Sarah Simpson - Uprisings: A Hands-On Guide to the Community Grain Revolution

PRAISE FOR

Uprisings

Uprisings is a wonderful title for a wonderful book. Sarah Simpson and Heather McLeod do a great job of telling the story of the community grain revolution that is spreading across North America. They show how each uprising is helping to build a more sustainable agriculture that is all about community resilience and local food security. Their hands-on instructions for growing your own grains is very informative and well-researched. Uprisings provides lots of loaves of inspiration and knowledge to enable you and your community to join the revival of small-scale grain production.

Dan Jason, Salt Spring Seeds

For those of us who are convinced that food independence is the key to preserving personal freedom as well as political and economic freedom, Uprisings is an extremely important book about the cultural and economic situation society faces today. It chroncles the first courageous steps toward food independence in growing grains and processing them locally into good food for humans. It describes in detail both the startup successes and sometimes failures in this effort and in the second part, gives excellent instruction in how to grow and process grains. Together, the two parts deliver a clear writing on the wall of how society can (and must) decentralize food production and thwart the dangerous monopolies that now threaten the food market.

Gene Logsdon, author, The Eternal Garden

In Uprisings, McLeod and Simpson reveal not only their passion for locally grown food, and in particular grains, but a compelling case for home gardeners to think of grain crops as they do traditional garden vegetables. This book is filled with meticulously researched case histories that will prove invaluable to any smaller-scale farmer of grains. The authors manage to demystify these most basic of food crops with elegant descriptions and clear instructions. They provide a plan for all of us, from backyard gardeners to small organic growers, to discover for ourselves free and sustainable access to a commodity that industry might normally remove from our reach. In Uprisings, a new standard has been set on the topic of growing, harvesting, and processing grains, and the Field-to-Table movement is stronger because of this book.

Mark Macdonald, West Coast Seeds

Weve lost our way with raising grains, and Uprisings has come to put us back on the path to good health and honest self-sufficiency. With this book, Simpson and McLeod have gifted the reader with a tool chest of skills for resiliency and self-reliance that runs the gamut from the basics of heirloom grains to the value of community...with a wealth of solid how-to for small-scale local grain production in between.

Richard Freudenberger, publisher, BackHome magazine, and author, Alcohol Fuel: Making and Using Ethanol as a Renewable Fuel

Uprisings

A HANDS-ON GUIDE TO THE

COMMUNITY GRAIN REVOLUTION

Sarah Simpson & Heather McLeod

Copyright 2013 by Sarah Simpson and Heather McLeod.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

istock : Hands (Angie Photos) Wheat (small-frog) Borders Ulimi

First printing September 2013

New Society Publishers acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-86571-734-3 eISBN: 978-1-55092-542-5

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Uprisings should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)

1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. The interior pages of our bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council-registered acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled (100% old growth forest-free), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC inks, with covers produced using FSC-registered stock. New Society also works to reduce its carbon footprint, and purchases carbon offsets based on an annual audit to ensure a carbon neutral footprint. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at: www.newsociety.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Simpson, Sarah, 1978-, author

Uprisings : a hands-on guide to the community grain revolution / Sarah Simpson & Heather McLeod.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-86571-734-3 (pbk.)

1. Flour mills--Canada. 2. Flour mills--United States. 3. Farms, Small--Canada. 4. Farms, Small--United States. 5. Grain--Canada. 6. Grain--United States. 7. Bread. 8. Food security. I. McLeod, Heather, 1980-, author II. Title.

SB189.S54 2013 633.1 C2013-903594-X

Contents

O UR THANKS GO FIRST TO THE MANY INDIVIDUALS across North America who generously shared their tales of revolution with us, and who are now quoted in these pages. We hope their stories will inspire a new wave of uprisings.

We share our appreciation and admiration for contrary farmer Gene Logsdon and seed guru Dan Jason, who have been spreading the gospel of small-scale grain production for generations and instigating revolutions in countless communities. Without them, Island Grains would never have been born and we would not have had the opportunity to write this book.

For revolution to succeed, a community must come together. We thank our fellow grainies, who made Island Grains such a wonderful experience and left us wanting more. We thank our husbands, Kevin and Brock, for their encouragement and honest feedback on draft after draft. Were grateful to Maeve Maguire for her brilliant insights on the early chapters, Laura Floyd for coming to the rescue with her adept research skills and Barbara Graves for extolling the virtues of sticktoitiveness.

We will always count our blessings for Heather Nicholas of New Society Publishers. Heather saw a need for this book before we did, and helped us earn the opportunity to write it. We sincerely thank everyone at NSP for their enthusiasm and patience.

Finally, we thank everyone who has ever planted a kernel of grain, milled local wheat into flour, baked or eaten real bread and so furthered the cause.