Most people do not associate food with their sovereignty, but it is one of the most crucial freedoms we have. For most people it is a simple process of going to the grocery store, but stop and think about the process that controls the food you find on the shelves. Mega-corporations dictate what you eat and how it is grown, and the basic factor underlying it all is corporate profit, plain and simple. Whatever creates most profit is adopted regardless of whether it is healthy for you or the planet. Processed food is made addictive with the addition of excess sugars and artificial additives. Further artificial chemicals are added to increase storage and shelf life, and then an arbitrary expiry date is included to ensure the food moves quickly off the shelves allowing the conveyor belt of corporate food processing to continue unabated. I have covered this deeper in previous posts (e.g., see Health – Food 1-3 {Jan 2018}).
Then, add to that the staggering control that ecologically destructive corporate agriculture has on food production at its source and you should see how most of what you eat is controlled by corporate systems in which you are merely the consumer. Food sovereignty has to be one of our first mass acts of defiance against the hierarchy. It has been occurring for many years with anti-GMO and organic food advocacy, and with many local farmers working in CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and other localized food farming systems. An interesting article (Hungry During the Pandemic — Can Urban Farms Help? Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner, Independent Media Institute, Sept 7, 2020) talks about the rise of urban agriculture. For instance, many health mindful restaurants have already been locally sourcing their foods, and especially organic sources for many years now that has spawned more independent farming to ensure high food quality. Many also educate their customers on the benefits of healthy foods as compared to food from corporate systems. What is unique is that the notion of farms being traditionally outside the boundaries of urban environments is changing. There is a surge of commercial urban agriculture happening in cities everywhere, many times on rooftops, in vacant lots, via hydroponic systems, in back yards, and in smaller independent urban farms. My urban farmer neighbor next to me with their 7 acres calls themselves a Farmette.
One positive from the Covid lockdowns has been the opportunity for millions of people to begin experimenting with growing fruits and vegetables at home, and as importantly, begin to experiment with the culinary arts in varying their diets to increase the use of healthy foods. This is the beginning of food sovereignty – freeing ourselves of the dependence on Big Agriculture. An added benefit of growing your own food is that you and the people around you start to develop more mindful consciousness about the environment and the hidden negative costs of Big Agriculture, such as greatly reduced food transport emissions and elimination of excessive pesticides and fertilizers within their foods. Considering that by 2050 more than 68 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, localizing organic food as a primary source needs to become a part of our lives. It has always amazed me living in the U.S. that despite all the apparent wealth of the country, before Covid more than 37 million people suffered food insecurity every day, and this has risen post-Covid to 54 million people. Hoeffner has an interesting comment, “a planting cycle is quicker than an election cycle. Bureaucracy may not immediately solve fair wages, but vegetable seeds may help communities when times are tough.”
A fundamental aspect of creating more Urban Farms is the ability to have it function as an Urban Practice in developing sustainable food systems. Local ownership is key to local and personal sovereignty. People who do not have yards or the ability to garden can become partners in local areas that serve as community gardens or even be granted garden allotments that are part of public areas. This creates more nutritious options for all socio-economic levels of the community especially those where cost of living is high because of gentrification. It does mean, however, that we move past the quaint idea of large lawns and excessive flower gardens (not that public areas shouldn’t still have these) and think about how a neighborhood can feed itself efficiently and be less reliant on rural areas, especially those areas dominated by Big Ag.
People that garden always comment that the food one grows themselves always tastes better, and that is never truer than using food grown from ‘Heirloom’ seeds. While many hybrid seeds give tasty crops, GMO and excessively hybridized seeds designed for Commercial Agriculture are meant to be mechanically robust for mass monoculture farming, long term storage and mechanical harvesting – flavor is incidental to keeping the produce ‘nice’ looking. Sadly, in the industrialized nations, we have been indoctrinated to expecting farm produce to look picture perfect. If you have ever gone to a farmers’ market, especially ones that specialize in organic produce, you will note that much of the produce is misshapen, has blemishes, or isn’t polished as it in in advertisements.
I recall when I organized a class of my sustainability studies students to design and grow a permaculture demonstration garden on about 1200 square feet of spare land in the center of campus. The students were excited about building a unique garden and getting seeds planted with heirloom seeds. The results and yields were impressive. Not only did everything taste incredible (and I mean absolutely mouth wateringly amazing), but the yields over a couple of months during the harvest time were so high we had to put a box of produce each morning with a sign for students and staff passing by the garden to help themselves. One morning I took a basket overflowing with varied produce to the University president’s office as an example of what can work with minimal investment and lots of enthusiasm. The students loved getting their hands dirty and being outside, and also being able to call it classwork they could learn from and eat.
There was a time when nearly everyone grew food, but with the varied career paths from modern living, industrialized farming became specialized with a need for farmers to be technocrats able to afford and work with modern technologies. Without going into detail here, this is a reason for the intense rise of Big Agriculture and the loss of small farms worldwide. I won’t say that we don’t need large scale farming, but we really need to think more wisely about how we farm, what we expect from our food (nutrition and health would be nice), and how to create a secure food supply that we control, instead of living at the whims and incredible fragility of the Big Ag food system. That food security begins with us all being a part of localized food systems, even if we do not have green thumbs, that acts as an intentional community. It needs to be a community effort in which we are all involved and all gain the benefits with healthy food and healthy people.
To Be Continued ………………………….
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