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Sat, 12 May 2007

Good Neighbors Eat Local: The Human Side of Agriculture

This week I happened to come across two excellent articles in the same day, on the subject of locally grown food, from two different sources, with the same theme of human community.

Barbara Kingsolver is a well known fiction writer (The Bean Trees), committed to bringing about social change through literature. In her article, Seeing Red, in the May/June 2007 issue of Mother Jones magazine, she talks about why we seldom find locally grown tomatoes (or anything else local) in our supermarkets. Using an example from her local community, she shows how that affects our local farmers, that forgotten and forlorn American tribe, all but obliterated by corporate agriculture.

According to Ms. Kingsolver, our weird, inhuman agricultural system is based on the original political divide between town and country. As she says:

"The country tradition of mistrusting outsiders may be sometimes unfairly appllied, but it's not hard to understand. For much of U.S. history, rural regions have been treated essentially as colonial property of the cities. The carpetbaggers of the reconstruction era were not the first or the last opportunists to capitalize on an extractive economy. When urban companies come to the country with a big plan - whether their game is coal, timber or industrial agriculture - the plan is to take out the good stuff, ship the profit to the population centers, and leave behind a mess."

Most of us live in the cities, buy our food from supermarkets, and never question where it comes from, who grew it, and how it gets there. The only loyalty is to price. How many of us shop at chain stores such as Super Walmart because they have the best prices, ignoring or ignorant of their crimes against humanity in both far and near places? Most of us. How many of us buy local as much as possible regardless of price? Or even have access to locally grown food? A tiny percentage.

It's only human to seek the best price - the trouble is that we either don't know or don't count all the costs of the food we eat. Barbara Kingsolver, quoting Wendall Berry: "Eaters must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used."

Our world has been used badly and thrown away by our present agricultural system. It's disturbing to realize that 200 years ago, a blink of an eye in human history, local organic agriculture was the economic basis of most societies, and now the entire planet is in danger of extinction through global warming, with industrial agriculture as a major contributor.

John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus, University of Missorui, is an agro-ecologist with a long career studying and teaching sustainable agriculture. He writes and speaks clearly, passionately, and vigorously about the impact of industrial agriculture on social systems, and how sustainable agriculture restores natural balance and community wherever it is introduced. His message is set in the context of human history.

Ikerd publishes a monthly article in Small Farm Today, an agriculture journal targeted to homesteaders, and one of my favorite magazines. His article in the March/April issue is Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. Ikerd explains that the basis of industrial agriculture is scientific materialism, which has three beliefs. 1) Replicable, material cause and effect rule our existence. 2) Human life is nothing more than an interaction of motion and matter. 3) Anything which lacks tangible, material characteristics and qualities doesn't exist. That would include spirituality, intellect, will, and feelings. Which explains why industrial agriculture has no soul.

Professor Ikerd says, "Purpose in life may be rejected by science, but it is expressed in the social norms and customs of every civilized society and in the constitutions and laws of of every credible government in the world. If human life has purpose, then agriculture too has purpose." My guess is that Ikerd wouldn't consider most governments in the world to be credible.

In conclusion, he states: "My opposition to industrial agriculture is rooted in the fact that it diminishes life - life in the soil, life in communities, and life of consumers who eat industrial foods. My advocacy is based on the first principles of agroecology, the science of sustainablility: life has purpose, all life is connected, and life is good."

After studying up on this, I know that you can't get a cheaper tomato at Super Walmart - even though it may appear to be cheaper. For one thing, it's almost certainly inferior in taste or nutrition to the one that was raised with love, and picked ripe this morning by your neighbor - even if it's organically grown, which is questionable. In fact, your cheap tomato is far more expensive than the one that costs a few cents more at the farmer's market.

You'll pay for your cheap tomato ten times over in government subsidies of industrial agriculture, transportation, and fossil fuels, all of which come out of your taxes. You'll pay for increased health costs. You'll pay in the loss of agricultural diversity - over 90% of seed varieties have been lost in less than 100 years. You'll pay in the poisoning of land, water and air. Every dollar you spend on industrial agricultural brings your local grower that much closer to going out of business - another loss for you and your local community.

Besides the articles, what brought on this rant? Well, it's on my mind, because it's spring, the time of year when farmers markets and CSA's start up. Local growers, from love, long habit, and sheer persistence, once more take up the struggle against all odds, to earn a living by growing and selling good food. Last week we got our first CSA box, I've been working in my garden, and this morning I bought some seedlings at the farmers market.

If you've read this far, I may be preaching to the choir. But I beg you! Shop at your local farmers market, join a CSA, demand that your local food stores provide locally grown produce, preferably organic, but local above all. Convert your lawn to food, or make a container garden on your balcony. Eat Local! Go Veg while you're at it, and double the effect.