Review by Mark Schonbeck:

Thinking Like an Island

2010 Keynote Address by Michael Ableman

Organic farmer and author Michael Ableman inspired us all after dinner at the Virginia Biological Farming Conference with words of wisdom and encouragement.  After building and managing a successful suburban farm and place-based education center in southern California, Michael moved to British Columbia about 10 years ago. He, his wife and two sons now live and farm on Salt Spring Island, a community of about 10,000, in which the ecological consequences of human activities are more quickly and directly experienced than on larger continental land areas.

Michael developed “island” as a metaphor for the sustainable farm, and for the earth as a whole.  Thinking like an island means minimizing reliance on “off-island” resources.  For example, before European explorers arrived, one million Polynesians lived on the Hawaiian islands, observing strict fish conservation laws to ensure the future supply of this vital protein source.  Today, Hawaii’s dependence on food from other lands makes the state very food insecure.

Climate change, hunger, and the degradation of the world’s soil and water resources underscore the urgent need for change, yet Michael seeks to motivate change through pleasure and not guilt, and offered his manifesto as an invitation as much as a warning.  He asked some challenging questions: how can farmers survive economically while providing everyone with sufficient nourishing food, regardless of his/her economic circumstances?  And, why does the US attempt to seal its borders against the very immigrants who help farmers produce and harvest our food?

In Micheal’s vision of a sustainable future, urban and rural communities would develop publicly supported agricultural education centers to train food system practitioners at all scales from backyard to multi-acre.  Each community would develop a full cycle food system, producing a complete diet including grains and protein as well as fruits and vegetables, and recycling organic wastes back to the land via composting.  Planners would integrate food production integrated into housing developments, rooftop gardens would be planted on office buildings, and churches and schools would host food canning and drying facilities.

Aspiring farmers would gain access to land through long term leases, and land owners would receive training in land stewardship.  Perhaps most important, schools would emphasize practical subjects related to sustainable living and healthy food production as much as academic subjects.

Finally, Michael addressed the nutritional divide: how can we bridge the gap between those who can and those who cannot afford good food at today’s prices?  Why is hunger increasing in the US even as the local food system ethic becomes embedded in our political culture?  We are experiencing a crisis of participation:  with just one percent of the American people in farming, there are not enough people with their hands in the earth doing the work.

Michael noted that, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 and could no longer provide Cuba with fossil fuel, the island nation, cut off by the Western trade embargo, faced an immediate food crisis.  Cuba’s solution was to go sustainable, using mostly organic methods and relying on the island’s own natural resources and human ingenuity to feed its people.  Similarly, in the US, the change we seek may not happen until it has to happen – when crisis brings out the best of the American people’s ingenuity and compassion.  In the meantime, Michael encouraged us to continue building and refining skills, to develop the farming models for the future.

The keynote presentation closed with a narrated slide show, based on photos from Michael’s book, Fields of Plenty.  The beautiful images and inspiring stories exemplified “motivation by pleasure” – the pleasure of real, colorful, delicious food; the connections with the earth that feeds us and with our own ancestral food traditions.   

Michael stayed with us through the Conference, signing copies of his books that conference participants purchased.  I bought a copy of his earlier volume From the Good Earth, which opens with a photographic essay on food and farming traditions from around the world.  The second chapter gives a disturbing 20-page exposé of industrial agriculture, the third documents “stepping stones to renewal,” examples of artisan farmers combining the best of ancient tradition and modern science to create lasting abundance.  The book closes with images from near and far of colorful farmers’ markets, and joyous eaters sharing the harvest.