Reached Burlington, Vermont

The trip was tiring as usual. Things were smooth at Cedar Rapids where we also confirmed at the United Airlines about my return trip, which one is supposed to do 72 hours before departure. The flight to Chicago was short.

We had a two-and-a-half hour stop there and took and soon after being airborne there was a beautiful view of a waterbody. It could not be the seas and less likely to be a river. It is the Lake Michigan. It was really huge and nice to watch as it took some time for the lake to cross the breadth. 

After about two hours of flying we landed at Burlington, Vermont in the midst of a forest. Vermont is referred to as the land of green mountains and the most environment friendly state. Its biggest attraction is tourism - skiing and other ice sports in winter, and also attractive in the othe seasons.

We are putting up at the Green Mountain Suites, a nice place to stay. In the evening just after we arrived they had complimentary drinks (beer, wine, juice or plain water) and snacks given to all, a feature from Monday to Friday in addition to the complimentary breakfast that we were told is quite spread out. This also has this business centre. Our local host here is Vermont Council on World Affairs and our contact person is Eli.

In the eveing we strolled down to the local shopping Mall about 500 meters from here. Not very successful in my endeavours and had to get out before it closed to go to the supermarket and get some grub for dinner. The climate is pleasant and slightly colder than Cedar Rapids. Rain is predicted for the next two days when we are around here, but I am expecting it to be a smooth affair. Tomorrow we are visiting local farms and I am looking forward to it.

Local and slow versus industrial and fast food

The day began with an interaction with local foods connenction, Laura Daud. She tries to bring together the farmers through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) to low-income people. Most of the low income people are either single-women parents or children or old. In terms of communities they are either Hispanic or Latin Americans or Immigrants (there are a number of them from Sudan). In the usual marketing channel a farmer gets 20 cents of the dollar paid by the consumer, but through the local foods the farmer gets about 90 to 100 per cent of the dollar paid by the consumer. The poor are used to less healthy food and effort is required to make them appreciate local foods with a vegetable and fruit diet. It is difficult to take them out of the habit of fast food which also is easily accessible.

Generally under CSA the farmer gets the food baskets to a common place from where people pick up their baskets. However, under local foods some farmers who deliver at home are tied up with old and physically disbaled households who will have difficulty in traveling.

Another problem about the poor is difficulty in accessing health care. Poor people can access some free medicare, but that will not help them for chronic diseases. Another thing is that when they seek care they will have no bargaining power. The insured always hve their insurance companies who negotiate and reduce the medical bill much after the acture care has happened but this recourse is not their for the poor who pay out-of-pocket.

The next stop was at the slow food restaurant Devotay. Food for international participants was waived by the owners Chef Kurt and Kim Friese. The tip on behalf of the participants was paid by Laura from local foods. The concept of this type of dining is to enjoy food in the company of people at a leisurely pace as against the fast, cheap and easy. After lunch Chef Kurt spoke us at length about the movement's start in Rome, Italy in 1986.

This movement is also antithetical to the industrial agriculture, which is being referred to as conventional but that is not the correct thing as it is anything but conventional. Its emergence is not even 50 years old and has failed. In the new method of cultivation, overall production has increased, but it has less nutrients and with more sodium and nutrients and vulnerable to more attack from insects, diseseases and fungus. The emphasis on producing big has now put us in a situation where a billion people suffer from hunger and a large number who are overfed with unhealthy food. In the United States it started in the 1970s under Nixon with the thinking that a farmer has to 'get big or get out'.

Another watershed in the United States agriculture is 10 Deccember 2001 when a Supreme Court judge (who earlier was an attorney for an agri-business seed producing company) passed a ruling in favour of utility patent (as against the plant patent). In the new scheme of things if the gened owned by a company is found in any other plant either because of pollination or whatever process the farmer has to pay the company.

The alternative to this is food that is associated with pleasure, awareness and responsibility. More importantly food should be good, clean and fair that is the producer of food should get a fair price. This is very essential not only in the United States and in other countries. In India, more that 50 per cent of the population are depenedent on agriculture. They are either farmers with an average holding of 2.5 acres (1 hectare) or agricultural labourers. These producers of food are also net buyers. Their status as net buyers is used to keep prices low, but the latter hurts them more.

One also needs to know that the recent prices increases of food are more to do with the middlemen and less with the benefits to the farmer. A sadder part from India is that in the last 15 years more than 250,000 farmers have committed suicides. More of this in Agrarian Crisis in India. To get back to Chef Kurt, I will end by saying that his co-authored book Chasing Chilies: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail is about the changing climate and the need for resilience.

The last meeting was with Mr Richard of Kirkwood community education centre and Mr Bard Buchanan, a distributor of Pioneer seeds who also provides extension on soil health managment with the use of global positioning system. The information here told us the advantages of being big - the corn-soyabean cycle. The need for foodgrade quality production when it is for human consumption and with less stringent requirements when it is for animal feed. We were told that more than 90 per cent of corn is now genetically modied and it would be probably about 80 per cent for soyabean. The contaminaton for non genetically modified is more for corn as there is cross pollination but for soyabean this is not there as it is based on self pollination. The advantages of genetic modified in reducing some pests/diseases was told, but its implication on other new diseases was not very clear.

Climate change is another important question. Mr Richard pointed out that the data with us may not tell us anything conclusively but then if we wait for data we would have lost out on time. Even with the danger of dubbed non-scientific it is better to be cautious than regret.

It has been a tiring one and it is time I call it a day. Tomorrow we move to Burlington, Vermont.

Visit to Amana Colonies

Today it was a nice surprise as one of my friends from University of Hyderabad student days, Lakshmi who was doing her linuistics there, came over from Nebraska with her husband, Madhusudhan (Masa) and son, Miti who has entered his teen. It was nice because we did not interact much during our student days; of course, we have been in touch virtually in recent years. The hightlight was the gift with the tag 'good teachers think out of the box.' They came down with us to Amana colonies and it was a nice time spent.

Amana colonies, like the Amish villages we went yesterday, have a German origin. The Amaa colonies have a lot of handicrats - furniture, wollen, restaurant, brewery and other shops. It is a nice outing for a Sunday.

At the brewery we chatted up with people about American history, culture and politics. How it is perfectly right for an Iowan to talk about weather and pets but it is more about politics and who you claim to know at Washington DC and people will hardly have any time in New York leading to the saying that if you stop moving then you will be run over. Coming from a fast-paced Mumbai, one can empathise with this, as one has also heard umpteen times that the only place faster than  Mumbai is New York.

There was a discussion on taxation and how the rich can always get away by paying less. The emphasis on private property means that many people argue against taxes being used for distribution purposes. Instead, low taxes and investments are argues as alternatives for gererating employment and in that sense spreading out the reach of wealth through some trickle down.

On government expenditure, it is the defense that takes a larger pie and the rest are all from a small proportion. This limits the distributional outreach of the government. This means that we need to tax more, but we have been reducing taxes.

Another justification that one hears is the role of the market in fostering growth. One does not deny this, but observes that the relevance of the market as conveived by the founding fathers (to provide freedom in selling and buying goods and services) is missing. And in that sense, fostering freedom and an enhancement of capabilities of more and more individuals to participate in the market is also missing. The relevance and role of the market has been turned on its head. Market, instead of a being a means has become an end. The growth of the market (owned by a few) is given precendence over the freedom of the market.

In the economics sense, the relevance of the market and its justification as an efficient outcome comes from perfect competition. In this kind of a market the efficiency argument follows from an assumption that there are many buyers and sellers. If this is missing then the argument in favour of efficiency also falls. Does, this mean that we do away with the market. No, we do not. But we should be careful of the possible pitfalls. In particular,  the vested interests need to be kept out. This requires some structural differences in organising the market and regulating it witout stifling innovation. There is an increasing need to think out of the box.

Visit to Amish Farm, Kalona

Today it has been raining cats and dogs all day lond. A student volunteer from the University of Iowa who was to pick us up got delayed because of some road block and the detour also made him loose his way. He happened to be from Odisa, my home state in India. 

We went to the East West Bank where CIVIC was having its board meeting. The board members had some pot luck lunch in which we joined. Later Danielle, their executive director took us to an Amish village centre at Kalona. From here we went in a bigger van with another group of travellers to an Amish farm where we met Mr Paul. Before we started we were told no taking pictures of people. As it was raining we could not go around the farm but were first shown the buggies, horse drawn carriages that they still use today.

In the farms they still use tractors without rubber tyres so that they cannot use it for tranportation and other purposes. He has about 120 acres that he uses as a cattle ranch and also has some hogs, horses (for the carriage) and grows some vegetables ocassionally. He does not give any drugs to the hogs and the cattle are fed only with grass. This is healthier as the cattle will have less fat. More importantly the grass he grows is organic where no pesticides and fertilizer is used. He has spaced the growth the cattle in such a maner that he sells a couple of them every month, but he manages it in such a way that he avoids the growth of a baby calf during January/February when it is very cold.

I may mention that the Amish way of life is simple and they try to avoid modern facilities. They do not have any electricity. Their houses do use gas for heating as also for refrigeration. Amish children go to school in their community till about eighth grade and after that they do not do much schooling. The Amish  think that they children learn all that they require to run a farm or a family by the age of 16. It is around the age of 18 that children are allowed to go and interact with the outside world for two years and then they decide whether to be  with the community or not. Most of them join back in the community.

They generally have large families. Mr Paul has 11 children and only one, a daughter, is married. There is an increasing incidence of the young of remaining unmarried for a longer time. There are youth of 35 years of age who are still unmarried, which was not the case when Mr Paul, now 63, was younger.

Most of the Amish farmers are organic, they avoid pesticides and fertilizers, but some may be using it. The social construction of gender is that by 16 years of age the boys learn all farm activities. They can do all that their father can do. Similarly, girls learn all household chores and gardening.

Mr Paul has a very interesting hobby, he collects money from different countries. He had a ten rupee note from India with him and a 1000 won from Korea. From our group he collected a note of five real from Brazilian and a coin from Nepal. When Regina gave a box of chocolates, he took it as a matter of respect, but said that they do not receive gifts. It was worth visiting and observing a different practise in 2011 America. How they will withstand the genetic modified and mechanical agriculture jagguernut in days to come is worth studying.

We had dinner at a house who grew up as Amish when she was young. She prepared a nice dinner for us. Some green salad, some sweet salad from tapioca, mashed potatoes, bread stuffing, chicken, beans, sauce, and bread. After an outing in the cold, windy and rainy day the hot delicious food warmed up the environment. The cake decorated with some strawberry pieces was an apt desrert. Thank you!

Some more of Scattergood and Stutsman

Yesterday there are a couple of things that I missed out. First, Mr Tom (the former Executive Director of Council for International Visitors Iowa Cities, CIVIC who retired a couple of months ago) took us around and always eager to tell things about the history and small details of things that we saw whilling passing by.

Second, in the school at Scatergood we also had lunch and they begin with a silent prayer when everyone sitting around a table hold each others hand. The other thing at Scattergood is Mr Mark (the perosn in charge of the school farms as also their literature teacher) who referred to a philosopher cum writer and also farmer Wendell Berry and that how farmers are increasingly with the choice to choose between their neighnbour and his farm lands and they choose the latter though it would be humane to do the former. This is the irony of our times.  And of course, the slight drizzle while we were walking across the farm and the symbiotic relationship that Mr Mark had with his plants and animals brought the humane concerns back.

Third, Mr Roger Stutsman did mention about his perspective on the food security and how some people may blame them for selling corn to ethanol producers, but then the waste after ethanol is produced gets back as cattle feed and suffices the protein requirement for cattle. As a cattle farmer he did lament the need for food safety requirement and said that many things are beyond their control though they follow all practises laid down by federal as well as state requirements. He did say that people should reduce consumption of raw meat.

Fourth, is the hotel Best Western or Longbranch. It was a nice experience after Hyatt at Sacramento.  My room key was smoth. The room had a microwave and refrigerator that I do not use them but the possibility that I can buy some juice and keep in my room is always a nice feeling. Most importantly it has the business centre from where I can write about my experiences here. It is a little out of the way but has a nice neighbourhood.

Fifth, in the evening we went to the Czech village. The museum was flooded in 2008 and they are working on relocating it to a higher place. There was some small festival and tried some Czech cupcape and muffine - they were yummy.

In the evening, Firoz from Bangladesh and I went over to the Longbranch restaurant and had some fish and then went to Best Buy to inquire about laptops and I also recharged my mobile. Later in the night I sat and wrote down my blogs which I had not done for a few days. Today we start at 11 am as it is drizzling.

(The main thing about yesterday is in my previous blog, see below).  

Scattergood school and the Stutsman farm

The Scattergood Friends School is an interesting place. It is perhaps one of its kind that allows students to grow most of the food that it consumes and everything is grown in an organic way. The teacher in charge, Mr Mark took us around the farm. And you could see the personal effort that he has been taking whether it is the tomoatoes and corriander, the greenhouse, the experiment that the bilogy students are conducting, the sheep and the lamb  who have been bottle fed. The princples of equality were followed in the school - everyone called everyone in their first names. The meeting area of the school did not have a space for a minister all sat around and the day began for everybody with 15 minutes of silence. One of the ethos of the school is non-violence, a Quaker ethos who have founded the school. It was so satisfying to see Gandhiji's wrting on seven social sins in the school library. This was first published in Young India on 22 October  1925 and I quote from the link given abov.They are

• Politics without Principle
• Wealth Without Work
• Pleasure Without Conscience
• Knowledge without Character
• Commerce without Morality
• Science without Humanity
• Worship without Sacrifice

An eighth one added by Arun Gandhi is:

• Rights Without Responsibility

They are so relvant even in today's world.

Visit to the Stutsman,  a distribution  company on equipment, inputs and livestock feed revealed that they had agricultural roots and still continue to do some farming. The roots of this company goes back to the depression when Mr Eldon Stutsman was pulled out of school to help his father who was going to loose his earnings a second time. The buying and selling of livestock feed and other inputs for people in the neighborhood slowly grew into a big business.

Mr Roger, son of Mr Eldon  who took us around the firm first then took to his land where they grown corn in 2000 acres (shared equally by three brothers, they usually roatate and  grow some soyabean to address soil fertility management), but because of good corn prices this year all their land is for one crop only and it is beiing produced for ethanol. The whole cultivation is managed by two people on a full time  basis and another three people during peak time. The process is fully mechanized. 

They also own some cattle (for meat) which they manage at the seond stage. The first stage is to feed them grass which requires large tracts of land. But in the seond stage when the cattle are a year old they are fed corn (which now is a by-product after ethanol  production) with some  other ingredient for four months and for which they have created some hoopsheds. About 900 cattle and some sheep are grown under the supervion of a single person employed by them.

Cultivation of some organic vegetables is being managed by their daughter-in-law after their son passed away (our prayers are with him). There are political intereests in the family. Ms Sally, his wife, plans  to contest for the state legislature from a new district. All  the best.

Sacramento to Cedar Rapids

On 12 May 2011 we moved from Sacramento to Cedar Rapids that adjoins Iowa City. The travel that started at about 10 am (Sacramento Time) ended by 10 pm (Cedar Rapids or Iowa City Time). The local host was at the airport and welcomed us and made a remark by refering to her personal experience. "Whenever one looses faith in humanity, one came back to Iowa." Yes, we are eaer to explore the same, Danielle.