In January 2008, just after a meeting of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition at Asilomar on the gorgeous mid-California Coast, I set out to explore one of our nation’s breadbaskets – or better yet – cool-season vegetable baskets. Having seen whales, sea otters, tidal pools and wintering monarchs coating the trees of their winter refuge over the last few days, it was time to move slightly inland to look at the agricultural landscape through the lens of sustainability that our meeting had been all about.
Some diversified organic farms for sure, but so many huge bare desolate fields awaiting planting, less-than-welcoming biosecurity signs and gates, and landscapes covered with plastic far into the distance. This area is clearly great for raising cool-season veggies, and also a rich and varied habitat for wildlife – aerial, terrestrial and aquatic – but stark monocultures of seemingly unfriendly food production dominated so much of the land. Rather disappointed, I was determined to find some of the “wild farms” I had heard about.
Wandering along farm roads, I finally started seeing strips of different crops, then hedgerows and an owl box of the sort that the Wild Farm Alliance was promoting. I had been following the work of the Alliance for some time and was enamored with their clear purpose, tireless energy and the concise elegance of their definition: “It is farming in a way that supports and benefits from wild nature.” Raising awareness of the benefits of birds in pest control, and of diversified crops, pollinators and hedgerows is what they do so well.
What about organic, regenerative, sustainable and alternative agriculture? These are all fine descriptors of the ways we are trying to make agriculture better – and all, including “wild” can be misunderstood, criticized and co-opted. Yet, we can accept all of them as conversation-starters – all have something to add to our search for improvement. We like including “wild” as a way to focus clearly on the natural biological processes that our agriculture must both depend upon and protect as part of what we promote as “rewilding your local foodshed.”
“Wild farming, ranching and gardening” is what we like to call this effort since ranching is so important in the Intermountain West, and since gardeners are key partners in this effort as innovators, experimenters, customers, community supporters and voters. Including all three modes of food production fits our belief that the whole landscape – the extended foodshed that we see as including surrounding ecosystems – needs to be our focus. Pockets of healthy food production are wonderful beginnings but not sufficient to ensure the ecological integrity of the landscape, viable food production into the future, and ultimately, our planet’s future.
Depending on and protecting wild natural processes in our soils, in fertility and wildlife and pest management, and doing this throughout our regional foodsheds is what this is all about. Doing so will require greater respect and greater humility in the face of nature, will be addressing both the climate and biodiversity crises, and will create tangible hope for the future.
Moving forward, whatever term you use to describe our collective efforts toward greater ecological integrity in our food producing and surrounding ecosystems, keeping the “wild” in mind can be a useful filter as you consider where we are and where we want to go in our pursuit of a better world.
Looking for examples of “supporting and benefiting from wild nature” in farms, ranches and gardens around you is a good first step. Becoming familiar with the Wild Farm Alliance’s resources and programs should help you appreciate more of what is possible. Then, looking at your regional foodshed and dreaming of what rewilding and wild farming, ranching and gardening could look like on your landscape should help you develop “informed hope” of what could be – and ultimately a better idea of our appropriate place on the land.
Jim Dyer directs Healthy Community Food Systems in Durango and welcomes ideas of what this could look like in the Intermountain West and our own Greater San Juan Mountain Ecosystem. Reach him at jimdyer30@gmail.com and learn more at www.hcfs.org.
