The Future of Food: A Paradigm ShiftLooking to the Experts for Answers to Tough Questions
By Amy Wong
Hope and change are two words that have triumphantly found their way back into our culture. Post November four, it feels fair to say that more people believe that a paradigm shift is not only possible but underway. This shift includes a number of political considerations that share a common issue: food.
In terms of the economic, energy, environmental and health care crises we face, the production, transportation and consumption of our food have a collective impact. How we grow the food issues can help us solidly step onto sustainable terra firma. While food has garnered considerable press in the past five years, there are a number of messages brought to the fore we have yet to take to heart.
Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a book that has served as an introduction to the politics of food for many, confirmed my instinctual distrust of industrial organics and conventional grocery stores. Not to mention the abundance of overly processed “foods” that clog our society; the presence of which is one of the many symptoms of the over-subsidized agriculture industry.
Besides the de facto growing and eating of real, local and organic food that is toted in a reusable shopping bag, we might ask: What can be done to transform the current dysfunctional system?
There are a number of groundbreaking and influential pioneers who are engaged in the effort to sprout a sustainable food future including: Michael Pollan, writer and Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley; Gary Nabhan, ethnobotanist and author of Where Our Food Comes From-Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine; Dr. Vandana Shiva, author and environmental and “seed” activist; and James MacKinnon, co-author of the 100 Mile Diet.
The good news is that there is momentum for eating seasonal, locally grown food, which is a cornerstone of the movement. According to Gourmet magazine writer Barry Estabrook, consumers hold the real power by voting with their dollars and forks. As he puts it, “No need to bang your head against the FDA, simply make informed purchases.” While we have this opportunity during every meal, to jump-start widespread change, governmental procurement of local goods also needs to increase. In terms of purchasing—or not—in what may seem like a radical idea, Native American activist Winona LaDuke suggests de-coupling cash and food, urging more growing and bartering of edible items, especially in school gardens and small communities.
Many experts, most notably Gary Nabhan, are calling for a re-regionalizing of this effort, which involves the resurrection and protection of endangered regional foods. In California, these would include mission grapes and white abalone, foods that generations of people living in these foodsheds traditionally harvested before regional agriculture was eclipsed by the advent of the fossil fuel-based food system.
James MacKinnon is another advocate who believes that the harmful historical trend of turning developing nations away from being self-sufficient, which arose in tandem with the long-distance food model, contributes to our current plight. For example, if Peruvian farms are filled with rows of asparagus destined to satisfy the year-round desires of shoppers thousands of miles away, then it robs those farmers of the ability to grow food to feed themselves. Communities around the globe need to return to self-sufficiency before they export food to other nations. This isn’t to say that experts are calling for an end to interregional trade; it just needs to be ethically motivated. Think virtuous globalization or the efforts of the fair trade movement. Some staples will continue to need to be traded as they have for millennia, but we should strive to contribute to diversity, not homogenize it.
When considering globalization, we can’t ignore the debate of organic versus genetically engineered. In India, the roar may be loudest, where Dr. Vandana Shiva is on the front line confronting the attempts by large corporations like Monsanto to usurp control over the world’s seed cultivation.
Seeds need to be protected; in the nineteenth century, they were considered a natural resource presided over by the US government, which allotted them to farmers. According to Matthew Dillon of the Organic Seed Alliance, during the 1970s and 1980s, restrictive patent laws granted corporations ownership over seeds’ genetic sequences, an act that chipped away at gardener and farmer involvement in the cultivation and preservation of seeds.
Today, Monsanto has become so powerful that they legally dictate that their seeds cannot be saved or re-used and must also be grown with herbicides and pesticides, which has wreaked havoc the world over in terms of biodiversity loss and environmental pollution.
Alarmingly for those extolling the benefits of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Dr. Shiva’s work, as well as the results of a March, 2009, study published by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) demonstrates that genetically modified crops actually produce lower yields when compared to low-impact agricultural methods. “If we are going to make headway in combating hunger due to overpopulation and climate change, we will need to increase crop yields,” said the (UCS) study’s author, Doug Gurian-Sherman. “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.”
Seeds aren’t the only issue that may be taken beyond the dinner table to courts and legislative hallways. Our dependence on fossil fuel-drenched subsidies like corn, soybeans and wheat, has left our food system vulnerable to both premeditated and accidental contamination. According to MacKinnon, “No single thing would change agriculture more dramatically overnight than if the true cost of oil and gas reflected it’s social and environmental cost. It would change transport and the use of petrochemicals.” Food needs to be de-fossilized all around, which can only occur with policy change.
However, consumers need to be aware of what is being written into legislative bills and who is sponsoring them. While there is a need for food safety—peanut butter anyone?—bills such as the currently proposed HR 875 and S 425 could have detrimental effects on small farms and producers. Estabrook states, “Policy can’t be one size fits all.”
Preservation of land for agriculture, especially in urban areas, and how we choose to farm this land will also affect the future of food. Currently there are no incentives for farmers who use land-preserving biodynamic/organic/sustainable methods, yet subsidies are available for those using planet-poisoning toxic pesticides and fertilizers. Carbon sequestration farming methods that reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint need to be championed, not hindered, as does a widespread program of re-training farmers in organic methods, especially those in the monoculture-centric Midwest. MacKinnon noted that he and co-author Alisa Smith have been asked to speak in the Midwest more than any other region, illustrating that interest in creating viable local food is not just a bicoastal phenomenon.
On that note, MacKinnon, and many other experts are dismayed by the recent trend of affiliating local food with elitism. Remember the kerfuffle over Obama using the word “arugula” during the election? MacKinnon believes that associating local and organic food with being hoity toity is a false idea. “It would be tragic if the local food movement became isolated or internalized itself by being unwilling to hear people from different walks of life or by being too demanding in terms of certain specific political changes that other people might not be ready to make.”
While the discussion of food tends to become polarized—it’s easy to get caught up in the mentality that anything organic or local equals good and anything corporate equals bad—the reality of the situation is that large-scale agriculture and distribution aren’t going to be abandoned right now. “Big needs to talk to small,” stated Michael Pollan during a 2008 Slow Food Festival panel in San Francisco. Cisco and Whole Foods are two large companies who are both making inroads toward using more local suppliers. These efforts need to be fostered, not fettered, and a business model that serves both needs to be forged.
The topic also begets re-tooling the definition of what constitutes food. In the October, 2008, New York Times Magazine piece, “Farmer in Chief,” Pollan suggests “One approach would be to rule that, in order to be regarded as a food by the government, an edible substance must contain a certain minimum ratio of micronutrients per calorie of energy.” Hopefully those micronutrients will come from a whole food, not a scientific injection. While slickly-packaged (and often highly-processed) organic food might fit into this category, it is expensive per calorie and out of the reach of many when compared to a Wal-Mart-bought frozen entrée or a fast-food meal, not that any of these options are viable solutions to the problems we face.
Buying locally and seasonally, in bulk and actually cooking are relatively inexpensive options which are becoming more accessible to those in lower socioeconomic groups. According to Nabhan, the Oregon municipalities of Portland and Eugene are re-routing public transit so stops include farmers’ markets and areas where whole foods are available instead of big-box retailers filled with shelves of empty-calorie convenience food. Another suggestion, made by Pollan, includes creating ways for food stamps to be more widely accepted at farmers’ markets, as well as doubling their value when spent there.
Nina Planck, author of Real Food, What to Eat and Why, makes a solid argument for how the ills of the industrial meat and dairy industry have tainted the traditional consumption (and enjoyment) of foods like eggs, butter, meat and raw, whole milk. She urges a return to pastured animals and raw milk from cows eating mostly grass, citing numerous studies showing these foods, and even their fat content, are good for us, but have been sidelined by the rise of industrialized “fake” foods, like margarine, and the lobbyist-fueled legislation that changed the landscape of food during the last century.
Inevitably, these practices have contributed to the alarming increases in obesity and diabetes that are rampant in the US. While controversial, the notion of a “Fat Tax” has been raised. Currently, we don’t question health insurance companies asking if we smoke in order to calculate an appropriate premium (since, smoking is shown to be detrimental to health, after protracted studies, lawsuits and court battles). Processed foods, especially those filled with hydrogenated fats, have also been proved to be detrimental to one’s health, yet enforcing accountability for people who actively choose to subsist primarily or solely on these foods when healthier options are available (if they are, of course) is uncharted territory. We are what we eat and if we choose not to eat real food, should the rest of society pay for it—especially if hope and change prevail and real food actually makes it to the table once again?
Many thanks to James MacKinnon, Barry Estabrook and all of the pioneers in the field whose hard work and efforts we rounded up in this piece.
Amy Wong will continue to interview and cover notable food politicos for LA YOGA as she prepares for an education in environmental food law in 2010.
