Minnesota's climate failures

Today, briefly, we enjoyed some blue skies and a little bit of sunshine. It made an amazing improvement in our general outlook on life. In case any of you are beginning to wonder, in our neighborhood we look forward to average daily highs above freezing in a little more than a month, in late February, just a bit before meteorological Spring begins. Funny how that works.

There are a couple of recently released reports we think you should be aware of, and even strongly recommend you read:

• Nature and Climate Solutions for Minnesota, The Nature Conservancy


• Soil Health, Water & Climate Change, Land Stewardship Project

We are well past the time we need to take climate breakdown very, very seriously. We're also, in our opinion, well past the time agriculture should be overproducing row crops like corn and soy beans to be used as feedstock for ethanol or biodiesel or as animal feed. Perhaps we should be considering permanently retiring some row crop acreage rather than papering over environmental issues by subsidizing cover crops for row crops. At a minimum, don't we need to have a serious conversation about why and how much we want to continue to subsidize a major source of environmental pollution? Farm sizes continue to increase. The number of farms continues to decrease. Many farmers can't even break even without public subsidy. Meanwhile soils continue to erode, nitrate continues to pollute surface and groundwater, and CAFOs continue to pollute their neighbors' airsheds with manure aromas. These days we're not really talking about grandpa's self-contained crop and livestock farm, are we?

how much field corn do we really need?

Photo by J. Harrington

That brings us to a third report we think you need to become familiar with. It documents how Minnesota is failing to come close to meeting it's greenhouse gas reduction targets, and agriculture is a major reason for that failure. It's right here in Greenhouse gas emissions inventory 2005-2018. Wendell Berry lets us know what we can expect as results of our current behavior, and suggests alternatives.

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

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is inspired by the Mad Farmer poems of Wendell Berry. His poems call us to live at the margins, use deep imagination, be radical, and do all things in love. What we do at Mad Agriculture is only 'mad' because the world has gone insane.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head. 
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer. 

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know. 
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord. 
Love the world. Work for nothing. 
Take all that you have and be poor. 
Love someone who does not deserve it. 

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands. 
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed. 

Ask the questions that have no answers. 
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias. 
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant, 
that you will not live to harvest. 

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. 
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years. 

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come. 
Expect the end of the world. Laugh. 
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts. 
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men. 

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child? 
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth? 

Go with your love to the fields. 
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts. 

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind, 
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. 

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary, 
some in the wrong direction. 
Practice resurrection. 

- Wendell Berry

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Please be kind to each other while you can.