Raw footage of a father and daughter chronicling the West, Texas chemical fertilizer explosion which has killed and maimed untold numbers of people at this time. Please join me in praying for the victims as well as the end of Industrial Agriculture.
To those of you entrenched in the AgriBiz system, I urge you: come away. There is a roadmap and I will share more details soon as to exactly how it can be done, as many of our Central Texas farmers have done. Keep in peace, for this too shall pass.
Yesterday the New York Times reported that Whole Foods Market became the first retailer in the U.S. to require labeling of all genetically modified foods sold in its stores. When I first read the piece, noting that the labeling requirement would be in place “within five years,” my heart sank. Five years seems like such a long time, and in that span there are certain to be numerous hasty FDA approvals resulting in the continued proliferation of GMO crops. But then I considered what a huge step this actually is. WFM is doing the right thing in my view. If we in the good food movement implore corporations, enjoying the same rights as individuals in this country, to behave with humanity, as though they were not a conscienceless monolith, but rather, made up of human beings with free will, we need to open ourselves to extending forgiveness to the ones taking steps to correct their problems. 
From a sales and marketing perspective, this is just good business sense for WFM. As cited in the NYT article, they run much less risk than the average retailer, given their customer base and increasing demand for labeling of GMOs. It also comes at a time when Mackey’s book is enjoying a wave of publicity, and seems to the masses a bolder move than it actually may have been. Still, this is a pleasing announcement and I look forward to watching WFM implement this decision.
So, is GMO-Free the new “Organic” label of the ’90s and “Local” of the past several years?
I tend to think of the good food movement as a large vessel, not yet even a quarter full, which requires each of us to deposit drops in order to advance our mission. Three things happened in the past week that bring us a few drops closer to beating back our nation’s childhood obesity–a pandemic now exported worldwide by U.S. corporations unfettered by a stitch of regulatory oversight. Speaking of:
1) The single best rebuttal of Nanny State whinery I’ve ever read, via Gawker, which I continue to enjoy as a way to keep a toe in NYC each day. Ignore the cursewords and get to the pith. To summarize, this author has it right: we’ve been hoodwinked by Big Food into believing the lie that any governmental regulation whatsoever is stripping us of our freedom. The opposite is true: while we spent the past 60 years being told that no one can or should be able to tell Americans what to eat, the corporations made off with the biggest prize imaginable: our minds. Perception being reality, we allowed propaganda ranging from flag-waving to plain old bandwagon tactics to substitute for the common sense that if you eat food that isn’t really food, you and your children will become hosts for obesity and diet-related disease for no other motive than corporate gain. But still, our populace howls, “don’t take away our freedom. It’s our choice!” No; it’s the illusion of choice, as Michael Pollan states. When you enter a mainstream grocery store, you’re entering a carefully curated experience designed to keep you in the center aisles, narratives of what amazing choice you have as an individual running in your head.
2) Corn Refiners Association got TOLD by the FDA. In response to their petition filed nearly two years ago requesting to use the name “Corn Sugar” for high fructose corn syrup, the (sometime) regulatory agency said, “No.” Enjoy reading it in its entirety here.
3) The Wellgro Co., a social business venture conceived by my friends Kerri Keaton Hughey and her husband, Ed Hughey, launched its website, and I am encouraged and inspired to welcome them into our world. From their homepage:
“The Wellgro Co.’s mission is to teach kids in the US about REAL food. Our vision is to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic in our country. We can impact this vision by putting REAL food back into the school system – both in the cafeterias and the classrooms. A shift in how we educate our kids about what they eat can change the relationship today’s youth has with food and change the trajectory of the obesity epidemic in our country.”
Did I mention they wrangled me into modeling a t-shirt? Ha!
Lest we become too pleased with all of this progress and fall into complacency, there was also the G8 Summit which bestowed carte blanche on AgriBiz, the participants scared stupid with slick presentations on how we MUST feed the world. As I’ve written in previous posts, we need to become better versed in how to dismiss this hysterical fearmongering line of logic and drive forward the truth that we have everything we need. That world hunger is a problem of distribution resulting in insufficient access to the food available, and not of a lack of production yield. I cite the Rodale Institute’s recent study on organic vs. conventional yields, one of the most balanced examinations we have seen; in one passage, the researchers state:
“Our study has shown that organic agriculture requires good management practices for high yield performance…and that its performance improves over time.” This hits the very crux of our current agricultural dilemma: that Pandora’s box is open, has been for over 60 years now, and in retrospect, we question what it is that we have gained as a society by getting off the farm, or in having delegated animal husbandry or soil science to companies made up of individuals, yet functioning as a body without human conscience or moral direction. What has happened to all that time we used to spend bringing food from the earth? How have our people chosen to spend it, and what has it profited us? We have spent it on the false god of leisure, of television, video games, trips to the mall, drugs, restlessness resulting in violence, isolation on the internet and so on. If you tell me that we have gained more than we’ve lost in this terrible bargain, I would ask, have you seen our children?
This evening, my pastor, Jacqueline Baker Hammett implored us to return to God. Citing scripture from Joel and Isaiah, she spoke of the meaning in Lent, stating that this season is as much about forming habits of good as relinquishing the bad. It was not until today that I confronted a negative habit that has caused me a lot of pain and suffering: putting other people on pedestals and expecting them to live up to it.
On Sunday, a friend I have idolized and admired with abandon made me feel very small and insignificant. You might be of the Eleanor Roosevelt school of “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” and I thought I was too, until that moment. I was confronted with a side of my friend I had never seen and was accosted with a rant so vitriolic I still haven’t fully recovered. Was I deserving of the treatment? No; it was a sad misunderstanding that unfortunately continues, but I stood by what I believe to be the truth in the matter, and for this I’m in grief that the friendship is lost.
I have recently completed my second year of Commissioned Ministry study and will be interviewing in early March to have my license renewed. The anger I felt at this confrontation with my friend caused me to question whether I still have what it takes; the humility, the grace, the love and forgiveness a pastor must have.
What I realized tonight, in hearing the words of Isaiah on people who professed to worship God but still clung to other gods, is that in putting a human being on a pedestal, regardless of how much I love him or her, I am serving another god. I trusted this friend in the deepest, darkest trenches of my 2011. In my mind I referred to the friend by the word, “savior.” This was wrong.
Last month I addressed the local chapter of the Optimist Club. They were meeting at a food establishment whose threshold I had never before crossed, and as I began setting up to make my presentation my eyes lit on their Creed. I would encourage anyone suffering from self-doubt or cynicism to read it, and in fact, to commit it to memory.
I wish this very much for the friend whose words have wounded me, for a deeply held cynicism has taken root in that soul, and I pray it can be shed like a dead, unnecessary old skin. If you are reading this, I love you.
“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning.” Joel 2:10 And so, I return.
Thanks to my friends and colleagues Marla Camp, Robert Jensen and Ronda Rutledge, we welcomed Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson to Austin this past weekend for two sold-out appearances at The State Theatre at The Paramount.
Since I’m in the full throes of Edible Austin Eat Drink Local Week, I’ve not made time
to write about these long-awaited visitors and what they had to say; and instead I am recommending Forrest Wilder’s article from the Texas Observer (here).
Quoting Wilder:
“In Europe, Berry would be a ‘public intellectual’ but since we don’t have those in America, he usually gets the list treatment for his bio: poet, novelist, philosopher, farmer, Baptist, activist and icon of a certain rural agrarianism. Much to the discredit of our national “conversation, a voice like Berry’s is rarely heard above the din.
The American Conservative aptly wrote in 2006 that Berry’s ‘unshakable devotion to the land, to localism, and to the dignity of traditional life makes him both a great American and, to the disgrace of our age, a prophet without honor in his native land.’ “
HERE HERE! It was one of the great joys of my life to get to meet Berry and Jackson. The Q&A following their evening show allowed for only 5 questions, fully two of which were wasted on baffoonery, making me regret not asking mine. I wanted to ask something along the lines of, “given that you ARE intellectuals, and that the majority of Americans have only disdain for those operating at this level of consciousness, how are those of us on the ground in this movement to affect systems change?” The truth is, most people outside of my organization’s circles I engage in conversation about the Problem of Agriculture, as Jackson put it, look at me blankly. There’s food in the supermarkets, isn’t there? The grain silos are stuffed to overflowing, no?
In order to continue the conversation, I often state that I would not have been able to grasp the painfully complex issues surrounding food production in our country without having read two books: The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (Berry), and The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan). Concerningly, however, the MOST intelligent right-wing-leaning people I know to whom I have recommended these books have either declined to read them or have made it a few pages in and dismissed these statesmen as liberals. To offer this critique demonstrates a shocking lack of familiarity with political systems and with history: because this writing isn’t liberal; it is radical.
What I have realized this fall is that the truth revealed in Berry’s essays on American culture and on agriculture is simply too painful for most to confront. What it requires of us is nothing less than a reversal of worldview; a shedding of long and often dearly-held tenets. On the other side, there are fewer with whom to relate. But the quality of discourse and honesty of communicating makes the agony of crossing over worth it.
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry
If you haven’t time to watch this in its entirety, beginning at minute 2:16 is the must-see clip from Wendell Berry’s interview during the 2009 Wisconsin Book Festival. Here is a transcript of that excerpt:
…Most significantly, this growth of agrarian awareness in the cities: of some kind of duty to those proxies they’ve given to other people to raise their food for them. And so, I’m just immensely grateful to have lasted long enough to see this. But at the same time we begin to feel a kind of relief and excitement about this, I think we have to check ourselves and realize what immense jobs of work we have lying ahead of us, and how very hard we’re going to have to work to keep our minds clear, and our bodies capable to carry this on to some kind of significant conclusion.
The other side is just beginning to notice us. We’ve been a little dog yapping at the heels of a big giant with a big club. And we still are. I had the idea, and I’m going to say it, with some suspicion that it might not be true, but I think that National Animal Identification-business (NAIS) may be the first effort of Big Agriculture, of AgriBusiness, to use their friends in government to strike a meaningful blow against the small producers. I think there’s going to be more than that, as the farmers’ markets and the CSAs and so on, begin to take market share, we’re going to hear from those people. And they’re not going to be the benign, family folk that they’ve represented themselves to be.
After all, I come from Kentucky, and I know what the corporations are capable of. And if you’d like to know, have a look at the mountaintop removal sites in Kentucky and West Virginia. These people are capable of anything. And we mustn’t be optimistic about their character.
The other-other thing is, that they’re working against themselves. That’s on our side. To that extent. To the extent that their failure is obvious to everybody, and undeniable by them, they’re working for us.
Let me preface this entry by saying that John Besh is my favorite chef. He’s actually one of my favorite human beings. Not only has he served our country, but he is the model of locally and regionally-based cooking and cultural food preservation in the Gulf states. I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting him, but my colleagues and I have done everything within our power–and nonprofit salaries–to dine at nearly all of his restaurants over the past few years. In short, I adore John Besh. There is no place I would prefer to spend my money than in his restaurants.
This week we received in the mail an invitation to participate in the Food Dialogues, a “town hall” meeting of sorts produced by the newly formed U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance. I wrote about this organization in April here and they are a puppet regime.
Organized at the behest of AgriBiz, the U.S. FRA has nothing to do with actual farmers. Less than 1% of farmers still live on the land they farm in the U.S. and as you likely know, if you are reading this, you are aware that those represented by Ketchum, Zocalo and the multinational conglomerates they represent, have absolutely nothing to do with local and regionally based food economies. And everything to do with the bottom line, despite co-opting the terms “sustainable” and “environmentally responsible.”
Over the past week I have considered reaching out to John Besh directly. Given my work with chefs I am well aware of the limitations on their time. And so I am positing that Besh, most likely through no fault of his own, has, through someone close to him, become a party to those who would undermine all that we collectively stand for.
It is quite plain, even if one had no background knowledge of the issues at hand, that U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance, is at minimum a trade group bankrolled by the entities stated quite plainly in their “Meet Our Affiliates and Industry Partners” page.
The USFRA “Premier Partner Advisory Group” includes Monsanto and DuPont.
“American consumers are interested in learning how their food is grown and raised,” said John Raines, vice president of customer advocacy for Monsanto. “Billions of people depend upon what farmers and ranchers do on a daily basis. Monsanto is proud to support USFRA’s efforts to lead a dialogue – bringing together the voices of farmers, ranchers and agricultural partners – to address questions consumers are asking.”
On September 22nd, this puppet entity will hold a Town Hall-style meeting in which our beloved chef, John Besh, is involved. The purpose is ostensibly to unite all scales of producers in dialogue about how America’s food is produced. It is, in fact, a propaganda mechanism by AgriBiz. Won’t you join me in saying “no” to this thinly-veiled attempt to sway Americans’ hearts and minds toward an agriculture that pollutes, kills and holds false arguments that misframe the issues before us all?
Over the weekend I had a life-changing experience. I met a man who had recently retired. From Monsanto. There was nothing in his handshake, in his gaze, in his countenance, to suggest anything evil. And yet, there he was.
In my struggle to sleep Saturday night, I turned to T.S. Eliot. The Hollow Men seemed best to illustrate the feeling in the pit of my stomach.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
The final stanza of the poem is haunting, and captures precisely what I felt:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Saturday night, as I sobbed and struggled against the fact of having had someone in our home who had lived and breathed and worked at this unconscionable institution, I was reminded that they are only men. Individual men, who as a collective realize their power on the world stage. Their time is coming. This is the way the world ends.
In this week’s “Ask an Expert” series, writer Beth Goulart Monson asks SFC, “What can you tell us about chemicals on peaches? My understanding is that it’s near-impossible to grow them organically… n’est-ce pas?”
SFC Farm Direct Projects Director, Andrew Smiley, had this to say:
It’s true that raising peaches on a commercial scale in Central Texas is extremely difficult using purely organic methods, considering the climate and pest pressures prevalent in our region. That said, the peach growers we work with take great strides to reduce both the amount and the toxicity of the products they use on their crops. By applying integrated pest management practices, they are able to limit their use of chemicals to only those that are absolutely necessary for keeping their farms in operation, and those that target specific pests which are most damaging. In fact, most farmers are daunted by the high cost, environmental impact, and personal health risks of pesticides, so it makes the most economic, ecological, and personal sense for them to work towards eliminating them all together.
Peaches from SFC Farmers' Market, photo by Michael Yew
There is, unfortunately, a lack of technical assistance available from our higher education institutions around organic tree fruit production. I believe that until the agricultural universities step away from one of their major funding sources – the chemical industry – we may not see the necessary emphasis placed on natural and sustainable production research that will indeed benefit our small family farmers and our consumers, as well as our environment.
One advantage that we all have as customers of direct market outlets like SFC Farmers’ Markets is that we can ask the farmers directly about their specific growing practices, and assess how they align with each individual’s economic, environmental, cultural, and personal health values. I’d encourage everyone to talk with your farmers about all the aspects of growing our food. I’ll also encourage folks to contact our state’s universities, extension services, and government agencies to offer input on what you think should be a priority when it comes to their research and education activities.
In the meantime, thank you for supporting our local farmers, and see you at SFC Farmers’ Market!
Since SXSWi 2011 I’ve become aware of counterinsurgencies of varying levels on the Big Ag PR front. A couple of days ago Michael Pollan tweeted:
…Before examining their marketing goals, let’s take a moment to acknowledge this cutely named newly-formed org: “U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA)“. Sounds farmy doesn’t it? Kind of like, “we’re for the farmers? and if you aren’t with us, you aren’t for the farmers.” That is exactly the line of logic their shills will lead with. I’m calling it now. Then they’ll descend into misframing the issues at hand with fearmongering and questions parried with much hype, the most reliable being:
“HOW CAN WE FEED THE WORLD WITH SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE!?”
The swill-selling shills love this one, because it covers all bases. Whether the debate which ensues includes reasonable, sane-person responses such as, “with local and regionally based food systems appropriate to their geographic place,” the hacks and flacks will howl, “wrong! you cannot ‘feed the world’ with local ag!” They have recently begun referring to it as “peasant ag,” in fact. Charming.
And should the debate enjoy more favorable dialogue from fellow Biggies, the tweeting heads will go right ahead and co-opt the word “sustainable”, citing Monsanto, ADM, DuPont, ConAgra and a host of others who since 2007 have been running wild with bastardizations of the term. I canceled my years-long subscription to The Atlantic Monthly over insipid ads such as the one below, which does nothing more than play upon the public’s fears and encourage the lemming-like masses to trust that the big guys have got this food thing covered. Nothing to see here!
It’s with great anticipation I await the Ketchum/Zocalo campaign executions. I hope you’ll follow along with me.
Right out of the starting gate we have this gem of a quotation from the Ketchum head:
“We are honored to have been asked to serve America’s agricultural community for this incredibly important and unprecedented assignment,” said Linda Eatherton, Ketchum Partner and Director of its Global Food & Nutrition Practice. “With over 50 years of service to food and agricultural organizations, our firm was literally built for this assignment. Working side by side with USFRA members, stakeholders and allies, we know we can help people re- think the role of American agriculture in feeding hundreds of millions of Americans every day.”
Note in particular, “RE-THINK” and “the role of AMERICAN AGRICULTURE”…”in feeding HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS” (of Americans) every day. I’m truly surprised they didn’t go for “the world”. Even the world is not enough.
