Tag Archives: organic farming
The Lentil Underground – Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America
by Liz Carlisle, Avery 2015 $16 (Amazon $12)
An improbable group of renegade Montana farmers, led by David Oien, a former philosophy student, fight against Big Ag, local conventional farmers, GE seeds and worn-out soil to launch a sustainable business. Oien decided to return to his family’s 280-acre farm and, defying the regional orthodoxy, grow organic lentils – the edible seeds of plants that return nutrients to the soil.
Generally considered part of a family of weed crops, lentils are actually a very marketable commodity; they’re an inexpensive protein that’s rich in fiber, B1, folate, and amino acids, that doesn’t require irrigation and makes its own fertilizer. But marketing this Big Sky strain of organic small, black Beluga lentils to other potential growers as well as to the country’s distant taste-makers became the challenge. He needed help and that support emerged from unexpected places.
A number of remarkable farmers and other characters populate this tilting-at-windmills drama including buttoned-up, financial whizzes Doug and Anna Crabtree, the conservative Christian homesteading Manuel family, Senator-Organic farmer Jon Tester, eco-friendly builder and jack-of-all-trades Bud Barta along with a half dozen others. With their help, David Oien founded Timeless Natural Foods and grew it into a million dollar business that includes several unique lentil products and a full complement of other high-end quality grains.
To do that, he first had to convince chefs to try his lentils and then put them on their menus highlighting these unique Beluga Lentils. Word spread within the culinary world which netted Oien contracts with Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and hundreds of smaller healthy food stores (some of which came with hard lessons and losses). But Orien persevered and his network of growers stood by him.
Almost as interesting, is the story of the book’s Montanan author: Harvard & UC Berkley trained, former country singer Liz Carlisle also served as Legislative Correspondent for Agriculture and Natural Resources in the Office of U.S. Senator Jon Tester. Today she is a Lecturer in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University, where she teaches courses on food and agriculture, sustainability transition, and environmental communication. Dr. Carlisle approaches her subject “The Lentil Underground” by integrating deeply-felt stories about the pioneers who risked all to farm holistically with clear, exceptional essays on the science of farm ecology.
The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food
by Dan Barber (Executive Chef of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns located within the nonprofit farm and education center, Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture). Penguin Press, May 2014
One of the first farm-to-table chefs, Dan Barber is interested in where our food comes from, how it is grown or raised and how or if those processes will be sustainable into the future. He is not new to the conversation; he was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2009. He also does not specifically promote a plant-based diet. But his “plate” is vegetable forward accompanied by humanely, sustainably raised fish and animals.
Dividing his exploration among the topics Soil, Land, Sea, and Seed, Chef Barber, who grew up summers on Blue Hill Farm in Massachusetts, explores the current state of food through the lens of his kitchen and the burgeoning gardens on the surrounding Stone Barns land. Each encounter with a resource raised his consciousness – from Klass Martens’ upstate New York farm to the savannah-like landscape of the Spanish dehesas to Veta la Palma’s unique approach to aquaculture to the history of dwarf wheat. Barber also highlights the educational role that chefs can play by making environmentally responsible choices. A good read that is not so much a polemic as it is a tour of specific, lesser-known points of ecological lights that may positively impact the future of our food.