Like so many people around the world, organizers of the Marin County Fair choose the sunflower as a symbol to express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
Even as we in Marin County are able to celebrate with the community at the first in-person fair in three years, we do not want to forget the scale of the tragedy that continues to unfold in a place that has been called the breadbasket of the world. It is a land famous for its rich, black soil and where the colors of the national flag represent golden fields of yellow below a deep blue sky.
The war and its devastating effect on agricultural production threatens famine in many parts of the world. Before the conflict that now divides them, the two countries of Ukraine and Russia together produced as much as 80% of the world’s supply of sunflower seeds and oil.
For us, it is significant to note that the sunflower originated in the Americas. First grown and domesticated 4,500 years ago by the advanced agricultural societies occupying what is now Mexico, it was also cultivated by Native Americans in areas now called Tennessee and Kentucky, before being brought to Europe by the Spanish in the 1600s.
But it was the Russians who would go on to breed higher oil-yielding varieties of the sunflower that would transform the plant from an ornamental curiosity into one of the world’s most important crops. Landmark research in the 1970s showed that sunflower oil was healthier than the saturated fats traditionally used for cooking.
As it entered wider production as a food source, the sunflower also became recognized for its properties as a hyperaccumulator. After the disaster in Chernobyl, when the ground around a Ukrainian nuclear power plant was poisoned with radioactive material, fields of sunflowers were planted on the site to draw toxins from the ground.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Ukraine’s leaders made the decision to disarm, to abandon thousands of warheads, in return for security guarantees provided by Western powers. In June 1996, officials from the United States, Russia and Ukraine formally marked Ukraine’s disarmament by planting a field of sunflowers at the Pervomaysk missile base. More than a plant, a crop or even an industry, the sunflower has become a symbol.
We, the people of Marin County, will create our own 30-foot sunflower at the fair, our own symbol of peace. We will build it with materials readily available to any weekend do-it-yourselfer at the local hardware store: framing lumber, plywood, cardboard and packing tape.
We will make it as big as we possibly can. We will live with it in the fairgrounds, the heart of our community for five days. No flower lasts forever. And all wars must come to an end. We pray that the end of the suffering will come soon. And we look forward to a day when the people of Ukraine and Russia can return to the business of growing sunflowers for a grateful world.
We are teaming up with John MacLeod from XR Libraries and the Marinovation Learning Center for this collaborative community project. Join the Marin Makers for Solar Spin Art and a fairgrounds scavenger hunt. The Marin Maker Club provides hands-on projects for everyone. Find us on the fairgrounds near the giant Ferris wheel all five days of the fair.
Daniel Castor is a member of the American Institute of Architects.
