The day started early. We had a few objectives to accomplish before ending our visit with the generous and welcoming members of White Earth. After packing up our things at our host’s house, which had become a second home to us, we headed to Curtis and Darlene Ballard’s organic turkey farm. There we talked to Curt about the operation of their organic farm. His 400-acre farm has been organic since 1999, and his son’s 160-acre farm is also organic. He grows 100 acres of organic soybeans and raises grass-fed cattle. He recently started to raise turkeys for the slow food restaurants (www.slowfoodusa.org), and until recently a few pigs. He direct markets all of his products to customers (218-983-3749). And if that is not enough to keep someone busy, he also drives a school bus on the side. His family owns and operates their own bus company.
Curt had made a transition from conventional farming to organic farming through a good friend showing him organic farms in Wisconsin and their success. Curt pointed out that organic farming can be more profitable than conventional farming saying, “For 30 years, we farmers been using conventional and we’re going broke and with the organics, you can actually make a living at it.” The market for organic products can be higher than the market for conventional products. According to Curt, “people are getting more aware. They don’t want to be eating all those pesticides.” Also, farming organically can lower farm overhead since organic farms do not have expensive inputs like herbicides and fertilizers.
The conversion from conventional farming to organic farming took patience though. When he first stopped using herbicides a lot of weeds cropped up. The soil chemistry was out of balance due to the excessive fertilizer and pesticide inputs over the years. One of the weed control techniques he uses is to plant alfalfa. The alfalfa grows quickly and out competes weeds like thistle and helps restore the soil’s chemical balance. Curt noted the difference in the soil on his land after he started to farm organically. Curt told us that the soil on an organic farm is full of life and more balanced. Because the soil is looser, rain seeps down into the soil and doesn’t just run off of the land and cause erosion. He carefully avoids compacting his soil for this very reason. He also has noticed an improvement in the crops and found a new love for the marvelous tastes foods can have when they are grown organically.
A big problem that Curt faces though is contamination of his organic soybeans with genetically modified crops (GMO’s). His seed was contaminated with GMOs a few years ago, and he was not able to sell his crop organically. Only a small percentage was contaminated (Approximately 99.8% of the seed was uncontaminated). The problem is that organic soybeans are contaminated with wind-dispersed pollen from genetically modified plants. The most common type of genetically modified soy beans are “round-up ready” made by the Monsanto corporation. This modification allows farmers to spray their entire fields with toxic Round-Up, killing everything but their crop. “So many farmers bought into the round-up ready [soy] beans. It’s easy farming and they buy into it pretty quick.” Unfortunately, a lot of farmers have not been looking far enough down the road. “You’re going to get weeds that are round-up ready resistant,” Curt predicted. Curt thinks that weeds will become round-up resistant in the next five or ten years. While GMO developers and users are causing the contamination problems, organic farmers are the ones who are paying for it. Organic farmers are the ones who have to prove that their crops are not contaminated; and if they are, organic producers are the ones who are being damaged by losing marketability of their crops.
Members of the White Earth Land Recovery Project have a similar concern with the contamination of Minnesota’s wild rice. For this reason, they drafted legislation that will make GMO varieties of wild rice illegal in the state of Minnesota. The bills were in committee and have been tabled till next session, but support is needed so write your representatives in Congress now and in the beginning of next session to show your support. The bill numbers are 1382 in the House of Representatives and 1566 in the Senate.
Curt also grew Bear Island Flint corn and bartered it with Native Harvest for some of their strawberries. “Winona [LaDuke] likes to barter,” Curt exclaims. According to Sarah (one of Winona staff members), Winona’s philosophy about bartering is that she likes to exchange commodities that took a lot of time and energy to produce with other commodities that took just as much time and energy to produce. In this way, the value of the producer’s time and energy is recognized, which sometimes can be lost in the exchange of money.
Bruce, Curt’s neighbor, came over to borrow some flour and lard during our conversion. Bruce and Curt believe that butter and lard are better for people’s health than vegetable oil. Raw milk also came into conversion as the process of pasteurization actually strips milk of a large proportion of the enzymes needed to absorb the nutrients in milk. We explore this topic further during our journey.
Bruce had helped Curt plant some flax on his land. Bruce used the flax to produce a soft fiber for weaving. He explained that he had learned of this process from books but had perfected it by talking to some Finnish women, who had lived during the war and had used this method to make clothes. He harvested the flax by removing the entire plant including the roots. Then he removed the seeds from the flax and bundled them. He then soaked the bundles in a lake for 2 weeks. This allowed enough time for the outside of the flax to rot away but not long enough for the fibers to rot. He dried it in the sun and then beat it to remove the outside. He then used large combs to separate the fibers from the rest of the material.
Next we headed back to Native Harvest (www.nativeharvest.com) to satisfy our sweet tooth. Among other things, we stocked up on a good supply of amazing maple syrup candy, which had been prepared for us that morning. We also talked with Brent about the marketing of Native Harvest products. Native Harvest buys their arts and crafts from local people on the reservation at a fair price to the artist. Brent pays the craftspeople the price that the craftspeople believe their works are worth. In this way, the craftspeople are respected for the time and energy that was put into producing the products, and it encourages the people of White Earth to continue producing the traditional arts of the Anishnaabeg. Brent explained, “The reputation that we want to have on the res[ervation] is that we treat people fairly.” In addition to crafts, the wild rice and maple syrup are the hottest commodities for Native Harvest and in my opinion, the most delicious food you can come by. These products are hand harvested and come from the land in much the same way they were traditionally produced for the Anishnaabeg people. “What we sell and what we produce is good healthy stuff,” exclaimed Brent.
Brent described his vision for the future of Native Harvest. “I want to see Native Harvest completely self-sustaining…we need to create jobs and we need to create good jobs.” As Native Harvest becomes more self sustaining, he wants more and more of the profits to go back into several other White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP) programs, such as the diabetes program.
Next, we drove slowly through a serious snow storm to our next destination. We pulled into a stand of trees and snow covered machinery from various decades of the last century surrounded by rolling treeless fields to stay with David Johnson at his organic grass-fed beef farm. Our visit would just be a stepping stone on our trip to Pine Ridge Reservation. Amazingly enough as with most of our hosts, we contacted him by phone after finding him on a list of organic farmers in the area over the internet. He is a generous fellow who lives alone in an oddly constructed farmhouse which has been there in various forms since the 1890’s. The house had all the homey feel that a rural farmhouse should have; everything heated and cooked with wood, lots of old books and glass jars leaning on various shelves, a playful kitten and a grumpy old dog that David’s daughter had long ago named Beeze (short for Bealzebub.)
Dave originally decided that he was not interested in farming. His father and the rest of his family had been conventional beef producers in the area for 3 generations. He then joined the Peace Corps. and lived in Brazil for 2 years. Dave enjoyed his experience in the Peace Corps. However, he now distrusts the Peace Corps because he sees it as a way of getting third world people to see a wonderful face of the US which gains trust for other branches of the government and corporations by the now pacified population. Hence, these corporations are able to subdue these communities. After that Dave taught with Americorps, a teaching program and then began his organic farm in 1972. He has been farming his land without pesticides or chemical fertilizers for 33 years! To order a packet of his beef call him at 605-594-6320.
In 1989, he decided to get certified organic. It was interesting to meet a fellow who had been in the beginning of the organic movement. He had prepared a big pot of smooth split pea soup that we supplemented by crackers, cornbread and a big pot of chili. We stayed up late sharing stories of our journey and our lives until sleep was about to overtake us and Beeze was snoring on the old wooden floor like a sailor.
