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But ‘How do we feed the world’?

Ahh the age old question.

This conversation and argument has been coming up a lot in my classes, esp in agriculture.  In fighting for changes to agricultural practices and policies that can be built and implemented to change the raping of our lands yet find a way to feed ourselves, i can’t help but wonder, do we even need to feed the world when we can’t even properly feed ourselves in a culturally diverse country that doesn’t follow any kind of local or traditional food lifestyle?  What Americans eat is such a hodgepodge of newly created and immature food, drawing from different immigrant cultures and locally developed and industrialized processed food made to appeal to our taste buds and that’s it.  Ancient civilizations were built on locality, and the adaptation of their geographic environment.  What people ate in certain areas fit with the climate and lifestyle, or was this all trial and error on their part too?  It is all clear only in retrospect?  I’m sure we as people have been fighting since we evolved from chimps to find the best form of survival.  So what do we do about a baby country that has clearly had too many ‘learn the hard way’ – crash and burn kind of cultural and socio-economic lessons on how to survival “properly”?

perhaps, i’m just lost in my cynical critical and academic ways, where i’m starting to find it difficult to relate what i eat and my everyday life back to these grand theories and policies that are trying too hard to be all encompassing.  and perhaps, that’s why congress, and the house has trouble representing properly too.  This country is so diverse, and when people spend most of their time arguing for the interests of the top profit dollar, well the bigger picture just gets a little lost.

Perspective.

YES. maybe that’s what arguments of Sustainability are trying to push. — If we take a look at the bigger picture, the biggest we can imagine; the health of our earth, then maybe we can relate that back to how we’re messing up our lives in terms of reconstruction after our latest crash and burn of the economy.

What is Sustainable farming practices and how is it different than what we’re doing now?

We all know that conventional farming practices have been detrimental to our health whether internal or externally from the Agribusiness systems.  Tons of fossil fuels are being burned and used, yadeeda, carbon emissions are high, etc… we’ve all heard the global warming arguments.  So who’s accountable?  How do we change these practices?

When we’re talking about Sustainable – are we talking about for our earth? or for ourselves?

Here’s an Article i found in my inbox this morning, (thanks Waylan.)

and my response:

Mass production of our food in America has been raping the soil for years, but it’s been doing so because it’s been providing the supply for the demand, and people have been tricked through marketing for ages, being told what to eat, and why — and hence the ‘demand’ numbers of the simple business equation is true, but skewed.  People are so far removed from what they know to eat and what they should eat (from cultural and historical clues) that not necessarily following a diet that’s good for our health but good for the earth (as suggested in the article) might on one hand make our earth live longer, but subsequently our health will suffer major consequences too.

I think the earth will most definitely outlive us. So shouldn’t the focus be on how to find a balance between what we eat that’s good versus how it’s produced?

Will the shift in priority towards the health of the earth help to change people’s minds about overall healthy lifestyle? Maybe…hopefully.  I wonder if it’s trying to make people care more, but i always find it hard to get people to care about the environment unless it directly relates to how it would affect their life.  We are an ego centric race, we need to find ways to survive too.
So I find it hard to receive when one makes claims to say that we should change our diets, if one has the luxury of choice, in order to change how sustainable our earth will be.   What if people collectively started not to eat as many berries? (as suggested by the article that has a high carbon footprint) – will the increases in demand of another crop spike in the use and subsequently our consumption of fossil fuels in order to produce enough to meet the demand?

Perhaps looking at how to control climate is another way of us going, we want to prolong our own lives, because we’re scared the earth will wipe us all out in a matter of seconds due to any natural disaster so we’ll change our practices to work around the earth? hmm, that’s something to ponder, but what about the health of the people? the economics of scale? and the enjoyment of a variety of food?

when we’re looking at sustainability, what aspect of sustainability are we talking about and of whose interests are we protecting?

If we’re simply looking at sustainable practices then, it’s easy for one to say — ok, go organic.

since Organics technically sound better in terms of the earth’s health and our health due to the run off of pesticides and waste in our water systems –

BUT, traditionally, Organic practices in Cali have been laid over the frameworks of Conventional Agribusiness… because when you have so many mouths to feed, how do you build a new system that will produce, transport, and deliver from seed to plate with the lowest carbon emissions if no one’s accountable for such external factors of production?  Farmers need to make money too in order to survive, they produce for others in order to feed themselves.  It’s their livelihood that we’re asking to change in order to benefit ours.  I’m sure they can benefit from a little more respect and support from us who just take take take from the relationship too.

Fact of the matter is this country is HUGE and people in dense urban areas have been relying on transported and imported food for ages, not even minding the kind of variety we’re used to that plays a huge role in our cultural lifestyles that have supplemented our nutrition, or lack thereof.

Also, if organics seem so good –

What about social justice issues of the nature of the hard labour with low paying, unfair, seasonal, and horrible working conditions  of any large scale farming business – organic or not?

How do u regulate such a system without boosting morale or workers and trusting that producers want to do better?  We as a society demand and expect so much from these few who do produce enough at any cost to feed the country.

Perhaps that’s why the LOCAL movement has gotten so much attention lately.  Let’s dissipate the responsibility shall we? Let’s make ourselves at least more aware to the fact that we no longer in modern times spend much of our day catching, making, growing, harvesting, cooking, transporting, and storing most of our own food.  At least in the big cities.  Local Farmer’s markets deal with all of these issues on a small scale community level.  Purchasing food from local Farmer’s Markets stimulates the local economy, provides a marketplace for diversified crops, and brings issues of seasonality to the foreground of market goers.  Food that doesn’t travel so far uses less fuel and energy to get to climate controlled markets.  Local farmer’s markets provide farm fresh foods at a cheaper cost too since some cut out the middle man and related overhead costs.   Managing farmers markets has also become a business in itself putting the importance of commerce into the picture.  Because in the end, weren’t supermarkets built on this concept?

Lots of farmer’s markets also accept WIC Program checks and are finding ways to partner with the National Food Stamp Program to get working administrative terminals in the open air markets.  Winter indoor markets that sell greenhouse crops are also becoming popular as well.  CSA Farm basket programs are also available to supplement this source of food.

The only inconvenience I find are the limited opening hours and availability of such food that needs to be brought in and marketed to local communities.

I for one LOVE having 24 hour markets around,  because my urban lifestyle has been tailored around such realities.  But I do like the idea of returning to a more simple life, where I am connected to my food chain not only through my mind and an education of my systems and where my food comes from, but actually frequenting local markets and eating food that hasn’t traveled thousands of miles to get to that perfectly lit supermarket spot, marketed with a premium price in which i know i am very well paying for the quality of convenience.  But i guess times are changing.  Even I’m changing.  Food isn’t what it used to be, there’s more trickery involved and most things that i used to trust that were good for me, are showing it’s side effects in the health of my body.  Also the more i live in a city (as i used to pride myself on being a citygirl), the more i want to return to nature, to spend time in nature, to try hunting and go fishing, and spend my days making food.  I miss the enjoyment of food, I really do.  I miss having time to cook  all day long instead of talk about it, although equally as important.

It’s our instant gratification world that is being challenged now, and when it comes to something as vital as our sources of food, it’s pretty hard to ignore all its affects whether you’re for or against either “new wave” of organic, sustanable, and or local movement in your neighbourhood.  Fact of the matter is –

never mind how we’re going to feed the world, but how are YOU going to FEED YOURSELF first?!

Balance.  One must find balance in this world.  It’s too easy to live and argue extremes, but living a balanced life is the hardest and most rewarding.  It is quieter, and sometimes seen as less important only because our extremes can be so loud, but achieving balance is the key to survival.

It’s been a huge lesson in Self Sustainability this week…

my body busted out into hives because of my disconnect between what i choose to eat, and what’s actually good for me.  And i can’t help but be grateful for such conveniences when i am sick and under the weather, ironically, due to what I’ve been eating in this country for the past couple of months…We’re all learning everyday, how to sort through all this confusing information about what to eat, and for the first time ever, i was able to see the differences today between all the different systems available out there now as a counter movement of much needed changes to where we get our food.

So it’s detox time. More leafy veg, more fruit, & more liquids, because on any political level of where and how my food was raised and grown, i still need to eat it in order to survive at the end of the day.

and that’s survival, on every level possible.

*PAIX

Eat Well,

xoxo Jlo xoxo