Mongolia: Two in One

Posted on December 18, 2011 by marissa

Last year I invested into studying food sustainability and what that meant. I practiced the 100 Mile Diet – eating locally, growing my own food, participating in my local food community and studying global growth, production and systems. Now being in Mongolia, pursuing sustainability is such a drastically different situation.

Mongolia has two worlds.

The first world is the traditional nomadic life.

The nomadic life is a spontaneous example of the 100 Mile Diet and low impact living.

  • Nomadic families reside in gers or tents which consist of zero nails. Only wooden poles, beams and fencing covered with animal felt maintain the structure of the ger.
  • Often three generations of one family resides in one ger, sleeping four, five or even six.
  • The only electricity in the ger is a lightbulb, possibly a TV and nowadays many are equipped with an efficiently used solar panel.
  • There’s no running water, sinks are portable with buckets underneath and water is obtained from a nearby natural source.
  • The stove is wood-burning (also sacred in Mongolian culture) which is occasionally supplemented with a small electric burner.
  • Transportation is dominated by motorcycle these days, but during warm months horseback is still the transportation of choice to go from neighbor to neighbor or to herd animals.
  • In terms of food, nomadic people generally have at least three kinds of livestock which make up the majority of their diet. People who live in the countryside (about 700,000 + of the just over 3 million in population) are usually herders, tending to animals for their livelihood. In Mongolia there are five primary livestock animals: sheep, cow, yak, goat, horse and camel. A typical countryside household has dried meat hanging from the rafters, meat soup or noodles on the stove, and animals on the steppe ready for slaughtering. Wheat, root vegetables, dairy and meat are really all that are required for the standard food repertoire.

  • Homemade noodles are a staple made with wheat and water, rolled into a round circle like pizza dough, quickly cooked atop the steaming stove, then cut into thick strips. Much of Mongolian food isn’t what would typically be deemed as something gourmet. The food isn’t exactly delicate or subtle, spices aren’t widely utilized and diverse ingredients are not in abundance. However, there is something delicious in the freshness and the blatant simplicity of Mongolian food.
  • Byyz are another national favorite. Made of the same simple dough the noodles are made of, the wheat dumplings are filled with cut-up mutton, onion and salt. Usually steamed (although some are boiled) byyz can be found at any small restaurant in both city or countryside. They usually cost less than $.50 each and are eaten in plentitude. Arguably the largest holiday in the country, Tsagaan Sar (White Month), is celebrated by making and eating hundreds and hundreds of byyz.
  • Hyyshyr is another one of the most popular Mongolian foods and is also eaten at a large national holiday –the Nadaam Festival. The dough is the same dough as the rest and the meat is again mutton (the meat of choice in Mongolia is mutton), spiced slightly differently from byyz. Hyyshyr are made by being deep-fried in oil. They resemble crescent-shaped pastries and are fatty and pacifying.
  • In terms of choosing meat, only eating certain cuts of meat isn’t even thought of here. Not one drop of animal is wasted after a slaughtering. Its entire innards are cleaned, placed into a large bowl, boiled and consumed. The rest is dried or frozen to be saved. I’ve seen heart, kidney, intestine, tongue, brain and entire head eaten. Hoorhok is what this cooked meat is called and is made by placing large cuts of meat into a metal bucket together with hot stones and whole potatoes and cooked atop hot coals.
  • From the perspective of 100 Mile Diet concepts, where minimizing carbon footprints and eating locally are the primary concerns, this diet is successful. However, after examining some of the national health survey results from the ministry of nutrition, it’s evident that the typical national diet isn’t delivering what a wholly nutritional diet should be fulfilling. There simply aren’t enough diverse foods to provide with total nutrition. Some of the most prevalent ailments resulting from diet (primarily in young children) include Vitamin D deficiency, stuntedness and anemia. (Information according to the National Survey of 2004).
  • The other aspect besides meat that makes up Mongolian food culture is dairy – dairy of all kinds, in all forms and from all different animals. Cow milk, horse-milk, fermented horse-milk, sheep milk, yak milk, goat milk, yogurt, fermented yogurt, butter, cream, soft and hard cheeses. Dairy is the snack of choice and a corner of the ger is always stocked with bins and buckets of various dairy foods.

  • Vegetables (besides roots vegetables) are few and far between, sometimes absent altogether in the countryside. Mostly imported from China or Russia, the vegetables are relatively high in price and are often found wilted or browned and tightly wrapped in saran – nothing about them screams freshness. Being that Mongolia is traditionally a nomadic culture, which also has extraordinarily severe winters, the education of diverse vegetable cultivation and utilization is missing. Thus the country’s food culture has developed sans vegetables. The demand for vegetables is low and the result is vegetables low in quality and relatively high in price. Fruits are more ubiquitously favored, but are also low in quality and high in price.

Overall the countryside lifestyle is simple, requiring little resources and having a small impact on the surrounding environment. The food culture is also simple – fresh, local, yet extremely limited in diversity.

The second world is the urban life, pointedly the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, which is home to almost half the entire country’s population.

  • With the current economic boom taking place, Ulaanbaatar is a literal example of the growth – being stretched to accomodate the influx of people, politics, infrastructure, and wealth.
  • Even though I’ve written of the traffic in this city more than once, I can’t seem to get past the constant and aggressive traffic here. There are traffic jams 75% of the day. Hummers bumper to bumper, utility vehicles with tinted windows, small Korean cars, broken-down Chinese cars that double as taxis, and buses packed with people – are all stalled on the street regularly. The roads were simply not designed for the amount of cars Ulaanbaatar has today. I know some locals who travel four hours daily in order to get from place to place, not because of the distance, but because of the traffic. Alternatively, the countryside often lacks roads altogether and to get to certain places, driving along hardly existing bumpy dirt roads is the only option.
  • Since the exponential increase of people moving to the city in the past years a ger district has been set up in the outskirts of the city. This is where the traditional Mongolian homes, which to me are partnered with vast expanses of land and wild animals, have made haphazard neighborhoods that seem strangely unnatural in a modern city setting. The ger district homes have sheet metal fencing separating them, dirt streets and holes in the ground for toilets. During the wintertime the city is choked with pollution not only from the intense traffic, but from the copiously burned plastic bottles, rubber tires and other unsuitable fuel.
  • The city doesn’t exactly accomodate the traditional diet of food directly from livestock, but it has many grocery stores and mini marts with almost anything one could want. However, besides the meat, dairy, some cereal grains and root vegetables, all of the food is imported.
  • In the grocery stores, much of the produce available on the shelves is plastic-wrapped on styrofoam boards and almost all of it is either old or unripe, and what grocery stores in the west would probably deem as unsellable.

The culture in the city is stepping towards modern day city, yet is growing so quickly that resources and infrastructure systems are struggling to keep up and find sustainable solutions…

Although I’ve experienced intense contrasts before, there is something dramatic about the contrast of Mongolia’s traditional nomadic life and its urban life, particularly in terms of its traditional and developing food system.

In one hour one can go from being at the edge of nature’s purity, an untouched world where it seems man has never marred, where breakfast is milked moments before drinking it and dinner is noodles cut the moment before they’re cooked.

To…

An overwhelming city clogged with traffic, pollution and debris where there is hardly a reminder that green grass grows; where a juxtaposition of a Louis Vuitton store, mall complexes and designer imports are ostentatiously displayed and yet where most of its inhabitants live on $1.25/day; where regular food is becoming what’s intensely preserved, frozen beneath layers of plastic and where fresh and local food is harder to come by.

Today Mongolia’s culture contains two in one.

Working to preserve and progress both traditional countryside and urban cultures will be dominated by education and the practice of integrating ideas for countryside life with ideas for urban life. Only by acknowledging that each culture both depends and affects each other, will real and lasting solutions be obtainable for both – and for all of Mongolia.

Posted in 100 Mile Diet, Farming, Food, Global Awareness, Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

The Ger

Posted on December 17, 2011 by marissa

At first glance, Mongolia’s capital city isn’t easy to grasp. Constantly crowded roads, no traffic rules abided by, dirty buildings and haphazardly hung store signs – the city feels half apocalyptic European and half developing-world Asian.

The countryside culture on the other hand is extraordinarily unique and more graspable. It’s simple – where animals and vast landscape outnumber people by a large proportion. It’s where infrastructure is practically non-existent. It’s where cutting wood is still a necessary activity in order to eat.

And this lifestyle takes place within and around a small structure.

The ger.

The Mongolian ger is the epitome of a natural, albeit rustic home. The dome-shaped structure is without a foundation except the ground beneath it, and is utilized out of wood and animal felt, there isn’t a metal nail or bolt used in the entirety of the structure.

The skeleton is made up of a wooden lattice-fence that determines the circumference of the ger (most regular-sized gers have eight sides to them). The top of the lattice-fence supports the long poles that come together at the top to form the ger’s ceiling. Layers of sheep and yak felt are then placed atop the wooden supports (in the wintertime there are more layers and in the summertime less). Finally a layer of thick white cotton is lain on top and secured by belts buckled horizontally.

The interior of the ger is something literally and symbolically sacred to the Mongolian culture. There are many customs intertwined with the ger – from the way that the interior is set up to how to interact and behave inside.

There are a few items always found within a ger. The stove, which is the heart and soul of the ger. Small, low and wood-burning – tea, soup, meat, homemade noodles, dumplings, fried cookies – everything is made on top of the ger’s stove.

The beds of the ger are sided up against the walls. And there is also almost always a shrine with small paintings, statues, incence and offerings along the back wall.

Hanging on the walls of the ger are often carpets that double as both insulation and decoration. Traditionally the furniture – small tables, cabinets and stools are orange in color and have colorful and swirling painting.

Today gers are often equipped with modern amenities such as satellite TVs, solar panels, sound systems and more, but there are still many gers in the countryside that make one feel as though they’re living in a different world…a different time.

The ger to me feels something as sacred as a temple. Something about the round space, the light from the top round window and the poles arching upward all makes the structure feel safe and awe-inspiring at the same time.

The culture of the ger is as unique as its physical components. In the countryside, knocking on a ger isn’t necessary. Anyone can enter someone’s home freely and will be offered whatever food the home has on hand. Guests will also be offered a seat according to their sex and status, with younger and less honored guests sitting lower and nearer the door and highly honored guests shown to the north back of the ger where they can sit where it’s warmest.

When entering a ger, in addition to not knocking, one never steps on the threshold, as it’s a sign of disrespect. Other different and equally interesting cultural rituals are practiced, such as how to receive tea, how to drink vodka and more that I have yet to learn.

Another aspect of ger culture that intrigues me is the intimacy of living in a single room with an entire family. Sans bathroom, I asked one of my friends how individuals shower in the winter. He laughed and responded that it’s an interesting situation. If people want privacy they will request other members to exit the ger, boil water and have a makeshift bath. Other families have two gers, one where they live and sleep and another smaller ger where they store belongings and sometimes have a stove or tub. In the summertime these days small solar showers are often used.

Some friends in the city have remarked to me about the inconvenient lack of privacy within the ger and I understand their perspective. Living in a single room with everyone, sometimes in harsh climate conditions, can certainly inspire stir-craziness. However, the only thing I’ve perceived first-hand about family life in the countryside is how naturally close family members are with each other. Babies are passed around and cared for by everyone and a dedication to serving one another seems to be constantly prevalent (no matter what time of day or night).

Today in the city of Ulaanbaatar, a significant portion of its million and a half residents live in the ger districts which make up the outskirts of the city. The gers in the city have a different feel about them. No grass, no animals and often crowded into a very small space. Gers in the city lack the countryside aspects that in my opinion are pre-requisites to the beauty of the ger.

There’s a feeling of freedom one gets seeing a lone structure sitting nestled under a mountain, smoke puffing out of the slim chimney, horses grazing nearby, a decorated motorcycle parked in front. All of these aspects of Mongolian culture are exuded and encompassed within this small structure.

Overall it’s the simplicity of the ger which creates such a bold lifestyle that impresses me most. Today the gers don’t stand for the nomadic lifestyle the way they did years ago when families would pack up their lives seasonally and move from one location to the next.

However, the ger still expresses the essence of Mongolian culture – something both strong yet pliable, simple yet unique.

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Mongolia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Light: Current Projects and Future Goals

Posted on August 24, 2011 by marissa

Being an enthusiastic proponent of small-scale gardening, organic local vegetables and community farmer’s markets has made for a very interesting foray into the barely extant crop agriculture of Mongolia.

Abundant livestock farming, undeveloped land, diets of meat, flour and dairy – this is what Mongolia’s agriculture is all about.

Today agriculture constitutes about 20% of Mongolia’s GDP and employs over 42% of the work force. A majority of the jobs outside of the city are correlated to livestock farming and animal husbandry (meat, wool, cashmere, leather). The national meat consumption includes (in order of quantity): mutton, cattle, goat, camel and horse.

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with Enkhbayar Sundui, the government’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Light. During our meeting the Minister elaborated on the current agricultural goals and projects of the Ministry.

  • Developing the meat production to more technologically sophisticated and mechanized systems: Most of the meat production here is rural and small-scale in the sense that not only is technology un-advanced, the entire infrastructure is non-existent i.e. herders live in animal skin tents and the activities of herding are simply going outside and moving the livestock to another expanse of land by horse or motorcycle. The country currently has 35 slaughterhouses and it’s at these locations where much of the agriculture system development will take place with new equipment, with training and local conferences.
  • Creating and requiring absolute compliance to hygiene standards: The meat production and hygiene standards are lax. I’ve personally had more than a handful of meals where a sheep is grabbed from the bunch, stabbed cleanly in the heart and then carcassed on the spot using a single knife. Every ounce of blood is consumed, every bone and piece of skin is saved, even the intestines containing the fecal matter are cleaned and utilized. Usually the meat is boiled and cooked immediately, however the storage of meat is often of low hygienic standards, being hung on the walls or ceiling of the gers, unrefrigerated, uncovered and where flies swarm. These hygiene standards will make commercial meat producers comply to health codes that will help eliminate and prevent contracting and spreading potential diseases from animal meat.
  • Implementing preventative measures for the threatening weather conditions: In 2009 and 2010 the country lost 70% of its livestock because the summer grass was dehydrated and animals couldn’t fatten enough to survive a particularly harsh winter. By building emergency facilities equipped with provisions in the case of a dzud (Mongolian term for harsh summer and winter) the herders’ livelihoods and pivotal national resources won’t be as endangered. The dzud have spiraling effects, not only to herders who lose irreplaceable amounts of their capital, but dead animal carcasses seep into and contaminate water supplies.
  • Food security and agricultural independence: Mongolia recently reached independence for the ubiquitously consumed wheat, milk and potatoes. And the outline for food security for 2016 will include independence on 60% of its vegetables. Currently major food items such as rice, vegetable oil, sugar, many vegetables and fruits are imported via China, Taiwan and Russia.
  • Looking into certification for organic. Today a vast majority of the meat produced nationally is in compliance to what the west would deem as ‘organic.’ The meat is literally free-range, and injecting animals with hormones or anti-biotics is practically unheard of. Often a single herder can have up to 1,000 animals in one herd alone, moving them from pasture to pasture daily. Yet the government or country as a whole doesn’t have any sort of organic certification to authorize organic meat. The Ministry is interested in this development after implementing more advanced and hygienic meat production systems.

The time frame for these goals is the next two years, and includes conferences and education workshops within the local towns and with local herders. There will also hopefully arise more job opportunities in rural areas from the implementation of these initiatives.

As stated previously, crop agriculture in Mongolia is minimal, only covering about 1% of the land. This is due in part to the poor soil fertility and harsh climates, but mostly to the fact that eating vegetables just doesn’t naturally coincide with Mongolian culture (practically speaking, if a family moved four or five times a year, uprooting their entire house – gardening wouldn’t exactly fit into the lifestyle).

The Mongolian national foods are khuurshuur (fried dough filled with mutton), buuz (steamed dumplings filled with mutton), banton (wheat-flour soup and mutton), and a variety of other meat centered dishes. Vegetables, particularly green vegetables have little implementation in the diets here.

The crops that are grown nationally today include wheat, a few other cereals, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and some fruit. But much of the crop agriculture seems to be based on seasonal spontaneity or foraging. For example, everyone went гүзээлэгэнэ (strawberry) picking during the past month in the countryside where a plethora of tiny tart wild strawberries grow abundantly. And right now it seems like everyone is going to the countryside to pick wild самар (pine nuts) and bring them back to the city to sell in bags and boxes on literally every city street corner (the sidewalks are littered with the seed shells).

The Minister explained to me that most of Mongolia’s crops are infused with additives: pesticides, herbicides etc., although there is a blooming awareness on the value of organic and crop agriculture in general.

Education and practices will progress. Again, as with every aspect of this country’s development, Mongolia’s rural and urban sectors need to merge – persevered through today’s reliable communication, technology and education. The rural agriculture sector with urban management and holistic education must integrate in order to create a sustainable agriculture economy.

Posted in 100 Mile Diet, Farming, Food, Global Awareness, Travel | Leave a comment

Xаашаас

Posted on August 23, 2011 by marissa

“Xаашаас” (pronounced “haanaas”) in Mongolian literally means “where to” and it’s what friends ask when you depart or what taxi drivers ask when you hail them down.

The term as this blog’s title will stand to encompass the question of “where to” for Mongolia as a whole.

Today Mongolia’s unique rapid urban population and economic growth are at a profound point. Many of the activities and decisions made today will help determine how much of the traditional culture is changed, developed and preserved.

As previously written of, this country is unique in the most genuine use of the word. The traditional nomadic lifestyle in the ger, intimate relationship between man and his livestock, vastness of untouched land (only about 25% has been geologically explored and the ratio of livestock to humans is 16:1) and diets comprised mainly of meat, wheat and dairy are only some of its main stand-out features.

Then there’s the throttling youthful and almost zealous capital city, Ulaanbaatar, where an estimated 2/3 are young and where the economy is just realizing its potential in the global market. It has a magnanimous wealth of minerals (over 80 accounted for, mainly coal, copper, gold and uranium), a huge livestock manufacturing sector (the world’s second-largest raw cashmere producer), and a newly growing tourism industry (527,000 visitors in 2010).

You can tell it’s a revolutionary time here too. Walking down the street it feels like a new movie titled, ‘Youth Nation’ where it seems that every one in twenty females passed is either pregnant or holding a small child, and where the almost ubiquitous name brand fashion obsession of young adults seems to permeate the city culture.

The number of RayBan and other designer sunglasses that hide the eyes of young adults on the streets is a majority. Louis Vuitton, Burberry and other known fashion names are ostensibly displayed. After reading an enlightening article in the Wall Street Journal by Maureen Orth on Mongolia’s revolutionary times, my accumulated perspective that fashion reflects much of the economic and cultural development was validated.

Infatuated with foreign and local pop sensations like Beyonce and Rihanna, the night scene in Ulaanbaatar is a good example of the young population. Electronic discos blare music to all hours of the night and unlike in the USA where most people go out to clubs on the weekends somewhat exclusively – Monday, Tuesday and any day of the week seem to stand as a perfectly acceptable time to go to discos until 2 AM. And why not?

The youth culture’s influence of the west is definitely a demonstration of its nascent economy. And there’s a dichotomy of culture. Whereas the older generations were accustomed to the nomadic lifestyle and to Soviet-Communism, the youth today grew up knowing nothing of it and are riding the wave of democratic liberation and modernization.

It’s only been 21 years now since Mongolia has had its national democratic independence. Previously the Chinese dominated the country for 200 years (a stigma to Chinese culture still stands today), followed by Soviet rule for 70 years. Now the pride of the country’s independence and original culture is celebrated more than ever with history related to Genghis Khan spoken of reverently and Khan paraphernalia in every direction.

Today the aftermath of Soviet rule is evident in a few ways. The traditional Mongolian script, which resembles something like ancient Persian or Sanskrit, was overturned by the Russian Cyrillic script which now dominates the national literature. Additionally many pundits attribute the extant alcoholism that permeates both urban and rural areas to the Russian influence. Prior to Soviet rule hand-made grain or dairy alcohols were most commonly consumed. Afterwards, an almost sweeping national addiction to vodka seemed to generate. In the countryside where extracurricular activities and entertainment is limited – due to the fact that often one household lives 5 km or more from their neighbors – drinking sometimes begins in the morning and continues for days perpetually and regularly.

Positively, the country has a high 98% literacy rate and over 151 accredited universities where over 70% are female. However, these statistics seem to depend on the area. In the rural areas allegedly education is very inadequate and loosely attended, especially by females whose herding families consider the costs of education to be wasted on a future household country woman.

In terms of economics, the Russians seemed to have baby-sat the prosperity of the Mongolian economy by subsidizing it with $5 billion every five years. Now criticism stands that this government dependence has handicapped the Mongolian economic mindset and that it’s only with the newer generations that people are beginning to think in terms of self-generating progression and prosperity.

B. Baabar, one of Mongolia’s politically active civilians, authors and scholars reprimands the government for not putting forth legitimate attempts to change civilian and national mindset away from Soviet-Communism and emphasizes that the government needs to more actively spur encouragement for individual and national innovation.

One of the recent government activities was a promise of a regular cash hand-out of $17 a month to every single civilian from the wealth garnered from the country’s new and major mining projects, but that has failed to met and created deficits, subtracting government funds that could be utilized more wisely toward city development, infrastructure and education.

Overall the consensus of government activity is met with bitter responses of corruption, deceit, power hungriness and selfishness. Bribes to officials, administrators and even teachers seem to be frequent, a fact that’s been verified by government officials themselves and other accredited and locally active NGOs (Asia Foundation and Mercy Corps).

One of the issues associated with responsible environmental management seems to be the fact that most of the mining projects are privatized, which is perpetuating the already growing bifurcation of wealth and poverty-stricken (20% of civilians still reside on less than $1.25/day).

The stress is for improved national education in every venue and not over-rided by outside influence.

In Dr. John Medina’s Brain Rules, the chapter Vision Trumps tells how much we as human beings depend and are influenced by our vision. For example, experiments with professional wine tasters resulted in the tasters describing the traits and flavors of a red wine that was really a white wine simply colored red…

Today the youth culture in Mongolia is being intensely molded by what is seen through other cultures via TV, movies and the Internet. Particularly influential seem to be the Korean and American movies and TV shows, the fashion world and brand-name items, the western sports culture and the pop music scene.

When speaking with many of the youth who have experienced the cultures outside of their country or have been urbanized since childhood, many of them scoff and criticize the simple ways of their traditional culture, instead embracing whole-heartedly the blatantly glamorous lifestyle.

When I first decided to travel to Mongolia, the image of unbounded steppe with galloping horses and an expansive blue sky colored my vision. And that’s partially what Mongolia is – what the essence of Mongolia will always be to me. But when I settled down in Ulaanbaatar, the experience of the two lifestyles – urban and rural – collided like separate worlds.

As the progress of Mongolia’s market economy continues and the population continues to flourish in urban areas and nationwide, it will be of interest to see whether the rural and city worlds can complement one another to create a sustainably driven nation where the three components on edge –environmental, economical and cultural – can find stability.

Let’s hope that the international community as well as the local government, teachers and parents can give the right balance of support and encouragement to Mongolia as it continues to grow.

Its integrity will be immeasurably worth it.

Posted in Global Awareness, Miscellaneous, Travel | 1 Comment

Mongolia

Posted on July 5, 2011 by marissa

Prior to arriving in Mongolia my images of what the land and people looked like were derived from Sergei Bodrov’s 2008 film, Mongol, which tells the story of young Temüjin, the boy who later becomes the great Genghis Khan. Now having been here a month I will express some of what I have learned both from the books and experientially…

Mongolia has a population of just under 3 million and Ulaanbaatar, the capital city, has a population of about 1.5 million. The country also has the highest ratio of land per capita in the world (part of the intrigue in my opinion).

Ulaanbaatar’s development is rapidly expanding and its population has nearly doubled in the past few years. You can tell too by simply walking the streets which were built to accomodate 60,000 cars and which are currently housing over 100,000.

I had originally been drawn to Mongolia for the uniqueness of the nomadic culture and experiencing the lifestyle personally has been everything and more that I had positively anticipated.

Today there are only around 700,000 people living as nomads throughout the country. The weather conditions are extremely harsh with long and severe winters and hot dry summers and especially in the past few years the conditions have been unusually intense.

The environments also vary greatly and include: high mountain (4.4%), mountain forest steppe (23.3%), mountain forest (3.9%), desert steppe (21.9%), desert (20.6%), and steppe (25.9%).

The nomadic way of life is dominated by animal husbandry (currently comprising 42% of Mongolia’s work force). Today it leans more toward pastoral farming as more and more of the people are living in more permanent and semi-permanent gers (traditional dome-shaped homes made of animal felt and wooden fencing and beams) instead of moving more frequently throughout the year. The gers themselves have adapted more modern aspects too with solar panels, motorcycles, computers and televisions.

In Mongolia the five main livestock include: horse, camel, sheep, goat and yak (sometimes cattle) and depending on the region, families usually own at least three of these kinds of animals, utilizing the meat, dairy and wool.

The cuisine in Mongolia is something that reflects the nomadic way of life and is mostly centered around meat and dairy.

Inside each ger there is a corner dedicated to dairy production and there sits a few buckets, bins and bowls filled with a variety of different products which often includes homemade goat yogurt, goat milk, fermented horse milk (called airag and a traditional favorite), camel milk, goat and camel cheese, yak milk, yak butter (which is often offered to be eaten straight out of the bowl in huge spoonfuls as a treat) and more.

The tradition of dairy and of tea is synonymous with socializing here, particularly in the countryside. One day my friends and I embarked on a ten hour horseback riding trip through the mountain steppe and I believe I drank my body weight in tea and milk. It’s common to be welcomed into any ger that you come upon, so every hour or so we stopped and were welcomed into various gers with numerous bowls of milk tea, salt tea, fermented horse milk, bowls of butter and cookies.

While 90% of the land acts as rangeland, produce agriculture makes up only a minuscule percentage of the land in Mongolia. Wheat, barely, oats, potatoes, carrots, watermelon and a few other hardy vegetables and fruits are grown here, but much of the crops are imported from China and Russia. However, I have heard that the agriculture of Mongolia is in development and look forward to traveling to the northern and central areas to see how the development is going. Because Mongolia’s elevation is notably high, the soil is particularly sensitive and not suitably fertile in much of the land. Additionally, I have been told that crop agriculture is simply not an integral part of the Mongolian culture, belonging more to the Chinese and Russians when they had their influence here and therefore perhaps stigmatized by the Mongolian culture.

According to a professor of Mongolia’s Agriculture University, 70% of the 90% of Mongolia’s rangeland is degraded today. The reasons have been attributed to decreased water (14%), climate change (12%) and the rest and remaining majority due to livestock over-grazing.

In addition to the herders becoming less nomadic, the degradation is resulting from an increase and change in the livestock farming systems. From the 1970s to 90s an exponential increase in goat population occurred due to the market’s demand for cashmere.

What I’m curious to study now is how the education between herders (whose majority are 45 or older today), local policy makers and scientific researchers can make an agriculture practice for a sustainable land both in terms of livestock and crop production, especially as its economy faces substantial development.

Most recently Mongolia’s economy, which was previously greatly dominated by agriculture, is booming with its mineral mining (copper, gold and coal) with one of the largest un-mined resources of coal (6 billion tons in the south) in the world and with development planned for 2012. It also has one of the largest copper deposits in the world with development planned for 2013.

With all of this progress:

  • Population migration and infrastructure development in Ulaanbaatar;
  • Natural resource development, particularly coal;
  • Global trade and export development with China and Russia;
  • Subtraction of the nomadic lifestyle and degradation of rangeland due to livestock over-grazing;
  • Agriculture development;

It will be most interesting to see how Mongolia’s culture develops, especially with perpetuating global environmental issues.

Today over 2/3 of the population is young, under 30 years of age, and in the city especially you can feel the buzz of persevering innovation for a progressive society.

And yet some of the best moments of my time here have been riding wild horses freely through the mountain steppe with friends who still wear traditional deels and who sing Mongolian songs and love their horses and land so deeply…Some of the best times have been sleeping in the temple-like gers, drinking tea out of bowls and laughing as the central stove heats up homemade noodles…And some of the best times have been waking up to walk outside to be greeted by a vast blue sky, with mountains and a river and volcanic rocks where herds of horses graze and where another human being can’t be seen…

Perhaps since I’ve grown up with a life dominated by the modern amenities of the 21st century, I find intrigue and fulfillment in the more simple lifestyles that are integrally connected with nature–where material possessions are not frivolous, but are for survival, and where the day is spent doing directly productive activities. However, if I hadn’t grown up in the setting I did, maybe I would crave life and materials of the 21st century like many of today’s young generation in Mongolia does.

We’ll see what these next six months hold in terms of research and fieldwork and personal experience. Mongolia awaits and excitement and inspiration are abundant…

Posted in Farming, Food, Global Awareness, Travel | 2 Comments

A Tribute to Bamboo

Posted on June 10, 2011 by marissa

Bamboo.

In the western world the fad of bamboo’s multi-purpose potential has been recently recognized and caught on in the ‘Eco-Friendly’ world. But being in Taiwan, where the utilization of this plant has been extant for thousands of years, has given me further appreciation for the plant.

Technically speaking bamboo is a grass, belonging to the true grass family, Poaceae. It is one of the oldest known and used plants to human kind and its uses are literally un-ending.

Abundant in Asia, bamboo is a tropical and sub-tropical native and the fastest growing plant in the world with records of 38 inches of growth in a single day! There are recorded over 1,000 species and in Taiwan there are over 10 species used as edibles alone. From soup to curry and even to dessert (last night we had chilled young bamboo shoots with a sweet sort of icing and sprinkles on top).

But bamboo’s use in culinary delights is only one of the numerous aspects of its usage.

Bamboo has been used for building and in buildings throughout Asia dating back thousands of years ago. Used for scaffolding, flooring, fencing, landscaping, gardening, musical instruments, Chinese medicine, Ayur-Vedic medicine, paper, weaponry, rafts, boats and most recently used as a fiber for clothing. (The photo to the right is an image from the military museum in Keelung exhibiting the history of boats)

Bamboo permeates my life on the regular here in Taiwan and every time I see it I not only find it aesthetically beautiful, I’m mesmerized by how many multiple uses this simple grass delivers. Today when deforestation is a detrimental practice–compromising ecosystems and increasing issues like mosquito populations and thus humans affected by malaria and subtracting our natural carbon banks–utilizing this plant which grows easily, quickly, is durable, beautiful, strong and multi-faceted is definitely a winning situation.

Cheers to Bamboo.

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Organic Rice and Family

Posted on June 10, 2011 by marissa

Rice is one of the staples both literally and culturally in Taiwan and can be found in food practically anywhere. It’s not surprising then that rice is the country’s top crop with more than 1.2 million tons produced annually.

While touring farms on the island we traveled to an area on the east known for its rice production and most recently for its transference to organic. Fuli township has 300 hectares of organic rice in 350 hectares total. The rice is harvested twice annually, first planted auspiciously after the Chinese New Year and harvested in early summer and the second crop is planted and harvested in November. The fields are then planted with vegetables, flowers and other companion crops until the Chinese New Year again. This particular field utilizes a small fern for nitrogen fixing.

In the area which we visited, the government subsidizes the organic rice production and the farmers are paid after harvests are weighed and tested for moisture content, which determines how much the rice is worth.

Progress to change the country’s production to organic is slow, but steady. Besides being convinced that organic production can yield as much or more than conventionally grown, rice farms and farmers must move to organic in a specific order since irrigation water descends through the fields by gravity and thus the farmer with the highest field must be the first to go organic.

Have you ever walked through a rice paddy field? The grass tall and green sits in a watery field often with irrigation channels that move like miniature winding rivers in between the greenery. They’re so beautiful.

Later we drove to Taitung where we went on a more personal family-operated tour of an organic rice farm and small-scale production. We got to see how, after the rice is harvested, it undergoes various spinnings to remove the chaff, husk and bran. Below is a handful of rice in three different stages: on the far right, immediately after being picked and dried with the husk still intact and then in two stages of being milled.

In addition to touring the farm we had a huge meal with Rosa’s entire family which included five generations. Her family is of the indigenous Ami tribe and for most of our stay her mother, father and grandmother were chattering away in their native language and chewing on beetle nut.

Unlike in the USA where living with your parents when you’re past college age is seen as strangely dependent, it’s totally normal and even expected for families to live with their parents even as they have families of their own. I’ve met and befriended people here in Taiwan ranging in ages from ten to past fifty who still live with their parents, housing three generations or more under one roof.

One aspect of the Ami culture that amused me was that instead of the wife moving to her husband’s family after they marry, which is often the case for traditional cultures, the husband moves to his wife’s house and the woman is given the opportunity to dismiss her husband in a trial period and literally throw his belongings–knife, clothes, etc. outside of the front door as a way of saying, “Meh, you didn’t cut it for me, now leave.” Pretty sure things aren’t that simple today…;)

Being around Rosa’s big and gracious family was heart-warming, especially for me who’s pretty family-oriented and whose baby niece and family I miss while being abroad. Here’s a photo of the whole clan including Rosa, her daughters, her mother, her father and her grandmother. What a clan of good people and good farmers.

Posted in Farming, Food, Global Awareness | 2 Comments

A Beautiful Biodynamic Farm

Posted on June 8, 2011 by marissa

Those of you familiar with Rudolf Steiner know that the Austrian scientist and spiritualist in addition to creating the Waldorph school system, also created the Biodynamic farming system. The method was coined in the mid-20′s after friends and colleagues came to Steiner with voiced concerns on what industrial agriculture’s pesticides, herbicides, fungicides etc. were doing to the environment and to their health.

Biodynamic farming is a unique alternative method of farming. Read more about the techniques here. The main concept of the technique is the foundational principle of uniting the farmer with the farm. Additionally esoteric herbal concoctions used for compost called ‘preparations’ utilize animal parts and commonly known beneficial herbs such as chamomile and dandelion. The farming technique also syncs growing and harvesting with the moon cycles.

So we visited a Biodynamic farm and it was incredibly inspiring. The farm is called ‘Love Mountain’ and is situated on a half acre of undulating sand dunes, a self-made pond, a surrounding forest, a plethora of food crops and great compost.

Samuel (the farmer’s American name) started his production about two years ago and operates a 15 – 20 member CSA and sells his produce and herbal products at the farmer’s market and online.

He took us on a spirited tour of his farm, passionately describing how he dug trenches to balance the lay of the land’s water flows, followed Permaculture principles and explained the success of his companion crops.

His carrots were some of the most vibrant orange color and sweet in taste I had ever had. Samuel explained that his are retained in the soil/sand for about six months whereas most grocery store suppliers harvest after only three months and even so the season for growing carrots in Taiwan is in the springtime, so many carrots are picked early, frozen and then thawed and sold throughout the year.

What piqued my interest most was Samuel’s innovative compost method. Following Steiner’s preparation methods which call for particular herbs to supplement the soil with micronutrients, Samuel instead substituted native herbal plants that are very similar to the ones called for in the preparations instead of growing plants that aren’t native to this environment.

Any conservationist knows that introducing and growing a species non-native to an eco or micro-ecosystem can actually severely threaten an environment, sometimes eradicating species or becoming wildly invasive.

Samuel’s compost, which starts out as some of the sandiest soil I’ve seen, is supplemented with the herbal preparations and horse and cow manure. The six month result is astounding rich soil.

A hard worker, Samuel as a farmer is genuine. He’s a living, breathing, sweating, perfect example of what Steiner first and foremost stressed: that for a farm to be of success, it’s from the ground up in the spirit of the farmer that is of utmost importance.

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Farming Education and Organic Soy

Posted on June 8, 2011 by marissa

Today we traveled to two small-scale biodiverse farms.

The first one was up the a mountain about a half hour outside of Taipei and on only a half an acre of land. The farm is more like a series of small gardens. The farm was incepted for hands-on learning for Taiwan University students. The students come for class to study gardening methods and the ups and downs of growing their own produce. In conjunction with experimenting growing food in their own plots the students have classes on site in a greenhouse equipped with a kitchen and set up for ppts etc.

The students compose budgets and calculations for their crops as meant to be food for their families. What’s not consumed by the growers and their families is donated to army veterans and homeless people. 

After touring the farm we stayed for a presentation by a local tofu producer who is striving to create food security for his country by bringing organic soy production to Taiwan. So fantastic! I had come to Taiwan with the aspiration to learn firsthand about both the rice and soy production in the country because both crops have a reputation for being unsustainable (rice utilizes an exorbitant amount of water and additionally is a substantial contributor to methane emissions; soy is one of the biggest industrially grown and GMO crops), and also because Taiwan is a small island which has often set the scene for challenges in independent and sustainable food farming and producing.

A great majority of Taiwan’s soy is imported from the USA where most of it is GMO and grown not with the intent for human consumption, but for animal feed. Because soy in the USA is industrialized monoculture, the import is seemingly economically feasible. However with global food prices accelerating, the producer stressed that having independent crops, particularly of one of Taiwan’s staple food sources, is absolutely necessary.

The producer gave a  hands-on lesson on how to make tofu starting with the tedious process of stirring to make the soy milk, then making the doh wah (what westerners know as silken tofu) and then sieving it to create tofu.

The second farm and restaurant we visited for lunch. The restaurant is situated on four acres of land where produce for the restaurant is grown. We had a variety of dishes, all delicious including a bamboo soup, a spicy chili bamboo curry, colorful steamed dumplings and my favorite: young melon leaves which appeared more like something I’d put in my compost pile, but were delightful with their fresh sweet flavor and snappy texture.

Studying organic farming, meeting local food producers and eating delicious fresh food? This is just fine with me.

PS In the current book I’m reading, State of the World, it gave an inspiring statistic performed in 2008 that found a 79% increase in yield with organic farming with 286 projects with over 12.6 million farmers and in 57 countries. Organic. It works.

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Biodiversity Conference

Posted on June 8, 2011 by marissa

These past weeks have flown by and already the end of the Biodiversity Conference is near. We’ve been busy with extended days, but they’ve been rewarding.

I’ve gained a lot, despite the language barrier, through other people’s presentations, the workshops and just talking with people. While some of the information is new such as a water management course and the bat tracking presentation, most of the concepts and knowledge mirrors what I’ve been taught and have been independently learning and teaching as well.

It’s always encouraging connecting with people whose ideas are the exact same as mine, but whose backgrounds and lives are so contrastingly different.

I love hearing how people got interested in sustainability. Because sustainability isn’t really a traditionally classified field, it’s really more a property that can simply be applied to nearly anything, people who get interested in it often come from different avenues. Some come from a nature conservation point–people who go gaga over an unusual moth species; some from a social studies point–people who are intent on cultural heritage or minority civil rights; some from a progressive economic point–people who are in the field of business and interested in the economically beneficial component of sustainable applications and technology; and some who are interested in all aspects–on the integration of environmental protection, social responsibility and economic prosperity.

One of the participants of the Biology Conference went to mountaineering school in Alaska and is a professional trekker. Originally he was taught the idea ‘Leave No Trail’ which is the principle that when you trek you leave no trail behind where you were, even if you’ve camped there for days. Now he’s interested in how that can be the case in a city. Another much older man came to the conference because he said he’s spent his years working behind a desk and now that he’s retired he wants to learn what he’s really interested in–nature and the environment. Others have started their own NGOs correlated to food education, are studying green architecture in college, or simply want to apply sustainability to their own every day lives.

Here are some photos from the conference including the human pollution workshop, presenting on food sustainability and the city gardening workshop with a shot of the garden’s colorful rain catchment holding tanks.

Apart from the conference I got to tour Taiwan University which has an unbelievably stunning campus. They have a student run farm with a biodiverse rice field.

We also moseyed through the city’s botanical gardens and admired the almost blossoming lotuses and lots of ferns.

The city is one of the most diverse I’ve ever been to. Right alongside Bangkok, Taipei has the juxtaposition of both the rustic street life culture and a posh and sophisticated cosmopolitan culture. It’s never boring, but I’m also eager to see the more rural lanscapes of this island. Tomorrow we go on a whirlwind of an island farm tour. I can’t wait.

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