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Global Warning - Nov 3, 2005 - Printable Version
- Eat Where You Live
by Robin Buckallew
The other night, I had a nightmare. It was a doozey. The United States Congress, in a burst of rare responsibility to the people who had elected them, passed a comprehensive truth in labeling act requiring that all food items be labeled with all ingredients, including listing any fertilizers, pesticides or other chemical additives that had been used in their preparation. A visit to the local grocery store became an exercise in anguish, as I rejected can after can of processed food, labeled with long lists of chemical ingredients. It appeared there was actually very little food in the food. I abandoned the processed food aisles altogether, heading for the purity and safety of the produce section. After all, a tomato can't have ingredients. Or can it? In the produce aisle, I encountered a dizzying array of not only tomatoes, but lettuce, potatoes, cabbage, and even bananas with long labels listing all the chemicals used in their preparation, and all pesticides that had left residue on the finished product. Beautiful, red, luscious looking apples, just ready to be sliced and served, with a new skin of labels proclaiming their chemical-based heritage. Waking in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, my pulse beating twice as rapidly as normal, I looked around in the calm night, relieved it was only a dream. But is it? Throughout the 20th century, the demographics of America shifted, creating a country that is more steeped in urban and suburban culture than in rural life. As a result, most Americans encounter food only in the most superficial of ways - at the supermarket or the restaurant. Few American consumers spend much time on an actual farm, gaining a truly visceral understanding of the process by which food is produced. During the same period of time, the demographics of American agriculture have undergone a similar change. Where once family farms dotted the landscape, now giant corporate factory farms predominate. Giant multinational corporations have taken over the role of putting food on our families' tables. Over the same period of time, the sort of food that America eats has also undergone an enormous shift, with huge amounts of our food budget sunk into highly processed, highly packaged easy to prepare food, at the expense of the natural wholesome goodness of locally prepared and locally processed fruits and vegetables, milks and meats. Because of the merger mania of the past couple of decades, many of these processed foods are prepared for us by giants with familiar names, such as R. J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. The companies that bring us such wholesome brands as Marlboro, Kool and Camel are now also in charge of such brands as Nestlé and General Foods. The elves in the hollow tree answer to the corporate suits at the cigarette companies.
Throughout human history, food has been a major deciding factor in choosing where to live, when to move, how to spend the day. Food acquisition has evolved slowly from an early tribal life dominated by hunting, gathering and scavenging through a daily routine of tending crops and livestock into a lifestyle where most of us in the western world spend our day engaging in some sort of labor for which we will gain money that we can trade for the food we need. Food is an essential element of our continued existence as a species, and yet for most of us in this country, it is often taken for granted. We don't really know where it comes from, or how it gets to our table, and we don't spend a lot of energy asking those questions. We figure we have more important things we need to tend to, and there are other people who can look after that for us. I ask you to stop and consider this question, if only for a minute: what do you have to do that could possibly be more important than knowing what it is you are eating, or what it is you are feeding your children? You don't need to go back to the tilling of the soil or the hunting of wild animals to be concerned about and aware of food preparation. What you don't know can hurt you.
Let's talk briefly about the "Green Revolution". Widely touted by the World Bank and Monsanto, not to mention many who honestly and sincerely work to end world hunger, the so-called Green Revolution was a massive remaking of agriculture that took place around the middle of the 20th century. Using the most modern agricultural techniques, plowing and planting with massive machinery, irrigation where it's too dry and draining where it's too wet, and of course, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, farmers managed to gain huge increases in crop yields. Crop yields continued to increase every year for decades, growing enough grain to feed all the hungry mouths in the world (even if political and economic pressures prevent the food from reaching many of the hungry poor) and leaving a surplus to be stored against future droughts or other disasters that in the past would have led to certain famine. Oh, there were some glitches in the progress - turned out the pesticides left a residue on the food. Oh yes, and the bald eagle nearly went extinct because the DDT caused its eggshells to be so thin they couldn't hatch before they broke. Sometimes the pesticides killed off beneficial insects that helped keep the harmful insects in control, and sometimes they even had a lethal effect on livestock and family pets. The fertilizers ran off into our water bodies, and began to create problems with water pollution. The modern plowing and planting caused erosion, and extensive loss of topsoil, and during the Dust Bowl, many farms were abandoned because they were simply no longer viable. In spite of all the speed bumps on the road to success, the Green Revolution is today being widely acclaimed as a stupendous success. Some of us have our doubts about the net gains in the equation. We question the widespread clearing of forests and draining of wetlands to plant crops that will need such massive inputs of chemicals and water to grow. We point to the high inputs of fossil fuels required in a time of growing concern over impending scarcity, not to mention concern over global warming. We notice that crop yields are no longer increasing at the same rate, and in some areas may not be increasing at all, while the population of the world continues to grow at a rapid pace. Every year, more and more fertilizer is needed to continue to sustain the overworked land. Every year, insects develop new resistances to old pesticides, leading to the need for newer, even stronger pesticides. We ask for a full accounting of the costs and benefits, a full evaluation of where all this will eventually lead. We are dismissed as pessimists, naysayers, and tree huggers, but our voices grow louder every day as more and more farmers and consumers are joining the chorus.
In addition to the "Green Revolution", the production of food has been bolstered by the government, in the form of subsidies. Every year, farmers line up to collect subsidies. The taxpayers are told this is the only way to keep food affordable, and allow farmers to survive. The proponents will trot out a handful of families dressed appropriately, like they just stepped off the set of Hee Haw, and point to them as a typical farm family that relies on subsidy payments to continue to hang onto the family farm. In reality, most of the subsidy money is going to the large corporations who run the mammoth factory farms. Indeed, the subsidies do help small farmers who are struggling to make it, but they have to stand at the end of a large line of rich, well-dressed CEOs who have their hand in the till first. In addition, there are few restrictions attached to these subsidies to require that land be worked in a sustainable fashion, or to encourage the farmers to conserve water or reduce pesticide and fertilizer use. In fact, many of the subsidies are designed in such a way that they actually encourage wasting of water or excessive chemical applications. If activists call for a reform of farm subsidies, often the small family farmers will band together with the large corporations that have nearly driven them out of business, in an effort to prevent any reduction in the subsidies, or any restriction on their farming practices. Many small farmers see this as the only possible way for them to survive in a market increasingly monopolized by a few well-known companies. In the current political climate, no doubt there is a great deal of truth in this belief.
In addition, many farmers are now dealing with the issue of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). These are species that have had their genetic code altered to build in traits considered desirable, but not naturally a part of that species. Antifreeze genes from the flounder were grafted into the strawberry in order to protect it from freezing. The corporations that are heavily invested in this technology lure us with rosy pictures of super veggies, vegetables that have enhanced vitamin production, enhanced nutritive value, and stay fresher longer (perhaps with some effort, they can produce a banana that can be preserved for as long as a Twinkie). We are promised radically increased crop yields, and get a glow from knowing that our children will be healthier even if they eat fewer carrots, because we'll get a bigger bang from everything we put in our mouths. There is even talk of breeding strains of fruits and vegetables that contain commonly used medications, such as insulin or birth control, so that people can get the medical treatment they need from the food they eat. The reality of genetic engineering has been far less rosy. For the most part, Monsanto has been engaged in producing strains of "Round-Up Ready" crops, designed to be able to withstand the application of their number one herbicide, so that you can spray the weeds without killing the crops. This, they promise us, will lead to a reduced use of fertilizer among farmers. Studies have indicated that, in fact, it has had the opposite effect - farmers now feel free to put larger amounts of Round-Up on their crops, knowing it won't hurt them (you don't suppose Monsanto would have done such a thing just to increase sales of their own product, do you? - No, of course they wouldn't do that - that would be cheating). They also promised us that the genetic alteration would not be transmitted to other plants. This is just plain ignorance of botany. You see, pollen doesn't necessarily stay in the same field where it's produced. Numerous instances have been documented of genetically-altered produce showing up in fields where it has not been planted. Of course, Monsanto was well prepared to deal with this contingency - it sues the farmers for patent infringement, since they have a patented product growing in their fields without having purchased the seed. Makes perfect sense, in some warped, distorted way. In addition, they have altered the genome of the seeds they sell to contain a terminator gene that makes the plant unable to reproduce. This ties the farmer to the company for life, as farmers are no longer able to save a portion of the seed from this year's crop to plant next year's fields.
In addition to the problems with modern agriculture as we know it, there are additional considerations. Many farming practices in this country are undertaken using the most modern of equipment, requiring heavy inputs of fossil fuels to keep it running. They are then trucked across country to be delivered to your grocery store, adding to the fossil fuel demand. As a result, increasing fuel prices will inevitably lead to increasing food prices, with many people finding that the higher price they're paying at the gas pump is also reflected in a higher price at the grocery store. This increased price won't be passed on to the small family farmers we're all concerned about, but will instead go to the increasingly long line of middle men who shuttle the food back and forth between farm and city. Meanwhile, the large fleet of trucks on our nation's roads will add greenhouse gases, leading to increased global warming, decreased rainfall, and possibly falling crop yields, leading to still greater applications of fertilizer, pesticides and increasingly scarce water for irrigation. Once again, we will find ourselves locked in an endless dance of cause and affect that will whirl ever onward at a dizzying pace, until at last we exhaust our energy and our resources, and the party will end. The good news is, there are ways out of this cycle. You can choose to sit this one out, or you can look around for a new dance partner. The new partner? Community Supported Agriculture.
Community Supported Agriculture is an idea whose time has come. Many people, even those who live and work in a city, are now obtaining fresh vegetables and fruits, meat and dairy, fresh from the farm just as their ancestors did. These products are grown locally, and produced using organic farming methods. The money goes straight to the farmer, and the products are not trucked hundreds of miles before they arrive, several days old already, on your table. The idea behind it is simple, but elegant. You, and others in your community, buy into a local farm. You all share the expense, you all share the risk, you all share the harvest, and the farmer and his family do the work. Following harvest, you receive your share of the crop, which you can then can or freeze yourself, or simply consume parts of it fresh on the spot. Free from pesticides, free from preservatives, you can put the food on your table proudly, knowing that it was grown organically, knowing that it was grown locally, and knowing that it is free from genetic modifications, free from pesticide residues, and free from guilt. It is old-fashioned and modern at the same time. Neighbors supporting neighbors, sharing community through the most basic of human needs - food. New networks are formed, new friends are made, and new ways of thinking are developed. You become an integral part of the food production process, even if you never go out and weed the crop yourself. The money you spend on your food remains local, and stimulates the local economy, rather than disappearing down some corporate rabbit hole, with an office in Bermuda, and profit margins that are fattened by the massive subsidies and tax breaks. When you pick up a luscious strawberry to bite into it, you don't have to wonder if you are also biting into fish genetics. When you cut into a ripe juicy tomato, you know that it comes without a list of chemical ingredients. When you see the farmer who grows your food, you can know that you are a vital part of his life, and he is a vital part of yours. You will once again establish the sort of personal relationship with your food that was lost when mankind moved in great masses to the city. What you eat is going to become part of you, no matter where you get it or how you prepare it. Now, you have the choice to make it a healthy, nourishing part of you. You have a chance to make it special.
If you are interested in more information on Community Supported Agriculture, or would like to know where you can find participating farmers in your area, you can visit one of the following websites:
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/c
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