Response to Farm Bureau "Call to Arms"

Don’t disparage 40 acres and a mule

American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman (Call to arms – Capital Press Jan 15, 2010) seeks to draw a line between “consumers” and “extremists” who would “drag agriculture back to the days of 40 acres and a mule.”

Today’s agriculture has done a remarkable job of creating large amounts of cheap food at a low price. By some other yardsticks, we do not fare so well.

Our energy balance is negative. It takes ten calories of energy to make one calorie of food. That cannot be sustained.

Our vegetables are, for the most part, less nutritious than they were a century ago.

Our farms rarely support us, except maybe at the largest scale. Bigger machines and fewer people means collapsing rural communities. It means more energy dependence, and less people on the land. People on the land are essential to national security and the ability to survive calamity.

So it looks to me like the comparison between modern agriculture and the guy with the mule is about a wash. Both have advantages, both have something to teach the other, and both are probably necessary to both feed the world and to care for it’s inhabitants.

There is a more important divide than the one between “modern farmer” and “40 acres and a mule”, and this is one that the Farm Bureau would like to brush over. That is the divide between the farmer and the agro-industrialist. The farmer cares for his land. The farmer is husbandman to his livestock and to his crops. He will ask “is my soil better or worse than it was a few years ago ?” and “ are my animals healthy or merely surviving ?” The agro-industrialist sees his farm simply as a factory, mixing biological inputs (plants and animals) with chemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, additives, fuel, etc.) to create outputs of commodities.

Mr. Stallman says the farmers and the agro-industrialists need to stand united against the environmentalists, foodies, animal rightists, and it seems, often consumers. I am not so sure this is where the farmer’s interests lie. Farmers have been, and can be, the best of environmentalists. It is only since WW II that the farm-as-factory model has taken hold. Humans have been farming for thousands of years. Farmers care about their animals. They want them to be healthy and to live as comfortable a life as possible up until they give their lives to feed us. Farmers want the crops they harvest to be of the best possible quality. I think the Farm Bureau should recognize that everyone who buys groceries is a legitimate stakeholder and is also a potential ally.

Jonathan Spero

Jonathan Spero tends 4 acres of vegetable seed crops and a couple of steers in Southern Oregon.

Solutions to some of our Health Care problems

How to meet at least some of our health care challenges

There are multiple shortcomings in our health system today. These have been widely discussed, so I will only outline what I see as the key problems below, before moving onto a solution.

1. Our Health care system is too expensive.

Americans pay substantially more for health care than do citizens of nearly every other country.

The current insurance system has distorted the market so that simple medical procedures can bankrupt uninsured or underinsured families.

American businesses are put at a competitive disadvantage in world markets as U.S. companies pay substantial health care premiums, while competing companies in other countries do not directly pay for employee healthcare.

Within the insurance cost matrix, individuals and small businesses pay disproportionately high healthcare insurance costs compared to corporate or government employees; this discourages the grass roots of the economy.


2. Our health care system fails to provide a safety net, and this costs us more while providing us less.

People with inadequate insurance forego routine and preventive care. Routine & preventive care are the most cost effective parts of health services and do the most to improve quality of life.

Emergency rooms across the country have been forced to become more than emergency rooms. We have long wait times in overcrowded rooms filled with uninsured patients, who often cannot pay, needing routine care, or care that would have been routine if care had been sought in a timely manner. This puts at risk insured patients who need emergency services. The emergency room has become an expensive doctor’s office, funded by inflating costs for insurance and for those who pay for service.

Costs are out of control for anyone trying to pay out of pocket.

3. Our health care system is inefficient. There are many options for keeping people healthy, and often less expensive alternative treatments are not supported by the system.

4. We are not going to have enough doctors, nurses, nurses aides or medical tech people to take care of us baby boomers as we age.

Medical School is too expensive for most to contemplate. Our colleges, lacking spaces, turn away qualified applicants to nursing schools. The prospect of large debts affect the choice to go into medicine and health as careers. Debts influence what parts of medicine new doctors pursue. More health practitioners at every level will be needed in the coming years. We need to encourage health and medicine as career choices.
We could keep going with the problem, but let us now look at a 2 part solution.

PART 1. A new approach to training health care professionals - from nurses aides to specialist doctors. Create an alternative to the existing system we have created to train new health care workers.

Institute a one year for one year tradeoff to gain medical training. On completion of a year of free schooling, the health care student would spend a year working in a clinic or hospital for a only a living stipend.

Year 1 of training would include basic first aid & sanitation and the basics of working in health care. It may include self care and child, family or elder care. On completion of the “year 1” classes, the recipient is awarded a certificate. To continue, onto “year 2”, the student would be obligated to work for a one year in a clinic, nursing home or other private health care facility for only a stipend.

At the completion of that one year of service, a second year of medical education would be offered, again entirely free of charge. Again, the “year 2” graduate would be obligated to repay the training by working for a year. This continues with a year by year exchange of service for education.

People who might contemplate a career in healthcare would have a path that guarantees a survival stipend, and leaves open the choice about how far to pursue training. A completion certificate is offered at each level. No completed year is a waste. At any time, there is no more than one year of commitment to the clinics, after which one can enter the private sector, with both education and on the ground experience, and without debt. One might stop with a year 2 certificate, or perhaps carry on through a year 6 certificate. Each would have value in gaining health care employment.

Early years training could be provided at the Community Colleges. Later year’s training would probably be based at universities and medical schools or possibly hospitals.

A doctor who went through this system might have spent 20 years of time, have 10 years of experience, and no debt, when ready to enter private practice.
The traditional route to an M.D. would remain open. These two routes of training would converge at the door to the licensing exams.



PART 2. Clinics – open to everyone, staffed by students and graduates of the school-for-service program. These clinics would provide preventative, routine, and some limited emergency care and be available to everyone. These clinics would, under physician / pharmacist supervision, be able to offer generic and low cost prescription medicine free of charge for those unable to pay.

These clinics could be operated by local governments or schools, by hospitals, or by private health care providers contracting to serve an area or population. It would be necessary to create mobile clinics (converted school busses?) to serve isolated or under-served areas.


We can do all of this without decreasing the health care options of insured people.

This plan would not replace private insurance or private doctors or hospitals. The clinics would not be obligated to provide long term care or expensive therapies. If you go to the clinic, there would probably not be a choice of doctors. You might be seen first by a nurse and then, if deemed necessary, by a doctor.

Private medical Insurance would still be necessary for greater medical choice, or long term, specialist or other expensive care. Insurance would likely break out into two categories, with lower priced insurance covering only what the clinics did not, and a more complete coverage package, allowing choice of private medical practitioners and services from the start.

This plan would not provide insurance to more people. It would, however, create access to some level of basic health care for everyone. Right now, a person with no insurance and little money can be shut out of health care access entirely.

A system where preventative or routine care is unavailable or unaffordable for some is dangerous for patients and ultimately makes medical care more expensive for everyone. A publicly funded system of free clinics that provide preventive, routine & urgent care would lower the cost of medical insurance, free up hospital emergency rooms for emergencies, and improve health care for the uninsured or under-insured. A system of year for year tradeoffs, education for service, would allow a person, starting with nothing but the intelligence and the drive, to become a nurses aide, a nurse, or a doctor, and to do so without debt. This would fill the ranks of those who will care for us as we age.


Setting up this system will be expensive.

But it will cost less and give us more than what we have now.

Jonathan Spero
P.O. Box 16
Williams OR 97544
email: pogo@mcmatters.net

Can Afganistan defeat Obama ?

Can Afganistan defeat Obama ?

There is an eerie parallel between Obama’s plans for the war in Afghanistan and the fate of another president who inherited a war that never should have been started. Johnson inherited, and was undone by, Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson, whose legacy includes the Civil Rights Act and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, is maybe best remembered by the anti-war slogan “Hey, hey, LBJ ,how many kids did you kill today?”
Vietnam could not be won because we lost the battle for the hearts of the people in the path of the war.
Like Vietnam, Afghanistan has not been conquered by a foreign country in a very long time. Let us not forget the proxy war years of the cold war era. , The Afgan guerillas beat the Russians, just as the Vietnamese beat us. Escalating U.S. involvement in a foreign war that someone else had started brought down Lyndon Johnson.

The Afgan war cannot be won unless we win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afgan people. It may not be possible to “win” in Afganistan at all. President Obama should remember this lesson and not fall deeper in a trap much like the one that ensnared LBJ.

Jonathan & Heidi Spero

“The technology of the man cannot overcome the will of a determined people” – Huey Newton.

Breeding a new broccoli variety

Jonathan and Jessie Spero
Lupine Knoll Farm Oregon Tilth Certified Organic
1225 Messinger Rd. Grants Pass, Oregon
Mail: P.O. Box 16 Williams OR 97544
email: pogo@mcmatters.net Ph. (541) 846-6845

Breeding a new broccoli variety – breeding for organic conditions - Selection at 0.02%

The goal: to create a vigorous open pollinated broccoli variety, developed to thrive under organic conditions, able to survive weed pressure, and able to produce with less than optimal soil fertility.

The method: This project continues work begun by Oregon State University. In 2002, seed was provided to me from O.S.U. through the Farmer’s Cooperative Genome Project (which operated under Oregon Tilth). This seed from O.S.U. is a diverse population of open pollinated broccoli varieties that had been mixed and grown together. In 2003, I grew out about 150 plants from this breeding stock provided by the University. I selected about 30 plants and saved seed, part of which was returned to O.S.U. I had 10 lbs. of seed from those selected broccoli plants left over, and this was used for this 2009 grow-out..

I planted very densely on a challenging site. This ground has a high weed seed load (mostly pigweed/wild amaranth and veronica). Last year the site was in corn, which left it fairly nutritionally deficient. The 40’ x 200’ site was disked in and roto-tilled once. The seed bed was not thoroughly prepared. 4 beds, each 6 feet wide and 200 feet long, were created. Fertilizer consisted of 100 lbs. of composted chicken manure and 1 yard of raw llama manure on each 6’ x 200’ bed.

On April 1, 2009, I broadcast – sowed 2 pounds of broccoli seed (200,000+ seeds) on each 6’ x 200’ bed. Of these 800,000 broccoli seeds, about 100 plants remain to mature seed after surviving both vigorous natural competition and human selection. (Aug. 9, 2009)

I weeded and thinned. What came up, as you might guess, is a thick carpet of broccoli seedlings and weeds. The method used for weeding and thinning I refer to as “rescue weeding”. It is a useful tool in selecting for vigor. I don’t want the plants to have too easy a time. Only enough weeding is done to keep the best plants barely ahead of the weeds. The plant needs to be able to survive while being crowded by other broccoli and weed seedlings. 2-3 weeks after germination, the healthiest broccoli seedlings were thinned to about a 1” x 1” spacing, then 2 weeks later, plants were further thinned to about a 2” x 2” spacing. Weeding consisted of rescuing the plants from being overwhelmed and giving the most vigorous an extra inch of space. I spent 20 hours per week for three months weeding and thinning. Each bed was visited one per week and weeded at a rate that allowed me to complete weeding the bed in 5 hours. Nothing was ever thoroughly weeded.

This left roughly 5000 plants per bed which were allowed to grow with at least a 2” x 2” spacing. Roughly 1000 remained vigorous enough to make a head. Selection of the heads was for a long neck for easy harvest, a tight bead and a slightly purple tinge to the beads. About 100 plants per bed were kept as seed candidates. The others were removed before they could create pollen.
High temperatures (100°F) during flowering provided an extra challenge and about 1/3 of the plants failed to produce seed. Of the remaining plants, the forming seed heads were evaluated for quality and for a blue-green rather than a yellow-green color on the maturing seed pods.

As of August 9, 2009 the 100 chosen plants are maturing seed.

Extreme Gardening

Extreme Gardening

Creating a new broccoli variety – breeding for organic conditions
Selection at 0.01%

The goal: to create a vigorous open pollinated broccoli variety, developed to thrive under organic conditions and able to survive and produce under substantial weed pressure.
I want a broccoli that can be sown into only moderately fertile ground, out-compete weeds and still produce broccoli

The method:

First, a broad and diverse parent stock. The seed for this project was grown out from seed provided by the Oregon State University plant breeding program. This seed is in the public domain. In 2003, as a part of the Farmer’s Cooperative Genome Project, I grew out about 150 plants from this diverse breeding stock provided by the University. I selected about 25 plants and saved seed, part of which was returned to O.S.U. This seed is a diverse population of open pollinated broccoli varieties that had been mixed and grown together. I had 10 lbs. of this seed left over.

Second, a challenging site for the plants to grow: This ground has a high weed seed load. Last year it was in corn, which left it fairly nutritionally deficient. It was disked in and roto-tilled once. It is anything but a clean seed bed. I created 4 “beds”, 6 feet wide and 200 feet long. I fertilized modestly using 100 lbs. of composted chicken manure and 1 yard of raw llama manure on each 6’ x 200’ bed.

Third, a lot of seed. I broadcast – sowed 2 pounds of broccoli seed (200,000+ seeds) on each 6’ x 200’ bed. I planted 800,000 broccoli seeds. These seeds will ultimately be thinned down to 80 or 100 plants. Seeds will have to be both quite vigorous and also lucky to survive in my plot.

Fourth, a lot of weeding and thinning. What came up, as you might guess, is a thick carpet of broccoli seedlings and weeds. The method for weeding and selection I call “rescue weeding”. I don’t want the plants to have too easy a time. Only enough weeding is done to keep the best plants barely ahead of the weeds. Broccoli are thinned to about a 1” x 1” spacing, picking the best from the clumps. Gradually I thin to about a 2” x 2” spacing. I spend the next months rescuing the plants from being overwhelmed and giving the most vigorous an extra inch of space. I never weed anything thoroughly. I only want to give the plants a boost by lessening the competition a little bit. When I get to the end of the patch it is time or past time to start over at the beginning.

I will thin down to the most crowded stand that the plants have a chance to form heads. The remaining 80,000 or so plants will be allowed to try to form a broccoli head. I will continue to thin aggressively, hopefully harvesting many small broccoli for the farmers market. I will make further selection based on the broccoli head, seeking some uniformity and a nice head, although the head will be small because of crowding. In the end, about 100 or so will be kept and allowed to go to seed.

It might work ... it might not. Meanwhile, right now there are still about a quarter of a million little broccoli plants crying out to be rescued. I had better get back to weeding.
-Jonathan Spero May 1, 2009

The Farmer and the Seed

The Farmer and the Seed

What happens when farmers no longer own or control the seeds we plant? Recent changes in Patent law are changing the nature of seed ownership and  are taking this control out of the farmer’s hands.  The first big loser is the independent farmer. Without control of the seeds, the farmer is only a commodity contractor – and only until someone somewhere else manages to produce for a lower price. The second big loser is the consumer, as less and less choice is available and high quality cultivars are dropped in favor of those more easily patented.  Subsistence  farmers and the rural poor worldwide  lose too.  We need to think about the right of a farmer to save seed,  seed patents, and the ownership of the DNA patterns that are the basis of all life.

Plant breeders are protected by the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA). It is important that a plant breeder, an individual or a corporation,  can benefit from the years of effort put into developing and stabilizing a new variety.  PVPA protection allows breeders to benefit from their work.   But a Patent is different.  Rights for a farmer to replant seed on the farm (not for sale)  are protected under the PVPA, not so with a Patent.  Plant genetic material can be to used to develop  new varieties under PVPA.  A patent locks up the DNA and limits any use without permission of the patent holder. 

In the last century, the variety and quality of seed available increased greatly. Public breeders developed varieties that were available to any farmer that could use them. Farmers improved their own local seed stocks, saving the best.

In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed patented ownership of an oil eating microbe. Prior to this, life forms were not considered “inventions”  and not subject to patent and ownership.   There were no seed patents.   Patents on DNA within the seed, which are now allowed,   fundamentally change the relationship of the farmer and the seed. 

A few big companies are now buying up the local seed companies that once gave us many choices.  Seed lines that cannot be patented, or that are popular  only in one region, are being dropped.  Farmers are forced to sign contracts that prohibit the saving of seed  and can be sued if patented genes are found in plants growing on the farm. Public breeders  (those that remain) now work mostly on patentable traits that will not be  freely distributed. 

Saving the best seed for future planting has been practiced since the dawn of agriculture. It allows us to re-grow a variety that we like. It leads to better crops, adapted to local conditions and farming practices. It allows rural people in poor countries to feed themselves and their communities. 

 We are only beginning to learn how the genome works. Will the DNA sequences, that are the base of all life, be available for broader research and the common good,  or will they be locked up behind patent laws? Do plant Patents help or hurt farmers? In the future, will we have choices in what to plant?   Without the seeds, what is an independent farmer?

- Jonathan Spero

W.O.P.R. will test Obama commitment to science

B.L.M.’S Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) – A bad idea


Our departing president ignored or corrupted scientific evidence when it didn’t fit his political agenda. President elect Obama has promised to pay attention to what scientific research has to say. The B.L.M.’s WOPR will provide an early test of his commitment to science.

The B.L.M. has announced that it will implement the “WOPR” changes in forest management for the B.L.M. lands in Western Oregon. This despite a majority of public comments and an appeal from our Governor Ted Kulongoski opposing implementation of WOPR. The WOPR changes substantially increase logging and off road vehicle use and decrease streamside buffers and areas set aside for old growth and wildlife. They eliminate Adaptive Management Areas, areas committed to local involvement and experiments to develop a better forestry for tomorrow.


The WOPR proposals take us back to an outdated forestry that has left our forests in poor condition. Timber harvest in the narrowed streamside buffers will negatively impact our irrigation and drinking water. Climate change will mean less snow pack and less late season water for farmers and cities alike. The B.L.M. WOPR plan is certain to make conditions worse.

The WOPR REVISIONS IGNORE CLIMATE CHANGE.

Climate change was not considered in developing the WOPR plan.
How these forests are managed affects climate in substantial ways. The WOPR proposals impact a lot of land. They will result in larger CO2 emissions and less carbon sequestration. We can expect increased stream erosion and habitat disturbance. Forests are the lungs of the planet. We must, however, take care of the forests if the forests are to take care of us.

Climate change will increase the pressure on forest habitat. Hundreds of species of animals and plants will be impacted. For many of these, the choice will be to migrate or to die out. These B.L.M. forests are a key part of the migration corridors. It is at least foolish and probably negligent to ignore climate change when managing public forest land.

The WOPR REVISIONS ELIMINATE ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT AREAS.

Adaptive Management Areas (AMA’s) were created for experimentation to develop better forestry management practices. In my home, the Applegate valley of Southwest Oregon, the AMA is a success story. New techniques for thinning to enhance both fire safety and habitat are being tried. Uses are being found for the smaller diameter and non-timber products that the forests can provide. Cutting the big timber is a boom and bust economy. Sustainable forestry should provide a more stable type of employment.
Yes, there is more money in cutting the big trees now, but it makes more sense to manage the forests in a sustainable way.


Creating a sustainable forestry takes time, generations in fact, as trees mature slowly. The effects of our actions are not quickly seen. We have begun the effort to develop a sustainable forestry. This work should continue. Adaptive Management Areas are a good idea. They lead to the improvement of forest management.

WOPR simply drops the AMA’s and dedicates those lands to intensive timber production.


The WOPR REVISIONS TURN BOTANICALLY RICH AND FRAGILE SOILS INTO AN OFF ROAD VEHICLE PLAYGROUND.

The WOPR proposes several new large Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) emphasis areas in “my back yard” (the Siskiyou mountains, B.L.M. Medford, Oregon district) .

The Siskiyou area has outstanding biodiversity, steep hills and granitic soils. These fragile soils erode easily. Four wheelers and dirt bikes make ruts that become erosion channels. We get muddy creeks, plugging salmon habitat. We get invasive species. Expanded OHV use in a place like this is not compatible with other forest values. OHV users should have adequate places to ride, but this is the wrong place to turn into a giant playground off road vehicles.

Conclusion:

The Northwest Forest Plan was created in the 1990’s, after much public input and with much effort to balance competing interests. It has science behind it. President Bush, on his way out of town, is slipping through one more piece of bad science and ecological stupidity to increase the short term timber cut. If President elect Obama is going to honor his pledge to follow the science, these WOPR revisions will not be implemented.
Jonathan Spero