Out of the ark and into the world - New Alchemy Institute

Whole Earth Review, Spring, 1989 by John Quinney

IN 1969, JOHN TODD, Nancy jack Todd and Bill McLarney founded the New Alchemy Institute in San Diego, California. The organization's purpose was "to restore the lands, protect the seas and inform the earth's stewards." Over the years our research and education programs have included fish farming and hydroponics, solar greenhouse design and management (especially that based on our 2,000-square-foot bioshelter, the Cape Cod Ark), windmill design, energy conservation, energy-efficient building design, tree crops, organic gardening, integrated pest management and composting. This year, the New Alchemy Institute will celebrate twenty years' work on behalf of an ecological future. The highlight will be our annual Harvest Festival on September 16, 1989, with Francis Moore Lappe, and the accompanying celebration featuring hordes of ex-staff, interns, volunteers and friends. It should be quite a day.

Over the past twenty years, we have seen many environmental organizations come and go. Public support for ecological work has been strong at times, absent at others. The fields of sustainable agriculture, solar design, wind power and other appropriate technologies have changed dramatically. The amount of knowledge and experience now available is astounding compared with that of twenty years ago. Through it all, the New Alchemy Institute has survived, precariously at times, successfully at others. We have also changed, often testing the fuzzy line between ecological idealism and economic pragmatism. Throughout it all, we have grown and matured.

Things got really bad here in 1983-1984. Federal budget cuts were coming through, foundation money was very difficult to find and our budget dropped from $600,000 to less than $300,000. We were all being paid a fraction of our abysmally low salaries. At that time, a far-sighted foundation officer offered to provide partial funding to hire consultants to help us evaluate the past and restructure the organization. We accepted the offer. The subsequent process took a year or so. It was very, very difficult. The main results were an Institute structure that was less consensual and more hierarchical, and a narrowed agenda in research and education. Around this time, we also completed a Master Plan to reflect these priorities and to guide the development of our 12-acre Cape Cod site.

Four years later, our budget has increased to nearly $600,000 (of which $130,000 comes from earned income) and our work has changed in ways not always foreseen. Now, we often work outside the Institute - in commercial greenhouses, on farms, in schools and with state agencies. We are facing the next set of challenges: establishing ecological values within the commercial context. To be successful, we must cooperate with organizations and individuals who share some of our values but are constrained by the need to make a profit, to satisfy public opinion or to meet customer expectations. Looking back, we see that demonstrating ecological ideals within the environment of a nonprofit research and education organization was comparatively easy. The problems to be overcome were biological and technical, not economic. Unlike commercial growers, we don't have to make our living directly from our greenhouses, fish ponds, market gardens or leaf piles.

The title for this essay comes from a fundraising letter describing our experience with a small aphid predator, Aphidoletes aphidimyza, the gall midge. We first met these creatures in the Cape Cod Ark, where we observed them devouring plant-eating aphids. After further research and consultations with other Aphidoletes buffs, we began using them in commercial greenhouses as part of a state-funded program to reduce pesticide use in Massachusetts agriculture 25 percent by 1990. In late 1988, Colleen Armstrong, our greenhouse manager and research entomologist, was working with three commercial greenhouse growers on about 15,000 square feet of chrysanthemum crops. Her goal is to reduce pesticide use as much as possible while still producing marketable crops at a profit. In one greenhouse, she has reduced pesticide applications 75 percent; in the other she has been able only to replace the highly toxic pesticide, Temik, with some gentler compounds. In some instances, Aphidoletes and other biological controls performed well; in others they were less successful. Several more trials are planned this year. With each trial, we gain more experience on integrating biological and chemical controls with growers' requirements and resources. By the end of the year, we should have reduced pesticide use by an average of 50 percent on our crops. While this is significant, from our perspective it is only a partial success. Our long-range goal is to eliminate pesticide use entirely. We recognize, however, that the process is incremental, and will be complete only after many years' work.

In other agricultural work, we are closely involved with New England farmers, both conventional growers and those practicing sustainable agriculture. We have spoken at conferences on the same agenda as fertilizer salesmen and pesticide pushers; we have spoken to the converted. We have interested some conventional growers in our research and we have hosted field days on organic farms in Massachusetts.