Free Lentil Underground by Liz Carlisle Page A

where so many of the AERO activists’ “new” ideas came from. Banding together to stand up to corporate power was something many of them had learned from their parents, whose cooperative ethos and mutual aid had helped them weather both the Depression and World War II. For the substantial and committed membership of that era, the Farmers Union was almost a religion. “My family went to the Methodist church—my folks were always good Methodists—but Farmers Union meant more than Sunday school to me,” Russ recalled. “You know, when I think about my upbringing, I can’t separate church and my parents and the Farmers Union in my mind.”
    Russ Salisbury’s way of farming was foundational to his character. In truth, it was more a way of life—at once protest and homage, a point of departure and a comforting foothold of continuity. Russ’s approach may have cut against the prevailing grain, but it was also true to his heritage in a manner that connected the jocular homesteader to a number of other Montanans. It was no accident that steadfast agrarian populists like Russ were so well represented at AERO conferences and Timeless Seeds field days. For agrarians of his generation, the industrial present was doubly out of step—with both their remembered yesterdays and their intended tomorrows.
    Suspended in a late-twentieth-century no-man’s-land of corporate greed, people like Dave Oien and Russ Salisbury had to dig underneath the shallow traditions of modern agribusiness, to findricher soil in which to root their visions for a workable rural society. But they didn’t have to dig far. As Russ regaled fresh-faced hippies with his childhood lessons from the Farmers Union, and Dave roped his dad into planting black medic, unruly young radicals discovered common ground with the stubborn old-timers who’d preceded them. Together, they defined themselves as a community, united by a shared inheritance and a shared future that were inseparable. This was perhaps the true meaning of the name “Timeless Seeds.” Plants were their tools, but what these farmers were really trying to establish was a more stable collective legacy. Instead of focusing on quarterly profits, they poured the lion’s share of their time and energy into building AERO’s sustainable agriculture “information clearinghouse,” which replaced the logic of trade secrets with the maxim of sharing what you learned. Legislation. Education. Cooperation. And, of course, plenty ofperspiration.

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    BOOTLEG RESEARCH AND FARMER SCIENCE

    December 7, 1988, was a bone-chilling day even for the Judith Basin. The AERO staffers who had organized Montana’s first Soil-Building Cropping Systems Conference nervously eyed the too-big-looking stacks of programs they had spent weeks preparing, worrying no one would show. The roads were coated with ice, and the spitting snow made it hard to see more than a few feet ahead. Nonetheless, more than 200 producers and researchers chained up their trucks and drove over to the Yogo Inn in downtown Lewistown. It was the height of the farm crisis, and people were hungry for answers.
    The conference promised a stellar lineup of agronomists, crop breeders, microbiologists, and distributors from as far away as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. David Oien and Bud Barta were on the agenda, and Jim Barngrover was handing out information about Timeless Seeds. But the real attraction was neither the out-of-town hotshots nor the Timeless farmers. Rather, the star of this show was Dave’s research partner in his new venture, the chain-smoking soil chemist who had painstakingly bred black medic by propagating seeds collected from wild plants. After twenty-two years of experimentation, Jim Sims was ready to debut this new cropping system, and all eyes were on him. The lone credentialedexpert willing to cooperate with Dave and the other sustainable agriculturalists, Jim assured