by Chris Jackson
It’s an exciting time to be living in Vermont. One can feel that we are a part of something important, at the forefront of a nationwide movement for local, organic, food. There’s a sense of pride, of hope, of security, that if things start to go wrong in the world, that we would be not only safe in our self-reliance, but also an inspiration to other communities. And when the cover of Time magazine proclaims “Forget Organic. Eat Local!” we let out a collective ‘duh.’ However, we can’t afford to rest on our laurels.

We may be ahead of the pack in a lot of ways: the Coops, the farmer’s markets, the CSA’s; but are we self-sufficient yet? Is how we farm truly sustainable, in that it can continue to provide for our needs far into the future, even without being dependent on outside inputs?

Our local farmers are doing amazing work, and it comes at a great personal sacrifice of time, money, and energy. They should be supported and praised for the good work they do. As for what comes next, the next generation so to speak, we need to consider the hard facts that many farming practices, including organic, do degrade the land over time, and do depend on outside energy sources.

How can we create permanent food systems in this bioregion? Where do different farming practices fit into larger regional design and planning? What natural systems can we mimic or tweak in order to fit our needs locally? Many of these questions can be answered from the past. Recent research has shown that people in the northeast and throughout the country were very much engaged in their bioregions and actively manipulating natural systems to their benefit. The myth of the forest primeval, the vast untouched pre-Columbian wilderness is just that: a myth. People were a keystone species, much like the beaver, using natural disturbances (fire for people, flooding for the beaver) to create a favorable landscape for food gathering and increased biological diversity. People were also well aware of the possibilities and limitations of different ecosystems. There is evidence of mistakes, such as too much fire and taxed soils, but they paled in comparison to the massive deforestation, overgrazing, and overtilling by the European settlers.

As we move into uncertain times, we need to be conscious of the mistakes of the past. We need to avoid the immediate, understandable reaction to deforest again, and plow the soils on large scales to meet our food needs within our bioregion. This is especially scary with the hype about biodiesel and ethanol. To try to grow our way out of the energy crisis is to hasten our demise.

Fortunately, the past has left us with models for how we might grow food today and into the future. Old fields, a common scene along the back roads of New England, offer a natural design to study and learn from. Those sorts of mid-succession habitats are naturally diverse and offer tremendous opportunity for abundance. Next time you are on a drive, walk, or bike ride, stop and spend some time in one of these places. What are the patterns that you see? What is the feeling you get from such a place? What kinds of plants are there? What kind of birds and other wildlife do you notice? This stage in succession is prime habitat for growing many of the perennial edible plants we cherish. It begs the question: why do we continue to try to grow trees like we grow vegetables, in open soil or lawnscapes? We can open our horizons and recreate these old fields, in our lawns to create a more permanent, naturally stable, food producing source. We can also work within these existing old fields as they are already naturally growing new trees and shrubs. When we work in our annual gardens, we are constantly fighting back the forward movement to forest. Nature abhors a vacuum, and when we leave bare disturbed soils, weeds come in to start the long path to woodland. We need to grow vegetables, but we also need to grow more tree crops, and why not do it in a way that works with the tide of succession rather than against it. Vermont is ripe with such opportunity for creating these edible forest gardens, as it has so much habitat diversity including forests, fields, ponds, rivers and many others. However, it does take a deeper knowledge of place, of ecology, of the individual species, to create forest gardens. We can’t forget that ancient forest gardens, whether in the rainforests or in the northeast, came from peoples who were intimately tied to their bioregions and understood ecology on an intuitive level. This work starts with the individual and his or her relationship with the land.

We have so much to be thankful for in this bioregion. There are many people and groups doing good work. Let’s not forget the good work that nature is already doing and become active participants in that process.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Perspectives, Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.