In revising the syllabus for this course this past winter, I
consulted several students who’ve spent significant time and energy engaged
with agriculture and food systems issues. Each offered insights into the type
of course they felt would be most valuable to K seniors. Two elements came
across as especially important in our conversations. First, that the course
focus on solutions to agriculture/food systems problems, and second, that each
student bring their own experiences and knowledge to bear on our exploration of
these solutions.
In order to facilitate this, each week during this course,
two students will each individually choose an issue to present to the class for
exploration and discussion. Each of these students will write a blog post
detailing the problem they would like us to consider, including links to
reference material that will help us understand the depth and complexity of the
problem. They will also include information about or links to material that
describes attempts to solve this problem. Though these blog posts will contain
lots of factual information (and please make sure that this factual material is
coming from sources you deem reputable!), they should also be written from a
personal perspective. Why are you concerned about this problem? When did you
first learn of it? How does it affect you personally and how might you
personally engage in solving it?
Your blog posts should end with a question or two that you’d
like the class to respond to. Each student who is not facilitating that week
will respond to your post with a comment that addresses the question(s) you’ve
posed (and please spend a little time composing thoughtful comments—probably a
good length to shoot for is 200+ words). Then you will have fifty minutes of
our Thursday morning meeting to facilitate a discussion or activity that
further explores the issues and solutions you’ve raised.
Blog posts will be due Wednesday evening the week prior to
the week you will be facilitating discussion. Comments will be due prior to our
Thursday class meeting time.
With those logistics out of the way, I’d like to start us
off with my own post on the state of our agricultural systems and my
relationship to them:
My first friends were farm animals. Cows, mostly, because my
parents were dairy farmers and so I was surrounded by them. We had chickens
too, but they pecked me when I tried to collect their eggs and the roosters
flew at my head with their dusty wings and sharp talons whenever I entered the
chicken yard. I preferred the cows. I remember one old cow who always chose the
same stall in the middle of the barn. I liked to sit next to her and stroke the
soft underside of her neck as she calmly chewed her cud and waited her turn to
be milked. I was pretty young then, too young to be of much help in the barn,
but I loved being around the cows, touching them and smelling their sweet
breath.
As soon as I was tall and strong enough, I was given chores.
My first responsibilities were feeding the cows and young calves, then cleaning
stalls and milking. In the summer there was field work as we grew and harvested
the crops that would feed the cows through the winter. It was hard, physical
work but I enjoyed it. I loved being outside, working with my family. We were a
team, working together to take care of the cows, who in turn took care of us by
giving us milk, meat, and money. Neither of my parents had off-farm jobs, so
everything we had came from those cows. If they flourished, we flourished.
No childhood is perfect, but my first ten years were pretty
satisfying. I determined that I wanted to live on a farm forever and planned to
marry a farmer when I grew up. (That it didn’t occur to me that I could be a
farmer myself should give you an indication of the gender dynamics in my
family.) It was when I was about twelve that I started to realize that
something was amiss in the world of agriculture.
In the mid-80s, a decade after former Secretary of
Agriculture Earl Butz (read about his legacy here: http://grist.org/article/the-butz-stops-here/)extorted farmers to “get big or get out,” the dairy industry hit a crisis.
Production, bolstered in part by government price-supports and buy-ups of
surplus product, rose to unsustainable levels. As part of an attempt to reduce
the surplus milk flooding the market, the federal Dairy Termination Program
offered a buyout option which paid farmers to stop milk production.
I imagine that a conversation similar to the one my family
had one February evening took place across many farmhouse kitchen tables that
year. My father explained the terms of program. We’d have to sell the cows and
agree not to produce milk for a certain number of years, which meant we’d be
done dairying, since it wasn’t feasible to get back into the business after
being out for several years.
“Well, family, what do you think?” my father asked, looking
from my mother to my brother to me. “Should we take it?”
“No!” I yelled, shaking my head vigorously, eyes wide,
shocked that we would even consider such a thing. I couldn’t imagine life
without the cows, without the farm. What would we do?
I don’t know how much my reaction actually figured into my
father’s decision not to take the buyout. Many of the small dairies in our
county did. And though my parents didn’t stop farming when I was a kid, they
determined that they would be the last generation of my family to farm. “Go to
college,” they told my brother and me. “Get a good job off the farm. You can’t
make a living doing this on a small scale—it’s too hard.”
The agricultural policies promoted by Butz and others who
shared his interests (and the fallout from these policies) have changed the
landscape and ecosystem in which I live. Once my township and those surrounding
it were dotted with small, diverse farms. My father remembers the days when
every family had a garden, a pig, a cow, and some chickens. Now a few large
farms dominate the area with corn, soybeans, and dairy herds which contain
thousands of cattle (at its biggest, my parents’ herd was a couple of hundred).
“Plant fencerow to fencerow,” Butz said. Today, even the
fencerows have been cut and plowed, destroying precious buffer zones and ecologically
diverse habitats. In the effort to get maximum yields per acre, erodible land
is tilled and soil washes into our rivers and streams. Chemical fertilizers and
herbicides have destroyed the life in our soil and they also wash into our
watershed, wreaking havoc in our aquatic ecosystems. Livestock, also, are
pushed to the limits of production through breeding, feeding, and confinement
practices that leave them with shortened and unpleasant lives. And farm workers
share that same fate as they put in exhausting workdays which frequently
include dangerous working conditions and exposures to toxic substances.
If asked what I think the biggest problem in our current food
system is, I’d answer that it resides within our relationships—our
relationships with ourselves, each other, and the non-human beings who sustain
our lives. We have, in this country, a system of relationships based on
exploitation in the name of maximum production and profit. For the most part,
we accept this as the normal state of things. We accept that shoppers are going
to try to get the most/best goods they can for their shopping dollar, that
employers are going to try to get the most work out of their employees for the
least compensation, and that farmers will try to get the most production out of
their soil with the least amount of care expressed as labor and expense. It
doesn’t matter so much to us that our shopping dollars support employers who force
workers to labor in unsafe conditions for poverty wages and we have entirely
forgotten that the health of the soil has anything to do with us. We have
forgotten that our health and our fates are intertwined with both our human and
our biotic communities.
When we are enmeshed in dysfunction, it can be difficult to
envision what true health might look like. I think it’s worth remembering that
there are cultures that have lived and continue to live with very different
types of relationships to land, community, and food. Here are two TED talks by Anishinaabe
women who describe their cultural relationship to the food species that sustain
their people. Listen and let me know what you think. What would our
agricultural system look like if it were based on the ethical principles
described by LaDuke & Kimmerer rather than those proposed by Earl Butz?
What steps are you taking or could you take to strengthen the health of your
relationships to the beings (human and non-human) that provide your food?
Winona LaDuke, “Seeds of our Ancestors, Seeds of Life”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNlel72eQc
Robin Kimmerer, “Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE
Also, I would like to learn from each of you when and how
you became aware that things are amiss within our agricultural systems. In your
comments, please also describe your first memory of learning about a problem
within our food & farming systems. How did you react?
ReplyDeleteFast food was a treat when I was young. My father used to take my brother and me to McDonald’s every Friday. I remember getting the kids meals and grabbing the toy first, always little plastic figurines that spun on the table. After we ate our hamburgers and watched our father stuff down three burgers himself, we would run to the ball pit. I remember loving McDonalds. It wasn’t until years later in high school when I realized that I didn’t love McDonalds at all. McDonald’s masked itself as a place for family. I spent time with my family there and so it felt like home.
My first memory of learning about a problem with our food and farming systems was in middle school when I asked the woman working behind the lunch counter why she didn’t serve us salads or fruits outside of packaged containers filled with syrup. I remember this woman explaining to me that it was cheaper for the school to serve us pre-packaged foods and meats. It was cheaper for them. That is what I understood. The cost was and still is more important to our society than health is.
If our agricultural system were based on the ethical principles described by LaDuke and Kimmerer in their Ted Talks rather than those proposed by Earl Butz, we would be living in a much healthier world in all senses of the word. Physical health for humans and plants alike would be much better in an agricultural system that understands honorable harvest. After watching the Ted Talks with both LaDuke and Kimmerer, I understand that there is still much work that I need to do to repair my relationship with the beings (both human and non-human) that provide me with food. I believe that taking only what I need is something that I can continue to work on in my own life.
I first realized the problematic nature of our food system in the school cafeteria. The food served at school contrasted abruptly with the meals I was served at home and in a small way, I began to understand how economic injustice impacted food sovereignty and the ways in which our food system separated and harmed communities and failed to nourish members of our community physically, but also culturally and spiritually. The frustration and embarrassment that I felt when I had to buy school lunch in elementary school spoke far more than the tummy ache I inevitably had after eating the cafeteria food. School lunches provided one of my first insights into the inequality and injustice in both the food system and in larger society.
ReplyDeleteIf our agricultural system was based on the beliefs and practices expressed in the TEDtalk, it would be diverse and made up of small-scale local systems. It would include aspects of Robin Kimmerer’s Honorable Harvest and communities would commit to the philosophies of “use everything you take” and “minimize harm”. Everyone would play and active role in the processes and everyone would have access to nutritious and culturally relevant food. The earth and all its beings would be respected and we would look to nature and to our ancestors for wisdom in creating sustainable and just food ways. Most importantly, our food ways would not be based around the motive of profit and the concentration of resources and power. Food sovereignty would be respected as a right. The most immediate step that I can take towards this reality is to buy local and fair trade/ethical foods that were grown with respect for the land, the producers, and for its spiritual and cultural roots. In a society that values low consumer costs for food, I need to constantly be questioning my own perceptions of price and true value. Winona LaDuke talks about the dehumanizing nature of our current food system, which devalues the people, animals, and resources exploited by the industry, as well as the consumers whose rights to food sovereignty are not protected. Both speakers focused on relationships with the earth and the food we eat, addressing these elements as spiritual entities that deserve respect. By respecting the earth and all its beings, we can create sustainable and just systems that also honor the respect and value of members of our human communities as well.
I first began to notice how problematic our food and farming systems were during my early adolescence. I had a somewhat similar experience to Amy, as my Aunt and Uncle owned a small farm in Canada that they had to eventually give up due to competition. Rural Ontario was once filled with small and diverse farms but large farms dominate the land because of the increasing societal demand for instant gratification and mass production. The cows and chickens that I used to love to play with as a child were eventually sold and my aunt and uncle were forced to find work elsewhere. It was then that I slowly began to learn about the various consequences associated with our society’s strong desire for quantity over quality.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed listening to the TEDtalks and learning about the various practices that strive toward a sustainable development with renewable energy and improved food systems. If our food system were based on the ethical principles of Kimmerer and LaDuke, there would be an increased awareness and respect for nutrition and food. It would be imperative to shift the societal focus from mass production to taking what you need and using all that you are given. With this shift, the focus would also be aimed towards a need for resources rather than a desire for profit. While I realize that this is easier said than done, I do believe there are many things that I can do in order to strengthen my own relationship to the beings that provide my food. By working at the farm and purchasing produce at local food markets, I believe that I will gain more awareness and respect for sustainable agriculture as well as have the opportunity to support the local and small farms, similar to my Aunt and Uncle’s farm.
If we collectively shifted our approach for agriculture to include a greater amount of respect for the earth and all of its inhabitants, I think that we would find a greater amount of small, organic farms becoming the source of food for the local communities they belong to. This can only occur if there is a large-scale change of consciousness to care more about what we put into our bodies, but more importantly the environmental cost of our agricultural practices. It starts with asking questions that many people are afraid to find out the answers to.
ReplyDeleteSome questions I began to ask myself in these past few years are: Where was this food grown? What kind of poisonous pesticides might be on this food? How was this cow or chicken treated? I had a realization one day while riding my bike past a large field of corn. I thought, if bugs and deer won't touch this stuff, why am I eating it every day? The more questions I asked, the more I was disgusted by the answers. Seeing some videos documenting the horrors of factory farming was the last straw for me and caused me to reconsider my diet/lifestyle. These days I rarely eat meat, but when I do I am sure to only support humane farming practices. I have the goal of phasing it out of my life altogether, but for now I still love a burger from crow's nest from time to time.
I believe that the very least we can do to support the cultivation of better, healthier food is to go out and buy it. Sometimes that means spending $2.50 on an organic grapefruit (which can be hard to justify when you're a college student), but I know that if everybody opts for the cheaper generic options, there will be no demand for the good stuff anymore and the farmers won't be able to keep making it. It comes down to personal choice. I see things pretty simply: There are good fruits that come from good trees and bad fruits that come from bad trees. A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit and a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. Food that is grown with love and compassion and respect comes from a good tree - that's the kind of food I want to eat and hopefully, someday, grow and share with others.
I did not really become aware that things were amiss within our agricultural systems until about a year and a half ago, when I became really interested in nutrition. I suffered from severe eczema (an autoimmune skin condition) since I was a baby. My older sister had recently adopted a paleo diet and encouraged me to try it. I was amazed that as I eliminated processed foods and ate fresh produce from quality sources, my eczema began to disappear rapidly.
ReplyDeleteAs I became more dependent on finding foods from quality sources, I learned more and more about the flaws of modern agribusiness, and the importance of supporting organic, sustainable agriculture. I became an owner of the People’s Food Co-op of Kalamazoo and a regular customer at the Farmer’s Market on Bank Street. Talking to small farmers about their experience trying to compete with big corporate farms only strengthened my values in this regard.
An agricultural system based on the ethical principles described by LaDuke and Kimmerer would be astronomically more healthful, sustainable, and enjoyable. Talking to farmers at the market is one step that I have already taken to strengthen my relationship to my food. Particularly when I was working towards eliminating my eczema, it was extremely important to me to avoid any and all chemicals, even organic ones. By speaking directly with small farmers at the market, I was able to learn about their growing practices and identify which vendors did not use chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Though my eczema is completely gone, I continue to buy from these vendors regularly and love having an ongoing relationship with the people that are growing my food. Going forward, I hope to have a small vegetable garden of my own in graduate school next year so that I can have a more physical connection with my food as well.
One of my first rude awakenings in regards to our contemporary food system was my freshman year of high school, when I read and wrote a report on Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. I was horrified while reading of the grotesque treatment of animal carcasses and the unsanitary environment in which are meat was processed, but I took it as historical, a time long gone. Upon further research into my report, I discovered that, yes, Sinclair’s novel was extremely influential in advancing the health and safety codes of US food manufacturing, but it by no means cured all of the problems. The fact is, the mistreatment of our food starts long before both produce and livestock are sent to factories and processing plants. It starts at the roots, what the cows are fed, how the soil is maintained.
ReplyDeleteUpon watching films such as Food Inc and Supersize Me, I understood that our agricultural system is headed in an extremely discouraging direction, and the dietary culture we have cultivated in the US feeds into that by demanding cheap, immediate solutions. Even if those solutions cost more (monetarily and ecologically) in the long run. I have always felt a slight hopelessness in my contribution to the agricultural system; it seems that the more I learn about what goes on behind the scenes, the more I realize I am not as smart of a buyer as I previously thought.
I once saw a television special of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, taking place in a rural, economically struggling community in the Midwest. In trying to bring food education to children, he performed his most tried and true test from his UK revolutions: the chicken Mcnugget test. In this, he has the kids watch him as he makes the nuggets, blending chicken carcass, giblets and skin, then frying. The kids were disgusted, but as soon as he tossed some bread crumbs on the patties and threw them in a skillet, they all said they would still eat it. Because it was what they knew as food, as chicken. I find this to be an interesting contrast from LaDuke’s statement that in order for our philosophies to hold any personal value, we have to restore our individual relationships with food.
I think education is a key step in transforming the system, as food is something each and everyone of us has to purchase, and a deeper awareness and connection to our food can make all the difference in making these decisions.
Growing up, I generally ate healthy food but wasn’t really aware of where exactly that food came from or how it was produced. I’m from a small town, I didn’t live on a farm, and was really quite naive about our entire food system. Then, during my freshman seminar at K (“Roots in the Earth”) we watched the documentary “Food, Inc”. I remember being completely shocked, and I became a vegetarian that day. I’d always been very environmentally conscious and an animal-lover, but I had never connected this to the food I purchased and consumed. Looking back, it was a total lightbulb moment for me. I began going to the farmer’s market, buying organic, and doing some of my own research. This drastic change in mindset helped me realize just how easy it is to be completely unaware of the problems facing food systems today.
ReplyDeleteIf our agricultural system was based on LaDuke & Kimmerer’s principles, we would be more deeply connected to the earth and to each other. We would all grow and pick our own food or at least have a relationship with those who do. As Kimmerer said, most of us view the world as our property, something to exploit and control. However, if we began to see the world as a gift that has been given to us, we would be much more grateful and generous. We would treat animals, plants, and the land with more respect. Personally, I’m making an effort to buy local food that is grown responsibly and am trying to form relationships with the farmers. There’s something special about being face-to-face with the farmer who grows your food and buying that food directly from them. I’m also trying to educate others, especially those who aren’t already interested in environmental or food issues, about buying local, sustainable food. This can be challenging, but it’s critical to forming healthy relationships with our food and those who produce it.
I've always been passionate about food. I love to eat and I love to cook. However, only recently have I become passionate about food justice. My first two years at K are when I realized how messed up our agricultural system is. I never really had to think about food growing up. There was always enough food in my home and my mom cooked pretty healthy food. Not only until recently has my family been concerned with anything other than calories when it comes to food. At K I was confronted with many issues involving food such as sustainability, food access, genetic modification, and biodiversity. Through class, student organizations and conversations with my friends I came to understand that, not only is the system functioning poorly, but that the system is complex and many, many different facets of the system are failing.
ReplyDeleteFood seemed to be an common denominator that surfaced in many issues I was becoming passionate about such as racism,capitalism, and cancer.
This is actually our reality. Food is a common denominator among us, we all need to eat. In understanding food this way, it makes sense that as I grew a passion for social justice, understanding the injustices in our food system became extremely important to my konwledge, activism and daily life.
Ultimately this passion for food and food justice is what has lead me to this class. The videos reminded me about one of the main reasons I want to learn more about sustainable agricultural practices: changing food culture. We need to shift the cultural narrative of conquering the earth, to coexisting with, having a realtionship with, and respecting the earth. I have been trying to do more to form a healthy relationship with the earth by recycling, reducing waste, reducing my use of energy and water and buying locally grown and organic food. I also have supported various organizations/ movements attacking larger societal and political food issues. These videos reminded me that there is still so much that I can do as an individual. They especially got me thinking about how I can give back to the earth. I have been trying to support sustainable agriculture, and I have been trying to decrease my consumption, but I haven't been making an effort at truly giving something back to the earth. One thing I want to do after watching these videos is to do more research about the native bee populations where I live. I have space around my house for plants. I have learned that planting native wildflowers can help sustain native bee populations. This is one concrete thing want to do to help nourish the earth that so lovingly nourishes me.
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ReplyDeleteI think that I've known for a very long time that the way food is produced in this country is problematic. I come from a family built in relation to the food industry; my dad's father was a patent lawyer for Monsanto while my mother's father was a conventional farmer in North Dakota where he followed the popular practice of soybean and sunflower rotations. Growing up almost everyone member on my mom's side of the family became ill with some form of cancer. I remember when my grandfather died in 2002 that my mom was insistent that the onset of his illness was due to working on the farm. This seemed counterintuitive, shouldn't people who live and work outside in the countryside be the healthiest? During my senior year of high school I spent some time working in a garden and growing food where I began to understand differences in food production techniques. After studying abroad in Thailand I became very interested in learning more. It was there that I learned about the environmental impacts that accompany much of conventional agriculture. The following summer I worked on a CSA farm outside of Pittsburgh, which is where the thesis of my SIP emerged.
ReplyDeleteListening to Winona LaDuke's TED talk I can't help but to feel incredibly frustrated for the Ojibwe people. It seems they are being forced into a for profit system if the want to continue growing the food that they have always been growing and that has such meaning in their lives. Certainly if our food system was based in some of the beliefs that the Ojibwe hold, then there would be more of a focus on whole foods and diverse diets. Furthermore, greater awareness of food growing processes and origins would be more widely spread.
The best ways I can think of personally to strengthen my relationship with food and food production is to get involved with a local farmer. CSA programs and farmers markets are great places to meet the people responsible for growing food, ask questions and thank these people for sharing their harvest. Spending time on a farm has definitely given me a greater appreciation for food, and its something I would like to do again. It also makes me more willing to pay higher prices for produce where the origins and food producers are something I trust and want to further support.
As a homeschooler growing up with a very health and food conscious mother, conversations about healthy food choices and the problematic nature of our current food system were a regular part of my home life. In endless attempts to resolve her own health issues, my mother explored and researched our food system and the impact that various foods and chemicals have on our bodies for years until she arrived, 10 years ago, at the raw vegan diet that she is on today. Food, the difference between healthy and unhealthy food, and the dangerous powers of our quantity over quality focused system were a central part of my family conversations, but the role that my racial and class-based privilege played in my ability to choose what food I would put in my body was not.
ReplyDeleteThroughout my time at K my understanding of the food I eat and the problematic system that often puts it on my plate has shifted to focus much more heavily on the demographic factors that often determine access to food and knowledge about food in a given community. By engaging with the larger community of Kalamazoo I now see the role that physical, racial, cultural, educational, and monetary factors play in people’s access to healthy foods. Looking at systemic oppression through the lens of the food system is terrifying and overwhelming. I really enjoyed listening to the LaDuke TEDtalk because it offered solutions to this broken system that came from within the communities that are most negatively and enormously effected by its shortcomings. My experience has been that some of the primarily white food movements I have been exposed to have been focused on a “helping” mentality when turning their attention to low income communities of color. I found LaDuke’s TEDtalk refreshing because she presented projects and actions that her community is taking to empower themselves and facilitate self-agency in their relationship with the food system.
I was a young child when my parents first brought me into the garden. At the time my family shared a plot of land with several of our neighbors. It wasn’t a very large plot, but in it we grew tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, and corn. Each spring I remember my parents clearing away the weeds and tilling the soil as I tagged along. I played more than helped, but it was in my play that I learned to love the garden. I was curious about the insects, the worms. And as my parents let me plant the seeds, I would cautiously place them in the ground so excited to see what would emerge. Today, it is the memories of our times in this garden that return when I reflect on my process of understanding agricultural systems.
ReplyDeleteIt was also from a young age that I remember hearing about issues within agricultural systems. At the time, my father worked closely with farming communities in rural Minnesota and often worked on legislative policy dealing with small family farms. He would mention the difficulties facing these farms, and although I didn’t understand the situations entirely, I remember the urgency and passion with which he spoke. Sometimes he would bring me to visit the farmers he worked with and I was entranced by farm life. I loved visiting the farms, seeing the animals and being out in the wide fields. But there was also some sort of undercurrent tension that I didn’t really understand. There was pride in the farms and the work, but anxiety about being able to continue forward.
By the time I reached high school my father’s job had changed, I didn’t visit farms very frequently, and my family didn’t garden the same plot of land as we did when I was a child. I still wasn’t very clear about the issues within agricultural systems, but started to become interested in ideas of sustainability and how students could organize around promoting more sustainable schools. It wasn’t until I reached Kalamazoo College that I began to reconnect with discussions around agricultural systems. As a first year at K I became involved in the movement for a just, local, sustainable food policy and for a dining service provider change. Simultaneously, I was also being challenged in classes to think critically about systems, power, and the impacts that social categories like race have on food access and knowledge. It was at this point when I began to realize how large and structural the issues facing agriculture were.
It was also during my first two year at Kalamazoo, that I began to realize the possibilities for rethinking relationships to agriculture, food, and farming. Watching LaDuke and Kimmerer’s videos brought back numerous conversations I participated in about how reconceptualizing relationships, to food and the people who produce it, can lead to healthier ecosystems and people. It can also transform contemporary thinking about how to create community, conversations I continue to be very interested in. I think that ethical agriculture allows for recognition of where conventional farming has struggled, and challenges us to recognize, as LaDuke mentioned, that has a culture, a history, relationships. If as society this was our common understanding, we would approach the entire agricultural system differently because it wouldn’t be so money driven, but rather people and plant driven. These ideas aren’t new, but they are revolutionary in the current moment.
While I have been very involved in discussions such as these in the past, more recently my direct involvement has decreased. However, I think my understanding of agriculture has grown as I have continued to reconsider my knowledge in light of classes I have taken, places I have visited, and people I have met. Right now I am excited to reconnect with the dirt and the hands-on process of farming. I think this is the first fundamental step because it is where everything begins. And then, I’m excited to engage in building on conversations I’ve had in order to deepen my understanding and ideas of what agricultural systems are today and where they could go.
In my early childhood my parents were both vegetarians. My dad would blurt out facts he had learned from Eating Animals and other books about industrial agriculture and livestock. He would comment on the intellectual capacities of farm animals and about various mistreatments of livestock. He raised me to question the morality of eating animals. He told me that animals were victims to our food industry and that we, as consumers, should not support that type of industry. While my parents gave my brother and me the option of being vegetarian, I was young and took everything my parents told me to heart. I was only exposed to their version of the story. We lived in a suburb near Chicago, far from any farms. Therefore, I had no direct contact with a farm until college. I do not think I understood that there were ethical farming practices occurring throughout the Midwest nor did I realize there were sustainable ways to raise livestock. Additionally, while my parents tried to make me understand the injustices in one aspect of the food system, it took me a long time to realize that I was not getting the full picture. There are so many factors that play into the food industry. It was not until I witnessed small-scale organic farming and talked to various stakeholders in the agricultural industry that I realized there were so many different stories and values needed to be considered.
ReplyDeleteLaDuke and Kimmerer both have the perspective of women who have experienced agriculture first-hand. They stress the importance of creating a connection between humans and the land from which we gather our resources. Both women acknowledge the ties their ancestors have with certain crops within their native lands. Whether it is rice or strawberries, these women’s ancestors and peers have a strong cultural connection to the land and appreciate the services that particular crop provides. Having such a deep rooted appreciation towards the land and specific crops allows you to best understand how to maximize and protect your local ecosystems. It is clear that people have become extremely distanced from where they get their food. Many folks, myself included, do not live in close proximity, to agriculture land. Our busy schedules do not allow us to take time to visit the places where our food comes from. Therefore, it is impossible to get people in the city to place the same intrinsic value on nature as people in rural areas. I think if we are going to alter our current food system, we need people living in all areas to come to an understanding about their role as consumer. People in Urban areas need to find some connection to nature so that they can better appreciate the goods and services native ecosystems provide. If we lived in a world where people could be more aware of where their food comes from then we could all be more sensitive towards the issues facing our food industry.
It's incredible to reflect on my reaction to Kimmerer's guidelines for taking from the earth. It makes so much sense, but it takes moving beyond an initial impulse of thinking that it sounds silly or unfeasible in order to see the validity and necessity of it. It is a way of interacting with the natural world that puts us as human beings in a completely different position in terms of ‘power’. It is so rare that we ask the question “What can I give?” to the earth that provides so many gifts for us. And even now, that many of us have accepted climate change as reality and have understood that human’s impact on the earth is vastly damaging, we are still looking at it as a problem we can ‘fix’. Like there’s something wrong with the earth. I love what Kidderer said about nothing being wrong with the earth, only with our relationship to it. What a different world we would live in if we followed those guidelines. I know we would have closer relationships with those around us, needing to rely on our community to share resources; with our environment, observing, asking and listening; and with ourselves, spending more time reflecting on our impact and what we really need.
ReplyDeleteA time that sticks out for me when I think about first recognizing a problem with our food system is when I switched schools in fifth grade. I moved from a charter arts school to a public school. At my old school, we didn’t have a lunch program; the only food the school served was pizza from Dominos every other Wednesday and bagels on Friday mornings. I tried school lunch at my new school and was horrified. I didn’t understand why everyone was eating it! How anyone could serve it! Why it even existed. Not knowing any of the big picture causes, I just saw it as terrible food and had the simple question why?
One part of LaDuke's talk that really stood out to me was about the variety of types of corn they grew, and how certain varieties of seeds only worked in very specific areas of the earth. This idea is very intuitive, yet we are constantly striving for the "perfect" seed that can grow all over the globe and produce corn that tastes and looks identical. I think it is wonderful the joy that she finds in being able to grow the pink lady corn, which looks so wonderfully different than anything you would ever see at Meijer. This joy however is interestingly similar to how proud my next door neighbor is at home when he brings over a large batch of yellow corn that's been grown with pesticides and large farming equipment. The differences in values/goals between farming practices are often not all that different, however in order to have varied seeds and growing practices, the culture around food in our larger society has to shift.
ReplyDeleteIt was not really until college that I truly understood how messed up our food system is. Even though my grandparents raise beef cattle that live happy lives grazing many many acres, my parents never hesitated to pick up McDonalds for dinner. I was home for break and my Uncle was cooking meet from a calf they had just had butchered when my cousin, who has grown up on the farm, walked into the kitchen and declared she would not eat that meat because it smelled weird. She was more concerned with how this meat was not exactly like meat she normally smelled, than what was actually in what she was being served under the label of beef at places like McDonalds. At this point it hit me just how much we had incorrectly learned what food is good and bad, even though we had all grown up with my grandparents and Aunt/Uncle farming.