One of the most encouraging things about our first few months here in Scotland County Missouri has been discovering that Sandhill is in no way the only thing exciting happening in this area. Many people in this county are interested in and talking about issues of sustainability, both economic and ecological. Its very exciting to see relatively mainstream farmers and townsfolk talk about organic agriculture, community supported agriculture, holistic resource management, local barter systems, and wildlife and ecosystem conservation.
The catalyst for much of this discussion is a grant from the Kellogg Foundation (i.e. breakfast cereal mega-corp) for their Sustainable Communities Project. The grant is relatively small ($20,000 each for the 4 most northeastern counties in Missouri) and is only available for researching and prototyping ideas to help create more sustainable agricultural communities (i.e. its not available for start up capital for businesses).
While this grant will help develop some new ideas for making Scotland County more sustainable the greatest benefit has been that it has gotten local people together to talk about sustainability and community. This has been facilitated in no small way by people from Sandhill who have helped steer the conversation away from "what should we do with this cash" to discussions of local resources and creating cooperation and linkages between county people. In short this is a way for Scotland County to be very intentional about its development instead of letting things just happen.
We feel very lucky here to have people at the mainstream government agencies such as the University Extension and the Soil Conservation Service who are knowledgeable about very progressive agricultural techniques. In many rural areas the government agencies are firmly in the pocket of agribusiness and mainstream mechanized farming (corn, soy, pigs, and cows). Here we have recently had a speaker come in to talk about Community Supported Agriculture and a 3 day workshop on Holistic Resource Management. Both were well attended and sparked interest in local people to seeing how they can help develop the local economy while making their farms more sustainable.
For its part Dancing Rabbit has been attending the monthly meetings but mostly staying quiet being such new comers to this area. We do have plans to apply for some grant money and have come up with a number of possible ideas: biodiesel production, vegetable oil extraction, alternative energy in the county, local currencies or barter systems, marketing composting toilets or other innovative waste treatment systems, methane digesters, tree cropping, and local public transit or carpooling system. Sandhill may also apply for grants for some experiments in growing and marketing herbs and seeds. Sandhill has already received a grant from another agency to grow Echinacea, and the seedlings are already in the ground.
Someone pointed out to us that Scotland County is somewhat blessed by its location. Memphis, the county seat, is a town of about 2,500 people in a county with only 5,000. Luckily Memphis is far enough away from other larger towns and cities that it still serves as an economic and social center for the area. People can and do get most of their needs met in Memphis and do not have to travel to Kirksville or Quincy or the other larger cities for regular needs. Thus Memphis has been able to remain a full featured small town with a surrounding area of agriculture and small satellite towns.
So while at one time we were worried that besides Sandhill we might be the only organic farmers in the area now it seems like we may have lots of people to work with. Recently Stan from Sandhill was elected president of the Missouri chapter of the OCIA (Organic Crop Improvement Association) and has already been asked by some local farmers about being certified. Soon a lot of land will be coming out of CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) and will be immediately certifiable since it has not had pesticide or fertilizers for 10 years while it has lay fallow. (The land we are looking to buy is in CRP now)
It has been very encouraging to see that while DR and Sandhill may still be on the radical edge of sustainability issues, there will also be many others in the area taking steps towards a more sustainable future. Its exciting to be able to have a supportive local community as well as people we can help and encourage towards sustainability.
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