Unless you've been living in a cave, completely isolated from the rest of society, you've probably heard something about the negative consequences of our current food system. Countless books, magazine and newspaper articles, documentaries, and scientific reports have been written on topics such as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, the potential problems associated with the use of Monsanto Round-Up ready chemicals and genetically modified seeds, social injustices and mistreatment of farm workers, diet-related diseases, climate change, etc., etc., etc. I could spend months discussing the perils of modern-day agriculture. In fact, I do. I teach two classes this semester related to food--Best Practices in Sustainability, in which I cover food, water, waste energy, transportation, and building, and other course called Cognition and Food, in which I discuss how cognitive factors influence our choices, in many cases outside of conscious awareness, and the consequences of how we nourish (malnourish is a more appropriate word) our bodies. That's not what I want to write about today, though. I'll spare you the gory details and, instead, present a new paradigm of thought.
First, a quick (hi)story. Farming practices have evolved, and how. We shifted away from manual labor towards machine labor as a means of making hard chores easy. After all, work a day in a field and you'll know, farming is hard, back-breaking, work. This shift freed up time for farmers to devote their lives to family, leisure activities, and other jobs (which brought in more income than farming). At the time, this seemed like a good thing--a really good thing, actually. However, like many of the choices that we make (and I use make, lightly), the transition was not fully conscious, meaning, not mindful of the evolutionary process that would result in a system now referred to as factory farming, or large-scale agribusiness, rather than the farming we'd grown to know and love. Thus, when pondering solutions to the problems created by this shift, we might first ask ourselves, where did the farm go and when did the factory begin? You see, we got here because it was easier than Bubba lifting a bail of hay.
We simplify the world by making hard problems into dichotomies… black, white; farm, factory; good, evil. In ranting about Polyface versus Monsanto, we are still speaking the dialect of good versus evil, us versus the enemy. This dialect is one of war, and in a conscious society, should just be considered silly. So breaking free from that paradigm of thought, shifting away from blame and judgment, is what we need to focus on. Now is the time to change the paradigm. In fact, we need a radical paradigm change, one that embraces and accepts our historical successes and failures, and then moves forward. We do not know what the future will look like, but we do know that we are living in a time that doesn’t work anymore. We cannot continue to live in a world where there is radiation-tainted consciousness.
My focus is on food, for several reasons. First and foremost, food is essential for maintaining human life (it's also delicious). Then, the production of food has massive implications for water quality and preservation, air, transportation, energy, and global health. It’s easy to complain about how problematic our current food system has become. What’s not easy is presenting alternatives. That’s the dialogue I want to open up here; so, let's get started.
Los Angeles has made some pretty radical since I moved here in 2007. For example, in 2010, the City Planning Commission voted unanimously to pass the Food and Flowers Freedom Act, which allows backyard gardeners to sell their goods at farmers markets and restaurants. No special certification process is required. Some of the benefits include increased social networks (now you know your farmer/neighbor), local sustainable job creation (unemployment in LA is more than 13%), better storm-water management (more green space to protect from urban runoff), and higher levels of food security (breaking free from a poisonous food system). In addition, research shows that children (and child-like adults) prefer to consume foods that are familiar, so being exposed to food growing in the neighborhood should transfer to food preferences and choices. Want a kid to eat her vegetables, expose her to them, repeatedly.
As an urban forager, much of my diet comes for free (not factoring in time). I hunt exotic mushrooms, edible wild plants, and have even been known to eat off the plate of attractive strangers who leave tasty treats behind. In the last year, I shifted away from veganism and towards freeganism, partly as a form of civil disobedience. Like me, organizations such as Food Forward and Fallen Fruit both take advantage of the bounty that exists around us. These groups practice gleaning, picking fruit from neighborhood trees that would otherwise fall to the ground and rot. In the case of Food Forward, they donate their harvests to local food banks and shelters. In the case of Fallen Fruit, they provide free maps to tress that grow on or spill over onto public property. In both cases, they are providing fresh food to citizens who would otherwise need to purchase it. Create a map of your own neighborhood and share it, better yet, take your neighbors for a walk and host a community feast!
If you can’t find it or glean it, maybe try swapping it. That’s what my friends and I started doing at what we call the Venice Harvest Xchange. We created a food-swapping club where locals can trade their bounty for things they need or want, a system that is largely free of money and totally under the radar of regulation (just sign up to be a member of our club, and a statement acknowledging your understanding that our food has never been inspected by a government official). At these VHX meetings, "vendors" offer jams and other preserved foods, homemade granola, fresh garden fruits and vegetables, local wild mushrooms, pizza from a wood-burning oven that we built out of dirt, and more recently, clothing, massages, tinctures, essential oils, art, jewelry, and so much more! Club members have no need for permits or a prohibitively expensive commercial kitchen… just trust. Now, how's that for an alternative?
Finally (for today), start your own "Victory Garden" in protest of the war waged by agribusiness against clean water, our right to information and transparency, and affordable healthy food. If you don't have a green thumb, there are plenty of organizations out there to help get you started. On the Westside, for example, we have the Westside Permies, a group of permaculturists and volunteers who convert lawns into food gardens once a year, for free (minus garden supplies unless you qualify for a scholarship). There are a number of other professional groups, such as Farmscape, who will build your garden, maintain it, and even pick the vegetables for you if you'd like. How simple is that?
It is our responsibility to engage in a broad social movement that works towards a culture that holds humanity above profit, where social justice is the rule, not the exception. As in this post, in future posts during my 7-month journey across the country, time spent reconnecting with the land, I hope to present alternative models of eating--living really. Rather than fight the system, we could free ourselves from it. When we decide to walk away from the “us versus them,” “good versus evil” dialectic paradigm and towards one that unites us, working side by side, hand in hand, connected to nature and each other instead of separate, only then will we see change.
