We met Neva and Grant Kaufmann at World Plenary of Friends in Peru and were fascinated by their story. The Kaufmans have lived in Bolivia for several decades but they are not typical Bolivian Friends. They are Conservative Friends who moved to Bolivia from Iowa twenty years ago and became cattle ranchers. They live as simply and as sustainably as possible. With their mostly homemade plain dress, they look like Friends who’ve stepped out of the 19th century.
They moved to an area
called the Chaco, in the southeast part of Bolivia, where the climate is
extremely hot and arid. When they arrived, the pond on their property looked like
pea soup. To make the water drinkable, they
had to boil it over a wood fire. The cistern held rainwater, but it rains so
rarely the water was insufficient. They couldn’t grow corn because it is too
dry. The ground was unproductive. They
lost cattle because there was not enough grass to feed them. Through the
Mennonites they learned about panicum gatton, a species of grass that grows in
shade. They also learned about a system of ranching called sylvopastoralism, which
is “the practice of combining forestry and grazing of domesticated
animals in a mutually beneficial way.” Instead of cutting down trees to create
a monoculture, the Kaufmanns planted panicum grass, which grows under trees and
feeds their cattle. As a result of this
practice, the Kaufmanns began to see deer, wild pigs and new species of birds. As their ranch prospered, neighboring ranchers
also began to follow their example.
They learned that certain
trees called choroquete thrive in this dry climate. Their leaves taste like
salad. In June through October they drop their leaves and help create a cushion,
which the cattle like to lick up. “It’s a beautiful symbiotic system,”
explained Grant.
Their life hasn’t been
easy. In the first year they killed over 300 poisonous snakes. They had to work hard to live sustainably but
they have a happy family and a deep gratitude to God. Neva explained:
“Our family loves to
work and loves to have fun. They love to milk cows. One son wanted a cow since
he was four years old. Nathan likes ranching, and Rachel trains horses. She
loves animals and is very gentle and kind.”
Grant told us: “The biblical counsel
‘whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might’ has encouraged us to
press ahead with the ranch at a time when Bolivia's chronic political and legal
instability, combined with threats of climate change, have discouraged many
others. Thus far, I believe we have good cause to be thankful to our Creator
for all that He has done for us and through us in our little corner of South
America.”
Asked what
was most memorable about the FWCC Plenary, they responded: “Knowing again that we are not alone….The
essence of our Friends community seems to be sharing the love of God, whether
we call it that or something else. This was the Pisaq experience for us.”)
How did you become a Quaker?
Neva
responded: My earliest memories of Friends' meeting for
worship were the quiet waiting with family and friends in Paullina meeting
in NW Iowa. My Great Grandfather Anton Tjossem was one of the founders of
that meeting in the late l800s. There were good agricultural lands
available in that place and some Norwegian families moved to Obrien Co. where
they could practice their religion undisturbed. There were also Scots who
became a significant part of the Friends' community there. There were
some who wore plain dress and used the classic English plain speech, but the
focus of Paullina Friends was always the direct relationship with God, and
adherence to principles of peace with all.
During the years following WWII most of the focus
of our meeting was on promoting peace, offering homes to European refugees for
a few years (we had two German families living in our upstairs and my dad hired
the two men to help with farm work), encouraging the Friends Committee on
National Legislation's work to seek a world free of war through justice,
supporting AFSC in every way possible. When our generation approached the
age to be drafted most of the young men registered as conscientious
objectors. There was one non-registrant.
With so many influences toward peace and
justice, I had few issues to settle having to do with peace on earth. But my
own spiritual state was far from settled. During my college years, I tried a
variety of churches, learning from a Baptist minister that there was a new
covenant to be entered into with God! I tried to fit together
the scripture that we memorized as children with the practices of Quaker meeting
and an adult faith in relationship with God.
These questions drifted with me for several years
until l972 when I joined an apple picking crew of young Friends in SE
Ohio. As part of the local Friends' Meeting in Barnesville, Ohio I
attended Stillwater Meeting. I still vividly remember the meeting for
worship in which the “Presence in the Midst” became real to me. Although
I had sat through countless meetings and church service in the years since
attending Paullina Meeting as a child, never had I felt that God was present
and active. Suddenly I was aware that this theory I had heard all my
life, that when two or three gather together in His name He is present, was
absolutely true right then and there! Nothing changed except that living
reality.
The rest is a story of learning to allow Life to
live in me. To guide and correct me. To strengthen me in the truth
that comes gently and without fanfare. Thus to be a Friend.
Grant
responded: Unlike Neva, who is a
birthright Friend and descendant of the "Valiant 60", I came to
Quakerism as a young adult. My father was Jewish and my mother
Gentile/Christian. Although both believed in God, they had lived their lives
basically as secular Americans.
Unwelcome in either synagogue or church because
of their union, they simply chose to "do nothing" until their desires
for a spiritual community and my own yearnings for a knowledge of God as a
young teenager led us to visit a Friends meeting when I was around 13.
Accepting as a matter of principle, they offered a welcome to our family, and
the quiet worship offered an outlet for my own spiritual searchings.
Always a great reader, I had read the Bible and
many religious books by this time but could never "put it all
together". The transforming moment came some months later when an older
Friend rose to speak in meeting and opened by quoting the first verses of the
book of Hebrews: "God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in
time past unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto
us by His Son..."
Like George Fox on Pendle Hill, "my heart
did leap for joy!" If the eternal God did "in these days" speak
to us by His Son, then there is a way through the veil of confusion and God, in
all His fullness, is knowable! This summed up the Quaker message and provided
me a way forward.
Some years later, I came in contact with
Conservative Friends, whose clear Christian testimony, combined with
unprogrammed worship and a prophetic understanding of ministry, dovetailed with
my own understandings of God's work. I moved my membership to Ohio Yearly
Meeting (Conservative) where I have remained a member ever since.
What has been your experience with FWCC?
Grant
replied: Pisac was our third FWCC conference of Friends. (We also
attended Tela, Honduras, and Ghost Ranch, NM, with our then-young children.)
Our work in Bolivia has kept us rather much "out of the loop" of
Quakerism for the last 20 years, so when we learned there was to be a world
gathering virtually "next door" in Peru, we were pleased to be
appointed by our yearly meeting (Ohio Conservative) as representatives.
Although we have worked and had fellowship with many sorts of Christian people
over the years, we remain very much Friends at heart. Nowhere else that I have
been are people so open to the voice of God's spirit or so ready to accept one
another (warts and all) with loving-kindness. These two traits, I believe, are
the foundation for transformation. We cannot experience transformation (at
least for the good) if we are hardened against the SOURCE of all good, nor if
we harden ourselves against one another and come to view others in political
terms (as pawns to be manipulated) rather than as fellow humans in whom we are
called to "answer that of GOD". These are the hallmark traits
of Friends, across all the diversity, so it came as no real surprise to see
transformation happening in the hearts of those present or to hear of it
occurring across the globe as the Friend's message has continued to
spread well beyond our Anglo-American roots. We all went away, I think, if
not transformed, at least blessed and reanimated to share the blessing with
others.
What was most memorable about the
Plenary in Peru?
Neva
replied: What was most memorable about the gathering in Peru was
knowing again that we are not alone. In Bolivia for close to 20 years, seeking
to live in a way which promotes awareness of God's love and the abundance of His
resources, there have been many frustrations. People do not necessarily
understand generosity. It appears to some to be weakness or
stupidity. Ever give from heart felt love and later learn that the recipient
was hoping for MORE? Didn't think the gift was good enough? The essence of our Friends
community seems to be sharing the love of God, whether we call it that or
something else. This was the Pisaq experience.
Why did you move to Bolivia?
Grant
replied: "Why
Bolivia?" This is a question we are often asked (and ask ourselves).
Why give up the comforts and security of life in the USA to invest our life
savings and 20 years of our family's labor in one of the most backward areas of
a poor country, known the world over for its political instability, corruption
and legal insecurity? The only real answer I can give is what Jacob said when
he reached Eben-Ezer: "Thus far has the LORD led me." As
Friends and followers of Jesus, we have always tried to live our lives
following the leadings of God's spirit. As such, we are no strangers to
"outside the box" decisions, but always within the parameters of
where God has called us, involving alternatives in agriculture and witnessing
to God's love. I have always liked the saying, " If not us, who? If not
now, when?" This world is full of brokenness and suffering. We each have
God-given abilities and understanding. We are each called to foster SHALOM.
What we do for even the least among people, we do for Christ. We have had our
successes and failures. We have grown old in God's service and the world is
passing to a new generation. To them, I would most want to communicate "In
all your ways, acknowledge HIM and HE will direct your paths." Only God
sees the end from the beginning. He is worthy of our trust.
Please
tell us about the development of your ranch.
Grant
replied: In the development of the ranch, Phase 1 involved fencing
the perimeter of the property so that we were able to control stocking
numbers. Phase 2 was to divide the property internally into several large
(200-1500 HA) paddocks so the movement of the cattle could be controlled and
the native range better utilized. Phase 3 was to progressively fence smaller
paddocks near water sources (digging new ponds where none existed previously),
clearing the understory to about a 60% shade cover and seeding an adapted grass
(panicum gatton) under the remaining
tree cover.
The original information on the Gatton Panicum came from the British
Foreign Agriculture Service's "Centro
de Investigacion Agricola Tropical"(CIAT) which, at the time, had a
model ranch not from where we now live in the Chaco. The Mennonites in the
Paraguayan part of the Chaco had also worked with this species of grass, and it
was from them that we got our first seed.
Concurrently, we brought in bulls of improved
breeds to increase the growth rate of the cattle as the available nutrients
also increased from grass and range management. All of this was (and is) a big
project and we are nowhere near the end of it yet, but so far we can note a
very substantial increase in meat and milk marketed, compared with the
traditional system and, much to our satisfaction, a steady increase in
wildlife, as the grass and water sources benefit the ranch's wild inhabitants
as well as the cattle. The moment was right for the technology to spread among
the local people as well and there are now many other ranches following the
silvopasture system. I think the fact that we were just fellow cattlemen rather
than a government or NGO project with outside funding, and dependent, as they
are on our cattle for our livelihood, gave them the courage to try something
new which their natural conservatism had heretofore resisted.
The biblical counsel "whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might" has encouraged us to press ahead with
the ranch at a time when Bolivia's chronic political and legal instability,
combined with threats of climate change have discouraged many others. Thus far,
I believe we have good cause to be thankful to our Creator for all that He has
done for us and through us in our little corner of South America
Some question whether meat production is
sustainable. What are your thoughts?
Unfortunately, it seems to be a weakness of our times
to discard the wisdom of Millennia in favor of our own new (and supposedly
better) ideas. To me, the issue seems pretty straightforward. There
are currently something like seven billion people on the earth, a figure
projected to grow to at least 12 billion over the next couple of
generations. All of these people are going to need to eat every day,
which means a great deal more food must be produced. The present world
food system relies very heavily on industrial type grain production, something
which requires large expanses of flat land in moderate climatic zones and
carries a high environmental cost.
A large portion of the earth's land area is
unsuited to this type of agriculture. Of this land, nearly all but the
driest deserts and polar ice caps is, however, utilizable by some type of
grazing animals (cattle, sheep, goats, camels, llamas, and so forth).
These animals, by the nature of their digestive systems, can convert raw
nutrient vegetable matter (graze and browse) into high nutrient-dense proteins
(meat and milk) as well as providing other useful goods like wool and
leather. It was for these obvious benefits that these creatures were
domesticated in the first place. In a properly managed grazing system,
the total environmental cost is very low. Grazing animals return to the
soil from which they derive nutrients about 98% of the what
they consume, the remaining 2% being the famous belches, which are mostly a
result of grain feeding. I do not recall seeing a ranch cow belch when
processing forage….
God is the giver of life and the creator of all
that is. He has created us humans as rational beings and entrusted the
care of His creation into our hands. It is ours to manage as good
stewards, not to hoard as miserly owners or to loot as robbers.
