In Search of Balance Page #4

and then sit down --

I pity the man

that says no to you.

How many acres

do you have?

We've got about

100 acres of soybeans.

We just finished

this field Monday,

now this is the one we planted

after wheat that we dried --

Right!

And this was the one

we just planted and the one

that we are just finished

working on right now is,

we call early beans

that we planted in May.

Do you buy seeds from

Monsanto by the way?

Monsanto Technology Card.

My goodness!

So the genetic modification

allowed us to use

some simple applications of

a herbicide Roundup primarily,

it can kill everything

but the corn,

it can kill everything

but the soybeans,

our cost went down

and it's easier to farm,

and it's easier to maintain.

We just have like a

smallest fog of chemicals

we were trying

to pick out what to use.

So you have to make a cocktail

mixture of what to apply

to kill the weeds that

were chocking the crop,

Roundup took it all.

You can imagine that anything

that is engineered to kill off

bacteria in the soil is going

to do the same thing in our gut,

and pesticides and

herbicides do exactly that.

They work the same way

as antibiotics work.

They kill living things.

So we are standing at the side

of the center experiment

which is a hundred-year research

experiment looking at

the sustainability of

different agricultural systems.

And so there is this contrast

between managing soil

sort of like cookbook

style, following the menu

and you put in this and that at

this time, then you spray this.

So it's pretty much a --

you know a codified approach

that you might get

from an extension,

as opposed

to other farmers

who actually talk

about farming the soil

and they talk about having

a relationship with the soil.

They talk about doing

this much for the soil

as they are doing

for their crops.

They may even put more

emphasis on the soil

because they feel like

if they take care of the soil

then the crops are

going to do fine.

An organic farmer

grows soil, it's light;

a chemical farmer

grows crops.

So how do you put

nutrients back in?

So we will buy usually

commercial fertilizers.

It's got earthworm

in it, hey buddy!

You are on camera.

That's good.

So if my crops don't

do well it's not

because of what I am putting in,

it's because of the soil.

So we don't really

know where it sourced.

Okay. Does that

ever worry you

that you are putting

all the stuff on your field

from some foreign place?

No, it doesn't.

When you are locked into a

system that seems to be working,

it's really hard

to make the change.

The whole agribusiness system

has separated this whole,

and I think that's part of

what the local food movement

along was going on, how do we

make that connectivity to it.

And I don't know how

individually to bridge that gap,

I don't know how to do it.

I don't know

my consumer.

I have no connection

whatsoever.

My farming style is

to grow the food crops

that have sustained

civilization.

When I sit down and eat, 90% of

what I eat comes from this farm.

I really feel like

I am cheating.

So where do you

get your food?

I go to the

Clover Stores.

Really?

Yeah.

You go and shop in a

grocery store for food?

Sure! Every farmer does.

I know very few who

actually consume the food

on their own farm.

The average food that we eat

travels about 1,500 miles.

And a city like Rome,

for example, has to import

5,000 tons of food per day.

Can you imagine their fragility

of a system like that,

the consequences

of a system like

that it has on transportation

energy and greenhouse gases,

I mean, things have to change

and that's local agriculture,

and much of our local

agriculture is founded

in traditional

agriculture.

To feed a person

in a developed world

with commercial

agriculture

we need about

12 barrels of oil

per year per person.

If we think about the moment

in which the world produced

its peak of oil that was about

5 barrels per person, per year.

There is not enough oil in the

world to sustain food production

under the conventional model.

It works because it only works

in its model part of the world.

Most farmers don't raise food,

we don't know much about food,

we know about product.

I see some sadness in

your eyes when I say that,

but I think it's a

legitimate statement

is that we just don't have a way

to connect with that aspect.

Organic farming receives in a

country like the Netherlands

about 10% of the funding

for agricultural research.

Now the Netherlands invests

in organic farming something

like $4 million per year,

a company like Monsanto

invests $900 million

per year in research,

and most of the governments

in the world invest

most of the money in

conventional farming.

When I harvest a weed, I can

put it under loan with USDA,

I can at least get three

quarters of its market value

the day I harvest it.

So this last sentence

of the sentence,

we have to stay inside

of the safety net.

What you are telling me

is that the government

is a lot more reliable

customer for you?

On the basic commodities

that we raise in this country,

the feed grains,

the wheat, the corn,

and the government through

farm bills has provided a way

to at least protect you

and have a marketing system.

Although the gap

of yields between organic

and conventional

is only 20%,

the gap in investment

and research is 100%,

and yet without research,

without funding organic farming

is pushing and coming closer

to conventional farming.

So the results, the progress

made per dollar invested

in research is huge.

It's a way of life,

you live like a peasant,

you work like a slave,

but you eat better

than any king ever ate.

And the important

part about that is

that is your

health insurance.

I don't have a health insurance,

I don't have social security,

I have this.

Another cemetery on the farm

over there on the hillside

and there's some Hentons

buried over there.

This is one of the --

well I figure that's my spot

about there at some point.

I am curious to hear

what happens with you

in the next couple

of years probably,

because I do

believe maybe up --

Hopefully you are going

to talk to my daughter

and she is going to have a whole

new approach on this, okay.

This is the generational shift,

this is going to change.

That statement about

not growing food,

that farmers don't grow

food was unbelievable to me,

that was amazing, I mean

I just wrote a whole book

about farmers

being healers

and that they had

the health of their community

as they serve

primary concern

and I think that

might be the case

where a small

subset of farmers

but from what Happy was saying

that certainly isn't the case

for the majority

of farmers.

I see this as the single

largest health issue

that is facing our country.

Can growing food

or growing products

be something that

is net positive for us?

Can it be healing?

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