“An organic farmer is the best peacemaker today, because there is more violence, more death, more destruction, more wars, through a violent industrial agricultural system. And to shift away from that into an agriculture of peace is what organic farming is doing” Vandana Shiva
The second essential aspect of developing a sustainable community (the other being localized energy sources – see last post) is to control your food sources. That can only be done locally. Unless you are currently growing some of your own food, you are beholden to transnational corporations that run a complex and fickle food growing and delivery system. I covered this fragility of this food system before (see Health – Food 1, 2, 3 and Relocalization and Community {January 2018}).
My opening quote for this post by Vandana Shiva, is really about localizing food and going back to times when farmers were always local and all types of food was seasonal. The start of the modern food system began when refrigerated rail cars started to run food greater distances. Then refrigerated ships and airplanes in just the last few decades allowed the global transportation of food that we now accept as normal. Economics of scale was responsible for much of your food travelling an average of 2000 miles before it reaches your plate. And then add on the out-of-season food that comes from vast distances on the other side of the world, and you see how much fuel is used to bring you the same foods year-round. To avoid food spoilage much of the crop food is either picked early and then ripened artificially, treated with chemicals to prevent premature ripening, or frozen at source before being shipped. Needless to say, none of this is sustainable, even if it keeps your palate happy, it is slowly destroying your long-term (even short-term) health.
Modern food species are now more designer foods that are Genetically Modified to survive harsh mechanical harvesting and to last longer before spoiling. They are also modified to grow in harsher conditions than wild and heirloom species (any type of vegetable seed that has been saved and grown over many years and is passed down by the gardener that preserved it) would tolerate (see health-food links in last paragraph). For a short while I worked in a University Nutritional Biochemistry unit of a Food Science Department. I found the GMO aspect fascinating if not a lot disconcerting. One of the faculty was researching how to make tomatoes be able to withstand 20 PSI (137 KPa) of impact pressure when being mechanically harvested so the skins would not split. When I asked about taste, I got a blank look. It was simply assumed that taste would be unaffected. No wonder so many supermarket tomatoes have so little flavor. This also shows that modifying one genetic trait either genetically or through hybridization affects other genes as well. But whereas farmers and scientists once used natural hybridization to find a hybrid species with better desired qualities, corporations look only at the cost effectiveness and how they can fob it off on us by removing any alternatives (e.g., Heirloom species) or making the alternatives (e.g., certified organic) prohibitively expensive for too many people. And the fact that so many food researchers do it with tunnel vision fixed on solving one problem, inadvertently create other problems.
The other more insidious aspect of this modern food system is how traditional large-scale food is grown with artificial chemicals and treated with biocides. Then this food is processed in the labs for long storage life and better taste. We have had decades of warnings about non-organic farming. Since 1962, Rachel Carson had been telling us that growing food with poisons was not a good idea. {Health food 2} and Jane Goodall echoes the same thought today, “Someday we shall look back on this dark era of agriculture and shake our heads. How could we have ever believed that it was a good idea to grow our food with poisons?” Now food is everyone’s topic of conversation, either the preferences when it is plentiful, or just having any when one is hungry. We need food to literally survive but we also need high quality organic food to remain healthy. Not eating high quality or organic food like our grandparents did every day, because the globalized corporations had not taken over our food system yet, should be our number one priority. Sadly, we have been brain washed, and or coopted, into accepting modern agricultural practices and processed food as OK. A lot of marketing and advertising has been used over the last few decades to sell us this fable.
“Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans [and many others worldwide] eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction” John Cage
So how do you ensure your food is high quality and organic? You can grow it yourself in your own garden, on an allotment, on common garden areas set up within your neighborhood (soon to be a community), or start making friends with farmers in your area who are savvy to the ecological concerns of people wanting healthy food. Farmers deserve to make a living and be supported by the people who will allow them to sell their crops farm-table without the corporate middle people who rip them (and us) off. If people invest in a farmer up front (e.g., Community Supported Agriculture – CSA), it shows they are willing to fully support the farmer. By many of the community working with the farmer, there is a sharing of knowledge and understanding of natural systems that educates future generations in why healthy food is essential to healthy living.
The concern of farm to table concept fits wonderfully with a new localized economics as well – money stays within the community not being siphoned up to the corporate system and the elites who invest in the elite economy only (see earlier post, The world Economy – are we really doing better? Measurement is everything! {August 2018}). The beauty of farm-table is that it works for everyone whether you live in the country, the suburbs, or within a large city. You can get out to the farmlands and make connections with farmers, most of which will be quite willing to jojn in, especially if local communities are willing to share the investments, time and effort that farming demands. “Essentially farm to table means harnessing the produce and livestock of locally grown farmers and ranchers; to put it simply, buying local. Most produce loses its nutrients within 24 hours of harvesting” Holbrooklife.com
It really is a straightforward process to start being part of a farm-table group. There probably is one in your area already, and if not then get people together. In my Relocalization and Community post I emphasize why doing this is so critical. Imagine your grocery stores closing their doors within 4 days because their shelves are empty and no deliveries are expected. I know, this sounds like a bad cataclysm movie, but seriously, where would you go for food? Like I said earlier, food is everyone’s favorite topic of conversation. There are a few basic steps in the farm to table continuum? Getting a local organic food system started – growing the food. Then the processing and delivery of the food equitably accruing to local investment and/or work done in the new system as part of payment, or as end customers in a cooperative store. As the system grows, it will require working with stores to support transporting the food to a Regional Distribution Centers and shipping to Stores. Ultimately, it is all about you and the community controlling just how healthy and organic food ends up going from the local farmer to food on your plate and those of everyone in your community. That is food security, something we don’t have with the globalized food system. It ends the fickle food system in which we are all currently trapped. And this is just about the system that reconnects us to the natural world. Once you break free of corporate agriculture, there are many varied local techniques for growing food just waiting to be re-discovered.
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