SEPTEMBER 23, 2007 - Draft horses inscribe a circle in the dust as they turn the crank that transforms sorghum stalks into a green juice that will shortly become a deep, rich molasses. I have never seen sorghum plants before and had always imagined it as a product of the Deep South of America - but here it is thriving just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Yet another of the many surprises I still get after two years of questing for foods outside the supermarket system.
James and I are the guests of
Tillers International, a farm institute that trains both local and international youth in sustainable farming (they are presently building fencerows as wildlife habitat, known as hedgerows in Canada and the UK). Tillers is also building a museum to house a collection featuring centuries of American farm technology; a farmer-benefactor named Carroll Abbey spent 20 years amassing the tools through farm contacts he made from Pennsylvania to Nebraska.
"A curator from the Smithsonian came by and he was impressed," says executive director Dick Roosenberg. "It's not just willy-nilly; Abbey looked for very specific things. And he kept them in great conditions, too." The first wing of the museum is built of white oak "definitely from within a 100 miles of here," says Roosenberg, and it is wood-pegged rather than nailed.
But it's far more than just a museum; whether it's inventing a new plow for their own use or to inspire visiting farmers from Uganda, Tillers is using the collection as a laboratory for fossil-free innovation in the modern-day farming community.
The tools bring us back to sorghum. The horses were doing their thing for today's southwest Michigan Harvest Fest, where area families came out to see what local farmers had to offer.
Sorghum is a drought-resistant African grass (the ones at Tillers were about six feet high and fat like bamboo) that was introduced into the US in 1853, and was a very popular sweetener in the Midwest until the early 1900s, when glucose syrups took over. Because sorghum is high in iron, calcium and potassium, old-time doctors used to prescribe it to undernourished patients. If only modern medicine tasted so good!
At one farmer's stall in the central big tent we saw the rare black Spanish radish, which is big as a beet, black-skinned but bright white inside; and also a funky space-pod of a bean, the Hunan, from China. "It didn't produce a lot [here] but we thought we'd try it for fun," shrugged the grinning farmer. James and I bought the solitary box of it with delight.
Folks lined up patiently for food produced by local restaurants, such as Crowsnest Cafe, which served free-range organic beef from the
Lake Village Homestead, just a few miles away. "I live eight miles from here and this is the first time I've been," said one retired pharmaceutical executive who had cycled to the Harvest Fest, which is now in its fifth year. "I can't believe I've never heard of it before. It's great!" Organizers said that they had surpassed last year's attendance record by 1 p.m., proving the growing draw of local foods across North America. -ADS
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SEPTEMBER 23, 2007 - Draft horses inscribe a circle in the dust as they turn the crank that transforms sorghum stalks into a green juice that will shortly become a deep, rich molasses. I have never seen sorghum plants before and had always imagined it as a product of the Deep South of America - but here it is thriving just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Yet another of the many surprises I still get after two years of questing for foods outside the supermarket system.
James and I are the guests of Tillers International, a farm institute that trains both local and international youth in sustainable farming (they are presently building fencerows as wildlife habitat, known as hedgerows in Canada and the UK). Tillers is also building a museum to house a collection featuring centuries of American farm technology; a farmer-benefactor named Carroll Abbey spent 20 years amassing the tools through farm contacts he made from Pennsylvania to Nebraska.
"A curator from the Smithsonian came by and he was impressed," says executive director Dick Roosenberg. "It's not just willy-nilly; Abbey looked for very specific things. And he kept them in great conditions, too." The first wing of the museum is built of white oak "definitely from within a 100 miles of here," says Roosenberg, and it is wood-pegged rather than nailed.
But it's far more than just a museum; whether it's inventing a new plow for their own use or to inspire visiting farmers from Uganda, Tillers is using the collection as a laboratory for fossil-free innovation in the modern-day farming community.
The tools bring us back to sorghum. The horses were doing their thing for today's southwest Michigan Harvest Fest, where area families came out to see what local farmers had to offer. Sorghum is a drought-resistant African grass (the ones at Tillers were about six feet high and fat like bamboo) that was introduced into the US in 1853, and was a very popular sweetener in the Midwest until the early 1900s, when glucose syrups took over. Because sorghum is high in iron, calcium and potassium, old-time doctors used to prescribe it to undernourished patients. If only modern medicine tasted so good!
At one farmer's stall in the central big tent we saw the rare black Spanish radish, which is big as a beet, black-skinned but bright white inside; and also a funky space-pod of a bean, the Hunan, from China. "It didn't produce a lot [here] but we thought we'd try it for fun," shrugged the grinning farmer. James and I bought the solitary box of it with delight.
Folks lined up patiently for food produced by local restaurants, such as Crowsnest Cafe, which served free-range organic beef from the Lake Village Homestead, just a few miles away. "I live eight miles from here and this is the first time I've been," said one retired pharmaceutical executive who had cycled to the Harvest Fest, which is now in its fifth year. "I can't believe I've never heard of it before. It's great!" Organizers said that they had surpassed last year's attendance record by 1 p.m., proving the growing draw of local foods across North America. -ADS
