HMDC Randolph “Morphed”

Overview

You are an HM practitioner, and for the past seven years, the owner-manager of a successful CSA. Your farm is located in the same county where the controversy over Dr. Randolph's proposed hog feedlot (described in "A Tale of Two Permits Decision Case") has generated considerable public anxiety, anger, resentment, and confusion.

The issues raised in this debate include the feedlot's environmental impact (odor and water pollution), its economic effects on county farmers and businesses, and a host of personal issues. More than fifty county farmers and many citizens of the nearby town have joined the discussion to express concerns about how the feedlot will change their lives. The County Planning Commission has presided over two noisy and highly charged special hearings and is preparing to make its decision whether or not to approve Randolph's feedlot at what will surely be its largest and most controversial Commission meeting in years.

The county does not have a comprehensive plan that defines the kind of future (environmental, social, or economic) the citizenry wants for its community. The Commissioner's decision whether or not to approve this feedlot will be based on the County Ordinance on Conditional Use Permits (Exhibit C), and how they interpret what "normal and orderly" development in the county should be. The resourses available to citizens (or to Randolph) who object to the Commissioners' decisions are to go to the courts, or to campaign for the election of new commissioners.

Decision #1

As someone familiar with holistic decision making, you recognize that the Randolph case is symptomatic of fragmented short term thinking and a process that does not start with what people want their futures to be.

You understand that the county's lack of a comprehensive plan goes hand-in-hand with a political process that does not seek, articulate, and implement what the majority of the county's citizens want.

Joining the fray—showing up at a noisy planning board meeting to protest against Randolph, may alienate the Commissioners, endorse the current process, and harden the positions on all sides. Organizing a citizens' revolt against the current Commissioners might only serve to further polarize the community and use up needed creativity and energy that could be put into finding common ground, real understanding and long term solutions.

Show how you test these decisions:

A. Should I join the fray?

B. Should I organize a revolt?

Decision #2

The Planning Commission has met and approved Randolph's feedlot permit. But the controversy has not subsided.

A group of concerned citizens have been meeting to discuss how to plan and organize a countywide forum that will involve as many people as possible in formulating a description of the kind of county the majority of citizens want for their futures.

Four members of this committee have been members of your CSA since it began. They are familiar with your HG, understand their roles in your WUM, and would like to apply the HM Framework in the design and implementation of this countywide forum.

They approach you to ask for your help and support.

Show how you test your decision to say yes or no to them.

Resources for the Morphed Randolph HMDC

Teaching Note

Purpose: This is an experimental HMDC to explore relationships between on- and off-farm decisions. It involves testing two decisions and examining whether or not the testing process might help clarify/teach the use of the HM decision making framework.

The decisions to test are designed to encourage an exploration of the Whole Under Management and one's Holistic Goal in general; and, more specifically, the Resources in the Whole Under Management and the Future Resource Base in the Holistic Goal.

Lesson Plan: The Randolph Case will be presented to the full group as the background, the local controversy that triggers the two decisions our CSA owner-operator will face.

The group divides into teams to:

1. Review the attached excerpts from the decision maker's Whole Under Management and Holistic Goal statements,

2. Test the two decisions towards the Holistic Goal ; and,

3. Give feedback on whether or not, in their discussions, the testing process provided an opportunity to review, clarify, or suggest changing / expanding the decision maker's Holistic Goal, Whole Under Management, Forms of Production, and/or Future Resource Base.

Report on the Process:

In the course of testing these two decisions did your team find them to be helpful as a way of reviewing and clarifying the decision maker's Holistic Goal, Whole Under Management, Forms of Production, and/or Future Resource base?

If so, how, please give a brief example? And would it be useful to include an "off-farm" decision case such as this one in the White Eagle package of cases?

Excerpts from Your CSA's Whole and Goal Statements

Whole Under Management:

Your Whole Under Management includes CSA members as resources. It does not include the county's citizenry, however does include the "community.

FROM: Quality of Life

• To be engaged in meaningful work for the rest of our lives.

• To be financially secure.

• To explore and experience wild places and to ensure those places will still be there when our grandchildren's grandchildren see to find them. (Modified from Savory & Butterfield)

to live in an environment where the land, water, air and social systems are increasingly healthy

FROM: Forms of Production

• Organically managed CSA farm as self-sufficient s possible, producing year-round supply of the most-alive-possible fresh and stored vegetables for 200 families with maximum participation. (Modified from examples in Whole Farm Planning: Ecological Imperatives, Personal Values and Economics, Henderson and North, NOFA. 2004)

note - in the above forms of production - the group may decide that this is too specific - as in the teaching of HM we learn not to lock ourselves into this detailed of a form of production -

here are four points that address the three items in the quality of life

profit from meaningful work

finances that addresses our long term needs

time to explore and experience wild places

time to learn and engage with others in activities that helps insure the health of the land, water, air, and social systems

FROM: Future Resource Base

• Loyal CSA members who view this farm as honest, reliable, producing the best quality fresh and stored foods. (Modified from Savory & Butterfield)

• A community that supports and promotes sustainable food and agricultural systems (Modified from Ikerd on Hog Farms)

• We are known for being good stewards of natural and human resources and for helping others as they seek to insure the overall health of the land, water, air and social systems.