ISSN 2167-0447
International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN 2167-0447 Vol. 5 (5), pp. 796-806, July, 2015. © International Scholars Journals
Interview
How to cultivate an ecological farmer
Department of Agriculture and Food Technology, Florida State University, USA.
Damian Nathaniel
Accepted 22 March, 2014
INTRODUCTION
The 2012 Quivira Coalition conference was my second. I had come the year before to hear the likes of Christine Jones, Doug Weatherbee, Greg Judy, Sara Scherr, and David Montgomery; I came back to hear Allan Savory, Gabe Brown, Jill Clapperton and a group of other amazing speakers in 2012.
At this second conference, I noticed that one wiry, gravel-voiced woman shot up her hand after every speaker. She asked questions -- tough questions! -- or commented on their speech, and I could see that whoever was at the dais took the audience a little more seriously because she was there. I learned from her as well as from the scheduled speakers.
Luane Todd is simply a dynamo of agricultural wisdom and enthusiasm. She was a Texas city girl whose husband convinced her to move to a rundown Ozarks ranch to raise cattle in 1975. By the time he left 11 years later, she had fallen in love with the place – with the rolling wooded hills, the rhythms of nature, the animals and the promise of the grassland. She knew that if she was going to run the ranch successfully by herself, she had to find a better approach than that urged by the ag experts – a costly combination of tillage, seed and chemical purchases, and visits from the vet. Todd became an ecological pioneer, figuring out how to work with nature so that her land, animals, and cash flow thrived.
Now retired, she reads extensively and travels to conferences to build upon her own hard-won wisdom and pass it on to the next generation of farmers and ranchers.