After a successful real food summit workshop we decided to set up a sort of question/answer network for people working for 'real' food at their college campuses, high schools and communities, we may need to get in touch with the real food organizers, but I was thinking we could start small and see where this takes us: basically we need a google group that can post questions and answers, issues and thoughts on the subject of increasing food quality, food justice and environmental justice at all levels of human existence: Megh and I are in the process of putting that together, so y'all have something to look forward to.
Some general thoughts about people's experiences were that we all seem to be following a fairly similar course of action: from food production to food consumption... while this may seem like a closed loop, we forget how many other inputs typically go into the agricultural systems we participate in, never you mind our dollars and sense, but time, transportation and most importantly (in my mind) land use: I think one of the stronger arguments for changing our food system, besides those of concerns of immediate human health and well being are those of a more fundamental nature: we cannot afford to destroy any more arable land on this planet, and by destroy I mean desertify (undergo the process of desertification, and not the sweet one either), salinize (I may have made this word up, but I think you get the drift), render toxic, nutrient imbalanced or depleted. In addition, our agricultural systems are tightly linked with our overall environmental health both in the bio-geo-chemical sense: as they leach tremendous amounts of nutrients and pesticides into surrounding bodies of water, effects that cascade and aggregate into toxic algal blooms and anoxic zones in such places as the Chesapeake bay, Gulf of Mexico and many others (check out this link to a Nasa site), as well as contaminating ground water, eutrophying local water systems (and contributing to species invasions and the collapse of local fisheries), but organismal/ecological as well: our agricultural systems should be repositiories of biodiversity and aggregate human knowledge (seeds have been passed down for millenia, and were priorly selected upon in a myriad number of ways), as well as partnerships with plants and animals that naturally control "pests," increase their resilience (the agricultural system's), and provide medicine as well as food, and finally economic: fertilizer runoff, excess -cide usage and soil erosion all directly translate to the wastage of millions of dollars per annum (sorry about the long sentence, special apologies to the text/instant mssg generation). However, all is not lost! There exist a large number of solutions to our general method of agriculture, available to anybody with an internet connection (there are too many links to list here, check google on your own (though the Land Institute, and some of Vandana Shiva's work are good places to start, as is "The One Straw Revolution" by Masonobu Fukuoka), from no/conservation/reduced tillage, poly/permi-culture, ecological and organic farming practices to IPM (even the EPA is clued into this), and the use of vegetative buffers to protect waterways. The overall point is to increase the total health of the ecosystem in a manner that allows us to practice sustainable methods of agriculture (which, when you really think about it, is in Everybody's best interest, in the long term).
On a lighter note, I skipped school on Monday (stayed Sunday night in a wood heated cabin with no electricity) and went skiing for most of the daylight hours, I had to quit around 2. 'Twas an absolutley phenomenal day at Mt. Snow USA. From being waist deep in the drifts on Ripcord and the Plunge, to a constant snowgasm on practically any trail I went down, I felt that I am exploring my true love for spaces relatively unspoiled by the works of man (for some info on why you should use non-toxic ski wax check out enviro-mountain sports). 1 late day 5 later, I feel ready to get serious into the reportage on the Quest For Fresh Air (more on this later), but alas, for now, the requirements of the academe curtail my ability to spread my enjoyment of the deep snow and clean sky. Let it suffice to say, for now, that our internal motivations should always outweigh our external motivations, if we are to find the peace that makes life on this planet worth living. Then again, if we did so, the entire contemporary system of human relations (en masse) may just collapse, but if you are at all like me and have spent the last two days either listening to Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," skiing, eating local foods, drinking local brews, taking snow baths or sleeping, it might not seem to bad after all...
1 comment:
I’ve keep hearing versions of “Liberals are the only ones who can afford an environmental conscious.” Clearly, this is a lie. Material wealth doesn’t discriminate based on political stances. The statement does strike a chord though. I’ve sort of left the open spaces and skies for a time and find myself in the rotting heart of another problem. How do the internal motivations of people living on food stamps play into the environmentally conscious food chain? Also, what exactly do you mean my internal and external? Internal—mind and soul, External—taking care of transient aging shell that houses the purer entity?
Ultimately the decisions which affect our remaining arable land are made in closed offices, often in cities. The votes that go in theoretically and ideally represent all of us. A significant portion of us live in cities, modern day slums, and vacuum suburbs. I am most concerned with the cities and the slums. It’s almost too obvious to restate, everything is interconnected. Desertification of the earth, desertification of the mind/soul—same thing. Poison manifests in many ways. The chemical toxins leak into the cities in sneakier and more permanent channels because people are too busy eking out a living to notice. Frozen mock beef patties, hot-chips, skittles, cookies and soda comprise many a breakfast I see. No doubt the chemical cocktail is one factor in why teenagers think it's a good idea to drop out of school and rob a bank at gun point. Someone saw me eating a sweet pea and asked to taste it, since they’d never seen one before. Overweight grandparents and skinny kids eating gummy worms for breakfast leave me perturbed. I have not been under truly open skies for a while, but these people may never get there. The nutrient imbalances in diet mirrors many other imbalance and no one is looking.
You mention Vandana Shiva. I believe much of her success stems from how she mobilizes the most marginal populations through education. Her education is multifaceted: time consuming science classes, on going labs in the form of cultivating native crops, history lessons, activism, political organization, resistance etc . . . She works with illiterate and marginalized populations. I don’t understand why we don’t do the same. People are the heaviest inputs in the loop. Fukuoka on the other hand, took a more subtle and different approach and allowed the seekers to trickle into his fields. I wish he has been more forceful in engaging the outside world, but I’m notoriously impatient.
I’m not making much sense, but the connections make sense in my jumbled mind. The university campus is good start. The university is also a strange bubble dangerously tapering towards an ivory tower mold, especially considering who can afford education. Since much of the energy, exuberance, resources, momentum and idealism needed to forge ahead exist on college campuses, a crucial step is to spread the knowledge into more densely populated areas—cramped places where most people don’t graduate high school. Their numbers are vast, the sentiments are discontented, and as consumers they are a significant input. Sadly few see how motives ripple through the pure spaces, agricultural land, suburbs, cities and into the ghettos.
In the meantime it’s comforting to see that there are cognizant, intelligent persons working to stem the toxins seeping out of the profit motive into our water, food, air and mindsets.
Post a Comment