Henry Brockman planned to cut back on his extensive and demanding organic farming operation after his one-year sabbatical in Japan. He’s been farming on fertile bottomland outside Eureka for 25 years, his three children are finished or finishing college, he’s now 52 years old and his Friday-Saturday 33-hour split shift each week is too long even for a man who values hard work.

But rather than cutting back, Brockman is gearing up with a new goal in mind.

A year of reflection and work at organic operations in Japan led Brockman to conclude he needs to shift his focus to his children and grandchildren and insure the farm is diverse and self-sustaining in terms of both food and fuel for future generations.

“Before I die, things in central Illinois will be really bad,” Brockman said referring to the environmental impacts of global climate change. “Mitigation. We’re not doing it. We are not acting and addressing the big environmental problems. My objective has to be survival for my children and grandchildren.”

Brockman is unusual even in the world of organic farming for his prioritization of environment over economics. He’s not looking for an easy way but for a sustainable way.

His land sits on an aquifer that he can access, but he rarely does. He’d lose a crop and modify his planting schedule rather than tap into the aquifer for routine irrigation.

“The aquifer is 220 feet deep, water trapped in the last glaciation under clay. No new water gets in. Once the water is gone, it’s gone. Water, like oil, is a nonrenewable resource,” Brockman said.

“I could water my 10 acres every week and not use as much water as a 1,000-head hog operation.”

But he won’t water unless it is a rare and dire emergency.

Even though he could earn $300 a week if he grew arugula year round, he’s adamant about growing it only in spring and fall when the arugula doesn’t require extra water.

“I may water to get seeds started, but I never water as a matter of course,” he said. “That is a choice. In environmental terms, it’s not a price I’ll pay. I won’t use water I don’t own. I can grow fall greens so they use very little water.”

Because he believes watering using the finite resources of the aquifer is a bad environmental decision, he has not invested in equipment that could make watering easier.

“I don’t make things easy for myself because if something is easy, we tend to do it,” he said. “I try to make things I shouldn’t do harder. So when I do water, it’s not easy.”

He sells at the Evanston farmers market and through a CSA in central Illinois. People can enroll in a CSA (community supported agriculture program) for a one-time payment early in the year. In return, they receive vegetables weekly from late May through November.

“The goal is to produce and distribute as much good food for as many people as possible,” Brockman said.

That means he can ignore the standard of cosmetically perfect food stocked by grocery stores. The Big Food standard for cosmetically perfect looking food fails to factor in nutritional value.

“In the wholesale market, peppers need four lobes. If a pepper does not have four lobes, it’s thrown out,” he said. “With cherry tomatoes, a certain number must fit into a pint container or they get thrown out. If food doesn’t conform in terms of size, color and shape, it gets thrown out. Good food thrown away.”

This year was shaping up to be one of his best fall squash crops ever until late wet and humid weather caused the squash to develop soft spots. However, if the spot was scooped out with a spoon, the rest of the squash was good, just not cosmetically perfect.

Brockman spent four hours each Tuesday before CSA distribution scooping out soft spots.

“That would have been 1,500 squash to throw away or provide for the CSA,” he said. “Better to provide for the CSA.”

Part of the philosophy behind a CSA is that subscribers learn to understand the process of sustainable farming compared with monoculture chemical farming that produces cosmetically perfect food at huge cost to the environment.

So arugula with tiny flea bites won’t sell in a grocery store but is understood and valued by members of a CSA who know it is nutritious and good, just not cosmetically perfect.

Subscribers learn to eat food in season, not food forced to grow with additional water in all seasons.

One of the most frequent questions Brockman receives is how he deals with insects. His answer includes diversification, never letting one insect pest feast without work. He grows over 600 varieties of vegetables on his 10 acres, never planting in large blocks.

“In a natural system, nothing gets the upper hand. If everything is in balance, everyone gets to eat a little,” he said. “In a natural system, the goal is not to wipe out another species. In a biodiverse system, there is balance. In a monoculture with no room for pests, someone pays a price and it’s usually those who are disadvantaged and poor.”

In season, his farm is a beautiful, intricate quilt. In a little field notebook, he records dates, observations and weather conditions. An alarming emerging pattern shows spring planting is at least two weeks earlier and fall harvest extends two weeks later.

“That does not just mean the growing season includes more weeks. It means overwintering pests are worse. It means our wonderful soils have shorter winters to break down carbon. Not only is the climate getting warmer, but we have more destructive, more extreme rainfalls,” he said.

Walnut Creek bordering his farm is flooding more often than in past years. The creek used to flood about once every three years. In one of those floods, Brockman’s bottomland would become a huge, placid, backwater lake that would recede leaving top soil and silt behind. Now, floods rush through like rivers and wash away top soil.

Defenders of GMO foods are like a drumbeat, repeating and repeating that GMO foods are needed to feed the world. Brockman relates that to a principle Hitler set forth in his book Mein Kampf. If you don’t know something is true, just repeat it often enough, and it will become accepted as true. If believing something is in your own self interest, it becomes easier to believe, he said.

On 10 acres, Brockman estimates he’s able to grow enough vegetables to feed more than 2,500 people for half a year.

Compared with Brockman’s productivity, GMO foods with their environmental risks and corporate profit motive are clearly not needed to feed the world.

In terms of his Friday-Saturday schedule, Brockman works a 33-hour split shift. Fridays typically start at 4 a.m., he goes home for a nap about 7 p.m. then he’s up by 12:45 a.m. and on the road by 1 a.m., driving to the Saturday morning farmers market in Evanston.

He usually arrives about 4 a.m. sets up his tents and unloads his produce.

“My first customers come about 6 a.m. This time of year they come with little head lamps on. Then the market is really busy by 8 a.m.,” he said, noting that he packs up and drives home arriving back at the farm by about 6 p.m., unloads the truck and goes to bed.

“That’s my Fri-Saturday. It’s one long day,” he said, walking to the cooler to begin loading his truck for his CSA pickups in Bloomington. His wife Hiroko goes with him.

“It’s our date night,” he said.

For Brockman, his CSA is about more than providing organic, chemical-free food for his subscribers. It’s an opportunity to embrace them into the cycles of a sustainable farm. Through weekly emailed Food & Farm Notes, subscribers learn about destructive rains and floods, small imperfections in squash, a hugely prolific turnip crop, the last of the season’s tomatoes and the healing power of warm earth alive with microorganisms.

Subscribers work a little for their food by making a special trip to pick up their weekly shares. In return, they receive organic produce and learn to see food from a new perspective that impacts community, environment and future generations. Recycling and avoiding food waste is the community mantra. Over time, the community mantra becomes the personal mantra.

For more information on Henry Brockman’s farm go to: www.henrysfarm.com.