W. Rome and Robin G.Schulze

Elizabeth J. RootJack E. and Sheri RoppMichael R. Rosmann, Ph.D. andMarilyn S. Rosmann

James A. Rousmaniere Jr. andSharon Ostow

Russell RowlandSander RubinRachel E. RudyLucille RuggieriRoy Ronald and Marie RuhnkeJanyce M. RyanSNiklaus N. Salafsky and Julia A.Segre

John F. SamsonDonald E. SandersonJoseph D. and Nancy J. SargentRobert C. SargentNorman E. and Mary Ann SaulJanice E. SavidgeE. Wayne SayKathleen Sayce and Frank WolfeLaura Browne Sayre and MichaelRoss Evans

Robert F. SayreHenry E. and Dianne M. SchafferW. Neill and Karen M. SchallerGregory ScharfRichard A. and Dorothy T. SchererBetty Adler and Lloyd G. SchermerA. Anne SchmidtJudith SchmidtCarol C. Schmitt and W. PropstBen J. ScholeJon R. and Jane R. SchulzJohn P. Schuster and MarilynPatricia Kane

John S. and Ann M. SchusterA. J. and Jane E. SchwartzAmy D. SchwartzCindy and Stephen G. ScottKatherine L. ScottMichael J. ScullyMr. & Mrs. Gary F. SeamansRobin Rachel Sears

Karl SeeleyLynette S. SeigleyCarolyn L. Servid and Dorik V.Mechau

Charles A. and Joan SudmannShapiro

Stuart L. and Diane SharpSandra J. ShawAnne ShebleLynn Corey Sheldon and Daniel H.Hudnut

Richard B. and Audrey M. SheridanMarion T. SherkKari Madison ShermanCharlotte ShoemakerDavid J. ShufeltAnne Hawthorne SilverAnn B. SimpsonJohn M. Simpson and Sondra L.Goodman

William A. and Janice D. SimpsonProfessor Charles F. and Janet S.Sing

Laura E. Skelton and Thomas A.Buford

Martha S. SkillmanTim SkwiotBenjamin H. and Susan G. SloteStuart A. and Taryn L. SloteDennis R. and Peggy SmartFred SmedsAlden H. Smith IIDr. Daryl D. and Sue A. SmithDr. Robert B. and Marianne K.Smythe

Michael SnowP. Allen and Carolyn T. SollenbergerRobert F. and Judith D. SouleStephen F. and Karen J. SpartanEric A. and Mary Louise StahlClayton D. StallingRonald A. Stanley and Mary M.Aldridge

Susan StansburyRaymond H. StarrettCatherine A. Statz and Thomas J.Pamperin

David B. and Claudia B. SteckelSara G. SteelmanJohn W. Steggall Jr. and Martha L.Quenon

L. Joe StehlikRobert J. and Lyda L. SteiertSteve StodolaEli StogsdillPaul D. Stolen and Deborah K.Amazi

Tony J. and Patricia P. StoneburnerKimberly A. StonerPalma StrandPaul A. Strasburg and Terry SaracinoLauren C. Stringer and Matthew S.Smith

Professor Richard C. StrohmanE. Malcolm StromJoyce and Greg StudenBrad R. Stuewe, M.D. and Paula A.Fried, Ph.D.

Connie and Karl StutterheimMichael J. and Susan J. SudalnikBrian J. and Jonita L. SudermanJanet L. SuelterNancy SullivanRobert A. and Mary F. SuperHarold R. Supernaw

The Land Report 25

MemorialsNick FentRex Buchanan and SusanSchuette Buchanan

Jean Murray MallettHugh and Flora Belle WillisMurrayGordon MallettGrant Mallett

Frank RoperTodd Engstrom and KimKelling

Frank RuggieriLucille Ruggieri and family

Nancy ScheererSarah H. McKoy

Ray SwansonMark Crawford and CarolTunell

Mimi ZuckertJ. Marc Cottrell

Honorary GiftsPeg and Kirk BarrettBrad and Mary Barrett

Lisa Bjorn and Marney BlaireLisa SarenducLoren Swift

Shirley and Bob BodmerAndy and Betsy Finfrock

Susan BrookDave Brook and SusanCampbell

Brian Bullock and Jessica CraneJetaime BullockRebecca Dresser and John Hege

Keiran Murphy and MichaelAnderson

Ellis RoaneNathanael and Marnie Dresser

Martin CoxHenry W. Wells

Consuelo DiazJoseph DuPont

Nath DresserDorothy Bullock

Charlie Fautin and Susan EastonDaphne Fautin and RobertBuddemeier

Allene and Bill GrossmanCarolyn Cox George

Bernt and Suzie HelgaasSteffan and Janet Helgaas

Wes JacksonDavid Wristen

Michael Jeremy JacobsMartin A. Jacobs

Martin KimmMichael and Sue Lubbers

Margaret MacDougallLynn and Kevin MacDougall-Fleming

Charles and Mary Lou MajorAnn Heywood and Gene StanleyLydia Major

Melander familyPhyllis Dunn and BeverlyMagnuson

John and Rose OlverJane and Dave Richardson

Father Art RedmondPaul Wurtz

Clare O’Leary Siemer and Dick L. SiemerOwen N. O’Leary

The Land Report 26

Gerald R. and Sandra P. SwaffordLoren SwiftWalter P. and Jeanie M. SyT. John SzarkowskiTBron Taylor and Beth Corey-TaylorConstance TaylorProfessor Edith L. TaylorJames E. and Betty L. TaylorWayne S. Teel and Alta L. Brubaker,M.D.

Maurice and Jeannine TelleenRuth TerrillRichard ThieltgesElizabeth and Trevor ThompsonHelen M. ThompsonJanice R. ThompsonJohn W. ThompsonTom and Mary ThompsonJohn A. and Linda L. ThorntonR. Klaus and Gail A. TrenarySarah Chappell Trulove and JamesW. Woelfel

B. C. TsiknasMary Evelyn Tucker and John A.Grim

Carol A. Tunell and Mark K.Crawford

A. Chase Turner and Elizabeth A.Byrne

UCork and Ella UmphreyWalter F. and Joyce L. UtroskeVRobert Himmerich y Valencia,Ph.D., and Eva Valencia deHimmerich

J. Pat ValentikMarjorie and Lynn Van BurenNancy Van DykeJim Van EmanGary Allen and Donna June ViaElizabeth J. VollbrechtThomas von Geldern and Cynthia L.Skrukrud

Ronald J. and Nancy A. VosWDavid Wadsworth and Heidi BetzPaul and Mary WagonerPatricia J. and Samuel H. WalkerRobert C. WallisChristel and Manfred A. WalterRichard T. and Barbara R. WardDr. Louise O. Warner and ClydeGosnell

Thomas J. WarnerKen and Nina WarrenWilliam D. and Iren M. WarrenJim WeaverWallace N. WeberJeffrey A. WeihPaul E. and Carol L. WeiheGeorgette M. Weir and Jean ClaudeFouere

Trudy F. WelanderCharles H. Welling and Barbara J.Thoman

Vickie Wellman and IanMacGreggor

Henry W. WellsValerie Wheeler and Peter EsainkoRobert E. and Mary WhelpleyPaula J. WiechRay Wilber and Cathy DwigansDon Wilkison

Ms. Cynthia C. WillauerJudith E. WilliamsRobert D. WilliamsSmith Williams Jr.Kristin J. and D. Morgan WilsonNancy Hamill WinterMaggie Winter-Sydnor and RustySydnor

Klaus H. and Karin WisiolChristel J. Wittenstein-Bejenke,M.D.

Carolyn S. and Roger L. WoodJoel and Joan G. WoodhullGeorge M. and Katharine R.Woodwell

Catherine A. WorsterAngus WrightAustin C. and Ramona M. WrightHarold M. and Patricia J. WrightDr. Valerie F. WrightPaul Robert and Mary Joanne WurtzNancy L. WygantYRobert J. and Janet C. YingerGreg and Donna M. YoungJ. Lowell and Ruth Ann YoungDavid A. Yudkin and Jeana S.Edelman

Joseph R. YurtZM. Louise and James J. ZaffiroRuth R. and Mark W. ZalonisSarette C. Zawadsky, M.D. andHelmut W. Weist

Kirsten L. Zerger and Sanford N.Nathan

Randall L. ZiglarAnn M. Zimmerman and DexterEggers

Cindy Zimmerman and John HighkinMrs. Anne ZinsserUko and Jane Zylstra

Organization Gifts

Adler Schermer FoundationAgri-Dynamics Inc.Al’s OverHead Door Service Inc.The Amity FundArrow Printing Co.Barnett Electric Inc.Beta Beta BetaBlue Heron FoundationBrown Brothers FarmingBuckskin Valley FarmsC.R.O.P.P. Cooperative Inc.Calvert Social InvestmentFoundation

Central Colorado Educational TrustSaul & Amy Scheuer Cohen FamilyFoundation

Collins Family FoundationFranklin Conklin FoundationGeraldine R. Dodge FoundationThe Donnelley FoundationDrummond & AssociatesEConnections, Inc.Ecumenical Project for Int’lCooperation Inc.

Emmert AssociatesGentle HarvestGrace Jones Richardson TrustGrain Place Foods Inc.Great Plains Earth InstituteHaffner Foundation

John Hirschi FundI & G Charitable FoundationInterior Fixtures Inc.Isis Medicine, P.C.J. M. Kaplan Fund Inc.Keith W. Krieger Charitable FundKelley/Knox Family FoundationKirchhoff FarmsLakeside CorporationLarrimore Family FoundationThe Lasater RanchLaucks Foundation Inc.Lawrence and Dana Linden FamilyFoundation

The Marcello Lotti FoundationMalone Mechanical Inc.Mountain Run FarmThe Natural Gardener Inc.The Nature ConservancyNeiman Environments Inc.North Slope EnterprisesOak Lodge FoundationPackaging SystemsPauline-Morton FoundationPurple Dragon Co-Op Inc.Robert B. Ragland Foundation Inc.Price R. & Flora A. Reid FoundationRichardson Images LtdSisters of St. Francis of TiffinSkyview Laboratory Inc.South Carolina Coastal ConservationLeague Inc.

Sunflower SundriesTELEC Consulting ResourcesTermini AssociatesU.S. Department of AgricultureWildflower FundWoodstock Foundation Inc.

The Writers andPhotographersJudd Patterson is finishing college work in biology, envi-ronmental science and geography at Kansas StateUniversity. His photography is at www.naturalplanet.org.

Jerry Glover is The Land Institute’s soil scientist andagroecologist, Marty Bender its energy scientist, StanCox its head plant breeder, and Wes Jackson its presi-dent.

Courtney White is co-founder and executive directorof The Quivira Coalition, a Santa Fe, New Mexico, non-profit working for ecological, economic and social healthin the West.

Aaron Paden is a photographer for the University ofKansas.

Deborah Rich raises olive trees near Monterey,California, and has written about agriculture for the SanFrancisco Chronicle and other publications.

The Land Report 27

You Take Us to Mileposts

A pledge of monthly donations helps us to plan.Some donors prefer automatic bank transfer. Your bankcan do all the work for you. You decide the amount andday each month to transfer the payment. Your bank state-ment shows the transaction. Credit card authorizationalso works smoothly. Both save check writing. We donot share, lend or sell our supporters’ names or address.

You may complete the enclosed form or use ourWeb site’s secure Donate Now button, which allows youto set up a pledge or make a once-a-year gift. If youneed help, please call Patty Melander at 785-823-5376.She will enjoy meeting you on the phone. Patty person-ally handles all of our pledges and would like to handleyours.

We have a greenhouse full of new hybrid grain plantsand are moving down our 50-year agenda, reachingmileposts along the way to prairielike mixtures of deep-rooted crops. As we do, we are shortening the time untilfarmers will have better ways to save soil—erosion isone of the most difficult problems in the history ofhumans since we started growing food—and to reduceour use of agricultural chemicals, water and fossil fuels.

Your help—in all of the ways you support us—isinvaluable. When it comes to charitable contributions,we hope you will consider switching to a pledge if youhave not already. A small monthly donation may allowan easy way to increase your annual amount. Anyamount you feel comfortable with adds to our ability toreach those mileposts.

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Our research is openingthe way to a new agricul-ture — farming modeledon native prairie. Farmersusing Natural SystemsAgriculture will producefood with little fertilizerand pesticide, and buildsoil instead of lose it. Ifyou share this vision andwould like to help, pleasebecome a Friend of theLand. To do so and receiveThe Land Report, clip orcopy this coupon andreturn it with payment to

The Land Institute2440 E. Water Well RoadSalina, KS 67401

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Judd Patterson.Western meadowlark.