The Limits of Local

Are you a locavore?  Do you garden organically?  Have you got a vegetable garden?  Are you a grower of native plants?  Perhaps you have vegetarian leanings?  Me, too.  There are lots of us who fit that particular demographic and I got to thinking about what it would mean if everyone did.  After the utopian rush, I started to feel a little nervous.

Where's MY farm?

I live in the coastal plain of Southeast Texas, on the outskirts of Houston, which is now the fourth-largest city in the US.  In 2009, there were 5.9 million people in the Houston metro area.  Houston itself is large -- the metro area encompasses almost 9,000 square miles or 5.76 million acres.  Some of this land is arable, some is not.  The picture above is a circle centered on my neighborhood, with a 100-mile radius.  Part of the problem immediately springs to mind.  A good chunk of the area within the 100-mile radius circle is underwater.  Frankly, speaking as a gardener here, much of the rest of it is pretty dang soggy too.

So.  What does locavorism mean for urban centers?  For cities on the coast?   For cities that abut desert lands, or marshes?  If we were serious about eating locally grown food, what exactly would we eat here, in the Houston area?  Stay tuned...

Hurray for the Fort Bend County Fair!

We love the county fair!  Before we moved to Fort Bend, we used to go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, in the early spring.  It turned out we didn't really know what a real county fair was all about.  It wasn't until I lived in the Kansas City area and attended the American Royal there that I understood that a county fair could be more than just a cowboy-themed circus.

I love that the Fort Bend County Fair features the artwork of young students in the local schools, public and private.

I love that the 4-H still recognizes young people when they learn how to pickle okra.

I love that the animals raised and shown at the Fair are Fort Bend animals!

I love watching the kids at the Midway.

I love the odd things you see here and there at the Fair.  Weather permitting, we'll go back this weekend and report on the wonderful (terrible) terribly wonderful food.

Agriculture or Horticulture?

Farming or gardening?  What's the difference and does it even matter?  Merriam-Webster defines agriculture (and farming, for that matter) as "the science, art or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock..."  Horticulture's definition is very similar: "the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers or ornamental plants."  The definition of garden added herbs to the mix.  The difference seems to be whether or not the endeavor is commercial.  Plants for sale = farming.  Plants for pleasure = gardening.  This small semantic difference means a great deal in practice for me.  No matter how we love it, there's an optional air to gardening that doesn't exist for farming.

Public Library of Science, source here.

I think we plant people have erred when we try to apply the same principles across the board to both agriculture and horticulture. I think many gardeners now understand that vegetables can in fact be grown tucked into flowerbeds and patio containers.  I know lots of vegetable gardeners and not a single one of them has a 100-foot row.  Tilling every season is another practice, borrowed from agriculture, that is out of place in the ornamental garden.  (There's a bit of discussion out there now about whether it needs to be a part of agricultural practice at all, but that's for another time.)  And I, for one, am a little bit unsure whether chemical products tested in an agriculture environment will behave in the same way at home.  Mainly because I don't think gardeners behave the same way as farmers do.  Another discussion for later.

 

What concerns me today is what happens, though, when we try to apply good gardening techniques to farming.  I don't think it's appropriate to proclaim that one's own personal gardening preferences are suitable for agriculture as a whole.  For example, I don't use Roundup™ in my garden at home.  My yard is small and it's really just as easy for me to just pull a weed as it is to cook up some herbicide.  But I don't think it's out of line for farmers to use it.  As pesticides go, Roundup™ is on the low end of the toxicity scale.  It should be used responsibly and sparingly, but it's generally an environmental improvement over herbicides developed prior to 1971.

In 1850, 75% of American slaves were involved in the production of cotton.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to it because I garden in the South.  But I'm very much aware of what agriculture is like when farmers don't rely on certain beneficial chemicals.  I live in an area that was, in my lifetime, primarily cotton and sugar cane fields.  When these crops were introduced to Southeast Texas, they were only economically viable because some degree of forced labor existed.  First it was Native American labor, conscripted by Spanish missionaries.  Then it was slave labor.  Finally, prison farm labor provided the necessary manpower.  And guess what?  For most of that time, farmers used purely organic methods.  I'm not saying that organic gardeners favor slavery.  I am saying that some gardeners fail to look at the bigger picture.  For example, if cotton is not defoliated using certain chemicals, it must be hand-picked.  And picking cotton is no romantic, back-to-Nature experience.

Marinated cucumbers, organically grown

I'm not opposed to organic food, either.  I grow it, I buy it, I cook it, I eat it.  But I'm a person with the resources and the inclination to do it.  And I think it's short-sighted for us as a plant-community to insist that organically grown produce is the solution to the food production problems we have today.  I don't use much in the way of pesticides, organic or otherwise, in my garden.   But I do think it's possible to grow healthy, affordable food using non-organic (conventional) methods. 

Black spot

I don't think it's fair to claim that what's good for me in my little tiny less-than-a-quarter-acre garden will work for a subsistence-level farmer.  If I get black spot on my roses, I just put up with it.  If a farmer loses his crop to an insect pest, that's an entirely different thing.  Let's all step back a bit and try to see a bigger picture before we go around making rules that apply to the whole wide world.

Them Old Cotton Fields

Crop is maturing...

All this rain can't be good for the cotton farmers.  It's about time to harvest -- most of the bolls are open and fluffy bits of cotton are lining the roads alongside cotton fields.  Cotton is harvested by machine nowadays, thank goodness, and has been for quite a while.  I can remember, though, being taught as a child how to pick it by hand.  I had accompanied a neighbor on a trip back home to Mississippi and Louisiana to help watch her babies while she got the crops in with her family.  Us bigger kids helped pick beans, but generally stayed away from the cotton fields.  One day, however, in the interest of our further education, we were all handed a tow sack as tall as we were and hustled out into the cotton.  My fingers prickle to this day when I remember trying to fill that bag with weightless white fluff.

Cotton has been cultivated in Southeast Texas since settlers of European descent first arrived, though the plant is native to Mexico.  It has a pretty flower, reminiscent of the hibiscus, mallow and okra, to which it is related.  The flower is creamy or pale yellow when it is newly opened and fades to a deep, rich pink.  It's odd to see both yellow and pink flowers on the same plant, but it happens all the time.

Cotton Boll Weevil Trap

Did you know that the cotton boll weevil, famous in song and story, is almost completely eradicated in the South?  Growers banded together to solve this problem, beginning in the late 1970s.  Each field is ringed with pheromone traps, which are monitored regularly.  When the traps indicate that the insects have reached a "trigger" population level, insecticides are applied to the fields.  Previously, farmers sprayed according to a timetable, regardless of insect population.  And the boll weevils are notoriously hard to control, since only the adults, outside the boll, are affected by insecticides.  You can always tell a cotton field, even when the plants are the tiniest seedlings, by the bright green traps hung on wooden stakes around the edges.

This cotton has been defoliated

Once the "bolls" or seed pods are mature, the cotton is normally defoliated to make harvesting easier.  In my neighborhood, some of the fields have been defoliated and some are still green.  It's hard to get the equipment into the fields when they are wet, but my guess is they will be harvesting very soon.

King Cotton

Wondering how organic cotton growers combat the boll weevil?  They piggyback on the success of conventional farmers in eradication zones:  if the conventional growers have eradicated a great number of boll weevils, it stands to reason they are less of a problem in organic fields.  They also use short-season cotton, hoping to get the crop in before weevil damage occurs.  There are a few natural predators of the boll weevil, but they are not readily available commercially.  Organic growers also use pheromone traps, and if weevils are discovered, they use pyrethrum as an insecticide and diatomaceous earth as a repellant.  As a last resort, the boll weevils are picked off the plants by hand.

Citrus Greening and Asian Citrus Psyllids

Last week, I attended a specialist training class on citriculture, with a special emphasis on Citrus Greening (CG) and Asian Citrus Psyllids (ACP).  Citrus Greening is an incurable bacterial disease that affects all kinds of citrus and related plants.  It is spread by the Asian Citrus Psyllid, a small insect that transmits the disease while feeding on the sap of the host plant.

Asian Citrus Psyllid, Photo: David Hall, USDA

CG is a devastating disease that originated in the Far East but is now spreading throughout the New World.  The disease is currently present in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia, as well Belize, Cuba, Jamaica and parts of Mexico.  The psyllids that transmit the disease are present in these states, as well as Alabama, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, Texas and the Virgin Islands.   It is likely that hurricanes play a role in spreading the disease by translocating infected insects.

Symptoms of Citrus Greening, Photo by J.M. Bové, bugwood.org)

We can't do much about hurricanes but we can help prevent the spread of Citrus Greening and the migration of Asian Citrus Psyllids.  All areas where either the disease or the insect have been found are under quarantine.  It's against the law to move citrus or other related plants from an area with either CG or ACP to another area.  Please don't move citrus plants, leaves or fruit into or out of a quarantine area.  If you purchase citrus, make sure you are dealing with a reputable supplier who understands and complies with federal and state regulations.  This disease has the potential to eradicate the entire citrus industry in Texas. 

As part of my training, I'll be inspecting citrus trees around here, looking for signs of the disease or the psyllids themselves.  I hope I don't find them!  For more information about citrus greening, see the websites listed below.  Check back frequently as the situation changes rapidly.

USDA APHIS Plant Health

Florida Department of Agriculture Citrus Health Response Program

California Citrus Research Board

LSU Ag Center Asian Citrus Psyllid and Greening Disease

Clemson University Citrus Greening

Texas Department of Agriculture Citrus Greening

Wordless Wednesday

Field Trip: Urban Harvest Market and Wabash Antique & Feed Store

This morning we were up early (for us) and off to the Urban Harvest Eastside Farmer's Market to see what we could see.  It was already hot when we got there at 10:00 am.  This market has a good variety of produce and other items for sale, and it's all labeled either "conventional" or "organic."  We bought tomatoes and flowers from Cuts of Color (Weimer) and basil from Garden of Eden (Westbury area).

A cold cup of peach lemonade from Radical Eats refreshed us and we were off to our next stop, the Wabash Antique and Feed Store.  This part of town has changed so much -- we almost didn't recognize it.  Our visit here was part of the bribery campaign required to get a 7-year-old up and moving on Saturday morning.  You can always count on something cute and cuddly to see there: ducklings, chicks, rabbits, quail, pigeons and more.  I bought a pretty Sweet Aussie Basil; Abby and Tom petted what needed petting.

Locavores

Lots of talk lately about locavorism -- eating food that's locally grown, typically within a 100-mile radius of the eater.  The Houston Chronicle today featured an article by Julie Trainer for Urban Harvest called "Why You Should Be A Locavore."  Ms. Trainer cites laudable health benefits as well as benefits to the local farming community.  Hey, I'm all for that!  I shop at farmer's markets and dabble in vegetable gardening.  But here's my question:  how do you reconcile locavorism with the growth of communities in areas that won't support food production?  I can just about guarantee that the agricultural area within a 100-mile radius of Houston won't support the dietary needs of the local citizens.  And subsistence farming hasn't been popular around here for decades. So what does locavorism really mean for our community at large -- not just those with the resources to pay top dollar for locally grown specialty produce?  I'm afraid the difficult answer may well be that for our society now -- industrialized, modernized and above all, populated -- large-scale farming has got to be part of the solution.  Right-thinking people with the best of intentions may do well to engage the agricultural industry as a whole, rather than try to quit cold-turkey.