Gaming the Biome

When I try to discuss or think about the Paleo-ness of something, I find it easier to categorize something as being not Paleo than it is to say something is Paleo.  The eight-hour work day, fluorescent lighting, sexual monogamy and many other things can be quickly dismissed as un-Paleo, but outside of very simple things, say walking, I find it hard to describe what I think makes up a Paleo lifestyle; afterall, looking for “what is Paleo” is the point of this blog.  One human construct that I believe is, almost by definition, un-Paleo is agriculture and yet it is how, to use a ridiculous Neolithic phrase, I have chosen to make a living.

If I wanted to be poetic I could say something like farming is in my blood.  My grandfather owned a small farm in Berks County, Pennsylvania.  Before I was born, it had been a dairy operation but my grandfather got tired of ever-changing government regulation and gave that up.  So in my early childhood the farm animals consisted of sheep for wool, and pigs and fowl for the table.  My grandmother had a large garden and an even bigger “truck” patch.  There were also many fruit trees and vines growing around the property. Often I helped my grandfather bale hay and harvest corn. It is hard to say if my fondness of them lead to a fascination with farming, or whether my interest in farming lead to a fondness of them; either way I have always felt the pull of a small farm lifestyle.

I did try other professions.  Well, I almost tried other professions.  In college I took an internship with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.  It was my task for the summer to collect mosquitoes and send them to be checked for the West Nile virus. It was an eye-opening experience.  I had always known that science and government had a hard time mixing but never before did I realize how great the difficulties really were. That experience ended with my boss telling me that he would not be taking me back next summer and me breathing a sigh of relief.  Having previously given up on the idea of teaching in the public school system, I had no real idea what I was going to do for a career anymore.  I thought about law school and a few other things but mostly I continued through college because it felt like the only option I had at the time.

After college we moved out to North Dakota mostly on a whim and for awhile I bounced from job to job.  It was in these jobs that I realized the way we structure our work environments is completely unhealthy and after my wife went through some very difficult times with her job, I knew that something had to change. Luckily a friend of ours had some land and he offered it up for us to manage, asking very little in return. So last spring at the age of 32 I landed, perhaps emergency landed would be a better description, in the first place that I have ever felt at home and longed for while away from it.  We call it Happy Landings Farm.

Even though I always thought a farm was in my future, my views on the idea of agriculture have changed a good deal.  When I started considering Paleolithic principles, I saw farming as some sort of choice humanity had made, a very bad choice.  For a time I would dream up ways we, as a species, could return to a hunting-gathering type of existence while maintaining most of the beneficial technologies we have today.  More recently, through the writings of Jared Diamond and others, I have come to believe that the inception of agriculture was probably accidental and partly from necessity.  However it came to be that humanity’s existence would be dependant upon our ability to manipulate the ecosystem, it is now the only path left for us to walk.

While deciding to engage in the un-Paleo practice of agriculture is something that I have come to terms with, trying to use Paleo principles while farming is a battle that still rages in my mind.  One particularly vexing issue for me is crop selection.  Of course our farm doesn’t grow any of the commodity crops as I feel they are not part of a healthy diet, but what to do about potatoes, melons, sweet corn and such.  I feel like I should grow them and then label them as farm stand junk food. Or maybe I shouldn’t raise them at all; it is a tough call.  Currently we plan to raise all three because we need the income that they can provide, but perhaps someday I will cut them out.  In the longer term I want to be raising more animals and have that become the crux of our livelihood, but it will take time.

As for the actual processes we use on the farm, I have tried to keep them as Paleo as possible.  We use all hand tools, with the exception of the lawn mower I borrow from a neighbor, because the noise and vibration of agricultural equipment, even the small scale stuff, seems appallingly un-Paleo.  Keeping the types of work and movements we are doing varied is particularly important, even though it does sacrifice some efficiency. When it gets too hot, we stop working and go find a shady spot where we can lounge around naked, or in extreme cases we turn the AC on in the camper that serves as our house. Always, we try to stay focused on our current and future wellbeing.

Mark Twain wrote once (I think he was quoting someone else) "You tell me whar a man gits his corn-pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."   As almost everything Twain bothered to write, this seems true.  So perhaps the world could or would be better if we had never found ourselves tilling the soil, and I am just rationalizing my “job”, but I am not sure that it matters.  What does matter is that when we farm we keep in mind what is Paleo for the plants and animals for which we care. Joel Salatin puts this as the “cowness of the cow, and the chickenness of the chicken.” It is also important as we go about farming that we remember the humanness of the human.