Prairie Festival XXV

September 2003

Late in September 600 people from all over the US and Canada came together at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. The Prairie Festival happens every year around harvest time. This year was no exception, with nationally known writers and artist presenting their work so that the Land Institute can continue its work. Twenty-five years ago Wes Jackson, a plant geneticist by training, envisioned a new agriculture based on the way the prairie works. Since then scientist and interns at The Land have been working to make his vision a reality. Progress is slow but steady and centered primarily on cross breeding annual food crops with perennial prairie crops producing high yields with the perfected design of the prairie plant for this harsh climate. When Natural Systems Agriculture is ready it will mean no more tilling, few artificial chemicals, improved water usage, eliminating soil erosion and enormous biodiversity.

This year’s festival began Friday night with a bonfire and barn dance. If fun can be measured by such things, a record three squad cars were involved.

Saturday morning began with presentations showing the progress made toward NSA during the last year.

David Korten, author of “The Post-Corporate World” spoke of the coming revolution, in which people will replace the global economy and free market with local living economies and a fair market.

After lunch we where treated to live music performed by Ann Zimmerman. The chords filled the Kansas wind with song and raised an anthem to a way of life and sense of values.

Kentucky author Wendell Berry read from “Citizenship Papers”. He explained the importance of local knowledge in farming, lamented the loss of local farming knowledge in the Tuscan area of Italy for the industrial farming there now and spoke eloquently of the propriety of scale.

Author, Native American activist and vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke was next. She brought greetings from her people, the Ojibway of Minnesota. She spoke of the poverty on the reservation and the richness of their culture. She spoke of their concern that genetically modified wild rice would pollute the strains of rice her people have been harvesting from the Minnesota lakes for thousands of years. She told of a rice processing machine that the tribe has used for generations, each generation making improvements in it until it is so specialized, so unique that it is irreplaceable; suited completely to its place.

As evening came dinner was served, and what a banquet. The meal, prepared by a well-known California chef, was entirely local Kansas grown food. The menu, by its self, was enough to make your mouth water.

For the evening’s final event we traveled to the Salina Art center for an exhibit of paintings and photography by local artists Terry Evans, now living in Chicago, and Mary Kay.

At dawn there where guided tours to see the native prairie plants and birds. In the red barn Charlie Melander gave the farmer’s view of what can be done now, before NSA is ready. Many things are wrong with our agricultural system. Subsidies, corporate sponsored university research, and certain traditions are working against a healthy land ethic and need to, and can be changed.

Mas Masumoto grew up on a California peach orchard. He planted the trees as a boy that he now tends. He told of his heritage variety of “microbrewed” peaches. They aren’t grown commercially because they are too delicate when ripe to ship, so all are sold locally or made into his well-known jams and jellies.

Finally it was Wes’s turn at the mike and he took the opportunity to paint a picture of agriculture one hundred years from now. What NSA would mean to farmers, to the health of the land and to the health of consumers.

It was a great festival. The energy of people wanting to make a difference filled the air.

To learn more:

http://www.landinstitute.org

http://www.livingeconomies.org/BALLE/

http://www.yesmagazine.org

David Korten

The Post Corporate World: Life after Capitalism

Wendell Berry

The Citizenship papers

Art of the Commonplace

A Timbered Choir

Winona LaDuke

Last Standing Woman

All our relations: Native struggles for land and life

Mas Masumoto

Epitaph for a Peach

Four Seasons in Five Senses: Things worth savoring

Wes Jackson

Becoming Native to this Place