Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Agrarian Road Trip: Part Two.

View of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Brevard, North Carolina.

Rural Revival:

the Agrarian Tour through North Carolina, with a nod to rural Virginia

On our venture into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, we – Agrarian Road Trippers – encountered the ugly effects of war, tobacco, and child labor juxtaposed with and transformed into community-supporting small-scale agriculture

Day Four:

Lunchtime at the Bahnson Homestead.

Naked children running through a front yard sprinkler. The time is mid-day, lunchtime. We share a garden fresh meal of salad with o-so ripe tomatoes and water melon, as well as some hard boiled eggs from some hard-working chickens. Blue Ridge Mountains surrounding us in the valley. One of the biggest inhibitors for young folks – all folks – to start farming is land. Farming is one of the most capital-intensive careers – inhibitory during a time of economic crisis and in a society where agricultural life is dwindling in the shadow of Big Ag. However, we are in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the midst of wilderness happening. Here we meet Fred and Elizabeth Bahnson – and their two little boys running through the sprinkler. Here outside Brevard, North Carolina, we are in the midst of this New Agrarian Movement. A revival of the rural. The Bahnsons may as well be the poster children for what the small family farm can be. Fred is a writer and student of the ways of permaculture. Elizabeth is a bluegrass fiddler with an interest in livestock. And they have been blessed with family land in the midst of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

the Bahnson Homestead in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[Here is just a snippet of articles written by Fred: Compost for the Kingdom; A Garden Becomes a Protest; Monks, Mushrooms, and the Sacramental Nature of Everyday Eating; Good Soil.]

Trellised beans at the Bahnson's.

Where the Bahnsons live is actually a microclimate in the midst of the mountains – a tropical rainforest, receiving nearly 80 inches of rain each year – as much as Seattle. As they build their new house, the Bahnsons have planned to harvest the rainwater, situating their catchment system on top of a hill – to gravity-feed to their biointesive growing beds. In addition to rainwater catchment, Fred has designed swales on the contour of the land to irrigate native fruit trees and prevent erosion on the steep slope on which their farm is southerly-facing. Other highlights of their farm-to-be are living mulches that fix nitrogen (lupine) and accumulate other deep nutrients (comfrey), as well as growing their own grains (Hopi blue corn for grinding). Elizabeth is currently dreaming of a goat dairy.

Veterans Victory Garden.

After leaving the Bahson’s, we head towards Asheville to the Asheville Veterans Restoration Quarters – a converted Super 8 that now houses around 225 homeless veterans every night. Men who have served in all wars from Vietnam to Iraq are housed here – with an average of 51. By request of the men – and with incredible support of a visionary directory, one acre of land was converted into an organic garden to provide therapeutic activity as well as fresh food to the residents of the shelter. The Veterans Victory Garden was started in 2008 and now operates its own Tailgate Farmers Market two days a week. The men have also been able to take courses in gardening and greenhouse production to hone their expertise – as well as working with Master Gardeners to earn the art of canning and preserving. Money earned through sales to the community is supplemented with funding from Tobacco Settlements in North Carolina to sustain the financial success of the garden. Currently the two men maintaining the garden are seeking to become Certified Organic through the USDA. The social worker in me is encouraged to see projects that integrate the rebuilding of soil with the rebuilding of lives.

Edible flower salad with monarda and day lilies.

Our next stop takes us back into the mountains outside Asheville, to Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. We begin our stay with a lesson in ethno-botany with Chef Marc Williams. Chef Marc guides us through the culinary uses of commonly found wild – and not so wild – edibles. Together we craft our dinner: herbal tea of monarda (bee balm), spearmint, sassafras leaves; pesto of lamb’s quarter and basil; garden salad with more lamb’s quarter and lettuce, garnished with day lilies and monarda; and for dessert, juneberry-blackberry cobbler.

The remainder of the evening is spend in conversation with folks from the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and Association of Farmworker Opportunity Program. The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) started in the mid-1990s with Tobacco Settlement money to help transition farmers in the tobacco fields to organic vegetable production – as well as to build demand for local food. Currently, ASAP works on organizing and supporting farmers markets in the northwest region of North Carolina and working on farm-to-institution projects – such as connecting local farmers to the food services of schools, hospitals and colleges.

The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Program (AFOP) is focused on two main agricultural issues: pesticide outreach to farmworker and children in the fields. Our conversation focused on child labor in the fields. In North Carolina alone, over 150,000 migrants come to work the agricultural season – helping make agriculture the number one industry in North Carolina. However, an often overlooked issue of migrant labor is child labor out in the fields. The Child Labor Law in 1938 does not include limitations on child labor in agricultural fields. Many children are found in the fields helping their parents meet harvest quotas in order to earn enough to live on. As is the case, many students start the school year late and are pulled out before the school year ends – and often drop out before graduating. Beyond educational structure, children out in the field are exposed to pesticides, dangerous machinery and at-risk for muscular-skeletal injuries. Penalties for corporations and large farms caught with children in the field are little more than a slap on the wrist. Just one of many of the ugly truth behind our large-scale agriculture.

Day Five:

the Farms of Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

Warren Wilson College (WWC) is another crazy liberal arts colleges with a high emphasis on sustainablity. With just over 900 students – and growing, WWC receives increased interest each year in its Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Forestry Programs. WWC started in 1894 as a farm school for farm boys – but has expanded much beyond farming, and boys. When asked about the College’s rapport with the Swannanoa community, Sustainable Ag Professor Laura Lingenck tells us she finds locals frequently cruising through the campus, admiring the sight of young buff women not afraid to run a tiller or back hoe.

Students in the Ag Department operate both the Market Garden Farm and Grain and Livestock Production – a total of 150 acres in production. In the Market Garden Farm, garden beds are double-dug according to French intensive methods. Produce is grown for local markets (2/week) as well as a CSA in the summer months for faculty and staff of WWC. Much of the produce is also sold to WWC Dining Services, contracted with Sodexho. (WWC purchases 18% of its fruit and vegetables from its Market Garden and 50% of its red meat from the Livestock Program). Both cover crops and rotational planting are incorporated into the planting schedules, as well as hoop houses for season extension. Throughout the season, chickens in movable tractors are run through the garden beds, to fertilizer and control pests. The Sustainable Ag Program chooses not to certify its vegetables organic.

Little piggy: cute when little, food when big.

As for livestock management, the Sustainable Ag Program grows the majority of its own grains for animal feed – typically a profit-eating cost in livestock production. Stock-piling is another way the College conserves money, by allowing its cattle to graze grain still standing in the field even after the first frost. Approximately 175 cattle graze on a 25-paddock rotation – on perennial pastures of corn, alfalfa, oats, barley, and wheat. In addition to cattle, WWC also raises pigs, chickens (which follow the cattle in rotational pasturing) and horses for draft farming, mainly in the Agroforestry Department. Other department tractors (as well as maintenance vehicles on campus) run on locally brewed biodiesel, Blue Ridge Biodiesel.

Student building a cob structure for compost storage.

As if the Sustainable Ag Program at WWC weren’t great enough, the Recycling Department at WWC also features student-constructed industrial compost tumblers, a soon-to-be-built cob house structure, and Free Store to recycle unwanted clothing, furniture, and all other sorts of odds and ends with just a wee bit more life in them – or that can be refurbished at WWC’s woodworking and bike shops. We rough agrarians rummaged for a spare notebook, extra shampoo and souvenir t-shirt.

Before leaving North Carolina, we continued our rebelliously delicious and ridiculously fresh forays into food at Rosetta’s Kitchen in downtown Asheville. Rosetta’s features a number of vegetables and ingredients sourced from the Swannanoa Valley. I ordered the special of the day – pickled maroon and golden beets atop a bed of fresh greens atop fry bread, dressed with a cilantro-cashew sauce. Yum.

Blain enjoys his dinner at the Harvest Table Restaurant.

We hit the road for one more stop before our final destination in West Virginia. The Harvest Table Restaurant in Meadowview, VA, renowned for its connection to the author and sometimes agrarian essayist Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver’s husband, Steven Hopp, owns the Harvest Table Restaurant – and has crafted its menu to include food mainly sourced within 100 miles of the restaurant. Vegetables are a given, but the Harvest Table also sources meat, cheese, eggs and rice (grown in South Carolina) from the region. I ordered a caramelized red onion and beet green frittata and was greeted by the happiest, orangiest of eggs on my plate – a rarity in the dining-out world. Once again our minds – and taste buds – have been blown by the exhausting epicurean delights on which we dine. Oh the glories of local food!

the Agrarian Road Trippers at the Harvest Table Restaurant.

We are passively witnessing the reawakening of rural life. Her pastoral hillsides. Her setting sun to the lowing of cows. Her stars in the pure black night. We now have the responsibility to share the romance we see. To bring sexy back. Not only to rural living and lifestyles – but to agricultural vocation.

We are agrarians.

End Day Five. End Part Two.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

A wild pack of family dogs

Many of you have heard of the tragedy that befell the World Hunger Relief farm 2 weeks ago, when someone or something attacked, maimed, and left for dead nearly 30 chickens. It was a tragic loss, and our egg production has really suffered.

Be happy to know that this was not the fault of someone's negligence caring for our friendly chickens, no one forgot about them or left them out all night, NO! It was actually between 6 and 8:30 PM when the strike occurred, not even getting dark yet. Our chickens, unaware that they were in danger, were still happily free ranging, enjoying the evening warmth, and would not head into the coop for the night for at least a couple hours when, from nowhere, there was a massacre that befell them.

Coyotes don't kill for sport. Coyotes don't leave 30 uneaten dying chickens on the ground. This was a sad and pointless kill, a waste of the life, energy, and food that could have sustained many. This was a stupid and foolish act.
We surmise that this was the work of wild dogs. Dogs, reared outside the confines and bounds of the domesticated homes their preceding generations have known, they now have began a re-wilding process which has given them back the desire to kill but without the instinct and natural understanding to kill only what is needed, respecting the balance of what the earth provides. They do not kill to sustain themselves, they kill for the fun of it and it is terribly sad.






Yesterday I learned that a pack of dogs, similar to those pictured here, is the responsible party for this killing spree. And at about 6pm, after all my afternoon chores I spotted them. Prancing across the pasture headed straight for the fence surrounding our chickens were four HUGE dogs!! They looked so happy and free, excited about the wretched game they were about to play with our hens. I was hopping mad and so, with adrenaline pumping, hands waving and lots of hollering, I chased them in my skirt and flip flops through 8 acres of pasture, tailing them all the way to the end of the farm before they wriggled through the back fence and were free. The chickens were saved for another night! But so were the dogs.

Tonight me and my husband will be ready with the farm shotgun, hiding in the tall sorgum sudan grass. Is it worth the death of a wild dog to save our 80 remaining hens? I don't know. We're just planning to scare them off with the shots and deter them from coming back, but we'll see what happens.

Wish us luck,
Jessica Bullock, Livestock Intern

Monday, June 21, 2010

Agrarian Road Trip: Part One.

background: this is a report from the road - about the Heaven on Earth Agrarian Road Trip - by a former WHRI intern. reasons to read on: the Agrarian Revolution is alive and well - like a handful of wriggling earthworms in fertile soil - and we need to share the stories of our brothers and sisters living the New Agrarian Dream. here is just a smattering of the projects happening elsewhere in the country. enjoy.

Garlic Pickin’, Potluckin’ and Llamas:

the Agrarian Tour through Kentucky and Tennessee

We – Agrarian Road Trippers – have been visiting and trading stories with many a farmer across Kentucky and Tennessee. Learning the tales of the trade and dreaming of the day when I will be a little old gray hair – well preserved, with her chickens and 12 varieties of tomatoes.

Day One: In Louisville, KY, we visited with the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program - ½ acre in vegetable production, scattered across 30-some odd plots. Plots are sectioned by nationality – Burundi, Burma/Myanmar, Congo . . . and on and on, all finding a common language in compost and corn.

Day Two: Still in Louisville, we trek to Garden Summer Camp at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church – a one-week summer camp with 15 kids, ages 8-14. All kids share morning chores harvesting vegetables for lunch, grinding corn for tortillas, tending chickens for eggs, and prepping beds for fall harvest. Each day of camp starts with a telling of a story about Father Coyote. In today’s lesson, Father Coyote studies a farmer sowing seeds – and then sows his own garden in order to harvest his own crop of happy little rabbits, lured to the garden by the fresh carrots and cabbage. The story touches upon irrigation techniques in the arid southwest, companion planting for bountiful harvest and the benefits of increased biodiversity in the garden. After the kids are tuckered out from their garden work and fresh lunch, they head to the pool for an afternoon swim.

Discussion with Ellen Davis – Old Testament Scholar from Duke Divinity School – who has recently written a book called Scripture, Culture and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible. Professor Davis focused on Exodus 16 as the basis for her research in understanding the cultural context of the Israelites exiled from the Egyptian Empire, for understanding the Modern Agricultural Empire. In a nutshell, the Israelites who have been freed from their slave masters take to complaining about lack of food. “At least when we were slaves of the Empire we have food enough to eat.” God has provided our daily sustenance (in the form of manna from heaven) – but instead the people grovel. Modern parables highlight our society’s dependence on – and enslavement to – genetically-modified, mono-cultured food-product that travels 1500 miles to our dinner plate. Rather than learning how to grow or can or cook our own food, we rely on a food system that is ever-increasing out of our hands and beyond our control.

Professor Davis takes our lesson one set further in analyzing the Greek roots of the closely related words adama and adam. Adama is Greek for “fertile soil.” Adam is Greek for “human.” The term adama is used in the Biblical context to refer to the land as ancestor of human – before Abraham there was adama. To create Man, God breathed His breath into adama. Now, I am no Biblical scholar, nor am I an Agrarian scholar – but that’s all pretty crazy amazing. We are dirt. Or rather, we are biologically breathing, o-so fertile soil.

soup bycycle.

Lunchtime: Lunch provided by Soup By-cycle, soups made using local, organic ingredients – delivered by bicycle to the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) Headquarters in downtown Louisville for a wee little potluck with like-minded folks doing the work of the Church in the world. Some shared stories of recently travels to Haiti to protest against a recent Monsanto donation of genetically modified seeds to the region’s farmers. Instead of gladly accepting, the people of Haiti rebelled, by marching and burning the seeds. The introduction of GMO and hybrid seeds into cultures with a rich tradition of seed-saving poses a jungle of legal repercussions – linked also to increased suicides of peasant farmers in many countries.

Next stop – also in Louisville – Oxmoor Farms. The Field Day Farm at Oxmoor Farms partners with the Food Literacy Project to grow food for market and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as well as provide school-age education about local food systems. Situated on 8 acres tucked betwixt the interstate, golf course and a suburban subdivision, Farmer Seamus says golfer and farmer frequently meet eyes in questioning gazes. Ironic because there is a current trend where farms across the country are bought out by large residential developers due to a higher monetary value attached to land for its developmental potential rather than its agricultural productivity.

barn at oxmoor farms.

barn at oxmoor farms.

All that to say, we Agrarians harvested garlic and weeded kale while swapping stories about soil amendments and growing seasons. The garlic harvested was put into shares for Field Day Farm CSA – which supplies 60 families with produce each week. In addition to its CSA, extra produce is sold at 2 farmers markets each week and contributed towards Grasshopper, a cooperative multi-farm CSA supplying meat, cheese, milk, eggs, mushrooms to local families – in addition to regular shares of vegetables.

The beauty of a multi-farm (or multi-yard – reference fellow Wacoan Lucas Land’s Edible Yard Project) CSA is that it buffets the problems of pest invasion or crop failure, as well as taking advantage of the soil varieties and farmer specialization. Such a model also allows small gardeners who may not have enough to sell at market may contribute their produce and reap the benefits.

tilapia aquaculture at berea eco-village.

Day Three: We hit the road for Berea College in eastern KY to explore Berea’s Eco-Village and Farm Gardens. Professor Richard Olson expounded on his theories of the most-of-us speeding towards hell in a hand-basket – due to the rate we use electricity, water, petroleum, etc. (Sometimes doomsday global warming pessimism is not my cup of tea – it’s more like a cup of gas station coffee). After stepping off his soapbox, he showed us around Berea’s Eco-Village – ever-evolving with aquacultured tilapia, biointensive growing, photovoltaic (PV) panels, greywater treatment system as well as demonstrations in natural building, including: cob, cord wood with cob mortar, earth bag, earthen plaster, and straw bale. Berea’s Eco-Village is open exclusively for 4 interns in the Sustainability and Environmental Studies program – as well as students of Berea who are single parents.

garden and pv panels at berea’s eco-village.

From the Eco-Village, we journeyed to the other side of Berea College to the farm, gardens and greenhouse – a total area of 500 acres. In addition to vegetable production, Berea operates an apiary (honey flavored by blueberries and buckwheat), hoop houses for season extension, mushroom spore-infused-logs, and a cord wood root cellar. We were not able to see their livestock production – but Berea does that, too. All produce is sold at local farmers markets for a flat rate of $8/lb. The school also purchases produce for use in its cafeteria, at a rate of $6.50/lb. These prices are extremely high, for the majority of crops – but the people of Berea are willing to pay. The farm and gardens are maintained by students in the College’s Agriculture Department. All students at Berea are required to work for tuition (10-15 hours/week) – no other costs are associated with tuition. Another similar college is School of the Ozarks in Missouri.

cord wood structure.

Vegetables grown at Berea College are Certified Organic – meeting the USDA’s standards and definitions of organic practices. Organic certification is a highly contentious topic amongst small scale agrarians. Both Field Day Farm at Oxmoor Farms in Louisville and World Hunger Relief Farm in Waco choose not to certify their produce – although each farm meets, and exceeds, the USDA’s standards. Farmer Igor at Field Day Farm choose not to certify due to moral convictions – both that the standards are too loose, while being relatively expensive. He also notes that small scale farming is about relationship with the consumer – and if a strong relationship is in place, all farming practices are transparent – and thus certification is unnecessary.

llama lovin’ at liles organic acres.

After Berea, we traveled to Maryville, TN – to visit Liles Organic Acres, a small family farm operated by Sheri and Russell Liles. Here we met the llamas. Sheri – a self-proclaimed back-to-the-land hippie – showed us around the farm. She grows vegetables in 25 raised beds – that have been double-dug and enriched each year with layer upon layer of compost. She and Russell keep seven compost piles around the farm – enriched by rabbit, llama and chicken poop – as well as leaves, food scraps and red wigglers. Her vegetables are sold at market – and chooses not to certify organic. In addition to vegetables, Sheri also keep llamas and angora rabbits from which she can spin the wool – as well as growing cotton and flax, to be spun by her mother-in-law for linen. Both Sheri and Russell work part-time off the farm – she as a nurse practitioner, he as a picture-framer. Russell is also a crafted wood-worker and quite engineer-ed-ly minded, installing PV panels that supply 25% of their energy use and building the llama barn, chicken coops and beehives.

chickens at liles organic acres.

Once we departed the Liles farm, we met up with locals from the Highland Presbyterian Church in Maryville – to share stories and recipes over a potluck of locally produced grub.

End Day Three. End Part One.

- bethel, agrarian road tripper.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Building Enthusiasm in Haiti- Report from Ferrier

We started the SRI (System of Rice Intensification) training on Tuesday with what was undoubtedly the first Powerpoint presentation ever attempted in Ferrier. Unfortunately, Jackson had planned the workshop under a white vinyl tent that caught and transmitted the sunlight pretty much everywhere, so the projector image was pretty tough to see. Lesson to self:
when planning to use LCD projectors in rural Haiti, make sure you fully inform the host as to what kind of room will be needed. Oh for the days when we used crappy, hand-drawn images that could go anywhere without generators.

Regardless of the technology challenges, Joeli Barison (a Malagasy SRI extension specialist) and Erika Styger (a Swiss consultant currently at Cornell) seemed to get their stories across as well as the six essential principles of SRI, namely:

1. Transplanting seedlings at a young age (8-10 days instead of the traditional 4 weeks)
2. Transplanting single seedlings instead of a clump of 3 or more
3. Transplanting in rows 25 cm apart instead of denser spacing
4. Flooding lightly & intermittently alternated with dry periods rather than maintaining
5. Using rotary weeders
6. Maximizing use of organic amendments

It was a lot for people to take in, but I was impressed that several of the participants fairly quickly related this new system to their own experiences & observations, especially with wider plant spacing and use of organic inputs. That afternoon, we started an experiment pre-germinating rice seed that was later planted in a seedling bed to produce plants for a trial we’ll transplant on the 21st.

The next three days were spent repeating the principles, discussing current practices in the area, carrying out practical demonstrations & showing more pictures & films. We found a
darkened classroom that served the latter purpose, and I have to say that showing pictures and films of people actually carrying out all the steps and then the results it produced at harvest was
quite effective. Technology is a powerful tool when it works…

The various sessions were pretty chaotic and to a large extent ad hoc. The field in which we planned to do the practical exercises was under 2 ft of flood water the day we intended to start. The next day it was above water, but the river we had to cross to get there was still neck deep and our principal trainer didn’t know how to swim, so we switched to an alternate location. Most
sessions started an hour or more late, but the 20+ participants kept coming back, and their enthusiasm built visibly through the four days.

By the end, virtually everyone said they were convinced enough to try the system out on a small portion of their land. They seem motivated by the fact that they’re pioneers of an approach that may not only help their own situation, but could become an example for other regions of Haiti. A camaraderie also developed among the group, and they asked about forming a committee to keep in touch with each other, and to enable communication between the members and those of us who intend to serve as resources.

My role in the coming weeks is to organize a system for support and follow-up. It’s a pretty daunting task given the lack of infrastructure or experience of WHR-Haiti in such endeavors.
Most of our history in the area has involved creation of demonstration sites in a central location, rather than outreach on individual farms. This, however, is probably a major reason
why, after 30 years, we haven’t had more impact on the agriculture of the area. On the 21st we will reassemble to transplant our demonstration seedlings. By then, I hope to have decided, together with Jackson, on several “technicians” we can hire to visit farmers as they try SRI on their own land. I’ll plan to be in regular phone contact with these technicians to help with advice and encouragement. Both Erika and Joeli have agreed to help with trouble-shooting and will likely make a follow-up visit during the upcoming season.

I particularly enjoyed watching Joeli interact with the Haitian farmers who came for the training. He not only has a wealth of practical experience from having worked with Malagasy farmers for the past 20 years, but he also has an outgoing, personable approach that clearly appeals to Haitians. Prior to coming to Ferrier, he spent five weeks training farmers in the central and SW rice-growing areas. Each day he fielded numerous phone calls from participants in these training sessions asking questions about production or just calling to say “hello.” His Creole comprehension was impressive, and his enjoyment of the people, culture, food, etc. makes it hard to imagine a better fit for this role.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

In Memoriam


This little lady made a nest in our hay bale stacks. Very clever. And no, this hen did not pass away. She's doin' just fine. But I post this picture to honor all of the 25 chickens killed Saturday night by wild dogs. We will miss you.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

News From Neil's Trip to Haiti

Managed to grab a quick internet connection.

My trip down went well except for having to sleep on the floor in the Ft. Lauderdale airport...

We're two days into the SRI workshop, and have about 20 farmers attending. It's been raining nearly every day and one of the biggest challenges is that everything is under water. Rice is supposed to be flooded, but not under several feet of water! The trainers are working well, especially the one from Madagascar. He seems to connect well with Haitians, and really knows his stuff.

Hope to write more before long...

Neil

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Waco's hunger farm addressing rice farming in Haiti

Waco Tribune had a story today on our Executive Director, Neil Miller's, current trip to Haiti until the end of June.

Justin Bullock, 26, an intern from Georgetown, works in the small  rice field at World Hunger Relief farm.The executive director of World Hunger Relief Inc. is partnering with a Cornell University program and a rice specialist from Madagascar in an international effort to improve rice farming in Haiti.

Neil Miller, who lived in Haiti for six years, leaves today to take part in a four-day training program in northeast Haiti that will teach farmers about a growing method known as System of Rice Intensification designed to increase rice production.

World Hunger Relief is a sustainable agriculture training farm in Elm Mott.

After visiting Haiti in February, Miller said he knew something needed to be done to help the nation devastated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12 that left roughly 3 million people in need of emergency aid.

Feeling discouraged by the seemingly insurmountable barriers to help rice production in Haiti, he found others who shared his idea upon returning to Waco.

Read the rest at Wacotrib.com