Pennsylavania - The Keystone State

Pennsylvania… from inner city Philadelphia, “Hang on to your wallet ma’am” to small town, rural flavour. Pennsylvania, from what we have been exposed to so far, does well at recognising and promoting its productive agricultural sector. They have several organisations that work for producers and wider agribusinesses to gain favourable policies and the all important funding.

It was very interesting to meet a woman that works at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, advocating and working on behalf of agricultural or educational related businesses. She pointed out that getting a bill through the legislature is mainly about votes and money – though she has a very strong focus on relationships, not just with the power brokers but with the staff. All applications are delivered by hand with a couple of trays of Starbucks coffee!

Speaking about the capitol, this has been voted the best in the country. It is a purposeful statement of the ideals of the state, in a most grand and eloquent way. As we walked into the top of the viewing gallery of the House of Representatives I couldn’t help but repeat, “Wow…” several times. The chandeliers weigh a couple of tons each, the paintings are stories in themselves and the gold leaf is real! You truly can only get a small idea from the photos I have above…

The photo above is looking from the capitol steps - towards the completely frozen over, wide Sasquehanna River that Harrisburg is sited on - not something we from Downunder see often!
I’m writing this in the hotel bar with the rest of the group contributing thoughts. One said he feels like he is being recruited for Penn State Uni – though being hosted by someone that works there may have something to do with that!

 In fact it is more than just Jean’s influence – the history of the land grant universities and the inherent mission to benefit the communities they serve is evident. Then place that along with how the commonwealth of Pennsylvania is very proud of its place and its people – they see themselves very much as a net contributor of food to the very large East Coast populations that are in close proximity and respect the distinctive flavour of the Amish and Mennonite communities.

Speaking of which, we visited a machinery dealer based in a small town in the heart of Amish country – had to pass a couple of horse and buggy gigs on our way. The name of the settlement is Intercourse, which got a few ironic laughs. I was interested to hear that one of the scenes in the movie The Fugitive was filmed on the main street.
It really is farming heartland – it was amazing to look around and see farm buildings at such density – one of the team thought it looked like a city of farms!

One of our missions is to lift our French teammate’s, Baptiste, English in 6 weeks. Today we have got him to change his introduction from “I am a farmer of cows meat and cereals” (which is a difficult word to pronounce!) to “I farm beef and crops”! He is a willing learner, which is fun. We discuss equivalent phrases, pronunciation and word order… just like being back at RELA.
Our first day started in the city of Philadelphia… which required driving at peak time… in a 12 seater Chrysler van that is too long to fit in a standard park… on the wrong side of the road. Trying to follow Jean made it quite an adrenaline rush I have to say. Our designated drivers are doing very well really – we haven’t had any “What is that car doing?! Oh, we are on the wrong side of the road!” incidents.
We met passionate people doing “Urban Ag” - connecting people in the city with where their food comes from. This is manifested in a variety of projects, with a variety of partners in each.

We still have to ask about tipping – for what, how much… consensus in the group is that we’d prefer the hospitality sector to pay better wages and eliminate the whole thing!
I'm writing the fina installment of this now - Saturday. We've had a double bonus today of being hosted in folks' homes twice - for lunch with our host and guide for our tour of Gettysburg Battlefield (and we got to see his American Simmental stud operation too - though I was surprised to find that here they are either black or brown, not the Simmentals I expected!) - and for dinner with Nina Redding, a woman we met yesterday that works in Extension, and her husband Russell, Secretary of Ag for Pennsylvania State (and with whom Jean used to work).
It was great to see another peice of history brought to life at Gettysburg; I enjoyed the old style 'cyclorama' at the visitor centre - where the largest painting on canvas wraps around 360 degrees and depicts the action at gettysburg with varied lighting highlighting different spots through a narration.

By the way our accomodation is in the Gettysburg Hotel, Est. 1797, address 1 Lincoln Square... rather historic in itself!

The close of the day was a highlight of hospitality as we were told we weren't allowed dinner until we had got our blood circulating playing table tennis or going for a bike ride. I did the latter, though in the low cloud and drizzle, we didn't stay out long. Nina served up pumpkin pie for dessert after a wonderful, 'dishes-filling -the-table' homestyle meal. Before we left we even did a quick whizz on a mini toboggin on the last remaining snowy slope at their place!

Tomorrow we head off to Washington DC...

Crossing the Atlantic and closing a chapter

We are now well across the Atlantic and in heartland East Coast country - we even made it into Amish country today, in Lancaster County, Pensylvania, complete with horses and buggies.
However I haven't closed the Battlefields Chapter yet!

Every night since being opened in 1927 with great ceremony, many international guests and the first foreign BBC broadcast, this place has been the site of a nightly memorial service (apart from the 4 years of German occupation during WW2).
We were privileged to attend and for representative from among us to lay a wreath in honour of those who fought and those who died.
Dinner and Belgian chocolate completed the evening.
The following morning we had more to see, including sites surrounding Passendale. This was the most remarkable cemetery in terms of size, being the resting place of 11,000 men, 70% of whom are unknown... and 33,000 are missing. This is the place name that I have in my head from the perspective of NZ's involvement. Alan our guide gestured to where the NZ troops had advanced in the gunfire, with appalling rain and mud, and said we were down in the "Valley of Death". I have learned that battle sites are often not known by their geographical name, but by the one given to them by the soldiers that lived, fought and often died there.

This photo is a panorama so may give a sense of scale. Among the list of missing soldiers on the NZ wall there is a McCabe from the Auckland Regiment...
We even had a serendipitous moment - about 10 min after Alan talking about a local man that has become an 'amateur expert' in retrieving remains, in the context of a specific story of finding 5 bodies just there when some roadworks were done, we literally ran into him at the next memorial! He gave personal insight into growing up in the area and of some of the work he has benn involved in.
There are some wonderful statues among these places. One of the last we saw was very special. Called Cobber it depicts one man carrying his wounded friend to help. This at a place called Fromelle, where a battle with the odds stacked against the Dominion troops was fought over 2 days. A young Hitler watched this one play out. The German bunkers remain not just at this memorial site, but in the occasional field.

On a lighter note I must tell you about the Dr Seuss trees here - I'm sure a Maisie bird would be right at home! All the trees are bare, many of the fields are bare dirt, but occasionally you see a blob, or blobs, of green in one or more trees. My family will know that I would have to be fascinated...

I was delighted to be told this is in fact mistletoe!
After multiple farewells in Paris, on Tuesday morning we, the now just our tour group, were treated to a heavily undersubscribed flight across the Atlatic. I had a row of four middle seats to stretch out on! I missed the action out the window - one of the guys reported seeing icebergs as we arced north, then back down over Canada and pretty much directly over Portland and Boston!
Now it's time to get serious about our itinerary and setting up the USB cards Kevin organised for us for gifts.

It took a long time to sort out our rental vehicle... there was one fast talking guy behind the counter. He lined us up a large van instead of the two cars the travel agent had booked. We figured it was more because they didn't have the right vehicles on hand, than because this was really a better deal. After some lengthy discussions, inspections and rereading of the 'extras per day' lines we were happy enough that the van would have good points. Then it just remained to get our bags in, take a picture and head off on the wrong side of the road! Driving in the USA, if you're not born in the USA, is not instinctive! Or so the guys that have ably taken up the challenge indicate...

I'll talk about some of the visits we have made in Pensylvania next time folks :)

WW1 Battlefields of Northern France and Belgium

Again I've been typing this for a bit, but just now can add the pictures and post it. Be warned there is a lot of detail about the many places we have visited in the last day and a half - but that is what it is like here.

Colin, retired from the British Army, is our guide on the WW1 battlefields Tour that started on Saturday afternoon. He is well versed in the culture, history and anecdotal insights that make such a trip a treasure.

Near Pozierres, the highest point of this gently rolling countryside, in all directions are sites of significance. Here is a monument to the Royal Tank Corp – one of the instruments that greatly assisted the British forces. Across the road are the remains of a windmill – a position taken by Australian forces.

Jim Gelch, the manager of Nuffield Australia, also knows his war history. He periodically reads to us from a book called “Walk with the ANZACS”.  One describes the battle here, including in particular the “foremost act of individual audacity,” by one man.

Mouquet farm, fondly know to the Aussies as Moocow Farm, was a heavily fortified site occupied by the Germans. All around here are such sites and the stories of the bravery and casualties required to take them. This action took place largely in 1916 in a sustained push to drive the German line back.The villages here have had to be rebuilt, most being either seriously damaged or even completely obliterated.The problem here along this line was that the Germans had had a couple of years to establish defensive lines – usually if the commonwealth forces broke through one line, there were still several more to breach. Yesterday we saw memorials to battles fought in 1918 – after the dogged reclamation of many of the positions in this area in 1916, the Germans took them back in “The race to the sea” - their drive for the Channel in 1918, requiring the French and their allies to once again reclaim this land - including the story of the Red Baron.

As I got back on the bus from Mouquet Farm, I could hear music. As I sat down I even glanced up to see where the speaker was, because it was quite loud by my seat I thought. “Going Home” played on… my friend said, “Is that you” as picked up the iPad to continue with my blog writing. No I said, as the music got louder as the iPad came out of its case. Yes, it was me; I must have inadvertently started up Sofia’s playlist as I put it away to get off the bus and view the memorial at the farm. We had a good chuckle about that, thanks Sofia!

Caterpillar Valley Memorial holds the headstone that marks the site of where NZ’s returned unknown soldier lay from 1916 to 2004, before being taken home with much ceremony to the memorial in NZ. We watched much of the proceedings on tv and I remember still the emotion we all felt then. Colin our guide asked if anyone spoke Maori – while I needed the translation to understand it, I was able by virtue of the relentless correction of my Maori pronunciation by the rest of my family to deliver an acceptable reading of the Maori inscription for everyone. An honour.

To give some context, where the grave is lie hundreds of other graves – from a variety of commonwealth countries, jumbled together, not sectioned off. Standing from the archway entrance with my back to the headstones, to my left lower in the valley is another small graveyard and at 10 o’clock a memorial. It has taken less than 15 minutes to drive from where we have ‘crawled’ from one site of significance to the next, the last being the impressive Franco-English memorial at Theipval.

All have information in both English and French, side by side. The Newfoundland memorial has their symbolic caribou on a high rocky knoll, overlooking preserved trenches,  looking to ‘advance’. This force left Newfoundland as 1000 men, lost 200 at Gallipoli and after an attack here in 1916 only 68 remained unscathed. The battle of Pozieres is renowned - 60,000 casualties were sustained – the darkest day. There are over 200 cemeteries in this vicinity. I learn near Messine that there are still open war cemeteries – about 50 bodies are found around the Somme and 50 around Messine each year…
A poem by John Oxenham includes these lines:
“For not one foot of this dank sod but drank
It surfeit of the blood of gallant men…”
This is on a plaque at the Newfoundland Memorial, a site that has preserved the original trench lines. Today they are softened by grass and made passable by a nice wooden boardwalk; it is hard to imagine the series of craters, trenches, mud and munitions debris that made up the landscape then.

We were told to stick to the paths – unexploded arms still lie in the ground, to the point that sheep are used to graze the area from time to time, and suffer their own losses in these fields today.
In the extensive fields that make up the now beautiful countryside, one can still see the evidence of the artillery fire… the many ploughed fields awaiting their spring sowing show the underlying white chalk subsoil, which was brought up by the explosions. Some fields have a homogeneous colour, but in some the clear splashes (explosions) or runs (trenches) of white can be seen.

I really had no idea when I signed up for this tour that it would be so extensive and with so many adjacent sites to see. Ross should really be here for this :)
After lunch we saw what is probably the most emotive monument – that to the Canadian forces, commemorating in particular the taking of Vimy hill.

Again the jumbled pock marks have been retained here, with woods allowed to grow over them in places. A line of sight however draws your eyes to the soaring white twin-pillared edifice.

Evocative statues are scattered around different sides and heights of the sculpture, which would be over 15m tall. It can be seen from miles around, including from several highly populated areas.
I was surprised to see as I walked from the trenches to the monument what looked like distant pyramids looming over the horizon – coal tailings I am told.

We have passed only one German cemetery so far, though they too died here. Originally tye Germans had 678 cemeteries in this region, consolidated down to 128 and now there are only 4. The cemetery at Langermark in Belgium has 44,000 people buried.
We don’t have to travel far however to see a church spire rising above the village or town it stands over – as I glance around I see 3 without looking too hard. Another phenomenon that has faxcinated some of us is the endless appearance of jetstreams – one industrious lad says they counted 45! With the countryside so gently rolling, and in the absence of significant hills, the sky is very big here. Last night as we stopped to view the gravesite of Australia’s returned unknown soldier we were treated to a magnificent sunset. This developed further as we drove toward Amien, our overnight destination.

In most places in NZ we don’t get the opportunity to see such a widespread and long-lasting sunset – a combination of less ‘big-sky’ and less low-hanging smoke!
Pylons, motorways, railways and smoke stacks exist amongst fields, barns, copses and village churches. No farmer has to travel far to arrive at a village, or even a major town – and vice versa of course.

Driving off the main highway over the Belgium border I see a wee road sign pointing down a narrow country road that says “Christmas Truce”, which brings me to tears.

I truly couldn't say how many times we got off the bus - maybe up to 20 - and we didn't stop for eveything we could have... Our final stop was in the town of Iper, popluation 30,000 and one of the centres of Battlefield Tourism.
Preparing for the memorial service tonight at the Menin Gate, Colin tells us that the memorial was opened in 1928, with the words, “This is a memorial to the missing, but they are not missing, they are here.” It was the first broadcast by theBBC from a foreign place.
I was given the responsibility of choosing which of us four NZers would represent our country in laying a wreath at the service.
Though my name was drawn by lot, I passed the honour to Dan - who had both a grandfather and a grandmother over here. More about that another day...

Nuffield CSC 2015 Concludes

Day three of our Nufield Conference and we have heard from a cluster group of sugar beet (and other crops) producers, processors and stakeholders.
Near Reims is a site at Bazancourt-Pomacle that incudes a variety of operations that fit together.

Key to it are the producer cooperatives, some support and a lot of innovation. There was tonnes and tonnes of stainless steel! Working to use as much as they can, they refine the sugar beet and distill the sugars to 99.9% pure ethanol for bio-fuel. Waste products aren't 'wasted' - carbon dioxide is purified and processed into liquid by a separate entity that has its site on part of the larger site - pulp from the beets is returned to paddocks - waste products from the distillation are dried and turned into animal feed.
Also on site are some greenfields enterprises related to "bioeconomy" - cosmetics, plastics, a pilot project producing bio-fuel from tougher, cellulose-rich plant materials. Then there is research and education, with support from a couple of notableFrench tertiary institutes. A wide range of interlinked aspects of "bioeconomy". One of our presenters reminded us that 'alone you get there faster, but together you go further. This place I am sure is testament to that.
Yesterday was the bigger picture of policy, European and French. For our Aussie and Kiwi 'purists' the whole subsidy topic is hard to respond to without prejudice. But it was very interesting to hear some of the history and evolution of the Common Agricutural Policy.
The conference is very well structured with time after each speaker to reflect on what we have heard, to think of comments and questions and then to discuss them at our tables with the aim of arriving at one question from each of the nine tables in the room.
A highlight of being in such an historic place was a paper chase through the streets of Reims, finishing at the Cathedral of Notre Dame Reims.

The cathedral was started in about 1230 and has been built, and restored, in stages. It sufferred major damage during the war, when it was very near the front - even serving as a German hospital briefly before the French retook Reims. Inside it is cold and it is dim... but it is nonetheless soaring.

With it's remarkable arches, stained glass from different periods, statues, candles and even its war wounds, it is a place that many have attached meaning to - and left that legacy.

Paris and Onward 28 Feb 2015

I said I’d keep this up at least every two days – now I have some appreciation of how fitting it in is really going to be difficult. Not to offer that as an excuse, just saying!
About forty of us have just spent 5 hours at the Salon International de l’Agriculture. An exhibition that has the dual roles of allowing judging of the supreme representatives of  animal breeds and specialty foods, and to showcase agriculture to the many non-farming visitors.
Some highlights were:
Ferard – the Rouge des Pres bull who at 1890kg was the heaviest at the show – what a a set of curly hauches!!

The Montbeliarde breed, the second most populous dairy animal, with their lovely white faces – not a common look in NZ for dairy cattle!
Understanding the breed purity focus and Paris and Onwardmarketing strength that is leveraged from that – whether from a populous breed like Limousin (I saw branded Limousin milk and meat products) or a heritage breed of only several hundred such as the Breton Pie Noir (with a specialist product somewhere between yogurt and cheese called gros lait.
Seeing the layering of regional tastes with breeds to produce a plethora of personalised products.
Observing the highly animated facial and body reaction of a group of children when one of the giant cattle beasts poohed!
However the absolute highlight was being introduced to comte cheese, produced from a regional dairy operation consisting of only 5 farms. These are operated on an extensive basis, making provision for the growth of many native plants in their pastures – the exact plants that contribute to the unique flavour of this cheese.

Happily it also means they can stay within the limits imposed under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, such as no more than 30kg/ha of nitrogen per year. A previous French Nuffield Scholar is involved in this business and ignited enthusiasm in a bunch of down-under ‘uninitiates’ by virtue of his own passion. We sampled comtes with a variety of ‘fruitiness’ – and with vanilla granules or with black cumin seed. Then at opposite ends of the spectrum the soft seasonally produced Mont d’Or (cultured wrapped in bark) and the blue cheese that was distinctly ‘forest mushroom’! To cap it off our host told us that his people have a responsibility to their ancestors - to continue with these traditional products that have been handed down over many hundreds of years.
Interesting that the support for farmers seems tied to the parochialism and pride in this people’s history.
Now I’m on the bus – a 2.5 – 3 hour journey from Port de Versailles to Reims, where we settle in for our conference.
Reims Is in the Champagne region, so we start our time with wine-tasting tonight! This place is also where the ancient French king Clovis was crowned, and continued to be the place of coronation until there were no more kings to crown. We discovered this yesterday on a wonderfully enlightening commentated tour of Paris, a city that oozes a history with marker points right back to before Christ walked this earth.

Rich with town planning peculiarities, palaces, art history, scientific feats and architecture, not to mention photo opportunities, this is a place you could wander in for a long time!
In keeping with the regional food products, areas of Paris too have distinctive flavours. Our guide said “Tell me where you are from and I will tell you who you are.”  
Well the signs are telling me we are in Champagne country and a city is coming into view after only checkered villages, copses, and rolling countryside. Lets see what we find in Reims…