Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Mark Ritchie is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minneapolis, Minn., which works to keep family farmers on the land. He also serves as national co-chair of Sustainable America and director of the International Forum on Food and Agriculture, and is on the boards of Mothers and Others, Libraries for the Future, Organic Growers and Buyers Association, and the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture.

Yesterday was incredible! I started out the day up on the water tower at the Giant City State Park campground in southern Illinois, watching the sunrise over the crimson and gold Shawnee National Forest. We drove up a series of back roads, through old French settlements and tiny rural villages to a spot near Cape Girardeau where we met the organizers of an innovative forestry project. Soybean and corn farms in floodplains are being converted into cottonwood plantations for fine papermaking. There are a number of interesting ecological benefits, but most importantly it looks like this could be a much more stable and remunerative form of agriculture for many of the hard-hit producers in the area.

We looked at converted cropland out in the Mississippi, near the confluence with the Ohio River, and talked about ways that small farmers could get the capital they need to convert from money-losing row cropping to profitable agroforestry. There are many questions that remain to be investigated with an approach like this, but the farm crisis is getting worse each week. I am open to looking at a very wide range of alternatives and options that satisfy our commitment to economic, social, and ecological sustainability.

After a full morning of looking at these projects, we headed up the Mississippi River toward St. Louis, with stops along the way to look at historical sites, like the reconstructed Fort de Chartes. There are many absolutely beautiful little towns along the way, including Chester, Waterloo, and Kaskaskia, the first capital of Illinois. Along the same route, however, there are also several ghost towns where the flood wiped out almost everyone. Driving along the bluffs with the river on one side and beautiful fall leaves on the other was a fantastic way to enjoy the mad dash back to the airport.

Fortunately, I missed my plane, so we had a chance to visit historic St. Charles, the first capital of Missouri and a wonderful riverfront town. Fortunately, there was a later flight, so I still got home to my own bed last night.

Today will be fun. IATP helped organize a meeting of biotech activists from around the world last week that ended up being the subject of a long and most favorable article in the Wall Street Journal. I have a stack of media calls to return, most of which I assume were generated by the article.

We are in the midst of final preparations for the World Trade Organization ministerial conference coming up soon in Seattle, so every few days we are having meetings among the dozen or so staff that will be participating. This morning we will be getting a report from our staff out in Seattle and then planning ways to fit all of the wonderful meetings and events that everyone wants to organize in Seattle into the limited amount of time that is available. Instead of working so hard to clone Mother Nature, some of the soon-to-be-unemployed genetic engineers might want to try cloning Father Time!

Later today I will be meeting with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association to discuss alternative farm policies that can boost farm income while protecting the environment, having lunch with an old friend about to leave for Romania to work in the U.S. embassy, and then meeting the parents of one of my colleagues. I have to chair a Sustainable America board meeting phone call around mid-day and should return a pile of phone calls, but it should be reasonably sane. I like these kinds of days -- when I am not traveling, when I am doing some serious planning and taking time to keep up with the lives of my friends and colleagues.

Tomorrow, however, will not be like today. At 5:45 a.m. I head off to Ohio where I will be meeting with two different watershed organizations trying to see what they can do to simultaneously address the farm crisis and the water-quality problems they are facing. My plan is to be done by the end of the day so I can fly home for the weekend, but I will just have to see how it goes! I am sure it will be stimulating, but not nearly as relaxing as today.