WEBVTT

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[music]

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Some say the apple

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was a forbidden fruit that one that got Adam and
Eve into so much trouble in the Garden of Eden.

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As much trouble as my hometown is in.

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Maybe we should have left
the apple alone as well.

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[music]

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This year as the Apple Blossom
Festival grand parade,

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ground its way down Wenatchee avenue. Across
town, excavators moved in on the last stand

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of apple trees at the gates of the
city, making way for a New Home Depot,

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right across the street from the Wal-Mart. They still
call this place the \"Apple Capital of the World.\"

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We still hold the Guinness
Book of World Records title,

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for the World’s largest apple pie. We’re still
headquarters of the Washington Apple Commission.

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And still the focal point
of a statewide industry

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that pumps out 12 billion apples a season.

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But the title doesn’t fit the
way it did when I was a kid.

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When I was a kid, apples were everywhere. We played in the golden
apple marching band, we went to football games in the Apple Bowl,

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we flirted with Apple Ettes. And if you
were successful in those flirtations,

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you and your apple-ette sought out a
soft place deep in an apple orchard.

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I don’t know where the kids go today,

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but something tells me, making out isn’t nearly
as easy in the middle of the new subdivisions

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that have sprouted where the apple orchards one grew.
The Apple Commission isn’t what it used to be either,

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guard of the multi-million dollar ad
campaigns to sell Washington apples.

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All that remains is a building on the north
end of town, haunted by a skeleton crew

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and a few part time clerks selling
apple souvenirs out of the lobby.

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Gone as well are the Hawaiiantians(ph)
are farmers used to sport in the fall,

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after dropping off their last bin of apples at the packing shed.
An apple orchard won’t support Hawaiian vacations anymore.

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It will scarcely support
the simplest living.

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Yet, this is still the same place. The
soil, the sun, the mighty Columbia,

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put a ceiling in the ground
here, take good care of it,

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and in the two Septembers, you’ll have yourself one of the
best apples in the world. Farming was healthy, healthy.

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It… it really was. You’re in God’s
country, and if you could get fruit

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from those trees into a box and to market.
You know, thank you Jesus,

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I mean it was money in the bank. It’s
everything else that has changed

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things out in the world. You know, when something when you see
a 50 year old farmer breaking the tears. I mean, they just…

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they just don’t break down emotionally. We see that
a lot. My children don’t wanna continue farming.

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Neither one of ‘em has an interest
in farming. My son tells me

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\"Why would I wanna do something that’s gonna pay me $2 an hour
Mom, wake up.\" And today what was once a simple proposition.

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Grow a beautiful piece of fruit and
sell it to somebody who wants it,

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has become complicated, impossible even.
Somebody is the blame,

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but you can’t put your finger on it. I got
a feeling, a lot of it is globalization.

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Today, the future of my hometown,
\"The Apple Capital of the World\"

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is very much in question. Go down of the coffee shop, talk
to 10 people and you’ll get 12 different visions of the…

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of the future. That would be a
tragedy, if we use the small farm

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’cause that’s small farm is what
made America, what it’s today.

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My family is been in apples
for three generations.

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I was to be the 4th.

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But I’m not. In this family
tree, \"I’m the broken limb.\"

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My dad used to tell me, \"Farming
was like sitting on an egg

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and waiting for it to hatch.\" Frankly,
I thought that sounded pretty dull.

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So using the money he made on his apples, dad helped
put me through college, so that I might find a career

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more to my liking. My dad is a good farmer,

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\"Washington farmer of the Year\" in 1979.
He grew red delicious apples

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and a few other varieties. Once, he told me
that, by the time I was finishing up at school,

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he’d probably be retiring from the apple
business. The graduation came and went,

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and my dad’s retirement only seem
to get further and further away.

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In March of 2000, I got a letter from uh…

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Farm Credit saying that uh… \"They were no
longer uh… in the financing business with me,\"

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and they wanted repayment of
all the money in uh… October,

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and I said, you know, \"The only way you’re gonna
get that is to, you know, foreclose on me and… and

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I’m not gonna, but you really do that.
I’m gonna be very obstinate

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and I’m gonna be very on honoree about it,
and it’s gonna cost you a lot of money.\"

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$750,000, for all his
hard work over the years,

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all he had to show for it, was $750,000
in debt, a bank breathing down his neck

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and no money to get next
year’s crop started.

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But he wasn’t ready to give up, while he fought to convince
the bank to give him more time to pay back his loans,

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he lived on money, he made it as fruit stand, and by
renting out his basement to tourists in the summer.

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To cut his losses,

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he had to cut out some of his trees. Trees,
he had been tending most of his life.

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The only thing harder than cutting out
the trees, was cutting out the people

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who’d helped him carry the workload of the orchard.
Half the money, it takes to run an orchard,

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goes to the people who work in it. You lose the
uh… first of all, you know, your health uh…

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that you’re if, we’ve had around for number of years,
you go through uh… that five year around people,

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so those people have to go.

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One of those people was Salomon Mendoza. Every
morning, as a child, I walked to the school bus stop

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with Salomon’s kids, Rudy and Rosa.
When the end finally came,

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Salomon had been working
alongside my dad for 23 years.

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When I told him that there was no
financing and that uh… you know,

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he would be, that I would keep him the very
last person, you know, he could see that

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probably wasn’t his best interest to stay.
So he went out and found other employment

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which I was happy that he did.
I found Salomon

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much as I remembered him, still at work in the apple
orchards with a new job at a place called \"Apple I\",

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a 900 acre spread the dwarfs the 130
acres, he and my dad used to farm.

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He’s just as crazy.

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Yeah, I… it took me a week
to learn my way around

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from orchard to orchard,
which way was more faster

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and name of the blocks. I’ve
gotten couple of headaches.

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Right now, we’ve got 110
pickers and plus uh…

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30 uh… here around, you know,
operators, truck drivers uh…

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adds up almost 150 people.

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That’s a lot of people. Yeah, big
difference, big change. Hello.

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Salomon told me he was
happy just to have work.

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Year around, orchard jobs aren’t as easy
to come by as they once were. Okay.

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As far as he can see, his future is tied
to these orchards. Yeah, it’s true.

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Especially, for me who been
on the apple uh… business

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for I think, working on
apples for 28 years.

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I don’t know anything else to do.
Mean, I… at least I could

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break into something, but
be hard of my… my age.

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[music]

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Today, my dad is 60. He understood from the start
that farming doesn’t come with any guarantees.

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He’s always been at the mercy of
Mother Nature, her hail storms

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and cold snaps, her withering sun
and her armies of hungry pasts.

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But he believed that over the long run, he could
work with Mother Nature. She would provide

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and someday he would retire. In some
cases, you can do everything right,

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and… and be the best farmer in the world. Put
all the right inputs in, at the right time,

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and still end up with crop failure.
We know that.

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What I didn’t realize is that the change

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that I knew was coming would be so fast
and so severe. None of us dreamed,

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it would hit as quick as it did.

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It wasn’t the natural hazards they got
to him. It was the manmade hazards.

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For small farmer like my dad, there may
be no more inhospitable environment

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than the global market. Uh… The Chinese
and the Chileans and those folks

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are doing just a good
job for uh… less money.

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And if you go to Costco, you probably do, and you can see along
in February, and you can see what awful nice fruit in there,

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at awful cheap price, from…
from southern hemisphere

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and umm… that’s what people buy.

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A currency crisis in Asia,
a port lockout in Seattle,

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an overzealous pest inspector in
Taiwan, a new tariff in Mexico,

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these are the winds that blow through
my father’s orchard these days.

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And like most small farmers, he feels every bit as
powerless before them as in the face of a storm cloud

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coming over the Cascades.
The local paper came out

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to do a story about my dad and about the jury
future, Apple farmers like him, seem to be facing.

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Next to the story, ran a poem I wrote,
as an attempt to make some sense

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out of what I was seeing around me.

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[music]

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The apples, red, ripe, ready for
the pickers bag, warehouse bin,

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ready for the grocer’s shelf,
your fridge, your mouth,

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but not this year.

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The apples, red, ripe, riddle the ground.

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Our machines rip the trees from the Earth.
A huge pyer burns.

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Spirits tended for years,
pillar to the sky.

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In a few days,

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only the apples and amount of ashes.

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The orchardiststays away that day,

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talks about economics at the coffee shop.
How the red delicious had to come out?

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How they just didn’t pay their way?
But inside,

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he fights back for two years. Years of growth,
planted in soil that should have born fruit

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for another 20. The house
might go next year,

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if prices don’t improve. At
least, the kids are grown.

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[music]

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All around the valley, this fall, the smoky
(inaudible)pile hangs like the last breath of life.

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Old timers shake their heads, say,
\"they’ve never seen it so bad.\"

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[music]

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The hander short boy out on the flats,
got a job driving cement truck,

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got to feed that little baby, somehow.

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No one knows quite what to do. No
way to plant and pick fast enough

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to follow the fickle markets.

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[music] And so, the trees come out.

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And men stand huddled by their trucks.
Arms crossed,

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baseball caps pushed back on
foreheads lined with fear.

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And the Autumn breeze drifts by.

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Heavy with smoke and the distant sound

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of a snapping trunks.

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[music]

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Writing the poem only raised
more questions for me.

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\"Why if this is really the Apple Capital of the
World, are we having such trouble raising apples?\"

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I decided to see if I can learn more

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about what was ailing my hometown.

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When some people see farmers like my dad pulling out
their trees, they call it a \"market correction.\"

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They believe that when we grow more
apples and the world cares to eat,

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the market will set things right. But with every
correction, we end up with fewer farmers.

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Once, this country was full of farmers.

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In 1900, 38% of the people in the United
States made their living on the farm.

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In 1950, that it dropped to 12%.

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In 1980, it was only 3.4%.
And by the year 2000,

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less than 2% of us were
making a living on the land.

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Is that a market correction?
Or is that a market mistake?

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I picked up the mail,

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I got the letter, I opened the letter,
it said \"No,\" I walked out and told him.

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That was it. He never work
in the orchard again.

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Set my loppers down. Huh-hmm. I laid
my letter down and I walked to house.

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David, and Phoebe Crosby, got a
letter from the bank very much

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like the one my dad got. They’d come to the
Apple Capital from Alaska 20 years earlier,

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as part of a kind of reverse gold rush.
And one of the gentlemen that

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Phoebe, had worked with, had quit and come down
here and bought an orchard in Nortonville(ph).

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And I had talked to him and he said, \"Man,
this is the best thing in the world.\"

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He said, \"You don’t have to work, you just
pick the apple, you make lots of money

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and you just have good time.\" As a
man, this sounds like a life for me.

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The Crosbys weren’t alone. In the 20 years that
followed, more than 50,000 new acres of apple trees

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were planted in Washington State.
Everything was in place

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to make Apple farming as easy as possible. Field men and
chemical reps to guide you through the growing season,

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truckers to cart your apples away, and
sheds to pack and market your fruit.

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Of course, everybody took their cut.
So by the time

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uh… the money is taken from the
customer to pay the grocer,

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who pays the whole seller,
who pays the trucker,

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who pays the broker, who pays to warehouse,

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who finally pays us. If there’s anything
left over, the farmer gets what’s left over.

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Every, everybody’s work on it, fixed cost.

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Except the farmer. Except the farmer. And he’s
taken… Whatever is left. Whatever is given to ‘em

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and he lays down like a whip up and says
\"Well, that’s all. I’m gonna get for supper.\"

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Still for many years, there was enough money
to cover everybody’s cut of the apple dollar.

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The Crosby settled in, and soon they had
come to love their new way of life.

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You got them in the band and there they were and
all are glory. There’s nothing more gorgeous

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and beautifully ripened fruit,
sitting there in the (inaudible) bin

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and… and the size is
good and you say, \"Yes.\"

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I think every farmer says that.
When you stepped out the door

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and you heard her the geese hollering

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and in the birds singing, and that cock bird feathers
it up there screaming and the little quail sit near

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on your fence post, Holland, Chicago,
and you were communing with nature.

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Huh-hmm. It made it all worthwhile.

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But the apple dollar kept shrinking,

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until eventually, there
was no more left over.

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I’m gonna open the bidding up with the bid that I received from the planters
attorney in this matter and the first bid of (inaudible) reckon will be

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$363,151.45. Do you have any more bids?

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[sil.]

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This bid been $363,151.45.
Do you have any bid?

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[sil.]

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Going once, going twice.

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Sold to the planters attorney $363,151.45.

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Talk to the clients.

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The people, we hardly tried.
I told Phoebe (inaudible)

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give me your hand, she’d looked at me, she said,
\"What for?\" I said, \"So we can stand together

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on our own property, ‘cause when
we come back, it won’t be ours.\"

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And, it hurts a little bit.

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But, what do you do? Not much.
Not much at all.

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[sil.]

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Now, that the bank has taken their farm, the
Crosbys’ have a year to vacate their home.

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Dave has found work at a local church.
Phoebe took a job

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assembling plumbing parts, but it
lasted only a few months. Oh, it’s like

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a lot of other, Pheobe got awful and
depressed. Yeah, you thought about

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going out and laying down on the road
waiting for some might (inaudible).

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We’ve really thought some bad thoughts.
We’ve got no money. We’ve got nothing

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to back us up, because every dime we
ever made was put into the orchard

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and when that is taken away from you, and
your livelihood is taken away from you.

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Where do you go? What do you do?
What do you think about it?

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
\"It’s just business we like to say,\"

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
but here in the Apple Capital of
the World, it’s more than that.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
Farmers in the U.S. commit suicide at a
rate six times the national average.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
I’ve seen the cloud in my
father’s eyes and I worry.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
[sil.]

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
Of course, not all family
farms are failing,

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
like mine, the MacDougall family goes back
generations in the valleys apple industry,

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
but that’s where the similarities end. This is
what the MacDougall family farm looks like today.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
Their key to survival through
tough times has been growth

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
and diversification. When the
Apple prices couldn’t carry them,

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
they squeaked by on the earnings
from their packing shed.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
In this industry, you have to take those chances
to continue to grow and I think that, you know,

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
if you don’t grow in this in… in this industry
right now, if you’re not moving ahead, uh…

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
you’re probably gonna fall out, you
know, you’ll fall by the wayside.

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
You had to be cutting edge

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
and you have to be extremely
honest with yourself too

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
about exactly what you’re doing. You
want to enjoy it, but that better

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
not be why… why you’re in it, you… you know,
or you… you won’t be in it very, very long.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
I… I noticed uh… the guys are
back in New York, didn’t…

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
didn’t take of the uh… 60… It’s still apples, but Stuart
and his brother Scott, don’t work in the same business

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
their father did. So much the
business is done through,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
you know, electronically
produced uh… orders

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
and… and things like that. It
seems to me, it’s much more, umm…

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
it doesn’t have the same flavor, let’s
put it that way. Like it or not,

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
they don’t see any alternative to constant
growth and all its attendant risks,

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
if they want to continue to be a player.
Recently, they joined forces

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
with other like-minded packing houses and
formed a marketing agency called \"CMI\".

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Together, they’ve managed to more
than triple their production numbers.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
With CMI, we’re getting close to uh… probably
eight, nine boxes of fruit collectively.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
And that seems to be a level that we
need to be at, to be able to supply

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
the bigger chains on a year around basis.
And if you don’t have that amount of supply

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
then it’s pretty hard to even get your foot
in the door to work with these people.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
Some packing houses joined forces to
keep up with the demands of Albertsons

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
and Safeway and Kroger. But if you really
want to feed the WalMarts of the World,

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
it’s better to become a force in your own
right. Stemilt fruit founded by a local farmer

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
named Tom Mathison in 1962, has become
one of the largest fruit shippers

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
on the West Coast. They control
more than 10,000 acres of orchards

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
and can offer the kind of one stop
shopping, big box stores like, apples,

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
pears, cherries, all right
here, all year long.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
To satisfy the appetites
of these retail giants,

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:50.000
you have to have an appetite of your own.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
[music]

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
West Mathison is 27, and he’s been
handpicked by his grandfather

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
to lead Stemilt into the future.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
We live and breathe and act and, and are part of the global
market. And our job is to find out where we fit into it.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
And I think that we have to somehow
embrace all of the global trends of…

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
of sourcing, international sourcing of
product, different type of packaged types,

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
newer varieties, improving the product, I mean, we
have to embrace those things in order to survive.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
When the Apple Commissions marketing budget is
guided by a legal decision, the Stemilt, answers

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
to hire away the top guns for their own marketing
department. When foreign competition ramps up,

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
the Stemilt answer is to set up its own
relationship with Chilean fruit growers

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
and become an importer. When the country’s biggest
buyers need something, the Stemilt answer

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
is to make it happen. Because the
retailers’ problems are our problems,

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
no matter how you look at it, we not only have to be suppliers,
we’ve got to be problem solvers for the retail industry.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
Unfortunately,

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
my dad doesn’t have time to be solving retail
issues for Wal-Mart. He’s too busy right now,

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
figuring out how to bring the plumbing at Sunshine
fruit stand, up to health department codes.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
It took most of his marketing budget, just to print up
stickers for the kitschy Llama Doo that he collects

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
and sells to gardeners for 475 a box.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
West and the Mathison family have found a set
of answers that seem to be working for Stemilt.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
But they aren’t answers that
will ever work for my dad

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
or for any other small farmer.
I kept searching for answers,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
for some hope that my father might be
able to hold on to his way of life.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
Some pointed me in the
direction of technology.

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
Our… our orchards are handle it much the same way as
there were in Roman or Grecian times. We grow a tree,

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
put a ladder next to it, climb up it, pick a fruit put
in a bag, go dump it in a bin. That’s what they did in…

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
in the days of Theophrastus. We need
to change that aspect of our industry.

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
Ceaseless innovation and that’s
what’s gotten a lot of our industry

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
where it’s now. Some felt that more
creative marketing held the key.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
Our message is \"Three apples every
day, three workouts every way.\"

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
In America, we all want instant gratification
and weight loss and… and looking good naked

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
is instant gratification. Some
just told me not to worry so much.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
But you know what, there used to be
85 auto manufacturers in this nation,

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
and we got down to three. Things do
go through an evolutionary period.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
You can’t see every farmer.
Good farmer should survive

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
and agriculture probably
isn’t going to go away.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
Well, if we’re really going to
get down to three Apple farmers,

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
the odds don’t look good that my dad is going to be one of them.
And besides, wouldn’t getting down to three apple growers

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
in a state that has 4,000 of them, the almost
the same thing as agriculture going away.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
The old answers didn’t
seem to hold much hope,

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
especially, where small
farmers were concerned.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
Over time, it just becomes undeniable hoot to anyone
who’s willing to think and… and look at the world around

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
that there’re things going on
that we need to talk about.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
And each storm that comes along, we’ve fewer and fewer and
fewer farmers and, and more and more and more consolidation.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
Are these the rules we want
to continue playing by?

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
Do we want to keep on that path? And… and I
say the answer should be \"No.\" We… we don’t

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
because we… we will, we want and
need family farms to exist.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
The business model in the U.S. is to become
bigger and bigger. And that’s a difficult thing

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
to apply to agriculture and, and we’re doing
it. The model that we used to produce food

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
in the United States is what we have to think
about right now. But if the model itself

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
is the problem, I had yet to
hear anyone in my hometown

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
proposing a new one.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
One day in August, a friend handed me an academic paper
that have been circulating among some local farmers.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
The title read \"Survival
strategies for small farms.\"

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
Those 11 pages contain my first introduction
to an idea called \"Sustainable agriculture.\"

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
It’s simply a matter that we… we lost our
sense of purpose in the agriculture.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
The… the purpose was to meet the needs of people
to enhance the quality of lives of people.

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
It was written by a professor from the
University of Missouri, Dr John Ikerd.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
And he had very specific ideas about
how we got into our current bind.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
By focusing so narrowly, on
productivity and economic efficiency,

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
we drifted away from that
fundamental purpose.

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
But what really intrigued me, are his ideas about how
we can get out of that bind? What we’re talking about

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
is agriculture that will
last over the long run.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
Dr Ikerd travels the country, spreading the
word about this new model for farming.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
I caught up with him at a conference
where he was the keynote speaker.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
Ikerd’s talk laid out the three central
ideas of sustainable agriculture.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
First, that a sustainable agriculture
must be ecologically sound.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
We’ve got to take care of the land and maintain
the productivity of the land because if we…

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
if the land loses its ability to produce
agriculture is not sustainable.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Second, and this is when all our farmers
understand already. A sustainable agriculture

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
has to be economically viable. And if the
farming system isn’t economically viable,

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
if the farmer goes broke, it doesn’t make any difference
how ecologically sound his farming operation is,

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
the farmer goes broke it’s not sustainable.
And third, a sustainable agriculture

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
has to be socially responsible, improving the
lives of the people involved. It has to meet

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
the food and fiber needs of society, that’s
the fundamental purpose of agriculture.

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
But it also has to provide opportunities for
farmers and people in rural communities

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
and society to lead successful lives.
We’ve always done business with our eye

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
on the bottom line. But Dr. Ikerd
was talking about something more,

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
a triple bottom line. One that factored in, not just
dollars, but also our impact on the environment

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
and on the people around us.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
Dr. Ikerd, that the road we’re on, towards
large scale, fully industrialized agriculture

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
threatens more than just our small
farmers, it threatens all of us.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
We’ve watched big industries leave one
after another, looking for cheap labor

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
on foreign shores. But what
if agriculture were to leave?

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
Sustainability is ultimately about long
run food security. I think we could

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
at some point become as dependent upon the rest of
the world for our food as we are today for our oil.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
We’ve never been hungry since 1930.
We’ve forgotten that…

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
that food actually could be short.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
And in any kind of catastrophe, if there’s no local
products, no local food right here, we would be in trouble.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
If the trucks can’t get over
the past, we can’t get food.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
But sustainable agriculture was
still just a theory in a paper.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
How would it actually be done and by whom?

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
I call them the New American farmers.

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
[music]

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
Dr. Ikerd described a new breed of Farmer,
both a steward and a student of the land.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
Dr Ikerd’s New American Farmers were
not the stoic solitary figures of old,

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
but men and women focused on building new relationships
both with other farmers and with their customers.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
Finally, these were farmers for whom
money mattered, but not above all else.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
What mattered most, was holding on
to a lifestyle they believed in.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
Because, it was good for their
families, good for their communities,

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
good for their world. Ikerd’s New American Farmers
for more than just ideas and academic papers.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
They were real and he had met them.
There’re literally thousands,

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
if not hundreds of thousands of farmers
across this country and around the world,

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
that are thinking in different ways. They are
working thankers, thanking workers, if you will.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
These are the New American Farmers.
If that was so,

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
my next task was clear.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
I set out to find some of these
New American Farmers for myself.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
Husband is so strong. I mean, he’s really
an anchor and he has a lot of faith

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
and he’s just one of these steady kind of ant
guys that, you know, goes and gets (inaudible)

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
and brings it back and goes and gets (inaudible)and brings back, it
doesn’t matter if it hail’s on him, rain’s on him, snow’s on him,

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
he’s still gonna get that (inaudible)and bring it back.
And so he’s been a tremendous inspiration for me.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
I’ve been very lucky.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Wynne Weinreb and her husband Scott
Beaton haven’t always been lucky.

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
In 1994, the hail did come.

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
We saw this beautiful, black storm
coming up the Columbia River just uh…

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
it… it looked like hail, and when it came,
there were three quarter inch hail.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
We thought it, well, we thought it was pretty cool for a
while till we realized, you know, we’re getting hammered.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
Their crop was ruined. No packing shed would
attempt to sell it for anything, but juice.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
And juice apple prices wouldn’t come close
to covering their $25,000 crop loan.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
And then they hit on an idea, they
picked through their crop by hand,

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
salvaged all that they could and made
a trip over the mountains to Seattle.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
We were selling uh… ding (inaudible) fruit
at the farmer’s market and people go

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
\"Oh, what’s the matter with this?\" And… and we would
explain to ‘em that it was just a hail not was like,

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
you know, some infectious disease
that there are gonna die from it.

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
The Apple sold and they paid back the crop loan. It
was the start of us getting into marketing our own…

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
our own fruit and then we figured out
as we went that we either get ourselves

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
some place to pack and store on
fruit, our business is over.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
Economies of scale, work applied to Apple
just like the applied to make them,

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
you know, affords. It’s just
tough to go smaller acres

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
or the five acre, you’re not make a living on that
anymore, I used to. Wynne and Scott own, Jerzy Boyz Farm.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
An organic apple orchard not far
from my dad’s, but smaller,

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
five acres in fact. Hey, listen We were
actually getting paid to work out here.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
You know, we’re not making a
real lot of money, but uh…

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
you know, we’re making enough money uh… to get paid
and we’re helping our, one of our kids go to college

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
and so we feel that we’re…
we’re doing pretty good.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
I mean, all my neighbors tease me about it. They all say, \"Oh,
you… you know, you’re gonna end up buying the whole neighborhood\"

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
and \"Oh, you want to buy my farm\" and you know, but I
really don’t, I have no interest in growing bigger.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
Small is very beautiful, if you manage
it well. And small makes it possible.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
If it were bigger, we couldn’t do what
we’re doing on that field. There’s no way.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
There’re two keys to the success of
Jerzy Boyz. The first is that they know

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
how to get exactly what they want out of their
trees. You have to do a lot of work yourself

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
if you’re a smaller farmer. Umm…
And, you know, even with uh…

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
apple trees uh… in order to stay above the
curve, you have to be out in the field a lot.

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
And he knows what he wants in the field.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
He knows everything that he has to do to make
that fruit be best earned food in America.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
And so he’s out there doing it because
he’s the only one who can really do it.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
The second key is that they are as willing to
tend their markets as they are to tender trees.

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
We saw a lot of fruits in San Francisco area. We saw
fruit in Minneapolis. We saw a lot of fruit back east.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
Those are, I mean, little bit in
Florida, it… it kind of gets around L.A.

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
Using a background as a research librarian, Wynne knows
how to find her way to the customers she’s after.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
But they don’t have to have a huge market,
but if they’re, if they have a high…

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
high priced, high quality market where people are looking
for really good quality. I send them a sample box

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
and that’s usually how it goes. I mean, I
sent… I sent one guy a sample box back

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
eight years ago umm… a 20 pound box

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
and he probably has ordered uh… several hundred thousand
dollars worth of food, since then. What Wynne and Scott

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
have come up with, combines the technologies
of today with the sensibilities

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
of the past. I take a lot from the way
the old farmers did it, not the ones

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
that went out and brought brand of (inaudible) and took their RV’s
and went on vacation for six months. I’m talking about the guys that

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
worked the land, hunkered down, did
what they had to do, live tight,

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
aid(ph) off the land and save their money. That’s
where we’ve kind of get ourselves not a lot of frills

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
uh… trying to be really conservative,

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
spend your money very wisely, boring stuff
like that, but we paid our land off.

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
That’s, this farm, the
business, bought the land,

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
paid our land. Last year, we got
our debt from the bank. So we now

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
own Jerzy Boyz Farm.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
But the real giveaway that I’d found a pair of New American Farmers was
something Dr. Ikerd has singled out as one of their most important traits,

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
a desire to cooperate rather than compete.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
That’s part of what drives me to work as hard as I
do and to be successful at what I’m doing because,

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
I want other farmers to do that too. And
if they’re not gonna see models like me,

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
they’re gonna see all the guys that are pulling their fruit out
and giving up. They’re not gonna have the impetus to go on,

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
but there’re people that look at me and see
what we’re doing and they say \"They can do it,

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
we can do it.\" And you call me on the phone
I’ll tell you what I know would help you do it.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
So yeah, it’s kind of a mission to
keep uh… small family farm alive

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
to not let all of our agriculture leave the United States,
and go to other places where you don’t know what’s going on

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
and what’s… what’s being put in the soil.
Umm… you come and inspect my farming,

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
you can take soil samples, you come, visit,
I’ll be happy to tell you everything.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
[music]

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
I live a very modest lifestyle,

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
limiting my means. I could just say,
you know, I farm within my means,

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
and that’s, you know, it’s not
a novel idea. It’s… it’s just

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
something that’s not happening that much anymore. How
much are these? Look at these as if now, we don’t…

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
Wait a minute. See, we’re gonna weigh… When you first spot Grant
Gibbs at a farmer’s market or driving around in his battered truck,

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
he can’t be blamed for thinking that
here is a man on the fringes of society.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
And the truth is Gibbs does
operate on the fringes.

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
But when it comes to farming, the fringy operates
on is what some are calling \"The cutting edge.\"

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
That you got to have a dream to go
somewhere and that’s one thing I’m good at

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
as dreamin’.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
Gibbs dream is to create a farm there with
his help alone takes care of its own needs.

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
Farmers like my father have long relied on a growing and
expensive list of chemicals to keep their farms producing

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
according to expectations. But
Gibbs has been weaning himself

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
from the things he buys, choosing instead, to rely
on his own ingenuity and his knowledge of the land.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
You know, I knew I wanted the
hay growing in the frost pocket

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
and I wanted the fruit upon the slopes,
and I wanted deep soils for gardening,

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
and I needed some pasture ground
as well, and handy clear that

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
The cow manure, he scoops from his
pasture becomes compost for his gardens.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
Once a day, he moves his flock of chickens
in the orchard, where they do double duty,

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
mowing the grass and feasting on pests that
would otherwise be feasting on apples.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
Once a week, Gibbs shifts the pen, call the
hog tractor further down his garden rose.

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
While the pig’s feed on damaged
apples and other farm scraps.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
They’re actually telling him fertilizing the
soil. On Gibbs 20 acres, everything cycles,

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
everything connects. Gibbs believes,
he’s only a year or two away

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
from never having to go to the feed or chemical
stores at all, a self-sustaining system.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
But the kind of farming that we’re
talking about in terms of sustainability

00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
requires the creativity, requires
imagination. It requires now

00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
determining what you can do, in
terms of recreating agriculture

00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
in a particular area. Gibbs
had to use his imagination

00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
to make it up here in Chumstick, Canyon, but when winter comes6 a
little earlier and a little colder than it does down in Wenatchee.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
Of all the great places we have to grow
apples, this may actually not be one of them.

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
Yet, Gibbs manages and unlike many local
farmers, he isn’t entertaining any ideas

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
of pulling out his apple trees in
favor of some hot new variety.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
His apples made sense, when he put them in the ground
and it make sense now. When I planted in my orchards,

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
I planted them in heirloom
varieties that ripe in

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
at different intervals. So
I’ve started picking my apples

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
with the grabbing teams(ph) in August.
And I end up picking my apples

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
with the wines after Halloween,

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
and all the other varieties come off
in between. And I only need one bin

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
to harvest my whole crop. I
don’t need 200 bin laying

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
around collecting (inaudible).
I only need one bin.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
And when it’s packed out then I go up
in the orchard and I pick another bin.

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
And when I get to $2000 to $3000 with a
product packed in my crewer, I quit picking

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
for a day and I take a day and
go out on the road and sell it.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
In Gibbs, I saw living proof of some of Dr. Ikerd’s
theories. Every time, he changes his old hand lines,

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
he’s thinking about how to better tend
his farm, how to strengthen his systems.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
He was a farmer truly relying
on his own imagination.

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
In the people that do their thinking, the people
that come up with the innovative and creative ideas

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
will be rewarded. Gibbs reward,

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
he’s managed to recapture a degree of power that most
apple farmers in our valley can no longer even imagine.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
Gibbs not only sets his own price
for apples, he holds that price.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
What I do is I target the
natural food Co-ops,

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
not the chain grocers. Chain grocers
want to buy from a wholesaler

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
which would basically be your fruit packing
shed, but demand pop Co-op stores,

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
they’ll buy direct. And I
value them and they value me

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
and there’s a mutual
connection there that uh…

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
really works good for the small farmer.
One season, wholesale prices

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
for organic golden delicious
apples saying to $21 a box.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
Well, below gives customary price
of $26 a box. Gibbs wouldn’t budge.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
The fact that drop down
$21, a box, you know,

00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
that’s time to fume the pigs, you know. I’m
not… I’m not gonna honor that fluctuation,

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
because I know that’s what
I need to make a living.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
To the pigs chagrin, most of Gibbs’
buyers decided to stay with him.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
And out of the 10 stores I was selling
into that year, eight of them honored me

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
and my $26 a box and said \"Flew with
the wholesaler and their cheap price\",

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
which made me think, you
know, here’s a real,

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
real serious friendship. Here’s a
real serious connection to the farm.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
I call it the food connection,
real serious food connection

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
going on here.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
I don’t want to try and tell somebody what they need to sell their product
for. If they know what they need for, then that’s what they need for.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
Of course, Grant’s gonna tell me what he
wants for and Grant’s prices are reasonable.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
While many large grocery buyers
play farmers against each other

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
forcing them to compete by dropping their
prices. Co-op stores with produce managers like

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
Katherine Lewis, see their farmers in
a different light. I’m very concerned

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
that the farmers survive. If the farmers
don’t survive, we don’t have anything.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
Farmer on the fringe though he may
be, today, Grant Gibbs is in demand

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
as a speaker at universities, where the farmers of tomorrow
hope to learn from his techniques and philosophies.

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
But his basic philosophy can be
boiled down into one simple idea.

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
Make the food connection happen. You’ve got to make it
happen, what gonna happen for you. Here’s the farm,

00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
here’s the farmer, there’s a customer,
there’s the mouth and it’s all connected.

00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
There’s nothing separated.

00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
Between Gibbs farm and my father’s

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
in the small town of Cashmere, I found Anne McClendon and
Gale Bates. Two women committed to making the food connection

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
in a slightly different way. This is a CSA.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
The place is called \"Earthsong Farm\"

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
and CSA, I learned, stands for Community
Supported Agriculture. The idea is

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
that people subscribe for produce.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
They pay in advance of the
season so that the farmer

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
has operating capital. Every Thursday, Anne and
Gale, load up their cars and make the rounds

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
delivering equal shares of the week’s harvest
to the doorsteps of their subscribers.

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
It’s not an altogether new idea, but
it’s an idea that’s taking hold.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
This tractor fills it up. Well, Anne and Gale serve
between 20 and 30 families in the Wenatchee Valley,

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
Pike Place Market Basket is a CSA in
Seattle, with more than a 1000 members.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
People in cities have really lost that
connection to where their food comes from,

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
and the people who grow it. And…
and I think a lot of people

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
really crave that connection. Once a week,
volunteers converge on a parking lot,

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
behind Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market.
Divvying up food and loading it onto trucks

00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
bound for high rises around the city.
Once they become involved and in…

00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
in something like shopping at farmer’s
market or becoming a member of a CSA,

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
they realize how meaningful it is. Even just to
eat seasonally to know that berries of the fruit

00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
that we get in the springtime and maybe the fall for
lucky and we get pieces and nectarines in late summer.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
And just having that sort of regular
flow of the seasons is something that

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
you lose going to a 24/7 grocery store.
Their customers are professionals

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
and office workers, who subscribe for
a variety of reasons. To me \"Yes\"

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
and it makes you try things you would
normally try. I split it with my mom.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
And so she was really excited, cause it kind of
gave me a reason to go to her house every week,

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
I take it to her. Our members are also really
interested in helping to support local agriculture.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
They really like knowing where their
food comes from. They like the fact

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
that if they have a question about something, they can come
down on Wednesday, when the farmer selling up the market

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
and talk to that farmer about - why your cares
care that’s for before (inaudible) amazing?

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
Or how on earth do you cook Kohlrabi
or these grazing greens again?

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
Give me your best recipe for grazing grains.
They like that connection. Now let’s go.

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
It’s time to buy some fruits. I got you from…
It’s an incredible feeling for some people.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
It’s just… it’s a very new thing for many
of us in Ag. We don’t even think about it,

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
but for a lot of folks in the city, this
is a new deal and it’s very exciting.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
It’s all part of re-acquainting
people with the true agriculture

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
and maybe we’re gonna get to the point. Hopefully, we can
get to the point where instead of the consumer just having

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
their own doctor, their own dentist,

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
they have their own farmer.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
Hello and welcome to the farm fresh report, a look at what will be
fresh this week at the Mid-Town Valley Farmers’ Market in twist.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
The more I look, the more I notice farmers
reaching out through roadside stands

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
hanging out signs, inviting visitors on to
their farms, taking school-kids on tours.

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
These farmers were no longer accepting
the anonymity of the food system

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
my dad had grown up in. They were reclaiming their
identities as farmers. Well, you can see it

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
where this part one year and this
part for the second year. So this…

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
Actually, I get more energy out of working with people than I do just
loading bins on a truck and sending them to Yakima or Wenatchee.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
I found these farmers taking classes, learning not
just how to grow their crops, but how to sell them.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
Marketing is everything.
It’s a smile on your face,

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
it’s against to the… And a new
realization began to form in me.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
Everything these New American Farmers were doing was aimed at
connecting to me. I’m the second half of this emerging equation.

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
When a New American Farmers need most,

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
are some New American consumers.

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
We in America have been taught to buy

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
the cheapest product that we could get our
hands on. But I was beginning to understand

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
was that those thrifty impulses I learned growing
up, came with costs I hadn’t considered before.

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
In fact, all those years of saving pennies on the
dollar with the grocery store, might actually have come

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
at the expense of my own
father’s livelihood.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
What we’re seeing more and more is consumer saying \"Hey,
I don’t want to be part of this huge downward spiral.

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
I don’t want to willingly participate in some
massive consolidation. Give me the information,

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
give me an alternative and I
will rise to… to the challenge.

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
If there’s one thing that I could tell that
the consumer, you know, is buy quality.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
When you buy quality, you favor that really you favor
the smaller producers who can produce quality.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
I can lend in the quality.

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
I met Deborah Kane at the Food
Alliance Headquarters in Portland.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
At produce department, manager told me once that
they’ll make changes in the produce department

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
when about 10 people ask, when about
10 people bring something out

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
because they figure if 10 people there’re trouble to ask, a
hundred others are thinking it. And so I just tell folks

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
Ask, talk about it. You know,
ask questions. Because,

00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
hundred other people are thinking about it, are thinking
about the very same thing and they’re not asking.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
So just imagine if we all started asking. The
Food Alliance Program though still young,

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
is already working at the national level. By
providing special seals of approval to farmers

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
who adopt sustainable practices, it helps
consumers find that food on the shelf.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
I began looking for Food Alliance stickers or
any other sticker that could tell me more about

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
the food I was buying, where it
came from and how it was grown.

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
Shopping habits developed over a
lifetime aren’t changed overnight.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
But I began to see ways that I could direct my dollars
towards farmers or farming practices I value.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
I began to see, how I could
become a New American consumer.

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
[sil.]

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
CSA’s New American Farmers’
sustainable agriculture,

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
I found so much and I couldn’t wait to
share it with my dad. One afternoon,

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
I talked to him into watching a tape of Dr
Ikerd. He sat through it agreeably enough,

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
but it didn’t exactly light the fires
of Revelation in Him. Yeah, I see ways,

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
I see people around they’re living, you know,
these hippie type of lives and off grid people,

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
but you know, a lot of people
don’t want to live that way.

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
I mean, that they want… they want to be able to drive
in a automobile and… and have things paid for it,

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
they won’t be able to send their kids to
school and… and be able to take a trip now

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
and then. And, how is all that going
to force the money gonna come from?

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
And how are you gonna… You
really would have to love it.

00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
My dad has suffered a lot,

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
but he’s never given up
on farming, why is that?

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
I can only speculate, but my guess
is that he must really love it.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
I understand his reservations. The ideas of
sustainable agriculture by their very nature

00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
don’t hold readymade solutions
for him or for anyone else.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
Sustainability is a goal. It’s a long term goal,
but it’s not a set of practices like organics

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
and I think people need to understand that… that
there’s a difference there, and we don’t know what’s

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
the sustainable. It’s to me it’s presumptuous
to say, \"I’m a sustainable farmer.\"

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
I… I would never say that because I don’t know.
The only way I know is by, really by looking back

00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
10 years later, okay, did what?
Did your practices protect

00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
the environment? Did they
improve the social fabric?

00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
Did they, were they profitable? I watched
as my dad headed off back to work.

00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
This spring, he managed to pay
off his farm credit loan.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
And though he still struggles to make his land payments
and property taxes, he’s finding ways to survive.

00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
He’s downsizing the orchard, selling
off plots, five acres at a time

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
who keep what’s left and grow
fruit for the fruit stand.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
Last month, he signed up for a class to learn how to write a business
plan for the small winery, he’s planning to open next summer.

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
He keeps trying new things innovating.
At some point,

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
I’m gonna have to break the news to him.
He’s a New American Farmer.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
I don’t know what his next move should be.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
I can’t answer all those questions.
The best answer I could give my dad

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
might be the words of the
poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
Don’t search for the answers which could not be given
to you now, because you would not be able to live them.

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
Live the questions now.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you’ll gradually without even noticing it,

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
live your way into the answer.
Step by step,

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
as the way things change in the past.
One by one as all of us

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
change what we do, as you change the way you farm what
you produce? Where you sell as I change what I yield?

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
Where I buy and change the way I
relate to other people? One by one,

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
we change the world. I don’t
know if the Apple Capital

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
of the World will retain its title and may well,
be the growing apples in such massive quantities

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
can’t be sustained. I do know that it’s
still one of the best places on the planet

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
to grow an apple. For all my searching, in
the end I found what I was looking for.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
I found hope. People ask me

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
\"Well, do you know this is gonna work?\" No, I
don’t. No one knows the future was certain.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
And people would say \"Well, what’s the odds if it’s gonna work
as if the odds had to be in your favor to make it worth doing.\"

00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
And I say \"I don’t know, but
I have hope for the future

00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
and I know that the kind of agriculture that we’re talking about here
is possible. And I know that it’s better than what we have today.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
And I know that it be a step forward.
And I have hope. And Vaclav Havel

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
closed the quote that I read, and he said
that \"Ultimately, life is simply too precious

00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
to live it without faith and without
love and finally without hope.\"

00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
I think our lives are simply too
precious to live ‘em without hope

00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
for the future of agriculture and food, and within that
hope for the future of agriculture, the hope for humanity.

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
[music]

00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:23.000
[sil.]

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:29.999
I never thought it would happen,

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.999
but I decided to join my dad. I
managed to fruit stand in the summer.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:39.999
It feels good to be connected to
this land again. To my father,

00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:44.999
to all those generations before us. … go back
home now. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:50.000
Yeah, see you again. This new kind of
agriculture, it’s going to be anything but dull.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:04.999
I plan on

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.999
learning myself on this farm till the
day I die, I’ll still be learning.

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.999
There’s no end to learning out here.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:19.999
Hopefully, by the time we’re finished with
this, we’ll have all the answers, right.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:24.999
Yes, but at the end of this though
there’ll be one thing that…

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:29.999
Yes, it’s this sort of…

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:34.999
I’m looking… looking for that answers. So you get
that answer from (inaudible)’cause I still looking.

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:39.999
I mean, you guys, you haven’t
even, you don’t know.

00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:44.999
You’re just doing your interviews. Give no idea
what the thing looks like, where it’s going,

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:50.000
what it’s concluding, what it’s
saying, do you now? Well, we know…