The Sacred Predator Pyramid Scheme

Another relationship in Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer between Deanna, a forest service worker living in the middle of a preserve, and Eddie, a young man hunting coyotes who becomes her lover, centers on their mutual love of nature but their conflicting perspectives on predators, coyotes in particular. Eddie comes from a family of sheep ranchers out west who see predators as the enemy, while Deanna sees coyotes and other predators as keystone species that hold the ecosystem together.

“And what rule of the world says it’s a sin to kill a predator?”

“Simple math…One mosquito can make a bat happy for, what, fifteen seconds before it starts looking for another one? But one bat might eat two hundred mosquitoes in a night. Figure it out, where’s the gold standard here? Who has a bigger influence on other lives”(179)

Small and medium size ranchers and farmers across the U.S. are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Predators like coyotes account for a small percentage of livestock deaths, but they are a good scapegoat for people frustrated with their economic situation. It’s much more difficult to deal with institutions like the USDA and policies that create such slim margins for farmers and ranchers. It must be satisfying to find a coyote or wolf in the sight of a rifle and feel like you have some control over your own life and problems.

Unfortunately, the reality is that the loss of predators causes many more problems than it solves. Deanna puts it this way concerning a turkey that Eddie kills for their dinner.

“Oh, gosh, there’s gaggles of [turkeys] walking around this hollow. A turkey lays fourteen eggs without half thinking about it. If something gets one of her babies she might not quite notice. If a fox gets the whole nest, she’ll go bat her eyes at a tom and plunk out fourteen more eggs…But still turkeys are scarce compared to their prey. Grubs and things, there’s millions of them. It’s like a pyramid scheme…The life of a carnivore is the most expensive item in the pyramid, that’s the thing. In the case of a coyote, or a big cat, the mother spends a whole year raising her young…She’s lucky if even one of her kids makes it through. If something gets him, there goes that mama’s whole year of work down the drain…If you shoot him, Eddie, that’s what you’ve taken down. A big chunk of his mother’s whole life chance at replacing herself. And you’ve let loose an extra thousand rodents on the world that he would have eaten. It’s not just one life.” (319-20)

Usually we think negatively about pyramid schemes. They stand for something that benefits a few elite at the top and depends on the oppression of the masses at the bottom. In the case of an ecosystem, however, the pyramid scheme serves to create stability. The billions of microbes feed millions of insects which feed larger animals and on up the chain. When we reach the top of the pyramid, we find that there is a symbiotic relationship between the predators at the top and all the other species making up the pyramid. When the predator is taken out of the equation, the prey species proliferate and the balance is thrown off as the increased population competes for a dwindling amount of prey species underneath them. This is a pyramid scheme in which everyone benefits from the arrangement.

Eddie and Deanna have an interesting exchange about our cultural perception of predators over their turkey dinner. Deanna says,

“It’s a prey species. It has fallen prey to us. I can deal with that. Predation’s a sacrament, Eddie; it culls out the sick and the old, keeps populations from going through their own roofs. Predation is honorable.“

“That’s not how Little Red Riding Hood tells it,” he said.

“Oh, man, don’t get me started on the subject of childhood brainwash. I hate that. Every fairy story, every Disney movie, every plot with animals in it, the bad guy is always the top carnivore. Wolf, grizzly, anaconda, Tyrannosaurus Rex.“

“Don’t forget Jaws,” he said. (317)

It’s important to recognize that predators like coyotes are really in some sense our competition. We make other arguments about it, but the way we perceive and depict them has a lot to do with the fact that they are the closest thing humans have to competitors for our sources of food. In another passage Deanna argues that we should really relate more closely to these top predators because they are more like us than other animals.

So, predation is both a pyramid scheme and a sacrament. I was a vegetarian for nine years. I don’t take the killing of animals lightly at all, but those who want to argue that human beings should never eat animals have to deal with this basic reality of healthy ecosystems and our place in the ecosystem. There are lots of very good arguments for eating less meat, which have to do with methods of production, environmental costs, etc., but it cannot be argued from nature that we should not eat meat at all. In a healthy ecosystem, I think human beings would be more in touch with their environment by killing and eating some meat. I also think both meat-eaters and vegetarians should be involved in the process of killing and butchering meat at some point to understand what it really means to consume our food. Deanna describes it this way,

“Life and death always right there in your line of sight. Most people lived so far from it, they thought you could just choose, carnivore or vegetarian, without knowing that the chemicals on grain and cotton killed far more butterflies and bees and bluebirds and whippoorwills than the mortal cost of a steak or a leather jacket. Just clearing the land to grow soybeans and corn had killed about everything on half the world. Every cup of coffee equaled one dead songbird in the jungle somewhere, she’d read…”Even if you never touch meat, you’re costing something its blood,” she said. “I know that. Living takes life.” (322-23)

The sustainable food movement would benefit from recognizing this fact and refraining from becoming neo-Pharisees that tell you exactly what to eat. The reality is much more complicated and messy. No one has clean hands when it comes to eating. The more people claim to eat a pure diet, the more it seems they miss the point and are blind to the hypocrisy of the purity of their diets, vegan, vegetarian, macrobiotic or fruititarian. The real revelation, in my mind, is the fact that we are but creatures and not somehow other than creatures, yet we are unique among creatures. As Deanna says, “Living takes life” and there is no way around it.

Revolutionary Road

A phrase has occurred to me over and over again in different contexts and about different things. It is “the way we organize ourselves.” Economics is just that, “the way we organize ourselves,” our societies and systems of governance. “The way we organize ourselves.” What we don’t often recognize is that these are choices we make every day. We can’t simply choose for the world to be other than it is, but we sure as hell choose to go along with it or not.

I watched Revolutionary Road recently and this is what hit me most. We are the choices we make, both collectively and individually. Those who are brave enough to walk the revolutionary road open up new paths and possibilities for us to walk down. The tragedy is that it takes such enormous strength for those who sense something is not quite right to make a break with the flow of culture and society. The pressure to conform and not rock the boat is tremendous.

Why is that some choose to make a break with the mainstream? Why do some take an unconventional path? Who are these deviants, willing to forgo the affirmation of friends and neighbors? There seems to be something just a little off about those who are willing to disturb and discomfort others. Like the prophets willing to eat scrolls, lie naked on their sides or create a spectacle of themselves to shed light on the lunacy of our lives, some of us are unwilling to accept the world as it is simply in order to live the life we’ve been sold.

Our good friend James Nors, who runs a raw milk dairy down the road in Abbott, TX, is one such non-conformist. He doesn’t fit the mold of a punk. He looks more like your typical farmer than anything else. He wears a mesh baseball cap with some tractor logo on it. He grew up as a dairy farmer. It’s in his blood, he’d say. Somewhere along the way he was introduced to the Weston A. Price Foundation and began to wonder if he could make a living as a raw dairy farmer.

People in town thought he was crazy when they found out. He had stepped outside the circle of what was acceptable. When people do that they challenge the status quo and upset the balance that allows everyone else to continue living as if this is the way it is supposed to be. It turns out that he wasn’t the only one that thought “the way we organize ourselves” wasn’t working so well. He now sells raw milk, free range eggs and heritage breed turkeys directly from his farm. Co-ops from Waco and the Dallas/Fort Worth Area pick up milk every other week or once a month. He sells out of everything he produces.

That’s exactly why it didn’t work out for the couple in the movie. They went it alone. Trying to take on on entire culture, system or “way of organizing ourselves” alone is the definition of madness. BUT when you realize that there are others like you, a whole lot of others, suddenly trying to find a new way to organize life together seems, not only possible, but the only sane option in a crazy world.

May you find others to walk with you on your revolutionary road.

Black Farmer History Month

In 1920, blacks owned 14% of the nation’s farms; today, there are only 18,000 black farmers, representing less than 1% of all farms.
-PBS Documentary Homecoming

My name is written on the land.
This is where I came from and this is where I intend to stay.
– Willie Head, Georgia farmer

PBS has a great site for the 1999 documentary Homecoming with lots of information and resources on the history of black farmers in the United States. This is a forgotten story in the history of African-Americans in this country. As we observe Black History Month, we should also remember this important part of the story.

The gradual denial of access to land is part of undermining the sovereignty and resources of the black community. When you have access to land and resources, you are not dependent on the state for your sustenance. Lest we think that black farmers have disappeared altogether, we should remember that they are alive and well and have their own association (National Black Farmers Association). The good folks at the Everything Jesus Ranch defy our stereotypes of African-Americans that continue to plague racial relations in our country.

The NFBA is still involved in lawsuits with the USDA about black farmers being denied loans. There’s a good interview of 10 questions with National Black Farmers President John Boyd Jr. The hunger and poverty in this country continues to disproportionately affect people of color. In Texas only 50% of people eligible for SNAP (food stamp) benefits are signed up. That’s a lot of people with very little income and very low access to food in general, much less good food. Imagine a resurgence of black farmers in both urban and rural areas feeding hungry people and empowering people of color to be the solution to their own problems. There’s a lot of barriers and issues to get from here to there, but we won’t get there unless we imagine it.

“Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice and equality.”
-Malcolm X

Disaster Capitalism in the Bible

Yesterday I preached at Texas Lutheran University’s chapel service. I used what I’ve written before on the story of Joseph’s attempt to deal with famine in Genesis. The sermon might tie together some loose ends and certainly makes a stronger connection between the interpretation of that story and the exploitation of natural disasters today and throughout history. Here’s the sermon:

It’s a familiar story, in more ways than one. We don’t know how his sisters felt about him, but Joseph’s brothers got so fed up with his arrogance that they sold him into slavery. He ended up working for an important official in Pharaoh’s administration. Then an unfortunate encounter with his boss’ wife landed him in jail, where he proved his usefulness to the jailer and became known for interpreting dreams. It was this talent that brought him to the attention of Pharaoh. Pharaoh’s sleep had been tortured by vivid dreams, perhaps nightmares, that troubled and haunted him, emaciated cows eating fat cows, thin and scorched grain consuming healthy grains and an overwhelming sense of foreboding. None of his advisors could satisfy him with their interpretations. So Joseph was brought in from prison and here is his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams,

Food in the Bible: Matthew 13:1-9;18-23

Matthew 13:1-9 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!’

My first thought is that Jesus is describing a really stupid farmer. It’s as if he’s some sort of Johnny Appleseed randomly tossing out seeds as he walks down the road. Farmers don’t do this. They prepare plots of land to put seeds in. I imagine this farmer’s field is the ugliest piece of land you’ve ever seen. It has a path going through the middle of it. There’s rocky ground, a lot of thorns and maybe a little patch of good soil somewhere in a distant corner.

Much of the world probably does farm land that looks like this. I’ve seen pictures of land that a community in El Salvador farms that is “mulched” with rocks. That same field is on the side of a mountain at an incredibly steep incline. In fact, one of the leading causes of death for farmers worldwide is from falling out of their field. It’s hard to understand what that means until you see some of these fields.