Understand how crop rotation in organic farming benefits the farmers as well as the environment and particularly the advantages of growing lentils
Understand how crop rotation in organic farming benefits the farmers as well as the environment and particularly the advantages of growing lentils
A discussion of organic farming and the benefits of growing crops such as lentils.
Displayed by permission of The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
[Music in]
LIZ CARLISLE: Well, you know, I'm from Montana. But my first career actually was as a country singer. And I was singing all of these romantic stories about farmers and what great lives they had, but as I was traveling around the country, what I was hearing from farmers is actually their lives weren't that great. And it was a really tough time to be a farmer. So I went to work for Senator Jon Tester, who's a farmer and also a senator from Montana. And he introduced me to this group of farmers who were doing organics. And it wasn't because they were hippies; it was because it was better for their livelihoods. So I was really curious about that, and that--that led to this research.
So for farmers in the American heartland, they're stuck in a situation where they mostly have to grow one crop. It's the only thing they can market, and this isn't good for the environment, because if you grow one thing over and over, that's gonna attract pests; it's gonna generate disease. It requires a lot of chemicals to support that kind of a system. So what these farmers started to do is rotate other crops into their major cash crop. So they had to find other markets, but they found that this was beneficial, both for their livelihoods and for their land.
What I thought was so interesting about what these farmers were doing is that it was multidimensional. They were interested in food that was healthy, food that would support their livelihoods, but also entire farming systems that would respond to the challenges of climate change. They have really volatile weather, and they also have dry weather. So they may not get any moisture in a given season, and these farmers have figured out how to farm productively, even with that uncertainty.
And the amazing thing about lentils is that they can actually grow their own fertilizer. So you don't have to apply synthetic nitrogen, because lentils can take it from the air and work with bacteria to supply it to the soil. So this key nutrient comes from the plant itself rather than coming from chemicals.
Well, I think we're accustomed to thinking that the most sustainable food choices are local food choices. And in a lot of cases that's true. It's good for us to have really robust local food systems. But one of the surprising things I learned when I was researching this book is that transportation to the final point of sale only accounts for 4 percent of the emissions in the food system. So what we really need to tackle are these greenhouse-gas-heavy processes on the farm and even before the farm--so things like nitrogen fertilizer. And since lentils make their own nitrogen with bacteria, buying lentils from a producer who might be hundreds of miles away from you is actually a more sustainable choice than conventionally fertilized produce or grain that's closer to home.
I think that the next wave of the food movement of organics is actually coming from the middle of the country, from some surprising spokespeople who might be Republican, homeschoolers, churchgoers who want to sustain their land for the next generation.
Berkeley is such a hotbed of interest in the food system. And I've been really lucky to work with a number of people who are at the top of their field working on food-systems issues: Michael Pollan, who's a professor at the journalism school, has been a mentor for me--a number of faculty associated with the Berkeley Food Institute and the department of geography, where I got my Ph.D. And they've all helped me think about how this particular story about Montana, where I'm from, fits into the larger picture of how we solve these big problems in our food system.
[Music out]
LIZ CARLISLE: Well, you know, I'm from Montana. But my first career actually was as a country singer. And I was singing all of these romantic stories about farmers and what great lives they had, but as I was traveling around the country, what I was hearing from farmers is actually their lives weren't that great. And it was a really tough time to be a farmer. So I went to work for Senator Jon Tester, who's a farmer and also a senator from Montana. And he introduced me to this group of farmers who were doing organics. And it wasn't because they were hippies; it was because it was better for their livelihoods. So I was really curious about that, and that--that led to this research.
So for farmers in the American heartland, they're stuck in a situation where they mostly have to grow one crop. It's the only thing they can market, and this isn't good for the environment, because if you grow one thing over and over, that's gonna attract pests; it's gonna generate disease. It requires a lot of chemicals to support that kind of a system. So what these farmers started to do is rotate other crops into their major cash crop. So they had to find other markets, but they found that this was beneficial, both for their livelihoods and for their land.
What I thought was so interesting about what these farmers were doing is that it was multidimensional. They were interested in food that was healthy, food that would support their livelihoods, but also entire farming systems that would respond to the challenges of climate change. They have really volatile weather, and they also have dry weather. So they may not get any moisture in a given season, and these farmers have figured out how to farm productively, even with that uncertainty.
And the amazing thing about lentils is that they can actually grow their own fertilizer. So you don't have to apply synthetic nitrogen, because lentils can take it from the air and work with bacteria to supply it to the soil. So this key nutrient comes from the plant itself rather than coming from chemicals.
Well, I think we're accustomed to thinking that the most sustainable food choices are local food choices. And in a lot of cases that's true. It's good for us to have really robust local food systems. But one of the surprising things I learned when I was researching this book is that transportation to the final point of sale only accounts for 4 percent of the emissions in the food system. So what we really need to tackle are these greenhouse-gas-heavy processes on the farm and even before the farm--so things like nitrogen fertilizer. And since lentils make their own nitrogen with bacteria, buying lentils from a producer who might be hundreds of miles away from you is actually a more sustainable choice than conventionally fertilized produce or grain that's closer to home.
I think that the next wave of the food movement of organics is actually coming from the middle of the country, from some surprising spokespeople who might be Republican, homeschoolers, churchgoers who want to sustain their land for the next generation.
Berkeley is such a hotbed of interest in the food system. And I've been really lucky to work with a number of people who are at the top of their field working on food-systems issues: Michael Pollan, who's a professor at the journalism school, has been a mentor for me--a number of faculty associated with the Berkeley Food Institute and the department of geography, where I got my Ph.D. And they've all helped me think about how this particular story about Montana, where I'm from, fits into the larger picture of how we solve these big problems in our food system.
[Music out]