Seeds, Soil, Survival: Growing Food in the Southwest US
14 May
Justin Bendell, Northern Arizona University
download the complete essay: Bendell_SeedsSoil
Justin Bendell, an Illinois native, earned a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He moved west and, in 2008, gained a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Northern Arizona University. He resides in Tucson with three chickens and his partner Rose.
With the progress of civilization, [humans have] learned many skills, but only rarely [have they] learned to preserve [their] source of food. Paradoxically, the very achievements of civilized [humanity] have been the most important factors in the downfall of civilizations.
—Tom Dale & Vernon Gill Carter, Topsoil and Civilization 1
Behold, my friends, the spring has come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun and shall soon see the results of that love.
—Sitting Bull, Lakota elder 2
Beneath the Chinese elms long beheaded, in a front yard the size of a Navajo rug, we overturn a mosaic of non-native grass, dirt, and dandelion in preparation for the planting season. Rose and I rented our east Flagstaff lot and house from a quiet man who owns a heating and cooling business; it is our third rental pad in three years on the southern Colorado Plateau, fourth in four years in Arizona. As perpetual renters, Rose and I have been estranged from the landbase. It is difficult to find motivation to break both backs and soil to grow food when the likelihood of reaping the harvest most years is nil. We—the renting class, the (albeit privileged) landless—have little control over the edible aspects of our lives.
This year we are digging, planting, watering, mulching, composting. Despite the limitations of time, soil, and space, we are determined to raise an ecological garden, a small-scale food system that uses marginal groundwater, takes advantage of micro- climates, and emphasizes drought-tolerant native varieties of squash, corn, bean, chile, and other food crops. If we are not around next year, it will be okay. This is a summer project, an experiment in sustainable living, a quest to understand the constraints of place. Not quite permaculture, our garden is of similar spirit and intention.
We are inspired by ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan’s experiment of eating locally in the Tucson basin, eloquently recounted in Coming Home to Eat.3 Eating within one’s bioregion, or as Nabhan attempts, living off native foods raised within a 250-mile radius of home, is as much political as it is personal—perhaps more so. In an era where most food crops are raised monoculturally on giant industrial farms, soaked in chemicals, genetically engineered, and patented by transnational corporations like Monsanto and ConAgra, shunning industrialism in favor of food sovereignty is a political act.
In a sense, there is also a spiritual danger in not knowing from where one’s food comes. Preeminent ecologist and philosopher Aldo Leopold wrote that this danger lies in supposing that our meals come from the grocer. “To avoid this danger,” he suggests, “one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.”4
