La Buena Vida

I first learned of La Buena Vida Farm from Dennis over at 47 Ranch just a couple of days before Aaron and I made our way 84 miles (in a single day! a new record! woo hoo!) to this agricultural model of self-sufficiency in southeastern Arizona. I enjoyed the food and the company during my time at the organic farm, but what I loved most was the story of the family that runs it.

Neither Jennifer nor Jerry grew up on a farm, nor did they study agriculture. Far from it. And yet they are two of the most inspired farmers I have met. A few years ago the pair left successful careers in Los Angeles -- as a high-end boutique manager and a fashion photographer, respectively -- in search of a place to raise their family. After scouting out possible new homes across the country over the course of many months, they landed in a tiny ranching town on the New Mexican border and took up residence at a former vineyard where Jerry's dad had graciously put a down payment on the property. The city slickers were self-proclaimed foodies, however, and quickly realized that while rural life had many charms food options in the area were slim. (This part of the state of Arizona is truly a food desert: 2 sandwich shops and no grocers for about a 50-mile radius. I know this because I was looking for a snack along the entire ride from Douglas, AZ. It's true, ask Aaron.) The couple started teaching themselves about growing their own edibles. Maybe... a modern homestead? They set themselves to building a self-supported operation run on wind and solar and elbow grease (alternative energy sources are abundant here... especially the wind... *sigh*), using mostly human-powered equipment (like the snazzy, bicycle wagon that Jen is sporting above) and DIY contraptions (like the homemade poultry plucker that Jerry built). They began growing just a little bit extra for the neighbors. Jennifer started dabbling with animal husbandry, raising heritage goats, sheep, geese and turkeys. Word spread quickly as a growing number of folks learned of the farm and not long afterward Jerry and Jennifer started selling produce at a farm stand in Portal.

Actually, they are the farmers market: one stand offering produce, eggs, freshly baked sourdough bread, and meat. Demand continued to grow, prompting the couple to take a serious look at their ability to feed the community, a philosophy aligned with their strong Christian values. They discussed how many families the land could support: 20 for the first year with the two of them working full time plus periodic volunteers, close to 30 the second if they could hire help.

In an area with a surprisingly high incidence of folks with extreme health issues (and subsequent dietary restrictions), interest in organic food continues to grow. As we worked together one afternoon on the farm, Jen mentioned an ongoing challenge trying to explain the concept of a CSA to neighbors. If only they checked out the clear and concise explanation on the farm's blog, I thought: "Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) baskets is a way for community members to participate in a small farm like ours by paying at the beginning of the growing season for weekly baskets of freshly harvested produce. This provides farmers like us with some predictable revenue so that we can concentrate on providing a valuable local food source." Folks in the area might not use the term "CSA," but through it the farm and community are supporting each other.

In just a couple of years, Jerry and the farm have become known throughout the region. (No, really. Even as far east as Hachita, NM, I discovered when chatting with the kind folks who let me sleep in their gas station. "Oh? You were working with the organic farmers near Rodeo? Yeah, we know 'em. Good people.") I share in the admiration of these determined, imminently thoughtful and generous family farmers. And not just because they sent me off with a loaf of bread, hunk of cheese, dried fruit and nuts, and bag of fresh produce -- I'd already formed my opinion before the sendoff with unexpected, delicious treats. Theirs not a glamorous life, but it's a good one. Their small home is hardly the lap of luxury, but it in many ways encapsulates la buena vida: comfortable, happy, and filled with good food and people.

I am fascinated by tales of folks who dare to try to live differently, who leave behind successful careers to follow a path their heart calls them to pursue. And I am inspired by them. (My parents were, to put it mildly, concerned that I was leaving my teaching job -- the one with a steady, if paltry, paycheck -- to bike around the country on my savings and volunteer on farms.) Without this pursuit of something greater, what are we left with? I'm not advocating for everyone to leave their less-than-ideal day jobs, but consider ways in which you, too, might seek your own version of la buena vida.

Get your grass in gear

While working at 47 Ranch for a few days last week, I learned a bit about ranching. Because Dennis is a veritable wealth of information on, well, everything, I also learned a good bit about alternative energy, regional history, agricultural policy, and local ecology. He's a talker, but also a careful listener -- a seasoned rancher and a college professor all rolled into one thoughtful package. (He's a great hugger, too. Actually, the whole Moroney family are huggers -- I love it.)

One of the intriguing topics Dennis covered during our lengthy chats was the way that the landscape has been changing in southeastern Arizona. Our focus: grass. For many years before his arrival, farmers and ranchers had herds of animals grazing the large swaths of native grasses. Then, just a few decades ago, it seems, farmers in Cochise County started having water shortages. Simultaneously, the grasses started to disappear. Local authorities attributed this to irresponsible resource management and began requiring landowners to purchase water rights. Many farmers lost their land which in their absence became even more decimated, more prone to erosion and topsoil loss. Native grasses continued to disappear.

As we drove past acre after acre of former grassland, Dennis proposed that the water problems were due to an overpopulation of moisture-absorbing mesquite (in the form of shrubs or, at higher elevations, trees). Though the mesquite are native to the region, Forest Service policies designed to prevent wildfires resulted in a change in the cycle of things: instead of periodic natural (or even controlled burn) fires clearing out grasses and young trees and shrubs to set the stage for the next round of growth, the absolute fire prevention meant that when the rare fire did get started, all of the grasses were wiped out but slow-burning mesquites remained, eventually squeezing out the native prairie varieties as they progressively dominated the ecosystem. This, combined with the removal of animals that would keep the invasive shrubs under control, meant that grass didn't have a chance.

Now, I've read about the historic conflict between environmentalists (particularly those in the Forest Service) and ranchers -- two groups sharing a belief in the need for land conservation, but with drastically different views on how this should happen. Traditionally, those in the environmentalist camp have believed that animals grazing the land will destroy it (trampling and eating everything down to the ground); meanwhile, ranchers have been frustrated with large tracts of land lying vacant except for, say, the occasional endangered pygmy owl. (Please, I'm not against the endangered species. I used to intern at Defenders of Wildlife, for heaven's sake. And, no, I didn't wear a cape to work.) The key for both groups is healthy flora, starting with the grass. Recent research suggests that the best way to preserve and/or restore the crucial prairie grasses is to mimic the natural patterns of ruminants (deer, buffalo, moose, etc.) that used to keep native flora in check. This is most effectively done through well-planned rotational grazing.

Recent years have shown a rise in self-proclaimed "grass farmers" profiled in books like The Omnivore's Dilemma and Deeply Rooted -- folks who periodically shift their chickens, goats, sheep, and cows through a series of fenced pastures. The grasslands are slowly recovering, encouraged in part by land trusts and conservation easements geared toward conservation, curbing the tide of rampant, soil-destroying development. I've read and spoken with folks a bit about these incentives in Pennsylvania, in Iowa, in California, in Arizona. More folks are realizing the critical role that grasslands play not only in terms of wildlife habitat but also soil and water management and even climate change. Finally, it seems, we're getting our grasses in gear.

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Everybody wins

One day, not very many years ago, a former mayor of Tucson decided to set aside a chunk of land in the nearby town of Marana -- 300 acres, I believe -- to be preserved and protected from development. It would be managed by the Parks & Recreation Department and would include hiking trails, an amphitheater, and other amenities. Someone decided that the Marana plot, part of the historically agricultural Santa Cruz Valley, should also feature a farm. But they didn't have any farmers on staff.

Across town, a group of folks at Tucson's Community Food Bank (CFB) had decided to set up a program to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income mothers and children (those qualifying for WIC). The problem was that they didn't have enough donations of fresh produce or a place to grow it themselves. They were looking for land.

The two groups came together and the Marana Farm at the Heritage River Park was born. (Does anyone else have the Brady Bunch theme song in their head?) The 10-acre working organic farm is run by a small staff of young women employed by CFB plus a few interns and AmeriCorps volunteers. The non-profit is supported by a steady stream of donations and grants that supplement sales of the farm's produce at local markets. Maintenance needs are handled by the Park staff. It's a charmed existence, but rather than congratulating themselves on their luck the folks at Marana Farm are eager to share their resources and good fortune with the larger community. (And the community members have been flooding in since Disney started offering free 1-day passes to their parks for folks who volunteer at local charitable organizations. The farm's generally had a steady stream of volunteers prior, but there's been a huge uptick in families coming out to weed the spinach beds lately. I have mixed feelings on the Disney incentive, but it does seem to get a lot of local folks out into their communities and helping out for a few hours. I'm hoping at least a handful return post-Epcot Center.)

What is really exciting to me is the way everything seems to come together here in such a serendipitous way. There is an abundance of donated tools, seeds, and volunteer time. People with needed skills just kind of show up. On our drive to Marana this morning, one of the farmers (Maggie) told me of an when she was given the task of building a greenhouse. She had little construction experience and was feeling anxious about undertaking the project. Into the farm office walked a rather muscular woman needing to fulfill some community service hours (due to a weapons charge) who happened to be a professional greenhouse builder. Presto! -- the greenhouse was built.

[I know: weapons charge?? Right. We are in Arizona, where a startlingly literal interpretation of the right to bear arms just led to legislation permitting weapons to be carried into bars. I wonder if one can exercise his or her second amendment right and bring their weapons into the courtroom for the hearing following the inevitable gunslinging bar brawl.]

The farm is a model of community cooperation, and seems to have great relationships with local businesses, from the Marana WIC clinic to the Cottonwood thrift shop to the Marana food bank (though the farm works out of the Tucson food bank) to area farms. The different entities share extra resources when possible. A few examples: the farm brings boxes of broccoli or turnips not sold at the farm stand to the local (Marana) food bank; the food bank offers use of their computer printer or broken sacks of birdseed donated from Walmart; the farm donates organic seed to home gardeners and struggling farms in the area; the local Rotary Club chapter helps fund the food forest on the farm property. Everybody shares, everybody wins.

There is some discussion of the farm moving in a more education-focused direction (rather than, say, beginning a CSA program or scaling up to grow for more farmers' markets). While there are currently a number of educational programs offered in the form of workshops (and CFB after-school nutrition sessions), the farm staff hope to develop more formal lessons that align with the local school curricula and focus more on school groups. A working educational farm that taps into the various talents and resources within the community? Sounds like something we could use in my own home town....

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Getting there

Phoenix is not what one might call a sustainable city. (Or perhaps I should say the Greater Phoenix Area, lumping in Peoria, Scottsdale, Glendale, Tempe, and Mesa, which, incidentally, took Aaron and I a full day to bike across. Basically, I consider the area to be about 60 miles from one end to the other: the northern tippy-top of Peoria where Aunt Cami lives to where we camped in Lost Dutchman State Park, a bit northeast of Mesa, AZ.) The urban sprawl is not at all conducive to efficiency, with one strip mall after another lining the seemingly endless roads and no way to safely walk between them. Impossible to navigate on foot. Cars everywhere. Large front lawns in the desert. Portland would be scandalized at the lack of composting, the abuse of such a precious resource as water, and relative absence of public transit options outside of Tempe in this sprawling metropolis.

Even so, there are folks working to transform Phoenix. There are few buses but a fair number of bike lanes and even a decent bike trail along the canal that took me well over 20 miles across the city. There is a basic recycling program with curbside pickup. And closest to my heart, farmers' markets are on the rise. I had the opportunity to check three of these out during my time in the area last week -- one on Wednesday evening and two on Saturday morning. There were some striking differences between these and other markets I've explored around the country thus far.

The first market I visited was the Wednesday evening "Twilight" market in Glendale. (Incidentally, it was in the same plaza where I got a little salsa dancing in the following night -- woo hoo!) As Aunt Cami, Aaron, and I wandered about, I noted a higher proportion of packaged foods -- jams, barbecue sauces, cheeses, chocolate, crackers -- than most other farmers' markets I'd been to. One egg booth, one seafood stand, one beef/lamb seller, an apple cider vendor, and a handful of vegetable growers filled out the docket. While the quality of the items was consistently good, and all produce was grown without the aid of lab-manufactured pesticides or fertilizers, I was surprised by the general lack of knowledge of some of the sellers. They couldn't tell me what kinds of onions they were selling at one booth, nor the variety of mushrooms at another. I don't mean to sound critical here: I'm fairly certain that the market is one of the newer ones I've visited and I suspect this unfamiliarity will change as local consumers become more educated about their food and begin to ask more questions. Whatever varieties they were, the mystery veggies were fabulous in the quiches we made a few days later.

Fast forwarding to Saturday morning, we checked out the 20-year-old Roadrunner Farmers' Market, which featured mostly produce (with a few prepared items), all of which was either certified organic or naturally grown -- a strict requirement, I learned from Mara, one of the local market organizers -- and sold by cheerful, knowledgeable farmers. After picking up some veggies, I had a chance to speak with Kathy (a farmer and farm market manager here at the area's largest and oldest market) about the EBT and WIC initiatives. She explained how customers and farmers are growing more comfortable with the programs that seek to make fresh, local food accessible to low-income populations in the area. The way it works is as follows:

1. Customers choose eligible items at the farmers' market. (WIC recently has expanded to include fresh fruits and veggies.)
2. Farmers fill out a ticket for the items and put them aside.
3. Customers take the tickets to the farm market manager who swipes their EBT/WIC card. (The cost of machine rental is covered by the market; credit and debit card transactions are also possible for a small fee.)
4. Customers return to the farm stand, present the receipt, and collect their produce.
5. The farm market manager -- in this case, Kathy -- tallies up each farmer's sales and hands each a check for their total the following week.

Simple, right? And efficient. The same set-up appeared to exist at the Downtown Market, which we visited later in the morning. Couldn't we have a widespread system like this in DC? My understanding during my visits to various markets in my hometown and many other markets around the country is that only a fraction have EBT/WIC-ready terminals, and the reimbursement process is so slow and cumbersome as to deter many farmers from accepting vouchers. It's often simply not an option. (There are success stories like the senior program in Ohio I learned of a few months back.)

After nearly 10 months on the road, and after a friend recently requested a summary of some of my findings thus far, I'm starting to reflect on larger trends and unique solutions to common challenges around the country with an eye to implications for the DC area, where I hope to return in about four months' time. Phoenix may have a long way to go, but there's much to learn from the work being done in this desert city. It's getting there.

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Evil will always triumph because good is dumb

Okay, admittedly I've been looking for an excuse to use one of my favorite lines from "Spaceballs" for some time. ("Bikeable feast: the flame thrower" was too hard to work in. Maybe "Bikeable feast: the beercan stove." Kind of catchy, isn't it? Okay, back on point....) Well, yesterday as I passed a Mobil gas station, a Walmart, and a McDonalds crossing the border into Arizona, the opportunity to ruminate on the line in a blog posting presented itself....

There are a few empires that some liberals who will remain nameless might consider pure evil: Cargill, Monsanto, the pharmaceutical industry, ExxonMobil. Some might propose that these profit-driven, to-hell-with-humanity-and-the-planet businesses have no redeeming qualities. I am not addressing those particular industries, but a few who inhabit the next tier down: Starbucks, McDonalds, Walmart. These are corporations that have been crushing local communities for at least the past decade. They are crumbling, but not quickly enough for my taste. (Oops. I'm one of those liberals.) And yet -- and yet! -- they possess a few qualities that I have found to be helpful along my current journey. (Hey, when I'm biking through the desert -- food desert and otherwise -- I'm forced to make a little lemonade from the lemons I'm presented with. Mmm, fresh, cold lemonade.)

Starbucks may have squeezed most mom and pop java joints out of business in hundreds of towns across the country, spread abroad and desecrated the Forbidden City with the construction of a coffee shop within its walls (I almost cried when I saw this on a visit to Beijing back in 2002; I would not have deigned to sip a latte there for all the tea in...nevermind). The shops sell pretty pricey coffee, very little of which is fair trade (and with the amount of coffee the collective shops sell they have the potential to be a major player in reforming the coffee industry if they went strictly the fair trade route, but alas, no such luck), and go through disposable cups like nobody's business. However, they do have dependably nice bathrooms, free wifi, and a decent $1.50 espresso that one can sip very slowly while waiting for rainstorm #3 of the day to pass. And they don't seem to care how many packets of raw sugar and napkins I stuff into my pockets.

McDonalds may be -- with support from KFC, Taco Bell, and the rest of the fast food giants -- driving our country toward even more atrocious rates of obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes, but the folks working at these fast food stops will fill up your water bottles for free and I'll be damned if they don't have clean bathrooms. In fact, I recall reading in one of my Lonely Planet travel guides a few years back that around the globe McDonalds has consistently clean bathrooms. I would wash my hair in those sinks. (In fact, I have.) I'm not sure I'd walk around barefoot in there, though.

And finally, perhaps the most notorious of all is Walmart. Fair wages and benefits for employees have been points of contention in recent years, and they may only have carried one single organic food item in the entire Parker, AZ store (a 16 ounce tub of Stoneyfield Farm vanilla yoghurt) in spite of all the press about the chain carrying organic products, but it's also a place where one can buy clean underwear (socks and underwear are where I draw the line for thrift store shopping) and camp in the parking lot for free (I just learned this the other day). I saw a number of RVs in the lot yesterday afternoon but I still had another 30 miles to bike so I kept going. (As for the underwear, I was desperate. Three days left until I would get to Aunt Cami's house with the blessed washer-dryer and the repeated handwashing of undergarments just wasn't cutting it in the desert. At $7.50 for a 3-pack, I'm hardly holding up the Walmart empire. Even so, perhaps I should do a little penance. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow....)

I'm not endorsing these groups. Hardly. But there are ways to use the fringe benefits the corporate giants offer as we spend the majority of our dollars elsewhere -- at local coffee shops, restaurants, farmers' markets, and food co-ops. Ha! Take that! Good will eventually triumph... and in the meantime I've got a handful of sugar packets to sweeten my lemonade.

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