Chief Seattle's Letter

"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother. If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers. Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left? We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us. As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."

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The Easy Keeper

In a recent Kit Pharo newsletter, there was an engaging discussion on the relevance of feedlot feed efficiency for cow-calf producers who rely on grass. The general consensus was that feedlot feed efficiency did not have much relevance, and actually may negatively impact the cow-calf producer. Rather than feed efficiency, the discussion included descriptors such as ‘easy-fleshing’, ‘easy keeping’, and ‘low-energy maintenance requirements’ as cattle traits that will increase the net profit for cow-calf producers.

General I agree with the above assessment for cow-calf producers. However, for the grass-finisher and the grazing dairy, I think the discussion becomes more complicated. Animals need both increased feed efficiency to increase production (Average Daily Gain, or milk production), and also easy keeper traits ensuring that animals have low-energy maintenance requirements. I do think the latter trait is the number one trait for all grazers, regardless of production type. Low-energy maintenance requirements ensure the grazing animal’s ability to thrive through the constantly varying conditions of pastures. This trait also guarantees the animal will not spend the day grazing just to maintain body condition, but can spend more time allocating nutrients for producing the product that will put money in our pockets.

I would be more comfortable aligning myself with the cattle industry (dairy and beef), if the industry would put low-energy maintenance requirement traits ahead of selecting for high production and feed efficiency traits. Cheap grain prices have largely been blamed for driving the emphasis on high production. However, as the discussion in Kit Pharo’s newsletter eludes to, buying into the high efficiency, high production traits is more likely to put money into the pockets of the agricultural industry’s pockets and not into the individual producer’s pocket. The conventional ag industry has not promoted ‘easy keeper’ traits, because these traits put money primarily in the pockets of the producer.

All too often farmers and ranchers primary source of information for making management decisions are the seed salesman, the semen salesman, and the feed salesman. The companies these salesmen represent are primarily seeking to line their pockets at the expense of the farmer. As Ian Mitchell-Inns (Savory Center – Holistic Management) concluded in Kit Pharo’s discussion, “You and only you are responsible and accountable for your decisions! If you allow others (feeder, packer, feed salesman, etc.) to make your decisions for you, do not think that they are not going to help themselves to all they can get! That’s human nature.

At the recent annual Kansas Grazers Association winter conference, Kit Pharo was the keynote speaker. Pharo is an eastern Colorado cattle rancher who has been instrumental in advancing the grass-based cattle industry. Pharo Cattle Company (www.pharocattle.com) primarily sells bulls and semen with appropriate grass-based genetics. Pharo challenges livestock producers to think outside the box and to not get caught up in the production driven paradigm of conventional agriculture. Below are some quotes and concepts from Pharo:

· “It’s not nice or profitable to fool Mother Nature.” Pharo was referring to the need to calve in sync with nature (calve when wild animals would naturally have babies); however, I think this statement has a much broader application to agriculture. Anytime we develop technologies or practices that are in direct conflict with natural ecosystems (monocultures, GMOs, pesticides, feeding grain to ruminants in feedlots, reliance on fossil fuels, etc.), there are a whole host of long- and short-term unintended consequences that may not be the best economic decision for individual farmers or society in general.

· “Dare to be a herd quitter.” We must break away from the status quo mentality. Doing what everybody else is doing is poor business practice.

· “The commodity business is a breakeven business.” If we remove ourselves from this business, we no longer are selling commodities, but products. By selling products, we have more control and are insulating ourselves against price fluctuations.

· “Profitable ranching = the most efficient use of forage resources.”

· To increase profit for commodities either increase production or reduce expenses.

· Management Decisions can be either production driven or profit driven, and these are not necessarily the same thing!

· “Sustainability = Profitability + Enjoyability”

· Grass-based livestock producers are in the business of “converting free solar energy into a high quality food product.”

Wes Jackson Reflections

I recently had the chance to hear Wes Jackson, the founder of the Land Institute (www.landinstitute.org) in Salina, KS speak. Jackson is always an inspiring speaker having such an ingenious use of words and brilliant mind. Sadly, due to the smaller and more intimate crowd and being among friends, Jackson was much more pessimistic about what the future holds. Climatologists continue to paint a grimmer picture for climate change, while policies to control anthropogenic greenhouse gases continue to be stalled. Jackson has been in the forefront of envisioning an agriculture system that is resilient and based on ecology. Below are some of his thoughts:

· So far, the sustainable agriculture movement has focused on produce, which makes up only 7% of agricultural movement. Grain and meat production need to be captured by the sustainable agriculture movement.

· “High energy destroys public knowledge of the biological and cultural variety.” Our dependence on fossil fuels has greatly reduced our reliance and knowledge of our cultural and biological capital, much to the detriment of ourselves and our environment.

· Jackson called capitalism “petri dish economics.” Capitalism (and the discoveries of fossil fuels) has lead to a rapid population explosion and rapid exploitation of all available natural resources.

· We are in the wrong paradigm: We have been trying to solve problems on the molecular level (GMO), but should be solving problems on the ecological level (perennial grains).

· We need to rebuild agriculture on natural ecosystems

· Continuity is better than ingenuity (referring to building agriculture on an ecological versus a molecular level).