Noted farmer, author shares insights on gardening, farming and food security. “This may be the most food-insecure place on the planet.”The Sustainable Living Institute of Maui (SLIM) held a mid-week afternoon talk with author, farmer, photographer and lecturer Michael Ableman of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. More than 50 people gathered at Maui Community College’s (MCC) Pa‘ina Building on Wednesday, Oct. 1, to hear Ableman share insights on gardening, farming and food security. Ableman’s audience included backyard gardeners, small-scale farmers, permaculturists, students, MCC instructors and members of the South Maui Sustainability group.
“I’d like to make this more of a conversation than a lecture,” Ableman began before giving a brief self-introduction. “I’m primarily a farmer,” he said, though his Website, Fields of Plenty, lists an impressive accounting of travels, accomplishment, publications and awards.
Ableman addressed questions about how Hawai‘i can turn around its 85 percent food imports, and how we will be able to feed ourselves now that cheap energy is gone.
“First, the lawn should be outlawed,” he declared. “Everyone who lives here needs to get a grip on how precarious this situation is. This may be the most food-insecure place on the planet.”
But Ableman also said that Hawai‘i has one of the most incredible opportunities to shift the equation. “You have soil, water, sun,” he said. “But everyone is too comfortable.”
Ableman also spoke of the importance of growing foods that are consumed locally. “Ingredients need to be alive and fresh,” he said, “and grown with intelligence. Food that travels 2,500 miles [to reach Hawai‘i] has no relationship between the foods and their original life force when they were harvested.”
Again addressing food security as the audience assembled outside around the college’s gardens, Ableman said, “This thing is way bigger than anyone realizes. It is on the razor’s edge.”
But, he acknowledged that it is unlikely substantial changes will occur until the situation becomes a crisis, as was the case in Cuba when the Soviets cut them off virtually overnight. “Cubans were literally facing starvation,” he said. “Now, Cuba is a self-sustaining, self-supporting system. I have never seen as sophisticated, integrated and complex systems as in Cuba.”
Ableman stated that though Cuba has its own share of problems, “There are three aspects that are incredibly strong: education and literacy, their healthcare system and their food system.”
He related that 200,000 people are employed in Cuba’s urban agriculture, which is government supported. Corner stores in the city sell seeds, bio-controls and bio-inoculants.
“They took these steps not because it was cool,” Ableman said, “but because they were on the verge of starving.”
Ableman also advocated for publicly funded training programs in the U.S. so that people may learn year-round food production systems. He also believes in bringing vocational training and trades back into the schools. “We have two generations,” said Ableman, “whose only experience with their hands is pushing buttons and keypads.”
He introduced Dr. Carolie Sly, program specialist with the Center for Eco-Literacy in Berkeley, California. She explained their mission is to work with schools to help them become sustainable ecosystems. She wants students to get involved with the design of school gardens so they can become an outdoor laboratory.
Ableman spent 25 years farming in Southern California on a parcel that is now “an island in a sea of tract homes and shopping centers.” His 12.5-acre farm produced 100 different fruits and vegetables, fed 500 families, employed over 30 people, and grossed one million dollars annually. Moreover, his farm founded the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens, serving as a “community and educational center, and as a national model,” hosting as many as 5,000 people yearly for tours, classes and apprenticeships.
Ableman now resides 1,400 miles north, managing the 120-acre Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island, which he said is “about as different as you could get” from his farm in suburban Santa Barbara. “It borders a 50-acre pristine lake,” Ableman said, “and is in the heart of the island’s watershed. It is my responsibility to think about everything I do in consideration with the watershed and ecosystem.”
Foxglove Farms produces an array of berries, melons, greens, asparagus and root crops, and has 75 acres managed under eco-forestry principles. Orchards, grain and mixed livestock production are being developed.
Ableman said that the top gardening skill is observation. He encourages new interns to walk his farm twice a week with a notebook, taking the same route each time. After a while, they become attuned to the variations in the land and the cycles of life and start seeing things differently. He said it is important to know your soil, climate and what resources are available.
Ableman emphasized the importance of increasing organic matter in the soil, and said it is vital to protect tropical soils through cover crops, composting and mulching. He said water used for agriculture is often used inefficiently, and 80 percent of fresh water resources worldwide are used for irrigation.
Ableman’s first book, From the Good Earth: A Celebration of Growing Food Around the World, lavishly illustrated with his photography, chronicles 10 years of traveling the world and observing indigenous agricultural practices in a number of countries, through Asia, Africa and South America.
His most recent effort, Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Foods and the People Who Grow It, is an extraordinary story of his travels with one of his sons across North America, from Oregon to Maine, seeking innovative farmers and “food artisans” in the midst of what he terms a “fast food nation.”
Ableman believes farms can be platforms for positive social and ecological change. He described gardening and farming as, “Learning to love the place where you live.” He acknowledged that gardening is a lot of trial and error—“mostly error”—and encouraged people to just jump in and get started. “There is something so incredibly rewarding, unbelievably satisfying to go out and harvest your family’s meal.”