While the Terrascopers went north

(The title is a Lord of the Rings reference and I will be sorely disappointed if no one gets it.)

Part One: Contentious Issues

The Terrascopers noted many contrasting opinions among farmers as they travelled from Las Cruces to Santa Fe. A few are outlined below (expect to see something on GMOs in the future).

Organic vs Non-organic farming

For: Organic farmers have expressed a variety of reasons for deciding to go this route. One common reason was to go back to the roots of sustainable farming, without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, without GMOs, and generally with human labor. Another reason we heard was that organic produce sells for more on the market, which benefits farms that are located close to urban centers where there are more consumers with the incentive and financial ability to purchase organic foods. Finally, we also heard the claim that organic food tastes better. In general, organic farmers are smallholder farmers.

Against: Many farms, big and small, attributed to their non-organic status to the bureaucratic and legal barriers of too much paperwork, which makes it not worth the hassle. One farmer told us of an organic farm that tried to grow alfalfa, and ended up with half the harvest being weeds, which renders them unsellable in certain regions where feeding livestock weed-containing hay is prohibited. An interesting point is that a farmer can be pesticide-free without being organic. For research labs, needing to stick to organic foods poses a limit on the experimental crops that they can grow. We also had a conventional farmer claim that organic food was not as tasty as conventionally grown food.

Drip vs flood irrigation

For drip: Farmers have said that drip irrigation saves water by delivering water directly to the plants, and can be easily controlled and even automated. In water-scarce New Mexico, this is key.

For flood: Acequia* farmers in northern Mexico that we spoke to find that drip irrigation, which requires easily damaged plastic drip tubing, is unsustainable, and would rather use the “natural” acequia cycle for flood irrigation. On a different note, pecan farmers have to use flood irrigation to satisfy the water-thirsty pecan trees, which many other farmers have criticized as deeply wasteful.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acequia

Los Alamos National Lab

For: Many New Mexicans, farmers included, say this nuclear research facility, the site of the original nuclear bomb testing, provides a lot of much-needed jobs. We spoke to a worker at Kakawa Chocolate House in Santa Fe that spoke of it in fairly glowing terms, noting the science programs it sponsors for students. He was quite firm that whatever water contamination may have previously occurred has been cleaned up, citing his father-in-law researcher who works there.

Against: An acequia farmer who was something of an activist again Los Alamos says that the lab and its science programs are luring young people away from farming and their community into doing well-paying, but unskilled and dangerous labor. A Pueblo elder spoke of contaminated water still afflicting another Pueblo tribe.

As a heads up, the Radio people will be doing their final project on contrasts such as these, so if you're interested, watch out for that!

Part Two: Through Another’s Eyes

On a surprisingly less-windy-than-usual day in March, Solovino went with his master to visit one of her farms.

It wasn’t the time that she would usually go to check up on the planting, and as far as Solovino could tell, the sole purpose of her visit was to bark to a pack of strangely-clothed humans for a long time. A very, very long time. 

Solovino followed them around for a while, reveling in the new humans’ delight at playing with him. They passed from the garden under the white roof, which was mysteriously hot and where the plants were strangely tall for the season, to the fields where black strips of inedible material lined the rows. Solovino thought he detected a tone of discontentment in his master’s voice when she spoke next to that field – it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time. 

For nearly the entire time, one of the visitors held a black stick (rather threateningly, Solovino thought) very close to his master’s face. But his master didn’t seem to mind, so Solovino thought nothing more of it.

Inevitably they came to The Ditch. This Ditch was very important to his master and to the farm. Solovino knew this because that was where the water flowed in certain seasons, and his master was perpetually concerned with water. Every so often his master would bring other farmers and together they would clear dead leaves and debris from The Ditch, and have a jolly time doing it.

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Solovino saw the strange humans again that afternoon, when his master met up with the Important Man who lived in a small village on the plains. Here, again, came much human talk, though now it was the important man who did the barking.

Solovino watched him for a while. The Man had a gentle but strong voice, as far as Solovino could judge. He made many gestures to the sky, to the ground, to the land and the air all around. His master and the other humans stood in rapt attention; Solovino marveled that they could stand still for so long with the blazing sun burning down on their soft skin.

From the road Solovino could see far out onto the plains below, till the mountains rose up in the distance. The wind, as always, blew dust into his fur, but he welcomed the breezy reprieve. The short golden grass rustled softly around his legs; the wind, blowing from the mountains and the endless plains, smelled less of humans and cattle, and more of the wild. If not for the presence of his master, Solovino would have gladly sprinted out into the welcoming fields, and flown across the land as if on the wings of a hawk.

He felt intimately then how small all life was under the dome of the sky, and felt the pull of his love for his master; he realized too his affection for the strangers and their friendliness, though he had known them for so little. There was space enough, Solovino decided, for them to share the earth in harmony - even if the humans did like to bark for a very long time to say what all dogs already knew.

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The above consists of the author’s conjectures and creative interpretation. The author does not purport to represent Solovino’s true thoughts, or indeed the thoughts of any dog.

The Things We Say

Emily: “We have a need-to-pee-now situation.”
David: “All right.”

Ari: “David will be lighting up in his room first.”

Quint: “Three cheers for global warming!”

The Things Others Say

“Maybe global warming has something to do with it after all…”

How do you kill a rattlesnake? “You chop its head off.”

A Rhyming Couplet 

by Prof David Mcgee

Have a nice evening in Santa Fe,
Don’t get blown away!

Seeking the Culture in Agriculture

Day One: In which we explore rumens and different ways of life

“New Mexico. It’s like Mexico. But American.”

With such facetious thoughts in mind we embarked on our sojourn into the heart of the American southwest, where the chile to person ratio is approximately a million to one.

Skipping over a night of airport travel where things characteristically did not go quite according to plan, we made it to our first morning in Las Cruces, New Mexico not entirely well-rested, but ready to go nevertheless.

Our host on the first day was Shannon from New Mexico State University, and through her we got an excellent intro into the enthusiasm, consideration, and belt-buckle-fashion that pervades this part of the country.

MIT is an excellent place for research, but there are some things you just can’t do in a city, with having a ranch conveniently on campus chief among them. We received a heartwarming welcome through a furry, very huggable lamb; meanwhile a few graduate researchers spoke to us about their efforts to optimize feeding and breeding habits to raise productive livestock.

Then we went cow-diving. There are no pictures - the managers were concerned that people might misinterpret cannulation, a process in which researchers essentially open a hole (painlessly) into the animal’s side, as animal cruelty. In our case, the researchers were studying the cow’s to digest a variety of cheap, sustainable feeds, so they opened a window into the cow’s main stomach compartment, the rumen. In lieu of a picture of a bold Terrascoper sticking their hand down a cow’s voluminous stomach (the researchers assured us that we could sleep comfortably in a cow’s rumen, wampa-style), a few members of Terrascope Radio have recorded for the world the delightful gurgling of a cow stomach. Noises include the penetration of the mic through a later of partially digested silage and the cow’s heavy breathing.

*The recording will be added at some later date when the Wi-fi cooperates*

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Poverty is a lot more prevalent in New Mexico than anywhere I've ever lived; the researchers at NMSU said that approximately a third of children under twelve lived below the poverty line. So when we visited a community outreach experimental farm later in the day, it felt so very urgent - here with the brown earth and dry land, the need seemed far more imminent than in the lush community gardens of Cambridge, MA.

A small portion of the farm can be seen here:

They utilize drip irrigation throughout, but even so, water supply and quality is still an issue. When their allotted supply of water from the surface reservoir in Elephant Butte is used up, they have to use aquifer water, which is more saline than optimal. The farm manager there said that fixing the salt issue would make a huge difference – MIT researchers, get on it! One thing that stuck out to me, though the manager didn’t complain about it, was that it takes two weeks for him to get pH results for a soil sample back from an university lab – is there perhaps some faster indicator that he could use right at the farm?

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One of the first surprises of the day for me was learning about the abundance of pecan farming in New Mexico. We got to visit one such orchard late into the afternoon, where the owner assured us that the deliciousness of New Mexican pecans is unrivaled. As fascinating as pecan farming is, I think I can be forgiven for deciding to focus on other parts of his talk.

He had a complicated (or so it seemed to me) relationship with Mexicans. He appreciates their hard work when they come to his farms as contracted laborers, but he quite vehemently spoke of “Hillary Clinton and everyone else up in Washington” not understanding the situation at the border. I suppose if I knew someone who was murdered by a drug trafficker, I would take a heavier stance against border immigration too.

"I've been to your country, and it's beautiful,” he told us. But he could never live in the northeast. “The traffic alone…" I could say the exact same thing - replacing "traffic" with "dust".

Towards the end of the session, he asked how many of us believed in global warming. It took me a while to put my hand up – not because I wasn’t sure what I thought, but because I’d never been asked such a question before. Naturally, all of the Terrascopers raised their hands.

Then he asked us why. Burhan replied with an answer that, I think, applied to all of us: There has been much scientific evidence published by respected and validated sources. The farmer labelled this as “believing what we were told” and encouraged us, quite respectfully, to “think for yourselves”, saying that from his experience, it was doubtful that him using his tractors contributed to a change in climate.

Here was a man who studied science, who has embraced mechanization, and who has capably managed a profitable farm - and who, from all appearances, is also a climate change denier. It certainly gave us something to think about.

On the other end of the spectrum fell an entirely unplanned encounter. While we were sitting in the plaza of Mesilla, enjoying (or squinting against) the fading desert light, this fellow drove up to the sidewalk and beckoned to us.

We were initially very wary, but eventually a few bold members of our group approached him and struck up a lively conversation.

By his account, this man (we referred to him ever afterwards as motorcycle guy or biker dude) had travelled the country and the globe on his Harley-Davidson. One of the last things he imparted to us before he blasted off was his belief that none of us were really Americans; the land belongs to the Native Americans, from whom Europeans stole the land. “We destroyed this land,” he said with utter conviction, and said that his goal was to try and do his part in fixing it.

On my part, I don’t think any progress will come from such a drastic, backwards-looking way of thinking. Did the initial European settlers commit awful acts of violence? Certainly. But must we disavow centuries of life, civilization, technology, and progress that happened since? Why should we not be Americans? America is the land of immigrants, and that is what we all are – Native Americans included, millennia ago.

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I’ve gone on numerous trips around the US with my family, but it was always more about nature, exciting sights, and adventures. There was history and culture, but only of the museum variety. On this trip, however - one day in, and already I feel more…cosmopolitan isn’t really the word, but I’ll put it here for now (I want to get to sleep eventually). There's no replacement for actually talking to the people who live in the places you visit. This trip will definitely prove to be an excellent exercise in asking good, detailed, thought-provoking questions out in the field – we should really keep a running tally of the day’s best questions.

I’ve skipped over a lot of activities, but I’ll briefly mention them here with their pictures:

Late-night at the airport

Visiting a bustling farmer’s market

Lamb hugging

Old-fashioned blacksmithing

Old machinery

I’m also horribly behind with these blogs, so if someone else would like to help me write them, that would be most marvelous.

I'll try and add more pictures - Wifi upload speed is miserable. Photo creds to Judy, Lali, and Burhan. 

Quotes of the Day

"[Gurgle]" - cow's rumen
"Excuse me a minute, allergies are about to eat me alive." 
"What part of the cow is the best part?" --"The steak."