Meet our Staff: BCCF manager Christine Harris talks heirloom crops

Few plant species have richer histories, or a greater ability to forge connections, than the ones we eat. As we ease into the holiday season, many people start thinking about the history behind their food more than they normally would: the origins of a family recipe, or the narrative behind a favorite traditional dish.   

 For Christine Harris, the manager of OSGF’s Biocultural Conservation Farm (BCCF), exploring the stories surrounding food lies at the heart of her work year-round. The BCCF has only been established since May, but the farm has already made enormous strides in its mission to grow, conserve, and share ecologically-grown, heirloom crops: as of November, the farm has produced over 5,000 pounds of produce to use in OSGF’s kitchens and donate to local food banks, and has connected with many other Appalachian growers and seed-savers engaged in similar work.    

 In celebration of the upcoming food-centric holiday season - and the BCCF’s bountiful autumn harvest - we sat down with Christine to chat about the farm’s projects and goals for the future, as well as the importance of thinking about what you eat.  

You worked at several local farms and sustainable agriculture projects before coming to OSGF.  How did you first get interested in farming? 

Christine: I did my undergrad at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, and my original intention going into school was that I'd study biology and go into wildlife veterinary medicine. But the first week that I was there, I went to this environmental sustainability student run group called the Green Patriots. . . during that meeting, another fellow student who turned out to be a good friend for the rest of the few years said, “if you're really interested in sustainability you should check out the student run organic garden on campus.” So I went to the very next day to some volunteer hours, and everything went uphill from there! . . .They threw me into a huge pile of tomatoes that desperately needed trellising, and I didn't even know what trellising was, and they were just like, have at it! They were these little bright red cherry tomatoes, and I'd hated tomatoes growing up, because my family didn't really source super fresh food. And so, that was the first time that I'd had a fresh tomato off the vine, and I was just popping them like candy. I thought, “There's really something to this, and something going on here that I don't understand, but I am interested in.”  

Just a few of the crops grown by the BCCF this year.

Part of the BCCF’s mission is crop conservation. How is it conserving these heirloom crops? 

Christine:     For the farm, the main goals are food production, education, conservation, and innovation. . . as far as conservation, we really want to have a focus on Appalachian as well as Virginia piedmont heirloom varieties of vegetables, and while that's not going to be the sole focus of the farm, we it to be a heavy theme. So through that, we will be doing some seed saving, and it's going to take research on our end and reaching out to community members to see what plants could use a little bit of help and seed saving.  We see the farm as being a good opportunity to trial new varieties, or trial heirloom varieties that maybe haven't been grown for a long time. 

      One other interesting project is connecting with people who have been saving seeds in this immediate area for a long time. We've already connected with one woman from the area whose family has been saving seeds since the 1700s, so she came here and brought a variety of tomatoes and beans and sorghum . . . With these heirloom varieties of crops, if you have the seed but don't have the stories that go along with the seed, what's the point of growing it?

Christine harvests kale with one of OSGF’s Fall Artists in Residence.

We hear a lot about the importance of eating nutritious food, but why is it also important for people to think about the history and culture behind their food? 

Christine: I think the way our food system has been shaped over the past 50, 60 years, it's really created this disconnect with people and our food, and not just where our food comes from and not just who grew it and who harvested it, and under what environmental and social circumstances. 

    You know, you walk into a grocery store, you see a red bell pepper, a green pepper, this one fat red tomato that actually tastes like cardboard, and we've really lost a connection with the 1000s of different varieties of these crops that are grown all over the world and even in our small regions. Many people were growing crops with their families on small farms and selling them off for hundreds of years, so each one of those seeds has created different stories. And it didn't just start with those farmers, but with the indigenous people who were here before us, or maybe (a seed) traveled over from Europe or Africa on the slave ships that came over.

 So all of these foods have deep histories, and in this food system that's been created we lose all of that when we just walk in and expect to see xyz crop available in the grocery store all times of the year . . . there's no narrative behind food and where it's really coming from. I think we lose that richness in our institutionalized food system. 

How has the BCCF been connecting with communities, and sharing such stories?

Christine and Luis Salazar of the Crop Trust check out some candy roaster squash at the beginning of the #CropsinColor Appalachia campaign this summer.

Christine: We're still building up those relationships, but as far as the food production and sharing of that production, we have been donating food to 7 Loaves Food Services in Middleburg, VA - they support people who are in need of food in Middleburg and surrounding areas, and what's cool about them is that they don't do an income check - if you need food, they have an open door policy, which is really great. We've been working with them since July. We have also taken one or two loads to Fauquier Food Bank in Warrenton, Va.  . . those are the two food banks we've been working with and we're hoping to expand, and so far since mid-July we've donated over 2500 lbs of produce. 

We’ve also been working with The Crop Trust a little bit, we went with them on their Crops in Color tour with Luis Salazar  - they started the tour here at Oak Spring, and then we joined him to go to the Heritage Harvest Festival in Monticello, and we also toured the Acorn Community at Southern Seed Exchange, which is an amazing seed company based here in Mineral, VA, and we've gotten most of our seeds from them . . . we also went down to Tennessee to meet (seed savers) Bill Best, and John Coykendall for Blackberry Farm, them we went over to  Asheville, NC, and we met Jim Veteto from Western Carolina University. The whole point of the tour was to highlight Appalachian food crops, specifically tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, corns, and squash.    

Looking for a tasty new recipe to try this holiday season, that is inspired by Native American crops and growing techniques? Try this Three Sisters (corn, bean, and squash) recipe from BCCF farmer Bailee Hopkins-Hensley. Bailee also recommends this Three Sisters Bowl from Sean Sherman, the Sioux Chef.

Thanksgiving is coming up, a holiday centered around both food and history. How can people celebrate in a conscientious way?   

Christine: First and foremost, acknowledging the harmful and socially irresponsible narrative that has been behind Thanksgiving as a holiday for so many years - just acknowledging where that true holiday comes from . . . having discussions with your family and friends and talking about the origins of Thanksgiving, and the fact that a lot of the foods we eat today have roots in Native American or indigenous foodways. The Europeans, through colonization learned a lot of these ways of growing and gardening techniques from Native Americans, unfortunately at the expense of Native Americans. One that a lot of people are familiar with is the Three Sisters growing technique - corn, beans and squash. 

You could also switch up the Thanksgiving feast a little bit and do a dish with corn, beans and squash, and it could be kind of fun not to just to go to the grocery store, but seek out some heirloom varieties . . . It could also be educational, if you have kids in the family, and if you have a garden space, to plant those varieties, and then maybe next Thanksgiving being able to harvest them and have them at that dinner table, just to share that narrative around the holidays. Another easy thing is supporting your local farmers markets. With knowing where your food comes from and supporting your local farmers, a little goes a long way.  

What’s next for the BCCF?   

Christine: There is a lot of opportunity at the BCCF, and we've very excited for what plans we have in the future, and also as we grow and connect more with the community. We're really excited about the seed saving aspect, and we will also be doing some agroforestry projects with (Head of Project Management and Planning TJ Sherman) and others here at Oak Spring - so that’s going to be very interesting, and also ties very nicely with Appalachian, Virginia Piedmont, and indigenous peoples’ food ways, because perennial crop systems have always been there, except for the last 100 years. 

Interested in learning more about crop diversity in Appalachia? Christine recommends this publication, edited by Jim Veteto and Gary Nabhan.

Something I'm also very excited about, is that we have these old glass greenhouses that were built in the 1930s ... in one of the greenhouses we'll be able to do year round heating and cooling food production, so it's loaded with salad greens and radishes and carrots right now. It’ll be really fun to experiment in there, and that work could produce a lot of research and outlooks for how to grow food in these spaces for other people that have them on their properties. There's a lot going on, and we're excited about all of it! 

Want to learn more about the BCCF? Visit https://www.osgf.org/bccf.

Cover photo image credit: Luis Salazar