Creation Care - “Sustainable Agriculture” with Will Reed
Shownotes:
God’s creation is a direct reflection of God’s glory, and Christians are called to be faithful stewards of the earth. While global issues of climate and environment can seem out of reach, our local communities give us space to learn and take action in small and large ways. How can we partner with our creator to build a better, more sustainable living environment? What simple, practical changes can we make to responsibly care for our local communities and our world?
Chris and Eddie are joined by Will Reed, who runs Native Son Farm in Tupelo, Mississippi. Reed has seen firsthand the preventable health issues facing people in Mississippi, and he began Native Son Farm eleven years ago to shift the food and farming landscape there. Reed understands the correlation between the ways we use our land and the work we provide to those in our communities, and he speaks to the picture of abundance that provides us with hope and true nourishment. Reed challenges us to choose transparency over convenience, inviting us to contribute to an atmosphere of health within our soil, our work, and our communities.
Series Info:
God’s creation is a direct reflection of God’s glory, and Christians are called to be faithful stewards of the earth. While global issues of climate and environment can seem out of reach, our local communities give us space to learn and take action in small and large ways. How can we partner with our creator to build a better, more sustainable living environment? What simple, practical changes can we make to responsibly care for our local communities and our world?
In this series, we will discuss the relationship between humanity and creation with leaders in agriculture, government, and the church. These guests equip us with the knowledge we need to honor God through creation care. Join us as we seek to make environmental issues less intimidating and more inviting, rooted in love for God’s very good creation and honor for the image of God woven throughout it all.
Resources:
Learn more about Native Son Farm here:
http://www.nativesonfarm.com/about-the-farm
Check out a list of Native Son’s recipes here!
Follow Native Son Farm on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/nativeson.farm
Full Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 0:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 0:01
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight. Today we have a special guest a friend of yours, Chris.
Chris McAlilly 0:07
Yeah, his name is Will Reed. Will and Amanda have Native Son farm over in Tupelo, Mississippi. I came across Will when we were living in the Tupelo area, and I was looking for something to do on my off day. And also, I came across Will and I started working out at at his farm a little bit. And he has incredibly delicious vegetables.
Eddie Rester 0:30
There you go. And today, he's sharing a little bit about what it means to participate in sustainable agriculture. What does it mean to farm in a way that is healthy, in a way that impacts the community in a healthful way, and provides good food for people?
Chris McAlilly 0:48
There's nothing more central to being human and participating in a culture than eating and eating is the ultimate cultural act.
Eddie Rester 0:59
We do that a lot. Yeah.
Chris McAlilly 1:00
Yeah. And it's just so basic and core to what it means to live in this world. But we don't often think about where our food comes from. I don't know, before I got to know Will, I really didn't... I wasn't in the habit of talking to a lot of farmers. So this is an opportunity to hear from one of the individuals in our communities that that is growing the food that we consume.
Eddie Rester 1:24
Today, he's going to talk about his work and hopefully spark some thoughts for you and how you can maybe stay a little bit closer to the ground. This is part of a series of episodes we're doing about creation and creation care. And I think that how we think about our food, where where it's grown, how it's taken to market, is an important part of how we care for creation.
Chris McAlilly 1:49
Yeah, so we're glad you're here for this conversation. And stick around. It's going to be a summer of good conversations about the world around us.
Chris McAlilly 1:58
[INTRO] We started this podcast out of frustration with the tone of American Christianity.
Eddie Rester 2:05
There are some topics too heavy for sermons and sound bites.
Chris McAlilly 2:08
We wanted to create a space with a bit more recognition of the difficulty, nuance, and complexity of cultural issues.
Eddie Rester 2:15
If you've given up on the church, we want to give you a place to encounter a fresh perspective on the wisdom of the Christian tradition, in our conversations about politics, race, sexuality, art, and mental health.
Chris McAlilly 2:27
If you're a Christian seeking a better way to talk about the important issues of the day, with more humility, charity and intellectual honesty, that grapples with Scripture and the church's tradition in a way that doesn't dismiss people out of hand, you're in the right place.
Eddie Rester 2:43
Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Chris McAlilly 2:45
Well, we're here today with one of my good friends, Will Reed. He is a farmer in Tupelo, Mississippi, at Native Son Farm. And he and Amanda have a beautiful family and have been working that ground for about a decade now. I wonder Will, if you could just tell us a little bit about your farm, how you ended up back in Tupelo, what you grow and kind of how you distribute and sell it?
Will Reed 3:14
Sure, yes. So thanks for having me on the podcast. I'm excited to talk with you guys. We have been... Well, we started Native Son Farm in Tupelo in January of 2010. So this is our 11th year of kind of trying to pioneer organic vegetable production in Mississippi, with a goal of kind of trying to work to re-localize our food system and local food economy.
Will Reed 3:49
I grew up in Tupelo and went to Ole Miss and joined the Honors College when I was 18 for my freshman year of college, and really since I was probably 15, I was just looking to get out of Mississippi as quickly as possible. And one day I was walking through the halls on the campus there at the University of Mississippi and saw a sign for a program called National Student Exchange. And so I really kind of followed that lead and ended up transferring for my second year of college to a small school in the redwood forests of Northern California, and kind of got the farming bug out there and also saw a lot of the preventable health issues that were facing people in Mississippi and kind of saw this kind of small farm organic food production, community-based farming as a way to try to solve some of the problems that seem to be facing people in Mississippi.
Eddie Rester 5:05
Say a little bit more about that. How does farming impact some of those issues that face people? I mean, how do you connect those two issues?
Will Reed 5:17
Yeah, I mean, well, I got my degree from Humboldt State in cultural anthropology. And so if you kind of trace the origins of humanity, things kind of fundamentally shifted when we started engaging in agriculture about 10,000 years ago, but the word agriculture, you know, culture, to me comes from the soil and comes from the earth. So it really touches on just about everything. But I saw there's a new book, I haven't read the book, out by Mark Bittman, who's a New York Times food columnist, and his book is on his new book, I think it's kind of on the conundrum facing agriculture today. But in the excerpt that I saw, he's kind of tracing how the link between food getting cheaper and health care costs going up.
Will Reed 6:16
And so it struck me to be very paradoxical that we're in, you know, this incredibly fertile state, one of the most fertile places probably in the world, and we've got people that are dying from lack of nutrition. And so from the healthcare standpoint, if you look at like heart disease and diabetes--this may be a little bit harder of a link to point to directly scientifically--but just the rates of cancer, things like that. It seems like a lot of it is related to kind of the industrial food system and a lot of the processed foods that come as a direct result of that.
Will Reed 6:55
So we could, without rambling too much, we could touch on how agriculture is kind of feeding into so many different parts of our life and existence, whether it be, you know, physical health or otherwise.
Eddie Rester 7:17
You know, you mentioned that, and I've read articles in the past about how in areas where there are food deserts, places where people can't get to grocery stores to purchase food, the rates of obesity and diabetes and other issues are actually higher, because the food that is accessible to them is typically processed, or it comes from, you know, gas stations. Mississippi has a long history of gas station food. So it's not healthy food at all. They don't have access to healthy food. And I think what I hear from you is kind of this return to farming and sustainable farming as a way to begin to push people back towards food for healthy food.
Chris McAlilly 8:06
Yeah, I mean, I think part of, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about how you understand the problem with the conventional food system in America and kind of how do you just diagnose that problem? And then what is sustainable agriculture? And how is that maybe an antidote?
Will Reed 8:30
Sure. And just feel free to interject and keep me on topic, because we can go like I said, in the way I see all this, it does touch on everything. But first thing I want to clarify is I am in no way shape or form trying to villainize or demonize any other type of farmer. I've got good friends that are on the conventional commodity side of the farming spectrum, that are incredibly talented, intelligent, wonderful people. So just to get that out of the way.
Will Reed 9:06
But the crux of the issue to me seems to come from the fact that we are as a country, the United States government is subsidizing the production of the big staple commodity crops that we see grown throughout most of Mississippi, which would be corn and soybeans, primarily. And so the corn and soybeans are being produced, are not being produced to, on the whole be fed in their raw form to humans for direct consumption. They're being produced, one, to feed and fatten the animals, but also as raw materials that are going into the industrial food supply chain. And if you were to go into a gas station like you mentioned, Eddie, and look at most anything in a package is probably going to have some amalgamation of corn and soy in the different products. So like every candy bar is going to have soy lecithin and high fructose corn syrup is something that has gotten a lot of attention.
Will Reed 10:17
And so as a nation, we are subsidizing the production of these crops, in my opinion, to provide cheap raw materials to the large industrial food manufacturers. And so what that means from an economic standpoint is, if you are a farmer, and there are less and less of us in existence by the year, you are probably being pushed into taking on more and more land, growing more and more acreage in order to survive. And the more acres you have, you know, with the type of farming that I'm doing, I'm raising maybe 20 acres of produce, and at the height of the summer, we'll have 15 employees. Well, on a conventional row crop farm, you may have one or two people that are raising 10,000 acres of these commodity crops.
Will Reed 11:18
And so I am typically a grassroots, bottom-up thinking type of person. But if the government is going to continue to subsidize agriculture, there are great studies. There's an economist from, he was at the University of Iowa, I think he's with the Union of Concerned Scientists now, Ricardo Salvador and has done projections saying, you know, if the government instead of subsidizing these commodity crops was helping to subsidize fresh fruit and vegetable production, just how much healthier the populace would be, so.
Chris McAlilly 11:58
Yeah, I think it's interesting that you say healthier, that the populace would be. One of the things that I've heard from you, Will, over the years that I've known you is that when you use the word health, it's a very thick concept for you. And it's multi-dimensional. It's not just kind of personal health, it's family, communal. It's the populace is the soil itself. Could you just talk about what you mean when you talk about a healthy food system, or what it means for you, for your community to be healthy and your role within that?
Will Reed 12:37
Yeah, and I appreciate you saying that. And I think that, I mean, we are all connected to each other, and we're connected to everything else. And so you know, we have got this mantra, it seems like in the country that we should be so proud of our cheap food supply, you know, food is cheaper than ever before. And a lot of times around Thanksgiving, the newspaper a couple days before, will, you know, run an article saying that, you know, turkeys are three cents cheaper than they were last year or whatever. But it's hard to look at the health of all these things without thinking, one, about the health of the earth and of the soil, which is one of our, you know, greatest resources that we possess collectively, thinking about the health of the people that are working on the farms.
Will Reed 13:34
It's pretty easy to do a little bit of digging, and learn how terrible the conditions are for a lot of agricultural workers, and, you know, the big-time vegetable production areas in Florida and California. You know, workers pretty much living in slave type conditions or maybe direct slavery still going on. Workers getting sprayed with toxic chemicals on a regular basis. And so thinking about, you know, what a healthy agricultural system would look like for me, the closer that we can get to our food, the better, because you'd have more transparency there and less room for, you know, marketing a picture of a quaint red barn on a hillside on the packaging, when in reality, you know, it's the production of that product is far different from the image.
Will Reed 14:32
So trying to have healthy soil, a healthy workforce, a healthy workforce that can, you know, be able to somewhat or fully support a family and then a community of people that are eating food that is nutritious, fresh, vibrant, and kind of providing, I don't exactly know the best way to put it, but just providing true nourishment. I guess.
Eddie Rester 14:38
When I was in seminary, I worked in east, north eastern North Carolina, where the tobacco industry was failing. This was the early 1990s. And you know, all the anti-smoking things were having a direct impact on local farmers and local communities. And they were beginning to shift to other things, and using the land for other things. And as you were talking about healthy soil and healthy workers, it's also a healthy community. One of the struggles that North Carolina was having at the time is they were opening hog barns, huge industrial production of pigs. And the run off from those barns, the smell in the communities, there were... Farming there, it was a huge conversation about what does it mean? How do we want our land used? How do we want our communities to feel? How do we want to provide work for people in our communities?
Eddie Rester 16:11
I don't think people fully realize, as you do, just the, the expansive reach that farming has, in our communities, particularly Mississippi, a state that's been founded on farming. What, as you think about your farm, and you shared some of the vision for that, long term, what do you hop your farm or other farms like yours accomplishes for those local communities?
Will Reed 16:42
Yeah, so you bring up some really great points, and, you know, reading some Wendell Berry books and hearing him kind of talk about the glory days of the tobacco farming economy, and what, how cohesive that was to the community with neighbors helping each other with the harvest, and, you know, kind of moving among farms to hang and dry tobacco and barns, I think that they're so... It's just hard to say, I guess. In one instance, I feel like the less consolidation we have, the better. So you know, when you see these statistics about losing farmers, when you're losing a farmer, you're losing a very unique part of the American citizenry. A farmer, no matter the way that you're doing, it, has to be a jack of all trades, has to be very independent, has to have incredibly good critical thinking skills. And so as many people as we can keep farming, the better.
Will Reed 17:57
And looking at what happens with more of this consolidation, where you have fewer people farming more land, the communities that were supporting all the farmers are drying up as well. And you're seeing more consolidation in, you know, the supply chains that feed what the farmers need. As far as the vision for what we're hoping to accomplish, there is so much potential in re-localizing our food economy here in Mississippi, especially from an economic perspective. We are importing billions of dollars, probably $7 or $8 billion of food into the state of Mississippi each year. So one thing that we're really trying to do is to show other people, we tend to have a lot of younger, idealistic farm workers, and kind of showing them that this is a viable career path, and that there is opportunity in farming. And I guess, really just to be able to keep raising my family on solely our farming income, as we have been doing for the last decade, and trying to reach more people that are interested with what we're trying to do.
Chris McAlilly 19:29
I think that that statistic that you mentioned is just the first time I heard you...
Eddie Rester 19:35
Mind blowing.
Chris McAlilly 19:36
It's just mind blowing. I mean Mississippi, agricultural state, import 90% of our food. That's insane. I mean, that's just an incredible statistic. And I mean billions of dollars of food on land, that is, I would assume quite, you know, rooted. It's quite set up and we're set up to have a long growing season, etc, etc.
Will Reed 20:04
Yeah, for sure it is staggering. And if you think about the--and this is kind of where I'm trying to get to, or what I'm meaning talking about the broader health--is kind of there is possibility for this to kind of raise the boats for everyone in Mississippi, just keeping more of our money circulating locally, being able to provide good jobs, being able to show kids in the community what a farm is, where food comes from. There are a lot of intangibles there as far as do we want our towns to... Do we want our kids to have a place to learn about these things? Do we want younger people to see this as a viable vocational opportunity? And the reality is, it's a hard job. Farming is very expensive, especially on the organic side.
Will Reed 21:14
And, you know, as much as I believe in the vision, and I'm certainly not trying to be pessimistic at all, I mean, there's a reason why we have moved from an agricultural to an industrial society and a reason why we're moving from an industrial to a technological society and a reason why people have adopted all these chemicals. And a lot of it is because, you know, it is challenging, and it's easier to take the shortcuts. And I guess some of what we're trying to communicate is that a lot of those shortcuts do come with repercussions and costs. And, yeah.
Eddie Rester 22:02
Yeah. What are some of the, I mean, it's a hard life, but are there other barriers that you think about systemically that can be addressed to make a small farming more accessible again, or...
Chris McAlilly 22:03
Yeah, access to land, I mean, is one of the things I've heard you say, Will, is one of the things that is a barrier. What else do you see?
Will Reed 22:29
Yeah, and a hard life is, it's also a great life. And I think that, but it is, you know, it's the type of thing, it's like what you guys are doing, it's seven days a week, and, you know, you can't really turn it off. As far as what some of the barriers to entry are, we do have a lot of land in Mississippi and land access is certainly a real thing. I mean, in order for this to work, the key is having a good market and having a, you know, population of people that are willing to go out of their way. I mean, because the truth is, like, joining our community supported agriculture program, or shopping in our farmstand, we try to make it as easy and convenient as possible. But, you know, there's no way for a small farm to compete with a 24-hour grocery store.
Will Reed 23:26
So you've got to have a large enough, educated enough customer base, and that's a lot of what we try to do is educate people on, you know, the value of what we're doing, to make it where they're willing to go out of their way to attend the farmers market, or come out to the farm stand in a life that they're probably already, you know, short on time.
Will Reed 23:53
Land access is an issue. And then you know, beyond the land, you just have infrastructure, like you'd be starting any business, you know, drilling a well, building a greenhouse equipment, so on and so forth. And the risk associated with it, a lot of people probably don't have the appetite.
Chris McAlilly 24:14
I think that that's the thing, the risk, the way in which farming exposes you, uniquely within the community, you're exposing yourself to the vulnerability of being a human being, a creature, you know, I mean... I mean, I feel like the pandemic has been one of these moments where we've recognized the fragility of the species, you know. We're fragile to to a virus and our whole life has been, you know, we've been kind of brought to our knees. But I do think farming, you know, you put yourself in a position to experience contingency and risk and vulnerability on behalf of the larger community. Could you talk a little bit about that, because I do think it creates a kind of person with the resilience and an independence. You were talking a little bit about some of the habits or the virtues that you see being developed in farming, or in farmers, but just talking about navigating some of that vulnerability and risk.
Will Reed 25:18
Yeah, it is an extremely humbling thing to work as hard as you could possibly work alongside other people that are working with you as hard as they can possibly work and know that everything that you have been doing for the last 30 to 120 days could be wiped out in a 30 minute hailstorm. Or, you know, we're experiencing the last couple years, just extreme amounts of rainfall, like 30 or 40 inches more rainfall annually, than our averages would indicate that we should be receiving and so it is... This work would be much easier in a vacuum. And that's why most of the vegetables are grown in irrigated deserts, like in the Central Valley of California and Mexico. So there there are...
Will Reed 26:20
And this is one of the things that when I say it's hard to turn it off is because we have our best laid plans every year, every week, every day, but there are constantly little decisions being made hourly on working around the weather, working around the changes in the crops. And that's one of the things that's so fascinating about this and that's kept my attention and kept me so committed to doing it for the last over a decade. But it's probably not for the faint of heart.
Eddie Rester 26:59
Yeah, so my one of my cousins married into a family of satsuma and navel orange growers in South Louisiana. And to hear them talk, as you were talking right there, it made me think about all the conversations they had about frost and hurricanes and all the things that they could not control, that they just, they just learn to live with overtime and adapt over time. What do you think some of the barriers--I'm going to stick with the barrier conversation--on the other side, you talked about education, the barriers on the consumer side? What prevents more consumers from finding the farmers markets, or seeing that as a viable option to get their food?
Will Reed 27:52
Yeah, I mean, one thing is a lot of people just don't cook. It is amazing to me how many full grown adults that I run into or interact with that don't possess basic cooking skills. Which is, you know, it's interesting, you could make it to adulthood without understanding that, but...
Eddie Rester 28:16
How to turn the stove on and warm something. Yeah.
Will Reed 28:19
But during this--yes, you know. And so people are really, we're marketed convenience. We're sold on convenience, addicted to convenience. I understand. But you're gonna just have to take more time. But you're also taking more control over your health and, you know, the things that are going into your body. So I think that's part of it is people are maybe cooking a little bit less. Part of it is society. I think everyone is just so busy, that a lot of people are just doing their best to put any type of meal on the table, whether it's a pizza, or whether it's food that they've procured from the farmers market and taking the time to prepare.
Will Reed 29:16
There are certainly, as we were talking about with the kind of the junk food being subsidized and being cheaper there are certainly, you know, I'm sure we all know the economic reality in the state of Mississippi, this food is going to be more expensive. And so that's certainly a barrier. And then I think some of it is there's a lack of education. And, you know, sometimes it seems like the goal in Mississippi is to get people to eat an apple, not necessarily eat a local, organic apple and so I have to be careful not to be too--I don't know if elitist is the right word--but there are just a lot of... People are coming from a lot of different places, I guess is the point. And it's just, you know that you're not taking a shortcut if you're shopping at the farmers market.
Chris McAlilly 30:30
I think one of the things that opened my eyes to the beauty of what you do, Will, and then also the way in which it could impact my my life and my family's life in a really positive and wonderful and delicious direction was the first strawberry season that I ever went through with you guys. I think strawberries are a really good example of, a concrete example of one crop that you're growing that kind of pulls together a lot of the threads that we've been talking about. Just talk about the lifecycle of a strawberry from when you put those into the ground to the end of the season. I know we're kind of getting to the end of strawberry season.
Will Reed 31:16
Yeah, that's great. And strawberries... I love growing tomatoes. Tomatoes are like the most unifying thing on the planet. Everyone pretty much agrees that storebought tomatoes are not good and home grown tomatoes.
Eddie Rester 31:32
Chris has about 70 tomato plants put out. Didn't I count 70 the other day?
Chris McAlilly 31:37
I don't have that many. I don't have that many.
Eddie Rester 31:38
He has enough...
Chris McAlilly 31:39
Will probably has about 10,000, so, you know. He's got a few more.
Will Reed 31:44
We do raise a lot of tomatoes, which I love. And I love growing tomatoes kind of for that unifying reason. But yeah, strawberries are one of the more popular things that we grow. People love--the most popular crops are always things that people can eat raw and that are sweet, that don't take a lot of time to prepare, which would be like strawberries, carrots, sugar snap peas, and tomatoes. Something someone can go home, either just eat it like it is or slice it up and put a little bit of salt on it.
Will Reed 32:18
But strawberries are a very risky crop. They're very expensive to grow. We plant them a new each year. So we set the strawberry plants out in early October. It's a very big investment to buy the plants. We grow everything from seed except for strawberries. The strawberry plants come out of Canada. Anyway, you put them out in the fall, you hope that they make it through the winter. And then once they start blooming in February, it's this heroic job to protect them from frost with big frost blankets every time that the weather's gonna dip down below 37 degrees. And then...
Eddie Rester 33:02
Which was a lot this spring for us.
Will Reed 33:04
It was a lot. They hate the rain. So like anytime it rains, they're just getting destroyed out there. So it's just a very demanding crop, but they are so good. They are so much more delicious than what you can get in the grocery store.
Chris McAlilly 33:19
So much more delicious.
Will Reed 33:20
People love the strawberries.
Chris McAlilly 33:23
They're insane.
Will Reed 33:22
And so we couldn't last year with COVID and we haven't done it this year just because of all the rain and we've been so busy, but normally we offer pick your own strawberries. And it is the most fun thing to the kids come out there and get their faces stained red with strawberry juice and you know parents taking pictures, people making those memories. And that's kind of what it's all about. And that also really if you could encapsulate the health of the community through small organic agriculture that's it right there, is you know, people coming out, seeing where the strawberries come from, interacting with the people that work on the farm, kids getting dirt under their fingernails and getting muddy, and those kind of cohesive family memories being made.
Will Reed 33:23
And yeah, just the strawberries are a wonderful thing when they work, and when they don't work so well, it can be pretty heartbreaking. But again, that is what makes the farming business so addictive because you have got, you know, the highs and the lows.
Eddie Rester 34:35
So it's like playing golf when you have the 14 really terrible tee shots and then you're Tiger Woods on one.
Chris McAlilly 34:35
Yeah.
Will Reed 34:35
It's exactly like playing golf.
Chris McAlilly 34:43
Yeah, exactly like playing golf. I think about it in terms of pastoral ministry, you know, in terms the role of being a pastor, you're just, you're in touch with the highest of the high moments in people's lives the moments of birth and celebration. But you're also there for death, and you're kind of traveling. You have to deal with vulnerability and contingency and just the risk that comes with being a human being. And I think farming, I mean, Will and I've talked, you know, a fair amount about that dimension.
Chris McAlilly 35:19
I do think, you know, I think historically that the connection between kind of religious belief and agricultural practice is there. I mean, because it does take a kind of faith and hope to actually put the put the seed in the ground every single year, given what you're gonna have to endure.
Will Reed 35:40
Yes, for sure. And most of the strawberry growers that I have met in particular are like the most religious people I have ever met. And I don't think that's a coincidence.
Chris McAlilly 35:54
Right.
Will Reed 35:56
Yes.
Eddie Rester 35:57
Praying for their strawberries.
Will Reed 35:59
Yes.
Eddie Rester 36:00
So thinking about like somebody's listening, and they've thought for a long time, I want to put something on the ground, watch it grow. You know, I want to take this, you know, even to my backyard, make a raised bed. How would you suggest someone start small, maybe growing their own food in their backyard? What would you suggest? And how would they learn to do that?
Will Reed 36:23
Yeah, that's a great question. And from some of my previous comments, I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from farming, or certainly not backyard gardening. It is something that is in our DNA. It's how our ancestors were able to get us here over the last 10,000 years. So the key to becoming a good gardener and farmer is to continually try and fail and try and succeed. And you can read books, and you can certainly learn from other people. But for me, the key is planting that seed, setting out that tomato plant, and you're going to gain confidence from your successes that's going to lead you to continually get better.
Will Reed 37:15
So I would say wherever you're starting, the key is just to start. If you live in an apartment and you have a balcony, you could put some potting soil in a pot and start with some herbs, you know, maybe a couple of basil plants or parsley plants. If you have more space, a lot of gardeners like wood frame raised beds. Those are great. If you don't want to go to that time and expense, the way I started was, I was scavenging through the dumpsters behind furniture sale stores, and getting the big cardboard boxes that like appliances would come in and spreading those out on the ground in a process called sheet mulching where you just lay down big sheets of cardboard and kind of covered them what some hay and cow manure and that'll kill off the grass and give you a good place to start gardening in a few months.
Will Reed 38:07
So I think the key is just not to overthink it, not to believe that you've got to have the perfect scenario or the perfect garden plot to get started. Just go ahead and start putting the seeds in the ground and see what happens.
Eddie Rester 38:21
So you don't need 200 acres, a couple wells dug and all that. You just need to go out and put something in the dirt.
Will Reed 38:29
That's exactly right. And the other thing that is really amazing, Eddie is how much food can come from such a small piece of land. And one of the more inspiring movements in the localized organic farming world are people that are growing these small farms that are on, like, half an acre to an acre and a half. And it is astounding if you manage it properly how much food can come off of even a half acre. You know, when we think in terms of you know being from an agricultural state, we think in terms of how many acres are you farming, but when you're raising vegetables for direct consumption, a really small amount of land can produce an incredibly bountiful harvest.
Eddie Rester 39:19
You probably remember Coach Billy Brewer, coached at Ole Miss for a long time. He used to grow tomatoes and he would hand out, he'd come by the church and everybody in town knew about Billy Brewer's tomatoes. And after he passed away, I was talking to his son and daughter-in-law about that and they're like, yeah, he started with five or 10 tomato plants. I think the last year he grew tomatoes he put out 50 or 60 plants, and I mean he was literally, he would stop by the church every day, because he just had nothing else to do with the thousands of tomatoes he was growing.
Chris McAlilly 39:50
It's funny that you mentioned tomatoes because what I'm picturing when you were talking about the just the sheer fecundity and the productivity of the land...
Eddie Rester 39:59
Can you define fecundity for the rest of us?
Chris McAlilly 40:02
It's just the ability of the land to produce, you know, to just to be... the way in which that can give you a picture of abundance is what I was thinking about. And I remember several years back now, being there with you, Will, in the farm stand. And it's usually around the first week of July, when you get the full productivity of all of your tomato plants. And you're just surrounded by tomatoes, on top of tomatoes, on top of tomatoes. And it's just such a joy to be around you at that time of the year, because I see you, you know, showing the community how abundant the land that we live on can be. And it's also kind of feeding into the celebration of July 4, and it kind of reinforces, I think, part of what I hear you talk about when you talk about getting into farming, which is, you know, independence and to be able to kind of chart your own course and not only do that for yourself, but offer that kind of independence and a food system to the community itself. It's one of my favorite parts of the year, just kind of watching your farm and eating your food.
Will Reed 41:19
Yeah, that's like the apex of it all are those first couple days in July. It all comes together. And you know, we spent so much time and we're feeling it now as the spring bounty there you know... Every new season is like you're just stepping out into total darkness, no matter how many times I have done this planting for spring. The ground is always too wet. The weather is always so unsettled. There's so much rain. You're putting these infinitesimal seeds in these huge expanses of earth, little plants. And it just seems like there's no way that this is going to work. Am I really gambling my entire livelihood on, you know, these tiny, tiny seeds? And you work and you work, and then it starts to come together.
Will Reed 42:09
And then this time of year, it's like we're just overrun with so much spring produce right now. And now it's like, how do we get all this picked? How do we get it all washed? What do we do with all this stuff? And so the cycle is just so fun. And it's also so, man, it's so wonderful. And this is another thing that's great for kids to see is like you hear about so many issues and problems in the world. And I know there are a lot of good and bad things going on at all times. But seeing this abundance, really, I feel like it's good for the heart and the soul. And to know, despite all the craziness going on that, here in our little corner of Mississippi, we have got all of this great food to eat and to provide to people that are interested in you know, partaking in it.
Chris McAlilly 43:06
So one of the things I would say if you're looking for a next step, I would say do a little homework and find out who your local farmers growing vegetables are. Find out if you have a farmers market in your community. I went yesterday. So we're CSA members with Will--community sustainable agriculture. We put in money at the beginning of the year to help out with some of those costs at the front end, can bear a small amount of that risk financially. And then we get the benefit of every single whatever's coming out of the field that week, we get a small piece of that, and we get to enjoy it. And we pick that up at our local farmers market. And I took my three year old Bo down to the market. And what was amazing by the end of it, you know, she saw other kids and it's such a great experience to go and interact with the community there.
Chris McAlilly 44:06
And by the end of it Bo did not want to leave the market. She was like she was like, "Dad!" and I was like, "Sweetheart, we got to go home and cook," like, "we have to feed everybody else. We got to go make dinner." She's like, "No, I don't want to leave the market!" It was so much fun. But I think those are the two things: find your local farm, find a local farmers market and participate in the local food system. It's a whole lot of fun, and it's certainly delicious. But I think beyond that, it contributes to the health of your family, to your own personal health, and to the health of your local community.
Eddie Rester 44:06
And I would add to that, talk with your local farmers market about the initiatives that they are working on, because most farmers markets as I'm discovering are working with how do we get the food, the good produce into local communities? How do we push it beyond just the afternoon of the farmers market into places and to people who may not have access to get fruit and vegetables?
Chris McAlilly 45:01
Yeah, I'll just give a shout out to Betsy Chapman who's running a killer market here in Oxford, Mississippi. And she is... The thing that I appreciate about her spirit behind what she does is that she knows that she can attract people with financial means, the kind of people that you would see it a Whole Foods, I mean, people like me. But she has a commitment and almost like a missionary zeal to make sure that that good and nutritious produce finds its way to folks who might not otherwise have access, and so...
Eddie Rester 45:35
May not can come to a farmers market on Tuesday afternoon.
Chris McAlilly 45:38
Absolutely. So she's always trying to find ways to get the produce out to folks. So, Betsy, you're awesome. And there are tons of people like you all over the country. And we're grateful, Will, for the work that you do. What are you excited about? What are you hopeful about right now, looking into the next couple months?
Will Reed 45:58
Yeah, well, I would also like to segment how wonderful Betsy Chapman is and the amount of different people that she serves and the diversity of those people is incredible and inspiring. And I am looking forward to tomato season especially. We have got a lot of tomatoes planted. They look great. And we're also raising Tupelo, Mississippi's first hemp crop in the last probably 80 or 90 years right now. So I'm excited to see how that turns out as well.
Eddie Rester 46:35
Well, Will, thank you for your time today. Hope the growing season goes well, and I look forward to catching up with you sometime in the coming months.
Will Reed 46:43
Sounds good. Thank you.
Eddie Rester 46:46
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening to this episode of The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 46:48
If you liked what you heard today, feel free to share the podcast with other people that are in your network. Leave us a review. That's always really helpful. Subscribe, and you can follow us on our social media channels.
Eddie Rester 47:00
If you have any suggestions or guests you'd like us to interview or anything you'd like to share with us, you can send us an email at info@theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]