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Honest Food, Commonwealth |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Brook Le Van
HONEST FOOD, COMMONWEALTH
edibleASPEN
SUMMER 2009
http://www.edibleaspen.com/content/pages/articles/sum09/foodForThought.pdf
Find the shortest, simplest way between the earth, the hands and the mouth.
— Lanza del Vasto
Whom do you trust when it comes to
your food? As we peruse the aisles of
our favorite grocery stores we rely on labels
and seals of approval to tell us that our food
is safe and how it might have been produced.
Labels such as “certified organic,” “natural”
and “free range” give us a false sense of
trust. Most food in the store has no label
at all, which means it has crept out of the
large-scale, chemically laden, agricultural
abyss. We have relegated trust to “them” —
the government and its officials — who, of
course, have our best interests in mind. Need
I go into detail here about the powerful
agro-industrial lobbyists that work over our
politicians in Washington, 365 days a year, to
preserve and protect their corporate interests?
When you reach for that bag of spinach,
chicken or gallon of milk, do you really feel
safe? Given what has been going on these past
few decades in agriculture, we haven’t been
encouraged to trust the government with
much, and certainly not our health.
At the risk of being offensive, especially
to my conventional farmer friends, let
me point out that America’s governmentsanctioned
food system rewards a lack of
integrity. Farmers are encouraged to use
antibiotics and feed fermented forages and
grain to herbivores, in direct opposition to
their natural diets, nature’s template. Most
ranchers are implanting bovine ionophore
hormones into their steers to make them
grow faster. I am not picking on cattle
ranchers here — the list of abuses is pervasive
across all modern agricultural practices and
too numerous to mention in detail. But
the upshot is that the entire food system
is predicated on shortcutting honesty to
squeeze out ever more profits. How’s your
trust barometer reading so far? It is time we subject our farmers to the same
scrutiny that we would our pediatricians or
babysitters. As a food buyer you must be
courageous and responsible enough to ask
questions. You must know that your farmer
of choice can be trusted.
It is our job as consumers today to find
honest food. Honest food producers ponder
the environmental and moral footprint of every decision, every activity and every
marketing model. Joel Salatin, Virginia
farmer and author of “Holy Cows and Hog
Heaven: The Food Buyer’s Guide to Farm
Friendly Food,” writes, “Honest food comes
from farmers who respect the wisdom of the
Creator’s DNA, honor the information in the
mind of an earthworm, and appreciate the
beauty of hogs in their rooting heaven.”
When it comes to searching for honest
food, nothing beats being able to look your
farmer or rancher in the eye and ask them
questions or visit their farm firsthand. This
is where farmers’ markets shine. With a little
research and some basic questions, you will
find that most farmers at these markets view
their production as a sacred trust between
their land and your dinner plate. And
those who take such a view and implement
that philosophy through renewal in their
farming practices should be patronized and
encouraged.
What can we do, and what are the questions
we can ask our local farmers, to understand
if we can trust them? Salatin suggests the
following:
• Ask the farmer about her soil fertility
program. Listen for words like “organic
matter,” “cover crops,” “green manures,”
“compost,” “trace minerals,” “beneficial
insects” and “crop rotation.” • What do the farmer’s customers say? Are
they loyal? Do they come every week to buy?
• Visit the farm. What does it look like?
Does the farmer apologize for everything? Is
there an overall impression of order, effort,
happiness and health? Is this a place you
would want to live? Is this a place that leaves
you recharged, one you want to return to?
• Look at the farmer’s bookshelf. What is he
or she reading? What a farmer is reading is far
more interesting to me than her farm being
USDA “big O” organic certified. Anyone
can adopt the latest lingo to gain market
share. The farmer you are looking for is truly
seeking a different approach and is immersed
in literature on that subject. Is what she is
feeding her mind and soul consistent with
your beliefs? If her magazine rack is littered
with conventional Farm Bureau fare, beware.
• What do the farmer’s neighbors say?
Keep in mind here, too, that neighbors may
think them weird or odd or even hobbyists,
but trustworthy farmers earn a place in the
community regardless.
• What do this farmer’s colleagues say?
Every area has an alternative food system
support group. Is your farmer affiliated with
groups you believe in, that are sustainable,
organic and ecological in name and practice?
Is this farmer seen as a trusted local resource?
Is she asked to teach or speak to community
groups, or write locally on the state of safe, healthy farming and local food production?
We are led to believe that we are powerless
to change the systems that affect our lives. In
spite of this, the food system is one place we
can and do have a direct effect. Our choice to
buy differently and to support local farmers
and ranchers connects us to that acreage of
pasture in the farm down the road, to the
grass that feeds the livestock and to the soil
that feeds the carrots, lettuce and potatoes
that in turn feed us.
While the fresh and local food movement
is partly about healthier, better-tasting and
more nutritious food, it is fundamentally
about food that maintains and regenerates
farms and the farmers who caretake them.
You and I, in the food choices we make, can
either move this system in the direction we
want to see, or we can perpetuate the existing
system of industrial, fecal factory fare. We
are partners with our farmers, and together
we build our common wealth. We farmers
know that, and we can’t do it without your
participation. So let’s not wait until Congress
passes the next farm bill to determine what
we eat for dinner. Stop by the market and talk
to your local farmers today. And if we buy
their food, I’ll guarantee our food fear will
turn into our collective good health while we
simultaneously build local circles of trust.
Brook Le Van, driven in life predominantly
by flavor, is the co-founder and director of
Sustainable Settings, a nonprofit, land-based
demonstration and research institute — a Whole
Systems Learning Center — near Carbondale,
Colorado. Sustainable Settings is a place and
program devoted to building positive futures
by curing systems blindness in our culture. It
works to revive local, decentralized food and
energy production and distribution systems, in
an effort to build honest food commonwealths. |
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In Soil We Trust, Spring 2009 |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Brook Le Van
IN SOIL WE TRUST
edibleASPEN
SPRING 2009
http://www.edibleaspen.com/content/pages/articles/spr09/foodForThought.pdf
“Awareness of the centrality of soil health is nothing new. The homo of
Homo sapiens is derived from the Latin, humus, for living soil.”
—Woody Tasch, author of “Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money”
Let’s face it, we need a new New Deal. In the last year we have bailed
out “free-market” economics, right? I mean, it had a good run, but
when push came to shove, we taxpayers threw it a line.
Our prevailing economic myth has us believing that unlimited economic
growth is not only possible, but desirable. This is all despite the
rapidly accumulating data to the contrary. Our emphasis on growth has
produced more inequality than prosperity, and more insecurity than
progress. Growth, at least the kind we have come to expect from our
efforts in the last 60 years or so, requires enormous amounts of energy.
And as the fundamentals of physics make clear, we do not have the energy
reserves left to continue to fuel the magic behind growth. Finally, and
increasingly important, is that growth no longer is making us happy.
The reason that free-market economics worked up to now is primarily
because it was able to enjoy enormous reserves of natural resources
and healthy ecosystems to absorb its waste (“externalities,” in economic
lingo), all essentially for free, and run on the wild idea that the sky was
the limit. Well, actually, the sky is the limit, as we are finding out with
climate change. Check out history. Every previous civilization has failed
due to growing beyond what its surrounding ecosystem could provide.
As we now have peaked into a global economy, this time around we are
playing with the collapse of entire planetary systems, not just, say, the
Nile Delta or the Fertile Crescent. In this regard, the returns on our
investments are way more than we bargained for.
The problems we face—degraded soil fertility, loss of biodiversity,
degraded nutritional value in our food and failing local economies— produced more inequality than prosperity, and more insecurity than
progress. Growth, at least the kind we have come to expect from our
efforts in the last 60 years or so, requires enormous amounts of energy.
And as the fundamentals of physics make clear, we do not have the energy
reserves left to continue to fuel the magic behind growth. Finally, and
increasingly important, is that growth no longer is making us happy.
The reason that free-market economics worked up to now is primarily
because it was able to enjoy enormous reserves of natural resources
and healthy ecosystems to absorb its waste (“externalities,” in economic
lingo), all essentially for free, and run on the wild idea that the sky was
the limit. Well, actually, the sky is the limit, as we are finding out with
climate change. Check out history. Every previous civilization has failed
due to growing beyond what its surrounding ecosystem could provide.
As we now have peaked into a global economy, this time around we are
playing with the collapse of entire planetary systems, not just, say, the
Nile Delta or the Fertile Crescent. In this regard, the returns on our
investments are way more than we bargained for.
The problems we face—degraded soil fertility, loss of biodiversity,
degraded nutritional value in our food and failing local economies—
are not problems of technology. They are problems of finance, as well
as evidence of how our poor choice of values drives our investments.
This gets down to the difference between emphasizing efficiency over
effectiveness. Our financial systems, and most of our agriculture today,
are organized to optimize efficiency of capital.
What I keep hearing is that we need more big ideas to get us out of
this mess. A much more effective track would be to get behind a lot of
small ideas that could lead to many small, elegant solutions. Future philanthropic
funding and venture capital must be directed by higher values
and long-term gains. It will be our investments now in soil fertility, sustainable
farming and a host of local and slower gaining, but steady and
secure assets that will build the fiber of communities that will carry us
into a reasonable future.
I suggest a reevaluation of capitalism as we
know it, and a big shift in values and in how we
use our investment dollars, in order to build the
kind of world we want for the long haul. One answer
to our economic woes lies right before us,
in the dirt.
As Woody Tasch, author of “Inquiries into the
Nature of Slow Money,” emphasizes, at the base
of our economy is soil and soil fertility. We have
been using money like synthetic fertilizer and, as
a result, we are getting synthetic, unsustainable
growth. We have to reorient capital away from
the endless cycles of consumption and relentless
focus on markets toward a new economy focused
on quality and human relationships, both our
relationship to one another and to the land. “It
falls on us to undertake a new project of system
design: The creation of new forms of intermediation
that catalyze the transition from a commerce
of extraction and consumption to a commerce of
preservation and restoration,” he writes.
This idea of “slow money” is not springing
forth from the head of some great school of economics.
It is coming instead from the numerous
small actions taken by farmers, consumers, entrepreneurs,
philanthropists and investors who are
choosing daily to regenerate health in their communities
with their purchasing power, donations
and investment dollars.
Just as Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food
International, is calling for us to slow down and
find some sanity in our food systems, so Tasch
and his venture capitalist partners are calling for
us to slow down money. Similar to Slow Food’s
premise, slow money is a redesign of the economy
based on regeneration and reverence, a different
set of values that will generate a durable and far
more equitable economy, one built on a smallscale
and local level. Slow money asks us to shift
our investment priorities toward how we live or
want to live, and where we live.
As long as we are throwing around billions of
dollars to fix our current economic dilemma--and
no one really knows what is being done or where
all of the money is going--why don’t we try slow
and local? Let’s invest in the wealth of our communities
and rebuild economic health from the
ground up. What would it be like to live in a
world supported by investment dollars with these
new values? What would our communities look
like and feel like if we invested in these long-term
ventures? What if we invested in local, sustainable
enterprises within 50 miles of where we live?
What if we bet on our local ranchers and farmers
to protect our open space and provide long-term
local food security? Imagine green venture capital
directed at establishing food cooperatives with
shared facilities that facilitate local processing
of meat and grains? How about a gristmill
to grind grain, a creamery, an abattoir?
How about a local butcher, sausage maker
and a community kitchen, and financing to
help sustain the few bakers we still have in
the Roaring Fork Valley? What if our investments
were to genuinely better our immediate
world, our own communities?
If we don’t invest in our local agricultural
infrastructure soon, there will be no
need to invest anywhere else. We will starve
long before we can figure out how to digest
quarterly earnings from our shares in distant
corporations. Only by directing venture and
philanthropic capital toward building local,
small-scale, sustainable systems will we find
food and energy security, and build communities
we want to live in that are resilient to future challenges.
So the new New Deal this time around
has to be different. We must remember that
every benefit has its cost. The existing system
has proven itself unworthy of further
investment. We have seen the shadow side
of unchecked technological innovation and
dramatic increases in standard of living,
partnered ironically with widespread unhappiness,
for a few billion Homo sapiens. It is
time to rewrite our story of progress. Our
new cultural myths must include the only recently
forgotten sacred trust--to care for the
Creation that cares for us. Look at the original
intent of any of the great religious traditions,
and you will find the tenets that will guide us
to the values we need to add back into our
story. By doing this, I believe, we can find a
unified mission that will lead us to a sustainable,
steady-state economy. It will have to be
slow, more comparable to nature’s metabolism,
and it must be based on the soil. Let’s
not kid ourselves, either; it will take courage
to slow money down.
Resources:
www.slowmoneyalliance.org
www.soulofmoney.org
Recommended Reading :
Woody Tasch, “Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food,
Farms and Fertility Mattered”
Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”
James Gustave Speth, “The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the
Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability”
David Schweickart, “After Capitalism”
Joel Kovel, “The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?”
Bill McKibben, “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future”
Lynne Twist, “The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with
Money and Life”
Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, “Natural Capitalism: Creating
the Next Industrial Revolution”
Amartya Sen, “Development as Freedom”
Jared M. Diamond, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”
Carlo Petrini, “Slow Food Revolution: A New Culture for Eating and Living”
How to:
For ideas on how to invest in the soil of our
economy, read “Inquiries into the Nature of
Slow Money,” by Woody Tasch, who asks;
• Could there ever be an alternative
stock exchange dedicated to businesses
that are slow, small and local?
• Could a million American families get
their food from Community Supported
Agricultures?
• What if you had to invest 50 percent
of your assets within 50 miles of
where you live?
Brook Le Van, driven in life predominantly
by flavor, is the co-founder and director of
Sustainable Settings, a nonprofit land-based
demonstration and research institute—a
Whole Systems Learning Center—near
Carbondale, Colorado. It is a place and
program devoted to building positive futures
by curing systems’ blindness in our culture
and reviving local, decentralized food and
energy production and distribution systems,
the bedrock of a new slower and steady-state
economy. |
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Bring Your Own Fork, Winter 2009 |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Brook Le Van
BYOF: BRING YOUR OWN FORK!
edibleASPEN
WINTER 2009
http://www.edibleaspen.com/content/pages/articles/win09/foodForThought.pdf
“You can blame people who knock things over in the dark, or
you can begin to light candles. You’re only at fault if you know
about the problem and choose to do nothing.”
—Paul Hawken
I don’t know about you, but I was born before “disposables.”
Remember that line in “The Graduate?” A family
friend gives Benjamin career advice consisting of one
word: “plastics.” It was the ’60s and plastic, along with
numerous other inventions, was changing our lives. What
we didn’t realize was how much it was changing our lives.
We were all seduced by convenience. Have a party and
get those new paper plates and plastic forks; it’s so easy to
clean up afterward—just toss them away. In the last few
decades, however, we have come to understand that there
is no “away.”
We are in our peak season in the Roaring Fork Valley,
with the invitations for winter parties and grand fundraising
events pouring in. Soon we will all be attending countless
holiday bashes and benefits. We might even be hosting
them ourselves. Each one of us, as either a guest or a host of
these important and meaningful gatherings, will be partly
responsible for generating the use of thousands of plates,
cups, bowls, forks, knives, spoons and napkins.
As it is necessary to provide food and drink at these occasions, how
do we do it without adding to the solid-waste problems at our already
overburdened local landfill and contributing to the generation of yet
more greenhouse gases and downstream pollution? Well, luckily, we are
nearly a decade into the 21st century, and do we ever have the solution:
corn- and potato-based plastics. Ah, yes, technology to the rescue. We
now have “biodegradable” bioplastics for all our disposable desires. See,
they told us technology would save us.
I wish it were so simple. To make plastic packaging and utensils from
a renewable resource like corn or potatoes, which can then be returned
to the earth as fertilizer, sounds like an unmitigated good. But these
bioplastics have considerable drawbacks that haven’t been publicized,
and some claims for their environmental virtues are utterly misleading.
It turns out that, regardless of a fork’s source, there are systemic ripples
that challenge all choices of disposables.
Just in case we are not clear, the story is this: Regular ol’ plastic containers
and utensils are made of polystyrene, which contains a derivative
of petroleum. Prolonged exposure to styrene has been found to be toxic
to the brain and nervous system, and harmful to red blood cells and the
liver, kidneys and stomach. Styrene leaches into hot food, food with a
high-fat content, and food and beverages containing alcohol.
Another material used to make plastic forks is polyethylene
terephthalate, commonly referred to as PET, or unbreakable polypropylene.
PET also leaches into our food and remains a biohazard for
about a thousand years after disposal. So my first recommendation is
to avoid food packaging labeled with a “6” or “PS”; for example, clear
“clam-shell” deli containers, clear plastic cups and plastic forks, knives
and spoons that are usually made of polystyrene.
What about bioplastics? Polylactic acid (PLA), a plastic substitute
made from fermented plant starch (usually corn or potato), has become
the hip “green” alternative to traditional, petroleum-based plastics.
The good news is bioplastic is clearly easier on the environment.
According to an independent analysis commissioned by manufacturer
NatureWorks, fabricating PLA uses 65 percent less energy than producing
conventional plastics. PLAs also generate 68 percent fewer greenhouse gases and contain no toxins. And producing PLA—which is also
technically “carbon neutral,” in that it comes from renewable, carbon-absorbing
plants—reduces our emissions of greenhouse gases. PLA also
does not emit toxic fumes when incinerated.
The bad news is PLA in the U.S. is made from corn altered by genetically
modified organisms (GMO). And the world’s largest provider of
GMO corn seed, as well as the largest producer of PLA, is NatureWorks,
a subsidiary of Cargill, one of the largest agro-industrial corporations.
You can decide for yourself how accurate Nature Works’ “independent”
studies are. GMOs contaminate the germplasm of organic crops and
disrupt local ecosystems with their required large doses of pesticides
and herbicides. GMOs are also monocropped on an enormous scale,
which contributes to colossal erosion of topsoil and unprecedented levels
of water pollution from the toxic agro-industrial chemicals.
Another major downside demonstrating that PLA is far from a
panacea for dealing with the world’s plastic-waste problem is that although
the material does biodegrade, it takes a long time to do so. PLA
will break down into its constituent parts (carbon dioxide and water)
within three months in a “controlled composting environment,” that is,
an industrial composting facility heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and
fed a steady diet of digestive microbes. But it will take anywhere from
100 to 1,000 years to decompose in a home-composting bin or buried
in a landfill.
So, corn plastic to the rescue? I don’t think so. Yes, bioplastic is better
than petroleum-based plastic. But why are we using disposables at all?
All of these products, eco-friendly or not, will be dumped into a landfill
after just an hour or two of use. My concern is that bioplastic legitimizes
the single-serving, use-once, overpackaged throwaway culture.
By purchasing bioplastics, we are supporting business as usual and reinforcing
an old habit that must die. One local restaurant, Eco-Goddess
Edibles in Carbondale, makes the case each and every time you come in
for takeout or to discuss catering services. Lisa Ruoff, owner and chef,
says, “All of my customers go through ‘reuse training.’ I don’t offer to-go
cups or disposable or recyclable utensils for takeout. I would rather send
them down the road to another restaurant than add another disposable
cup to the problem. Soon they show up with their own cups, bags and
even utensils.”
I remember having the life-cycle analysis discussion with our staff
five years ago, when Sustainable Settings grappled with serving up to
200 people for our harvest festivals and lectures. With disposables and
even recyclables out of the question, we ran the numbers on renting china, glass and stainless, and compared
the economic and environmental costs
to buying our own supplies. We learned
that renting tableware for just two events
would cost as much as purchasing our
own set to service 200 guests. Even with
the added labor and impacts of washing
with biodegradable soap factored in,
owning our own reusable set won hands
down over bioplastic disposables.
Another solution for restaurants is
to harvest stainless utensils from thrift
stores. I’ve seen forks, knives and spoons
at local thrifts for a dime apiece. That
is only a few cents more per piece than
new, toxic petroleum-based plastic or
bioplastic Spudware forks. Eco-Goddess
hands out these previously owned stainless
utensils with all to-go orders. Ruoff
laughs, “And they bring them back!
When I open up each day, there are usually
a few forks and spoons on the front
mat!”
The truth is, we cannot have cheap
“convenience packaging” and feel good
about its environmental effect—or
have our takeout cake and eat it, too. It
turns out that the friendly career advice
our young graduate received in the ’60s
also suggests that we have a choice. Our
choice is either to wait for yet another
technological silver bullet that will allow
us to maintain our business-as-usual daily
patterns--which have led to the degradation
of our planetary life-support
systems--or take matters into our own
hands and change our habits. This holiday
season, light a few candles for those
in the dark. Be hip, be green and BRING
YOUR OWN FORK!
To design waste out of your life:
• Bring your own fork, knife and
spoon to parties and seasonal
fundraisers.
• Bring your own coffee/beverage
cup.
• Bring your own bags to groceries.
• Bring your own bags when
shopping anywhere, not just the
grocery store.
• Bring your own resealable containers
for leftovers when eating
out.
• Bring your own containers to
restaurants when picking up
carry-out/to-go food.
• Offer no bags at your store.
Customers will get used to it and
start carrying their own bags.
• Charge for containers and
utensils.
• Use safe, reusable containers
and real utensils for kids’ school
lunches.
• Pack your lunch for work in a
picnic basket or lunch box, with
real utensils, china and glassware.
It’s not only eco-friendly but
elegant.
• Rent china, glasses and utensils
for events you host.
A note to nonprofit directors everywhere,
especially organizations with any hint of an environmental
mission: Talk with your board, staff, volunteer organizers and party planners,
and demand washable, reusable tableware and napkins. Better yet, invest
in washable, reusable tableware for all your events.
Encourage guests to BYOF! Creative ways to make this happen include
a dishwashing station for rinsing off people’s utensils so they can
take them home without wearing a reminder of dinner. BYOF will also
differentiate your parties and fundraisers from others and demonstrate
that you and your organization are walking the talk.
Brook Le Van, driven in life predominantly
by flavor, is the co-founder and director
of Sustainable Settings, a nonprofit landbased
demonstration and research institute—
a whole systems learning center—
near Carbondale. Sustainable Settings is
devoted to building positive futures by curing
systems blindness in our culture and
reviving small-scale diversified farms and
ranches, the bedrock of local and national
food and energy security. |
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New Roots for Patriotism, Fall 2008 |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Brook Le Van
NEW ROOTS FOR PATRIOTISM
edibleASPEN
FALL 2008
http://www.edibleaspen.com/content/pages/articles/fall08/foodForThought.pdf
In the heat of this election year we hear how
the candidates will spend our money to renovate
the economy, upgrade education, improve
health care, maneuver national defense and
keep our gas tanks full--all to build a safer,
healthier, more secure America. In listening to
all of the campaign prattle, who will generate
the political will to encourage the necessary
shift in priorities--the real changes that will
address climate change, and the above issues
not as isolated phenomena but as symptoms
of a whole system in peril? Who will generate
the political will to promote food and energy
security through establishing renewable energy
networks and reviving local small-scale agriculture,
thus reducing our carbon footprints while
building resilient local economies, and regenerating
the homegrown pleasures that make us
healthy from within and life worth living?
In all of the issues covered in the political
arena there is no mention of food and energy
security and its relationship to climate change.
These are interrelated systemic concerns that
must be addressed--and soon--if we are to
maintain any semblance of life on earth as we
know it. By adopting policy measures that foster
the re-establishment of local food and energy
security and by backing that policy with
adequate funding to rebuild the network of the
millions of small-scale family farms across the
country--the bedrock of local economic resilience
and national security--we begin to climb
out of the mess we are in. A campaign platform
built on these priorities will address much of
our urgent needs to return health to our populace
and bring us back into balance with our
planetary life-support systems.
Although large aspects of agriculture are
subsidized, the bulk of the funds and the USDA
rules and regulations support the special interests
of large-scale corporate commodity agriculture.
The billions of dollars in annual subsidies
are designed for and allocated to support the
production and distribution of corn and soy,
source material for the food industry’s many
novelties—not the food you and I really need.
The incredible pool of funding each year, doled
out through the mechanism of the Farm Bill, is
instead funneled into the coffers of the multinational agro-industrial
corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill. This
financial and regulatory edge allows these companies to bring us gems
such as high-fructose corn syrup, and the host of “nutrients” you cannot
even pronounce, which are laced into the
processed and packaged gimmicks on grocery
shelves that masquerade as food. Our
consumption of these edible wonders—
deemed good for us by all the supporting
“scientific studies” and massive marketing
campaigns—in turn yields our citizenry
the national crises of obesity, heart disease
and diabetes, while garnering record
profits for these companies. Real food—
whole fruits and vegetables that you buy
at the farmers’ markets or from a local
grower or rancher—is not being supported
in any significant way, shape or form
in the Farm Bill. It is important to note
that the centralized food system that continues to emerge and dominate
agriculture was never voted on by the people of this country, or, for that
matter, the people of the world. It is the product of deliberate decisions
made by a very few powerful people for their own benefit.
The time has passed when it was enough to merely elect our officials.
We must show them what we want, then once elected go and
watch them to make sure they are doing what they said they would do
for us--the same way the energy and agriculture corporations do. It
is time to propagate new roots for patriotism, a foundation based on
making connections and understanding patterns and systems. This new
patriotism means reacquainting ourselves with decentralized food and
energy systems where the health of our families and communities is at
its heart. This new patriotism supports
measures to correct the last 60 years of
agro-industrial ecological and economic
plunder. The new patriot recognizes that
the current national and global economies
were formed in almost perfect
disregard of community and ecological
interests. The new patriot then votes
for candidates that will implement economic
measures that focus on generosity
and a well-distributed and safeguarded
abundance--not the rape and pillage of
our communities, nature and the world
for the short-term gain of a few.
Life here in our high mountain Shangri-
La will change soon. The distant food items we have become accustom
to and deem necessary to our happiness and survival—bananas,
avocados, salmon, coffee and olive oil—may be traded for, but the failing
global food and feed supply chain, due to high energy costs, will certainly
make these foods dear. All things considered, 10 years from now
we will be getting most of our food from within 50 miles of where we
live. Are we planning for this? Is the preparation for this shift, from the
current energy-intensive, distant, globalized model of food production
and distribution to a relocalized agricultural production and distribution
system, on any of the current candidates’ list of crucial campaign
issues? Are the candidates making the connections between ecosystem
health and our health, distant food and global climate change, exhausted
natural resources and a failing economy? Are our counties and cities
developing plans to help its citizenry with this transition? Proximity to
food and the related energy expended to produce and distribute it will
reign ever higher on our list of crucial issues to solve as we move ahead.
Many are talking now about the great technological innovations that
will save us. Though technological advances in agriculture and energy
exploration may soften our landing as we wean ourselves off cheap fossil
energy, they will not solve the systemic challenges we face. The energy
industry’s assurances of yet more reserves of crude oil and technological
pipedreams aside, the communities that fund and support the reestablishment
of local agricultural infrastructure through appropriate
affordable zoning and code will be the communities that endure.
Does it matter who is in the White House, Senate and House? You
bet. Vote this election, by all means. It matters. But if we really want
to change course we need to embrace a deeper involvement, a new patriotism
with new priorities. The greater systemic challenges of climate
change and food and energy security that we must address immediately
do not fall in one camp or another; they are not liberal or right wing,
Republican or Democratic. The issues before us all are the real or Great
Work of the generations alive on earth today. We have no time to lose
in making the shift to actively solving these threats to our survival. If we
act now—alert to pattern and whole interrelated systems—and can motivate
the political will to act in every arena, from farm to fork, oceans
to ozone, we can find the good solutions that, as Wendell Berry says,
“come from our wholeness, our affections, and our reverence, not from
our sense of duty, much less from desperation.”
Brook Le Van, driven in life predominantly by flavor, is the co-founder and
director of Sustainable Settings, a nonprofit land-based demonstration and
research institute—a Whole Systems Learning Center—near Carbondale,
a place and program devoted to reviving small-scale diversified farms and
ranches, the bedrock of local food and energy security. |
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Heirlooms Schmeirlooms, Summer 2008 |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Brook Le Van
HEIRLOOMS SCHMEIRLOOMS
edibleASPEN
SUMMER 2008
http://www.edibleaspen.com/content/pages/articles/summer2008/pdfs/foodForThought.pdf
Heirlooms schmeirlooms. Heritage this and heirloom that. What’s
the big deal? What does all this talk about heirloom varieties have
to do with feeding people, the long-term health of our families, or even
the revival of our long lost friend, flavor? Who cares if a tomato variety
goes back to Grandma whatever of Northeastern Pennsylvania Dutch
country? So what if the Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean with purplestriped
pods and shiny black seeds was actually carried by Cherokee Indians
on the “Trail of Tears.” It’s really just a bunch of food snobs boasting
gastronomique trivia to impress someone.
Or is it?
Before the industrialization of agriculture, a much wider variety of
plant foods were grown for human consumption. Many of these older
varieties we call heirlooms because they have a history of being selected
out of all other plants in the annual gardens of our ancestors and were
passed down within the family, just like pieces of heirloom jewelry or
furniture. With this lineage heirloom vegetables have adapted over time
to whatever climate and soil they have grown in. Thanks to their diverse
genetics, they are also often resistant to local pests, diseases, and
extremes of weather. These unique qualities differentiate these heirloom
vegetables in today’s world of hybrids and Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs).
The use of the term “heirloom” is first attributed to Professor William
Hepler at the University of New Hampshire, who used the term
“heirloom” to describe some local beans that people had given him back
in the 1940s. Some say heirloom vegetables are those introduced before
1951, when modern plant breeders introduced the first hybrids developed
from inbred lines. Many of the varieties are 100 to 150 years old;
certain heirlooms are traditional Native American crops that go back
to pre-Columbian times. Some heirlooms are old European crops that
have been in cultivation for almost 400 years. Other heirlooms trace
their ancestries to Africa and Asia with roots so far back they are hard
to follow.
To be an heirloom, a plant must also be “open-pollinated,” meaning
it will grow “true to type” and produce plants like the parents from seed.
Open pollination allows the same cultivar to be grown simply from seed
for many generations. This trait excludes nearly every hybrid and GMO,
which are designed to be sterile so you have to buy seed every year from
the companies that own that variety. Yes, they own the germplasm!
Heirlooms’ ability to reproduce by open pollination keeps these varieties
in the commons, available for regular folks like you and me to grow
and share them with our neighbors. That means these heirlooms cannot
be patented, like hybrids and GMOs. This keeps heirlooms out of the
reach of corporations that are increasingly controlling the world’s food
supply.
An heirloom vegetable also does not fit nicely into modern largescale
agricultural production systems. Heirlooms are quirky. Seeds may
germinate slower than their modern counterparts. As they grow, some
heirlooms have traits that are absolutely strange. For example, three
years ago I grew an heirloom cabbage that tipped its crown upside down
for the first several weeks. Then it turned right side up and grew just
fine. Most heirloom tomatoes, the ones that blow your taste buds wide
open, can barely make it to a local farmers’ market they are so fragile.
Because of these oddities, heirlooms are not used in modern industrialized
agricultural processes—they just don’t scale.
As a matter of fact, and as a rule of thumb, good food does not scale
up. Good-for-you meat, good-for-you veggies, good-for-you dairy does
not scale up. By that I mean you cannot take seed of most heirloom
vegetables and fill a gigantic, 50-foot-wide planter and run it across a
field and expect the crop to yield much. They just haven’t been raised
that way; it isn’t in their blood. The ones that can survive the industrial
system are selected for their productivity, their ability to withstand
mechanical picking and cross-country shipping and their tolerance to
drought, frost or pesticides. Nutrition, flavor and variety are secondary
and even tertiary concerns, if concerns at all. The priority given to this large-scale
agro-industrial method of farming has, in a very short time,
made certain varieties extinct. Many varieties have fallen out of favor in
the food system and we are loosing a vital gene pool.
This may sound odd, but if we do not eat these heirloom vegetables
and fruits we will lose them. If we do not get these varieties back in our
diets as part of our food chain they will not be grown out enough to save
their seed and be passed on to the next generation.
This loss of varieties is called genetic erosion. The genetic diversity of
the world’s food crops is eroding at an unprecedented and accelerating
rate. In the U.K. and Europe alone, more than 2,000 heirloom varieties
have been lost since 1970. These vegetables and fruits currently being
lost is the result of thousands of years of adaptation and selection in
diverse ecological niches around the world. Each variety is genetically
unique. Plant breeders use these old varieties to breed resistance into
modern crops that are constantly being attacked by rapidly evolving
diseases and pests. Without these infusions of genetic diversity, food
production is at risk from epidemics and infestations. Lest we forget the
Irish potato famine.
Just how dangerous is genetic erosion? The late Jack Harlan, worldrenowned
plant collector who wrote the classic Crops and Man while
professor of Plant Genetics at University of Illinois at Urbana, said,
“The genetic material locked up in these heirloom seed resources stand
between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine. In
a very real sense, the future of the human race rides on maintaining the
diversity of our seed stock. The line between abundance and disaster is
becoming thinner with each passing year, and the public is unaware.”
The Mayan word “gene” means “spiral of life.” The genes in heirloom
seeds give life to our future. Unless the 100 million backyard gardeners
and organic farmers keep these seeds alive and unless we choose to eat
these heirlooms, they will disappear altogether. This is truly an instance
where one person—a lone gardener in a backyard vegetable garden—
can potentially make all the difference in the world.
What this means is that we have yet another tactic in the ever challenging
search to help us find good healthy food for our families. If you
seek out and buy heirloom veggies and heritage breeds that produce
meats, eggs and dairy, you have a far better chance that those foods are
produced safely on small-scale farms, are richer in nutrient density, and
are far healthier for you and yours.
Brook Le Van, driven in life
predominantly by flavor, is
the co-founder and director of Sustainable Settings, a
nonprofit land-based demonstration and research institute—a
Whole Systems Learning Center—near Carbondale, a place
and program devoted to reviving small-scale diversified farms
and ranches, the bedrock of local food and energy security. |
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Know Farmers Know Food, Spring 2008 |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
By Brook Le Van
KNOW FARMERS KNOW FOOD
edibleASPEN
SPRING 2008
http://www.edibleaspen.com/content/pages/articles/spring2008/pdfs/foodForThought.pdf
...ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving
a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil.
No community whose every member possesses this art can
ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms.
—Abraham Lincoln 1859
Abe said it well. Too bad we didn’t heed his words more
because, unfortunately, in the last 60 or so years we have
gradually become an increasingly more oppressed people. The
oppression I speak of is subtle, yet powerful, and it has gradually
eroded our health and deprived us of great richness in our lives. In
the history of our species we, who live in the “developed” world,
have never been more disconnected from our food.
Most of us don’t know the weathered smile of the person
who grew our morning oatmeal. We don’t know the beauty of
the morning mist rising off the pasture and the tingle of the
down-valley breeze at sunrise where our burger once grazed. In
our entire experiential memory files, we cannot access the hen’s
boast after laying her morning egg or the iridescent glistening of
sunlight bouncing off of a rooster’s plumage in the barnyard. We
cannot find the sound bite of a new born lamb’s first call to its
mother. Most of us have no record of the muscle constriction and
gentle consistent pull required to coax a mature carrot out of the
earth. Where in us is the scent of releasing a turnip from the nearfrozen
fertile soil in autumn?
We are still today mostly what we were when we evolved from
Homo erectus to Homo sapiens during the Pleistocene epic
250,000 years ago. We knew the world then as hunter-gatherers.
We had direct connections to all our food. As we developed we
became pastoralist, and then horticulture began to dominate
our food intake. All this led to agriculture, and as archeological
record so far tells us, our habit of planting and harvesting began a
mere 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. At this point we still knew our
food.
Our relationship with food begins to erode after our discovery
and harnessing of fossil energy. Parallel to our discoveries of new
energy sources and revolutions in mechanizing labor is also an
unprecedented accumulation of wealth for a few, and hence the
concentration of power. These are forces that work very hard to
maintain the status quo, to create and keep the systems in place
that protect the wealth and power as it is.
Our deepest disconnect from food takes off right after World
War II. Tooling up for the war, businesses were called upon by our
government to change from the manufacture of tractors and cars
and trucks to jeeps, tanks, bombers and destroyers. This was patriotic
and we achieved our goals of conquering evil and making things better
off in the world. This, however, left the government indebted to all those companies
that heeded the call to arms.
What we have in 1945 is a whole lot of companies lined up
to produce machines, materials and chemicals and no market for
their products. So the corporations
called in the debt and our government,
succumbing to industry’s pressure,
created policies that supported
large-scale production and mass-marketing
of their goods by establishing
tax structures and financial subsidies
that give them the edge. This giant
industrial machine, no longer focused
on taking out a fascist dictator, went
to war on our air, soil and water in the
form of the new and improved agriculture.
Along comes Earl Butz in 1971, appointed by President
Richard Nixon as Secretary of Agriculture. In his time heading
the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Butz revolutionized
federal agricultural policy and re-engineered many New Dealera
farm support programs. His mantra to farmers was “get big
or get out,” and he urged farmers to plant commodity crops like
corn, soy and wheat from “fencerow to fencerow.” These DOA
policies and new industrial farming practices coincided with the
rise of major agribusiness corporations, the declining financial
stability of the small family farm and the collapse of many rural
communities nationwide. In short, and opposite of all the spin
given to this “Green Revolution,” what
happened was that our community’s
and our nation’s food security started
to deteriorate. This brute-force move
toward large-scale broadened the gap
between you and your food, and issues
of trust have emerged that never were
a consideration when you could look
your grower in the eye. Just 100 years
ago, 99 percent of Americans had
something to do with the production of
the food they ate. Now, less than 1 percent does. This deterioration
of our quality of life, what I am calling a form of oppression, has
been orchestrated. But we have also bought into it.
The upshot of all this is that when I get into this discussion with
my interns and staff, we keep coming back to dirt, soil and our
hands in that living medium, and a much more direct engagement
with the production of our food. What we understand about real
solutions is that many of them are going to have to be local —
locally grown food, locally derived energy, local manufacturing.
It is the general relocalization of our economies that is our best
hope for building a strong and resilient nation. And if we are to
regain those deeper sensations that build healthy selves and trust
that our food is safe, then we must KNOW FARMERS if we are
to KNOW FOOD.
So Mr. Butz, and all your big agribusiness cronies, we have a
different slogan for you. The chant now, coming from the bottom
up and loud and clear, is “Get Local or Get Out.”
Brook Le Van, driven in life predominantly by flavor, is the cofounder
and director of Sustainable Settings, a nonprofit land-based
demonstration and research institute — a Whole Systems Learning
Center — near Carbondale, a place and program devoted to reviving
small-scale diversified farms and ranches, the bedrock of local
food and energy security.
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