MoJo Forum: Is Organic and Local So 2008?
Paul Roberts, Lisa Gosselin, Jim Harkness, and Ryan Zinn debate the future of food all week with readers—and each other.
Is organic and local so 2008? Here's how MoJo contributing writer Paul Roberts answered that in "Spoiled":
When most of us imagine what a sustainable food economy might look like, chances are we picture a variation on something that already exists—such as organic farming, or a network of local farms and farmers markets, or urban pea patches—only on a much larger scale. The future of food, in other words, will be built from ideas and models that are familiar, relatively simple, and easily distilled into a buying decision: Look for the right label, and you're done.
But that's not the reality. Many of the familiar models don't work well on the scale required to feed billions of people. Or they focus too narrowly on one issue (salad greens that are organic but picked by exploited workers). Or they work only in limited circumstances. (A $4 heirloom tomato is hardly going to save the world.)
"Spoiled" touched such a nerve among readers that we've brought Paul Roberts back to answer your questions this week—and added an ag trade wonk, an organic consumer lobbyist, and a professional foodie to the mix.
They'll be checking in on this MoJo Forum page to discuss food security with readers—and each other. Want to talk to Paul Roberts, Lisa Gosselin, Jim Harkness, and Ryan Zinn about the future of food? Now's your chance. Leave a comment below for our MoJo Food Forum moderators this week and they'll respond.
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Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008
Our industrial food system is rotten to the core. Heirloom arugula won't save us. Here's what will.
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The End of Oil: Interview with Paul Roberts
Oil, besides being a whole lot of political trouble, is approaching its production peak. What to do?
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The Seven Myths of Energy Independence
Why forging a sustainable energy future is dependent on foreign oil
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Smart Growth
Want to fix the country? Fix food.
Lisa Gosselin is the publisher of the award-winning EatingWell magazine and the former editor-in-chief of Audubon magazine. Her most recent project is EatingWell in Season: The Farmers' Market Cookbook:
I could not agree more with Roberts' comments on our food system, and agree that we need to consider the life-cycle impacts of food production, not just be content with the feel-good labels of "organic" and "local."
Yet if people have a better understanding and appreciation of food because they grew it themselves, or met the farmer who grew it, that's a good thing. If they think twice about spraying pesticides on their lawn because they just bought organic strawberries, that's a good thing. If they realize that to eat farmed salmon today may mean their children will never know the taste of wild salmon, that's a good thing.
Rather than think that that any one system on its own—local, organic, vegan, you name it—is the solution, we need to keep asking questions, looking for answers, and eating more vegetables. That's the healthiest thing we can do for ourselves and our planet.
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He has served as an adviser for the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and is a contributor to two recent books: Mandate for Change and Thinking Big:
Organic and local as designer labels may be an elitist passing fancy, but as principles for building a fair and sustainable food system they are essential. Yes, in a consumer society even good ideas get appropriated and commodified. ("The revolution is just a T-shirt away!") But this is more useful as a wry observation about the ironies of anti-systemic movements than as a thesis for analyzing the problems of the food system. The use or misuse of organic and local is not The Problem, and I have never met a food activist or farmer who thought $4 heirloom tomatoes would save the world. The Problem is corporate agriculture supported by market fundamentalist ideology, and although Roberts raises some important issues he takes too much of that carefully constructed conventional wisdom for granted.
Instead of helping a farmer who's been snubbed by his organic neighbors to feel better about using Roundup, we should focus on understanding and changing the system that makes using deadly chemicals seem like his cheapest, easiest option.
Ryan Zinn is national campaigns coordinator of the Organic Consumers Association:
"Is organic and local so 2008?" More like organic and local is so 2018! While Roberts' attempt at deconstructing and demystifying "organic" and "local" is both admirable and needed, building a truly sustainable food system is infinitely more complex, yet increasingly attainable. Roberts' analysis represents a pre-2008 mentality, one that does not reflect emerging partnerships between workers and consumers to build a sustainable supply chain, the boom of modern urban homesteading, and the institutional changes at virtually every level of government. In fact, the current economic crisis and looming environmental calamities have forced our nation to finally reflect and act on "what's for dinner?"
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Give me an action item
How do we start? All this talking about creating a more secure (and sustainable) food source is lovely. But what are the concrete things I can do and can encourage my friends and family to do to make good choices while everyone hashes out what the "new way" will be? Buy from farmers we trust at the farmers market, check; participate in local CSAs, check; plant our own back yard garden, check....next? And what are the arguments to use for making this potentially elitist endeavor achievable for all?
A model of sustainability
Editorial Director, EatingWell | Where Good Taste Meets Good Health
The local/organic movement need not be elitist and can, in fact, be the way for many abandoned agricultural regions to reinvigorate their economies. Take Hardwick, VT, one of two REAP (rural poverty) zones in the U.S. This former mining town has more organic farmers per capita than just about any place in the United States. Average HHI is under $20K a year yet more than a third of the townspeople are members of the local coop, each fresh organic fruits and vegetables and support a thriving economy. Thanks to a few innovative farmers and the Center for an Agricultural Economy led by Tom Stearns (of High Mowing Seeds) the farmers in this region work together to share costs, train workers, reduce waste and keep their products priced fairly. A longer piece on this area will be in EatingWell's July/August issue but if you look around, you will find many many regions where farmers' solution to the question of "how do I stay in business" has been to go organic. As for the price for the average shopper, if you shop in season at farmers markets the prices are often quite a bit lower than they are at other markets. I recently did a price comparison in New York City and found the best deal on apples at a farm stand on West 66th: $3 for a large bag of nearly 15 apples. Organic is still a new movement and prices have already come down quite a bit. Demand will push those prices lower. So, rather than despair at what we have not accomplished, let's celebrate and continue to champion, what we have.
yes, but ...
That's all well and good, Lisa, but I had trouble making it through the rest of your argument, when a quick internet search revealed that there are five REAP zones:
http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/ezec/Communit/reap.html
Also, recommending an organic only positioning will only slow this effort down. Even after being co-opted by industry, organics are still an incredibly small proportion of overall agricultural output.
There is some, although not yet conclusive info out there that direct sales can be less expensive than grocery. But, that will have to change as the demand you mention grows ... at the end of the day farmers want to farm, not sell face-to-face or drive a delivery truck. Not that the farm couldn't hire someone to perform that function as demand grew, but either way the local food types will need to act much more business-like for growth to happen at any level.
Infrastructure
Anonymous(unverified)'s response points to the place-specific nature of farming and food systems. What works in Vermont won't work everywhere, at least not yet. On the other hand, it does show us what's possible, even in a larger economic and regulatory systems that's biased against local/organic/small.
We need to acknowledge and address the problems with direct marketing. There are only so many CSAs and farmers market vendors who can economically get access to land and customers in any given region. In many cases, they depend on getting a premium price. And not only does the time spent on marketing take away from time that could be spent farming, it can also be a very inefficient and "climate-unfriendly" way to get food from farm to fork, when many individual very small farmers have to truck in produce daily or weekly. But these are not insoluble problems.
What we need to do---and what some like CEA and their partners in VT are already doing---is to build the infrastructure for local foods: aggregation, storage, processing, transport, etc. A big cost of the past few decades of corporate concentration was the dismantling of the locally-owned grain elevators, warehouses, creameries, slaughterhouses, food distributors that used to make it possible for towns and cities to be fed in large part by farms and ranches nearby. Some of that infrastructure may still be out there, sitting idle. In other cases, new facilities and new business models will be needed. Financing is a big obstacle, one that got even bigger in the last six months. One change we can push for is a redefinition of "green jobs" to include not just windmills and weatherization, but jobs that support more climate-friendly agriculture and food systems.
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Hardwick, Vermont
Thanks for mentioning us and all our work here. Just a minor correction. Granite was processed in Hardwick - we have no mines! But we do have organic farms today, and the Center has bought the old granite sheds and fields near the center of town.
Hardwick
The Center is doing an amazing job calling more attention to all the hard work in Hardwick. But this is a story that goes back more than 30 years and decades of hard work. From the Notterman's at Snugg Valley, Annie and Louie at Surfing Veggie, Riverside and Hazendale and Windhorse farms, folks have been working the land with little attention and much dedication. Buffalo Mountain Co-op - founded decades ago and earning over a million dollars in revenue every year, putting people before profit http://www.buffalomountaincoop.org/ - helped keep Main Street going, and the Farmer's Market brought farmers together long before the Center and their younger, more recent farmers. Linda Ramsdell's Galaxy Bookshop brings food writers to town every summer, and combined with our library offers a termendous resource to learn about what we're doing. We appreciate all the applause, and we love how proudly our successful new businesses embrace Hardwick on their labels and websites - Vermont Soy, Claire's Restaurant. Even Tom Stearn's organic seeds, actually down the road in Wolcott. We love them all, but please make sure to mention the generation that came before them and made what they do possible.
Save Small Farming
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Please oppose bills HR 875, HR 759, HR 814, S 425. These bills would industrialize all farms, eliminate most of our farmers (as similar legislation is doing in the EU now), and threaten biodiversity and organic seeds, our means to avoid GMOs. Barbara Boxer is a cosponsor of HR 875. The bills are immense in reach (gardens and homes are not excluded), vague in detail, draconian in penalties (applied by "the Administrator," with no judicial review.) "Food safety" bills now in Congress were written by Anne Venemann, former Monsanto counsel, and by the WTO (composed of Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, the biotech companies, the big pharmaceuticals, etc.).
They were introduced by Rosa DeLauro, whose husband works for Monsanto, and Food Democracy Now says that Michael Taylor, former Monsanto lawyer who approved rBGH, may get a job inside the White House running "food safety." HR 759 overhauls the entire structure of the FDA and contains provisions that could will problems for small farms and food processors.
H.R. 814 ("NAIS on steroids") a mandatory animal identification system. H.R. 875 (creation of FSA), 111th Congress Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 will criminalize seed banking and allow for Monsanto to take control of all seeds in the US. There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for one size of agriculture - the largest industrialized operations. These food safety proposals will deconstruct all of the farming: the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers. We already have Food Safety legislation we just need to enforce it. We don’t need Monsanto in control of our food supply.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-s-dream-bill-HR-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090309-337.html
Thank You
Example of what you can do, not as a consumer but as a citizen
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These various bills that are being floated by De Lauro and others are reactions to various food safety incidents, especially the peanut butter horror. They are not a Trojan horse to federalize all farms or a sneak attack on organic farming from Monsanto, but there are certainly problems in them. There is also a tremendous amount of viral hype about them that is way over the top. I am as skeptical of food safety legislation as the next person, and well aware that government regulation in this area tends to be biased against small producers. And I am outraged that real, effective food safety regulation has been undermined by budget cuts and poor enforcement and absurd industry "self-regulation." But the sources that I consider reliable tell me the threats in these bills have been misunderstood and overblown by some on our side.
I would recommend these sources for the straight scoop on what is really in these bills and what's at stake. Most importantly, the Organic Consumers Association and Cornucopia Institute posts tell you what you can do to support better legislation:
Food and Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blog/archive/2009/03/30/getting-the-facts-straight-on-HR-875-from-factcheck.org
Cornucopia Institute
http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/03/action-alert-critical-pending-food-safety-legislation/
Jill Richardson, La Vida Locavore
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=1329
Organic Consumers Association (OCA)
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17355.cfm
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
HR 875 Update: Will the Real "Monsanto Bill" Please Stand Up?
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News of a "Monsanto Bill to Criminalize Organic Farming" has been speeding around the internet. The Organic Consumers Fund, OCA's lobbying partner in Washington, DC, analyzed the bill and determined that we could not support food safety legislation like this that could be applied in a one-size-fits-all manner to all farms, including organic and farm-to-consumer operations -- especially a bill that references the National Animal Identification System (a voluntary USDA animal tagging program that some influential members of Congress are trying to make mandatory for every owner of even a single farm animal). With these concerns, we put out this alert (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17194.cfm) on March 12.
Nevertheless, we were alarmed by the misleading headlines attached to anti-HR 875 alerts. Even if this bill were passed as is today, it wouldn't criminalize organic farming. The bill would require farms to have a food safety plan, allow their records to be inspected, and comply with food safety regulations. To say this is tantamount to criminalization doesn't give organic farmers enough credit.
Worse, linking this bill to Monsanto (for no other reason than because the bill's sponsor Rosa DeLauro is married to political operative Stan Greenberg, who lists Monsanto as a past client) obscures the real damage Monsanto is doing in Congress. This past week, Monsanto got a bill passed in committee that forces GMOs on Africa.
Learn more and take action
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17480.cfm
HR 875 Update: Will the Real "Monsanto Bill" Please Stand Up?
News of a "Monsanto Bill to Criminalize Organic Farming" has been speeding around the internet. The Organic Consumers Fund, OCA's lobbying partner in Washington, DC, analyzed the bill and determined that we could not support food safety legislation like this that could be applied in a one-size-fits-all manner to all farms, including organic and farm-to-consumer operations -- especially a bill that references the National Animal Identification System (a voluntary USDA animal tagging program that some influential members of Congress are trying to make mandatory for every owner of even a single farm animal). With these concerns, we put out this alert (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17194.cfm) on March 12.
Nevertheless, we were alarmed by the misleading headlines attached to anti-HR 875 alerts. Even if this bill were passed as is today, it wouldn't criminalize organic farming. The bill would require farms to have a food safety plan, allow their records to be inspected, and comply with food safety regulations. To say this is tantamount to criminalization doesn't give organic farmers enough credit.
Worse, linking this bill to Monsanto (for no other reason than because the bill's sponsor Rosa DeLauro is married to political operative Stan Greenberg, who lists Monsanto as a past client) obscures the real damage Monsanto is doing in Congress. This past week, Monsanto got a bill passed in committee that forces GMOs on Africa.
Learn more and take action
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_17480.cfm
uninformed soothesaying
W/r/t
"Nevertheless, we were alarmed by the misleading headlines attached to anti-HR 875 alerts. Even if this bill were passed as is today, it wouldn't criminalize organic farming. The bill would require farms to have a food safety plan, allow their records to be inspected, and comply with food safety regulations. To say this is tantamount to criminalization doesn't give organic farmers enough credit."
This is simplistic, uninformed and misleading opinion, it does not bear out given basic scrutiny Ryan. Although I don't believe that you are one of the paid soothesayers (whom in the past M-insano has boasted about having scientist shills to perform like trained monkeys and have large p.r. firms on standby) intent on paving the way for implementation of global seed domination and control. And although I can't attest to the headlines of which you speak, but having just watched: 'The world according to Monsanto' you are grossly understating the significance of a connection to those who direct M-insano and big pharma. Big pharma knows that M-insano's food like substances are great for business.
M-insano has let slip their knowledge that round-up ready (G.M.O.) soyabean is damaging honeybees and we know that coupled with mono-culture that our birds and other pollinators are in serious jeopardy.
Einstein who didn't need to be Einstein recognized the folly of harming pollinators (he gave us 4 years left of survival, should we lose them). There are some predicting as much as a 30% decline in fruit and food production this year alone due to the losses incurred in the bee population.
I join with Gina Green above and Vandana Shiva of Navdanya and encourage all to read the bill and heed the warning given by those who will be hit with this 'Orwellian like' legislation. What hasn't been discussed is that this is the U.S.'s implementation of 'Codex Alimentarus' (latin for food code) which passed and came into effect at the w.t.o. seeks to criminalize and put out of business,health food stores, and demand prescriptions for vitamins (since they interfere with pharmaceutical sales and help to gain control over seeds.)
The way that they put the small farmers out of business is with the prescription for what they deem to be necessary to provide 'safe' food which almost never has anything really to do with food safety. It is just creating what economists call 'barriers to entry', and is intended to get rid of competition, as the costs of compliance exceed the ability of the farmer to meet the requirement. This is a global attack on small farmers orchestrated by a group of pariahs.
The real purpose for the N.A.I.S. is so that when the large feed lots poison the animals that when a problem shows up they can point the finger at the small farm from where that cow came from and evade responsibility. So actually offloading their irresponsible and criminal behavior onto those that would behaving correctly.
A simple barrier to entry for small organic farmers is the certification requirements. Following along with the demand that organic farmers be 'certified' (as everyone knows you can't trust 'organic' farmers). How about since we know via repeated fines and convictions that since Monsanto continually behaves in a deceitful manner that they be forced to pay certification fee's for every pint of poison they sell. After-all how can we be sure that we are getting genuine poison?
Failing to understand that what sounds like 'reasonable' safety requirements demanded by this proposed safety legislation will only lead to less choice of safe food, as many farmers will not be able to comply with the open ended requirements. The general public who is genuinely concerned, see's any suggestion of increased safety as being positive, is being duped to serve the interests of those who will create the predictable situation where their will be fewer choices and much less safe food.
An example of how this kind of b.s. plays out, a small bakery was told that they needed to register their recipes, (for compliance) the fees (really a tax) would amount to in excess of $25,000. which for a small bakery would have put them out of business. There are thousands of ways to create misery that have nothing to do with food safety, so if you really believe that enabling this nightmare will lead to increased food safety and supply of safe food then enjoy your cancer because you won't have any choice. When they are finished with the small farmers they will come for your gardens.
Scary stuff...
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How did we complicate food to this degree? The FDA & Dept. of Agriculture are organizations I pay for to protect the food we eat. Two organizations! Yet to ensure that my food is free of pesticides, fertilizers with known carcinogenic properties, ie atrizine, and unwanted hormones I will look for the NGMO label and I put my faith in the organic label and I pay more for it too. Why? Good question? It may have been the run off of the water that has byproducts of chlorination that are carcinogenic, it may be the abundant use of hormones in our meats to make unusually large chickens, or the fact that GMO soybean is in everything. In a perfect world the soybean is a great source of inexpensive nutrition and good fats - but not in the farm that allows known genetically altering substances to contaminate fields & crops especially soy & corn crops that have properties that hold all that bad stuff in the good fats that we should be eating in these contemporary, very 2009 vitamin depleted vegetables! I want the 1909 vegetables! The FDA regulates what the safe levels of known contaminates are in certain foods. Yet when these foods are added to every processed food in the U.S. diet it will have a build up effect in our bodies and it will add to the "cancer cocktail." I am not placing blame on the farmer alone, nor the government alone as many factors of pollution weigh in on the lack of nutrients in our food and the higher amounts of bad stuff in our food. I'm buying organic, though it costs my family more, but we need to stand up and say not only is buying organic not "so 2008" buying organic is all our nation will settle for. Low -income families are now already having fewer choices to feed their families, and they are unsafe. Why did I weigh in on this topic? Because I ate a healthy diet of USDA grade A vegetables, tofu, etc. Meats, chicken & dairy I ate in moderation. I drink water, an occasional soda & have an occasional beer. I admit I just love salty French fries! But I exercised I was young & healthy and at 36 I still got cancer. I'm still thin, I lost my lovely long blond hair, my breasts and my innocence. No I had no genetic predisposition to cancer. Nor did the 25 year old girl from Alabama who died 2 years ago of the same cancer. We are not such an elite club anymore. 1 in 6 women are getting breast cancer, and we are young, smart, and lived lives of not intentionally harming our bodies. Someone has to start listening. We don't need to "market" food. Don't we all need the basics to survive? Let's all gather our resources and mandate that all whole foods are safe? I'm not taking on the hydrogenated oil industry; I can't make folks stop eating Twinkies just as smokers will continue to smoke knowingly harming themselves. Free will - let us not legislate. Just don't make me pay more for organic raw foods, and don't deprive those of lesser means access to them.
Local Food
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It comes down to the Golden Rule: Treat Others as we want to be treated ourselves. This means our food, too. Ethical behavior extends to all life, in my book. If you can't look an animal at a farm in the eye and see that they've had a decent life - don't eat the meat. If you don't want your children playing in a ditch alongside a field doused with a chemical you can't pronounce - buy organic. Know your producer, prepare your own food, the processed "foods" are chemical brews.
GMOs
There is much conflict concerning the health and safety of GMOs.
My questions is: How does genetic engineering manipulate and/or effect nutrition? My feeling is that nature has had billions of years to "design" wholesome foods, whereas companies like Monsanto spend a few years re-arranging life's genes according to commercial designs. I don't trust it . . . do you?
Unless you're gathering
Unless you're gathering berries and leaves from the countryside and eating only wild game, you're eating genetically modified organisms. Plants and animals have been breed for millennia, with traits carefully chosen over time. It is simply an anti-modernist attitude to conclude that modern genetic engineering is somehow worse off than old style plant and animal breeding.
You might revisit your
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You might revisit your biology 101. Breeding in nature only works between related species. Occasionally she will allow similar species within the same genus to crossbreed (like half-wolf dogs or "ocecats") but beyond that the genes just don't sync up in a way that allows viable life. Genetic engineering is about connecting genes from critters that have evolved in completely different biological kingdoms. So we now have plants that has been "crossbred" with bacteria and viruses. This effectively derails many millennia of evolution.
It's beyond my why anyone would defend genetic engineering unless they are making money from it. Please spread your misinformation elsewhere.
Excellent Answer
I might also add that this 'genetic' manipulation includes "Round Up" seed varities, meaning they start off life as a chemical cocktail. Basically we are eating more chemicals.
Also, the gmo crops are not more prolific like it was hoped they would be, they actually produce less.
It has also been proven that organic produce retains more nutrients.
Please educate yourself on this topic. There are plenty of websites that can give you information on the topic.
k.b.
"Unless you're gathering
"Unless you're gathering berries and leaves from the countryside and eating only wild game, you're eating genetically modified organisms. Plants and animals have been breed for millennia, with traits carefully chosen over time."
Do you GMO apologists all get together in a back room somewhere and rehearse how you will respond to people who say they don't trust GMO? Because I swear I have seen this exact wording in something like two dozen discussions about GMOs in the last fifteen years. Or at least wording that is very, very similar.
And it's a lie. Breeding and genetic modification are two entirely different things. Do you personally breed (sexually reproduce) by splicing starfish genes into your sperm or egg cells in a petri dish, and then implanting the resulting embryos? I don't think so. Neither have plant breeders throughout human history, all the way up to the mid-20th century.
GMO technology suffers from the same limitations as does isolating the active ingredient in a drug plant and then reproducing that chemical as a synthetic drug in the lab: You don't know how the component parts work together, well enough to predict what will happen when you isolate one trait. It's bad enough when you fail to look at chemicals holistically before putting them into a human body; even worse when you fail to look at a plant genome holistically and then introduce *that* into a human body--or into the environment.
We almost saw a soybean released for market that was spliced with hazelnut genes to increase its protein. Whoops, there are people allergic to tree nuts--and they aren't expecting tree nut proteins in their tofu. The industry caught that one before it was too late, although I notice the company involved wasn't Monsanto. How many other errors have we imposed upon the world? How many butterflies is Bt corn killing? How many health problems have we caused with Roundup-Ready crops? What's going to happen when RR wheat interbreeds with wild grasses?
You don't know, do you? Then why defend the technology? It's indefensible.
The other piece of it is that it is CLAIMED that GMO was invented to better feed a burgeoning worldwide human population. It has been demonstrated over and over again that population is a function of food supply. And far too many people are breeding like farmers even though they do not in fact farm. (Duggar family, anyone?) If we ever expect to get our population down to a sustainable level, increasing the food supply is NOT the answer. And it isn't like we don't have enough to feed everybody right now anyway. Because we do. Diverting the necessary resources to distribute this food, into ridiculous ventures like tampering with something best left to Nature, is bordering on homicidal. Stop defending it.
"It is simply an anti-modernist attitude to conclude that modern genetic engineering is somehow worse off than old style plant and animal breeding."
There is nothing old-style about natural plant and animal breeding. Next I suppose you'll tell me breathing oxygen is outdated too.
My bad, it might have been
My bad, it might have been Brazil nuts instead of hazelnuts that were spliced with soy. My main point stands. What the heck are we doing? Or how about GMO animals spliced with pork genes maybe? What about people keeping kosher or halal--don't they have a right to choose to avoid these foods? Even if there is absolutely no environmental risk to producing GMO foods, there certainly are health costs and social costs. If we needed this technology, it would be one thing. We may have very limited uses for it in medicine; for instance, we use it to produce human insulin now. But outside the lab it has no place.
Privatization by Genetic Engineering
Well said.
May I add that while GMO is touted as the next "Green Revolution," the original one is now known to be failing and unsustainable in most of the world. Just this week NPR is reporting on this issue in the India state of Punjab.
The real motive for GMO is the privatization of the primary factors of food production by way of seed patents. Couple this with efforts to privatize water resources and delivery systems, and you have a recipe for the complete collapse of food security on a global basis.
The real benefit of local and regional food systems is the autonomy it brings to the people at large. It is the only way to protect ourselves against the commercial values of global agribusiness, and to be assured of having anything AT ALL to eat.
The misinformation on GMOs
The misinformation on GMOs is astounding. And it really based upon fear of science. Chemicals are bad. Gene manipulation is bad. Not at all. There's no proof that GMOs are harmful at all. There's no proof that organic is better than non-organic. Unless you look at pathogens on your produce, then your organic is covered with bacteria and viruses from all that good ole organic fertilizer.
Yes, my discussion of
Yes, my discussion of organic was too dismissive; there are indeed tens of thousand organic practitioners who are not simply following a USDA checklist, but are consciously and creatively finding ways to fulfill the organic movement's orginal mission, which was restoring the sustainability food production. That said, given the looming demands on our food system--feeding more people while using fewer inputs and incurring fewer "external costs"—and given our demographic shifts (more of us, and more than half in cities) , we’re going to need models that go beyond the familiar alternatives, like organic or local or CSAs or whatever, which, for all their potential are STILL feeding a tiny percentage of us. Yes, a lot of blame can be laid on the political influence of big ag, and its success at maintaining government support for the Wrong Kind of Farming. But we also haven’t done an effective job in explaining how the Right Kind of Farming, currently confined to the margins, can be expanded to do what the food systems of the future will need to do, namely make and move a LOT of food—not just locally or even regionally, but globally. Will existing forms, such as organic and local, contribute heavily to that model? I hope so. But we also will need new and far less familiar models—urban horticulture and roof-top gardens being just the tip of the iceberg. Further, much as we need to focus on finding ways to sustainably expand our food supply, we also need to find ways to cut demand—especially for resource intensive foods like meat and for any product that is heavily processed and packaged. And while that’s a no brainer for many advocates of sustainable ag, it’s presents something of a paradox in the alternative food sector, who, for all their genuine interest in a sustainable future, still need something to sell. Suppose it turns out that one of the most sustainable things a consumer can do is to buy less?
MoJo contributing writer Paul Roberts is the author, most recently, of The End of Food.
Why do we need to explain
Why do we need to explain any of this stuff? That's not enough, and one of the flaws of the progressive movement is we do too damned much talking. We need to start acting like we really believe what we're saying. I'm trying to do my part. I talk this stuff up all the time with my little girl's dad, who helps with the majority of my food shopping. I think he believes I'm trying to spend him to death. But he also believes industrial food is a bad thing. I'm not sure how he reconciles the two. I know how to obtain local and organic foods and I'm willing. But I don't have the resources all the time. Those of you who do, either put your money where your mouth is or you don't really care and you're just talking. If you eat out more than three times a month and are still complaining about organic and local food prices in the grocery store? Your priorities are shot.
Yes! Discussions of food
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Yes! Discussions of food tend to focus on "What should we eat?" and not enough on how to reduce consumption of the bad stuff, and for most Americans, reduce consumption Period.
I also agree completely with your point that organic and local----as currently imagined and given the current policy environment---are niche sectors and just not up to the task of feeding everyone. But instead of a lack of imagination on the part of farmers or foodies, I think the problem has to do with the way markets and government work. Instead of asking why organic and local aren't cheaper, we should be making unhealthy and unsustainable foods more expensive, and have safety nets that guarantee everyone can still eat. For example, a tax on junk food could support anti-obesity programs and make local and organic foods more affordable for the poor. And a tax on high-carbon inputs to agriculture could be combined with more price supports for the poor and heavy investment in the innovative models for sustainable ag that you are looking for.
Kelly Brownell of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity just published a great piece in the New England Journal of Medicine on this topic. You can find it at: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp0902392
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Making organic affordable
A significant part of the equation is the way less healthy and commercial grade foods are gov't subsidized, often in a myriad of hidden ways. The system of monetary support for corn is one good example (see the movie King Corn for details). Corn is highly refined and broken down into hundreds of constituent parts which are used in many fast and packaged foods, HFCS or high fructose corn syrup being just one example. I'd recommend you read Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" for more background research on the subject of true food production costs and how they are skewed by policy and subsidy.
The 'bottom line' is that if current subsidies were simply removed, the true food production cost picture would shift dramatically. And if gov't subsidies were designed to support organic food production and farming practices that protect the health and integrity of the soil ....
In terms of 'action items,' then, part of it could involve citizen involvement in changing agricultural policy. If you want to know what to do, educating your neighbors on the true costs of food production, and the 'externalized' costs of petrochemical foods in terms of our health and environmental damage is a good first step. Then motivating them to ask for a change in government policy would be a logical next step.
The problem is not just subsidies, though.
You're absolutely right about subsidies making unhealthy foods cheap. For a good explanation of how this works, see http://www.healthobservatory.org/library.cfm?RefID=80627
But the bad system we have now is one that the majority of family farmers (not just "corporate farms") depend on, so although simply eliminating all subsidies overnight sounds good, it would be a disaster. What we need to do instead, as you suggest and as Paul discussed in his article, is to move (gradually) from subsidizing the wrong things to subsidizing the right things.
Without some form of government intervention, agricultural markets have a tendency to fail, the most familiar example being the Dust Bowl. Economic theory tells us that when prices are low, firms will adjust their production to reduce supply until prices rise, and when prices are high they will increase production, leading to lower prices. But farmers don't know how big their harvest will be or what prices will be at harvest time, so in an unregulated market they will always want to plant as much as they can. This treadmill is what makes farmers feel like they need to "get big or get out," and drives overproduction.
New Deal farm programs helped manage supply in ways that took ecologically fragile lands out of production, secured a steady food supply and guaranteed farmers a fair price. And these programs, for the most part, actually made money for taxpayers! What they have been replaced with since the 1970s are payments that (and even this is a gross simplification) essentially compensate farmers for a portion of the difference between what it costs to grow their crops and the market price of those crops. (That's why last year, when prices were high, the farm program payments were minimal.) We allow Cargill and ConAgra to essentially set prices as low as they please, farmers have to sell their crops for far less than it cost to grow them, and then we make up some of the difference! Farmers' profits remain minimal, but the effective subsidy to industries that use commodity crops (not just grain traders, but the industrial meat producers and soft drink companies, and the fast food industry built on cheap meat and cheap vegetable oil) is enormous.
Imagine you're traditional dairy farmer who grows corn to feed her cows. The effective price of the corn you use is its cost of production, since you're not buying it on the market. But thanks to subsidies, the industrial dairy down the road with the huge sewage lagoon is able to buy feed for less than it costs you to grow it yourself!
Which brings us to the other problem with fixating on subsidies. People who use this simplistic calculus, including our President, ignore the fact that the majority of real live family farmers depend on farm programs, and unfairly paint "greedy corporate farmers" as the culprits in our food system the way Ronald Reagan blamed poverty on "welfare queens." The real welfare queens are precisely those agribusinesses, processors and purveyors of cheap food whose costs of poisoning our children are underwritten by the wrong kind of subsidies. While we change from the wrong kind of subsidies to the right kind, we also need to go after the tremendous concentration of market power in these sectors. Anywhere you look, from farming inputs like seeds and fertilizer to grain processing to meatpacking and broiler production to canned soup or supermarkets, a half dozen or fewer mega-firms capture the vast majority of market share. This is the hourglass-shaped food system that Raj Patel describes in his book Stuffed and Starved, and it means a raw deal for growers AND eaters. The ability of these players to manipulate prices, buy Congress, undermine regulations, run roughshod over communities, skew research agendas, manipulate public opinion and feed us crap needs far more attention from everyone who cares about sustainable food. Part of the reason they get off scot free is that we swallow their lines about "consumer choice," "let the market decide," and "we feed the world."
OK, now I'm just ranting....
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
How do we get people to eat healthier foods?
Editorial Director, EatingWell | Where Good Taste Meets Good Health
Jim has a good point: in the U.S. at least, our problem is just as much a surplus of unhealthy food as it is a dearth of the healthy. We are a country that faces disproportionate amounts of both obesity and malnourishment, a country where the three biggest killers -- diabetes, heart disease and obesity -- could often be curbed through a healthier diet. I don't think we can blame the food system entirely for this though, as much as other systems --our school system, our work systems, and a commuting culture where (and fact checkers, help me here) last I checked one out of 5 meals is consumed in the car.
A bag of Cheetohs already costs more than an apple, yet we have been conditioned by advertising, taste, and environment to go for the Cheetohs. What if, as is the case in many other countries, we could be satisfied with the apple? Think of the impacts on our health, and the savings to our health care system.
At EatingWell we believe that a major step in reversing this trend toward unhealthy food is to (and this is our mission statement) "deliver the information and inspiration people need to make healthy eating a way of life." I'm not trying to sound like an infomercial here, so bear with me but think about it: if we ate as Europeans traditionally ate -- cooking good foods at home, eating whole foods, enjoying our food in moderate portions and getting nourishment from it, could we solve some of these problems? Your thoughts?
The other subsidies
So Jim you argue that subsidies are 'good' they just need to be directed away from those who have the most power in the food market and then directed towards those with the least power. (Admirable but good luck with that!)
And now that people are starting to see the real costs then 'cheap' isn't so cheap after all.
These subsidies which you suggest as helping the small farmer to hang on are also used as the hammer to beat them out of existence. With one breath you ascede that the market is unfair and that these subsidies grossly undercut the producers ability to earn a fair income,(per your dairy example) and then on the other hand you suggest that they are necessary, but should be redirected.
You have avoided speaking to the other damaging subsidies or it hasn't occurred to you how regulatory subsides wrapped in the rubric or pretext of health and safety are used to beat small farmers out of existence. Such will be the case with the proposed bills that you are dismissing as being of concern. So what will you say when they eliminate another large number of small farmers? Oops?
The rules sound good to 'consumers' who should be concerned about safety but having had 30 years of new safety rules we have never been exposed to such unsafe food in those 30 years.
I will direct you to read Thomas Pawlick's: 'The End of Food' and Joel Salatin's: 'Everything I want to do is illegal', which help to drive the truth of the specious nature and expose the real purpose behind these rules. Which is increased market share by driving out competitors.
A relevant example that Joel Salatin speaks to is the requisite egg washing machine that removes the protective layer that a hen places on the egg when she lays it that keeps out bacteria and how the feces filled water from these machines is used to wash the protective layer and deliver an egg that has now been soaked in bacteria.
The building and farm inspectors demand grading buildings that cost more than can ever be recovered from the sale of the eggs.
With respect to a 'free' market, it is the lack of access to a free market that helps to eliminate small farmers. Large supermarket chains dictate who gets shelf space, as such many small farms are excluded from this market. Ex. rubbery rock hard tomatoes from Mexico or California and no fresh or ripe local tomatoes to be found when they are ripe and in season. As consumers we need to examine just how convenient our shopping experiences are and what will and is the consequence of not seeking out other ways of buying food.
What do you think about the White House organic garden?
Certainly it's more symbolism than practical, but even though backyard gardens might not suffice to "Save us" so to speak, they certainly aren't a bad thing right? Any thoughts?
** Slocko! ***
Editorial Director,
Editorial Director, EatingWell | Where Good Taste Meets Good Health
For most Americans, just the simple act of planting a garden will raise awareness of where their food comes from, how the soil is treated, how it may impact wildlife and, if nothing else, may even get us to eat a few more tomatoes and salad greens. In the U.S., our biggest problem is that we have become divorced from the sources of our food and come to accept it as a commodity that is readily available. To work for your food, to till the soil, to think about the work that goes into producing it is to raise your awareness of its value. If the Obama's garden can do this, we will all be healthier, more conscious of our food choices and perhaps more likely to grow and eat vegetables -- the single most sustainable, healthy and environmentally sound food group -- and fewer packaged foods.
So Who Is Dissing the Obama's Victory Garden?
We have a related story on this over here:
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/04/obamas-organic-garden-white-house-conspiracy
GMO & Food in the Third World
GMO proponents always proclaim GMOs as the salvation to hungry people in the third world. What a bunch of GMO crap...the problem with hunger in the world today is not the lack of food but food distribution and access. When industrial agri-business companies like Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Dole, et al control the food supply, we will always have hunger in the world. These companies just want to control the food supply even more, which will equate to more hunger in the world, not less.
Subj> Loss of yield from stopping cultivation and other matters
On reading the case history of the farmer (in California, I think) who had been losing tons of soil by erosion caused by cultivating, stopped cultivating.
The consequence claimed is that the weeds caused a loss of yield that would necessitate increasing acreage by three times or some such.
But stone walls, invented by Robert Frost and New England (which something doesn't like) have kept hills from running into valleys for centuries. In other climes more ancient, they made terraces, making it possible to profit from being Flatlanders yet living next to the vertical.
On the other hand It is true, that the incessant digging up of rocks, especially in places such as Rhode island and Maine slowed down rambunctious plowing but one didn't have to go far to bring them to a wall. But I am talking more about the walls that were sunk into trenches and strenghtened with mortar.
Now, may I ask why people keep trying to plant corn (maize) in arid lands and keep fighting each other for water? Why not look more into the benefits of cactus and sagebrush? Even our now retired president used to harvest desert plants or had pictures taken of him harvesting desert plants.
Wind erosion
The farmer is talking about wind erosion. The yields are lost as plants vie for the water put upon the field, then lost as you sort out the wanted plants from the unwanted.
In california that's prevented with plastic and buildings around such plants as strawberries, but they continue to till down weeds instead of growing competing plants to keep down weeds because it's simpler and cheaper.
But the point is, in the long run, is it cheaper to lose your soil, or is it cheaper to lose a bit of your crop now?
As long as capitalism runs the day, it's always cheaper to lose tomorrow over today.
Green manures
The erosion thing is funny to me, since i have a cheap booklet from 19 years ago - the info is out there.
Green manures till your soil, add nitrogen, give copious amounts of organic matter to the soil, pull up nutrients from deep. Green manures build up your soil, breaking up clay, and thickening up sand.
Alfalfa sends roots down for 60 feet, pulling up nutrients (and, I'd think, preventing erosion!). One rye plant can produce 387 miles of roots in a season.
Green manures provide living mulch. You can create between 16 and 500 pounds of green manure per hundred square feet in a year, depending what you choose to grow. Common green manures are alfalfa, grains, agricultural mustard, fodder radish, fava bean, alsike clover, wooly pod vetch. They all have different properties. The booklet I got was only a couple bucks from bountifulgardens.com
permaculture and peak oil
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anyone serious about growing their own food should look into permaculture, a multi storey garden system using perennials and edibale trees - basically recreating an edible forest. this also would reduce soil erosion, and without tilling the soil under the trees will just get healthier.
whatever system, small scale local gardening and farming has to play a large part in feeding us in the future. industrial agriculture uses more energy in the form of oil than is produced, and as peak oil bites we can all play a part by starting tgo have some involvement in our own food needs, as well as rainwater harvesting, composting (including humanure) and seed saving.
of course, ag companies dont want us to start feeding ourselves - we may discover we enjoy it and become healthier when we eat living food that hasnt been grown in toxic chemicals or transported half way round the world.
and the diversity of heirloom varieties is stunning - we grow over 40 types of tomatoes - the same recipe never looks or tastes the same! if ordinary people dont return to seed saving, we may well lose a lot of our cultural seed heritage, as the big companies are only interested in a few varieties that store and transport well.
we have been encouraged to be passive consumers, spending money (that we often don't have) to acquire our needs (and wants). i believe, in the future we need to all see ourselves as participants in local networks of activity and production, with less cash involved and more goodwill and community participation. the present society is playing out its endgame, and is not sustainable, offering us an opportunity to build something better, drawing from our smallholding traditions while trying to save some of the useful innovations of the 100 years or so of oil dependence. if we don't embrace it willingly i believe we will lose all the good things and find most of us living in a stone age society.
btw soil lover, the link above should be:
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/
Have to change your whole approach
If you switch to no-till farming (stop cultivating) while continuing to plant the same single crop year after year, you will get a buildup of weeds - the weeds that compete successfully with that particular crop will become more numerous. If you grow a rotation of different crops, including cover crops in the off-season, the weeds are not a problem.
Crop rotation was the state of the art in scientific agriculture not that long ago, until the chemical companies convinced farmers that it could be dispensed with using the magic of chemicals. That reduced costs for farmers in the short run, and was much more convenient for the processors - but in the long run it's a disaster. The soil is depleted, weeds and bugs develop resistance to the chemicals, and more and more chemical inputs are required. The petroleum and natural gas those chemicals are made from are getting more expensive, too.
The farmers - and the processors - are going to have to unlearn the ways of chemical monoculture agriculture. Those short-term cost savings have unsupportable costs in the long term.
Unintended Consequences
How many of you acknowledge the eventual bad consequences of well meaning legislation? Current laws already make it difficult for direct marketers, the ethanol mandate was a debacle, monoculture is the outcome of subsidies, the USDA organic label was written by big ag. So many of solutions I read revolve around more rules, regulations and mandates. "Trust us", you say, "we're smarter meddlers."
You can say that HR 875 won't burden small producers, but experience shows us otherwise. You can say that NAIS won't be a big deal, but we all know deep down it will be a bureaucratic nightmare, which only the Tysons of the world will be able to navigate.
We need more freedom, and more opportunities for entrepreneurship, not 'guidelines' and red tape.
You mean, guidelines, not
You mean, guidelines, not red tape.
It should be a criminal act to make private the information that a private citizen needs to not violate laws. And right now, big business works to make it that way... Everything from privatizing traffic school to making sure you need a lawyer to submit simple court forms to the federal reserve literally not allowing you to redeem savings bonds unless you use an agent - that they will not help you find.
Regulation and small farmers
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To answer Vines & Cattle's question, I'm quite sure we ALL recognize the eventual bad consequences of well meaning legislation. HR 875 and NAIS aren't harmless, but we need to have our facts straight when we oppose them. Certain aspects of food safety desperately need MORE regulation and better enforcement. Our job is not to block that, but to make sure that small farmers don't end up as collateral damage in the fight for food safety.
I recommend you sign onto the Food and Water Watch online petition, which includes a demand that any new food safety legislation includes:
"Sensible regulations that work for all types of agriculture to survive. The tremendous growth in direct marketing arrangements and organic production attest to consumers’ interest in re-establishing food systems that have been pushed aside by industrialization. As regulations change, we must make sure that small producers and direct marketers are not wiped out. I urge you to consider carefully the impact any food safety bill will have on these producers and allow flexibility in things like recordkeeping requirements to make the requirements workable for all scales of production."
You can see and sign the whole petition at:
http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/5915/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27057
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Thanks for the reply
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Here's the rub, your definition of sensible and mine might be very different. Regulations, especially federal regs, promote conformity, and less diversity, it's simply the nature of such things. If we want this diverse food system then why not start with a diverse regulatory structure?
Let state certifications count at the national level. A loaf of bread could have a few state certifications that it has met, the consumer could then decide if it's safe. Or better yet, why not private certifications, say via grocery chains? "This chicken has been Whole Foods certified." Whole Foods (or any grocery, say Wal Mart) would have more at stake to make sure that food bearing their stamp is safe, and have the money and incentive to put inspection boots on the ground. And if you don't trust the grocer's inspection service, then you don't buy!
A myriad of solutions like this could help keep more distribution networks local, instead of the ever increasing centralization demanded by federal oversight. Not too mention take power out of federal hands and put it into local institutions, and most importantly, consumers.
This is a complicated one!
I like the way you think, Vines. The term I think of is subsidiarity, meaning governance systems should happen at the lowest level that makes sense. So if food is going to be consumed locally, why subject it to a federal regulation? Regs at higher levels do introduce uniformity, because at that level there's no longer a direct connection between grower and eater, so you need some way for the eater to be able to feel that a common standard has been applied whether the potato was grown in Idaho or Ohio. At the local level, that's not necessary. Hmmmmm.
I'm less excited about the notion of private standards, or company certification. In fact, everything we've seen so far shows it's a terrible mistake. These are almost invariably just a way around public oversight, local or federal, and bring more burdens to farmers and less safety to consumers. I know that many farmers have that independent, libertarian streak, but there really is something out there called the Public Good, and the government's job is to protect it. We have the right as citizens to insist it do it's job better, and we should fight for the principle of subsidiarity, but I think it's a grave mistake to assume that Whole Foods or Walmart is going to have anything more than its own bottom line in mind in trying to establish "private standards." All these big food safety disasters we're seeing are a result of industry self-policing replacing government regulation. And all over the country, we're hearing horror stories from farmers, not about govt regs, but about incredibly onerous private "meta-standards" that the big fruit and veg companies have put in place in the wake of food safety scares. Farmers are tearing out hedgerows because they're supposed to have a 500 foot "buffer zone" between their fields and any possible wildlife habitat, or poisoning farm ponds because frogs are considered a possible biohazard. And we don't even have the right to see the industry standards, because they're considered proprietary commercial secrets!
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Ah, but once you've
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Ah, but once you've empowered consumers to put their faith in food safety that has been certified by a varying degree of institutions, you've put the onus on those institutions. Wal Mart/Whole Foods will know that they are a salmonella outbreak, or a Dateline NBC report away from seriously hampering their good name. As it is now it's a blame game between grocers, processors and the inspectors about who failed to live down to the lowest common denominator demanded by Federal inspection standards. Remember that supposed poisonous spider found on a Whole Foods banana last month? You can bet Whole Foods was sweating over the PR implications. No one wants to be your source for organically grown, non GMO death spiders.
But it's not a deal killer for me. Breaking up into state/regional agencies would be a big step. Those agencies would no doubt be more tailored to the individual styles of agriculture in those local regions.
As a mostly conventional producer looking to get into more sustainable, direct marketing ventures, the layers of bureaucracy are my biggest hurdle.
And yet,
And yet, organic farmers who have to deal with private food company standards (for food safety) are finding them far worse than what they have to deal w from the Feds.
It's hard to find a bureaucracy that couldn't be slimmed down or adapted better to local conditions, but I far prefer that to privatizing food safety regulation. Bulky as the bureaucracy is, it is subject to democratic supervision and control that companies don't have to worry about.
Jim Harkness is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
To a point
Yes, bureaucracy is subject to democratic supervision, but no one is forced to sell their wares through a Whole Foods inspection matrix, and no one is forced to buy food at Whole Foods. Can we say that the same choices exist in regards to federal regulation? What about those tomato farmers who last year had their crop kept from the market due to the ecoli scare? (Which turned out to be problem peppers, not their soon rotten tomatoes.) Were they given any choice?
Our food may have it's problems, but the diversity found in a simple grocery store is there because of competition and the demand of the consumer. If that store's deli starts making people sick, it's business will suffer.
I'm betting that Domino's Pizza sales have dropped since the You Tube video of disgusting and unsanitary practices by two employees hit the headlines. Why can't the same dynamic work for grocery stores? This isn't ten years ago, more information than ever is available to the public. What if instead of marketing groceries as the cheapest, or the most eco friendly, a chain marketed their food as the safest?
What I hear in most of this
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What I hear in most of this discussion is the rather recent tendency to look to technological experts, institutions, and professionals when it comes to providing basic human needs. I strongly believe that most of us regular folks are quite capable of taking care of our basic human needs ourselves within our own communities. I recently read that a doctoral dissertation by Leonid Sharashkin documents the substantial portion of the Russian food supply that comes from community gardens, home gardens and summer cottage gardens. Perhaps this is because human ingenuity had to step in when instittutionalized production failed to fill the needs of people. Permaculture is indeed the triumph of human ingenuity over corporatized institutions. If we simply put our trust in the technology of professionals, the efforts of government institutions and the wisdom of the market, we are doomed. It seems like a good time to roll out the progressive version of personal responsibility and learn to produce some of our own food. Reports from the seed catalogue companies that shipped my orders this year say that many are doing just that. Hooray!
Which goes hand in hand with
Which goes hand in hand with allowing people the freedom to grow, slaughter, and market their own food. Put up too many hurdles, and my cattle are sold at market, and headed for the feedlot.
Except for the one I slaughter and keep for my self of course. But if I sell that meat I'm a criminal.
here's my question at the moment
buy a backyard chicken? or don't?
Just not a rooster
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Check your zoning to be sure you are allowed chickens in your backyard and how many. Make sure you have the ability to provide enough room and safety for your chickens. If you are in an urban area, absolutely no roosters. But taking all that into consideration, backyard chickens can be a great thing.
So to sum up…The answer
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So to sum up…The answer (or at least the part of an answer we are covering here) might be no-till, beyond-organic, perennial-based, locally appropriate (not much biomass/acre in them thar cacti, but not many people live in cactus desert) permaculture for vegan and vegetarian people.
In addition to providing food such a system encourages learning our place in a complex ecosystem and responding to it rather than trying to control it. Of course many people will need much psychotherapy to get to the point where they can tolerate that loss of control, and some institutions will have to be put to sleep, but in the end feeling ensconced in a matrix of relationships, human and other, is our natural birthright and the only place we feel comfortable. OK? Now everybody log off and go out and plant something!
And tonight after you finish, look up HR 875, HR 814 and S425 and especially HR 759, which gets less notice but is more likely to pass and may be worse, and see if you can get behind stopping them before they destroy organic agriculture.
