10 Jun Food Myths, Food Hubs and Food Policy
There are few things that get my blood boiling faster lately than to think of the insidious evil-ness of corporations taking over global seed production, patenting life, contaminating our food supply and polluting our planet. And it's frustrating to think that only a small number of people, (if any?) truly have access to unadulterated food that does not subject them to being a part of a large lab experiment, and provides them with the rich variety of vitamins, minerals and nutrition our bodies need to thrive.
Last Friday the community action center known as 5604 Manor in Austin, Texas hosted two notable authors, Anna Lappe and Tom Philpott, for some healthy home-made food and conversation about busting myths that surround food. It was a lively dialog that included significant contributions by the largely foodie/food producer/sustainable food advocates in the standing-room-only crowd. It was definitely preaching to the choir but the choir needs sheet music to sing from and they came to get some vocal practice in. And the choir needs to be fed too – thanks to Mark McKim for wrangling and organizing the food donations and preparations of all that delicious food.
Anna Lappe is author of three books, including Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It and the key organizing force behind Food Myth Busters www.FoodMyths.orgTom Philpott a writer and farmer who used to be a columnist, food editor, and senior food writer for the online environmental site Grist , and now writes for Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/authors/tom-philpott
I'll recap some on 3 juicy take-aways from the event, including the lively Q&A session afterward and then list resources that were offered by the speakers and audience.
1) We need a Info/PR machine, a la MADD to GET THE WORD OUT. It will take a lot of grassroots education to overcome the industrial food talking points and misinformation being funded and propagated by various tentacles of the chemically-intensive agribusiness. Busting Food Myths www.FoodMyths.org offers enlightening information and cite-able facts to inform yourself and prepare you to help others understand why we do not need GMO foods to feed the world. Anna shared an anecdote of being on an NPR radio appearance where she was counterpoint to a gentleman from the American Enterprise Insitute. She said he spoke with such confidence and surety about his positions regarding world food supply and safety that she followed up with him after the show. She said that she would love to know what sources he was citing because this is her area of research and if he knew of things that would expand her knowledge or even reconsider her conclusions she wanted to know about it. He answered that on topics where he an expert, he has binders full of information, but on this he didn't know that much and suggested that she "just Google it". Wow!
There are only a few significant funders in the food education arena such as the Humane Society and PETA. One problem, besides our lack of funding for this outreach, is our lack of a consolidated message. The variety of messages that are woven in the many facets of sustainable food campaigns, from health to environment to social justice, are not as simple as "Don't Drink and Drive."
2) Distribution is a critical factor for sustainable farmers to provide anything comparable to the simplicity and convenience that grocery stores, restaurants, and individual customers are used to getting from the current food delivery machine made possible by U.S. Food Service and Ben E. Keith. Just four companies control more than half of all U.S. grocery sales. The point was made that VERY few restaurants would be willing to make phone calls to 20 different farmers to ask what they have available weekly or more often. I was sitting next to Joshua from in.gredients who muttered that it was more like 150 vendors that they deal with for their neighborhood grocery store. Food Hubs were brought up a few times. An example offered was Common Market in Philadelphia. http://commonmarketphila.org/ In the discussion after the event some were asking not if, but how many food hubs we should have. I would argue that we have a good start with the services of Greenling that aggregates and delivers local and organic produce and grocery products. They have broad relationships, significant cold storage, a sophisticated ordering system and an efficient delivery mechanism. Tom Philpott made the point that we cannot expect to overthrow the corporate ag structure so we need to focus on creating redundancy (and I would add resiliency) and then work toward replacing the current system.
3) After the failure of the Obama administration to develop any significant policy to address climate change, the 300 billion dollar Farm Bill may be our only possibility of having any U.S. climate policy. See this blog on Food and Water Watch that outlines some key Farm Bill amendments they support.
Our nation's founding fathers were organic farmers. I personally don't believe our founding fathers didn't set up safeguards to protect us from ourselves in this way because they could not conceive of a day when anyone would be willing to risk the health of people, their livestock and the environment to build a seed and chemical empire of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. We need to return to our roots. At least we need to create a level playing field and not expect organic agriculture to compete with heavily subsidized agribusiness and the terrible new crop insurance program that appears to incentivize not stewarding land or getting good yields.
Key resources to use going forward:
Food MythBusters take on some the biggest myths about food, helping you learn the real story about what you eat. – www.FoodMyths.org
- Hunger & Food Security: “We need industrial agriculture to feed the world.”
- Cost & Economics: ”Sustainably raised food is always too expensive.”
- The Environment: ”Genetically engineered crops are the best way to deal with pests, weeds, droughts, and floods.”
- Food Safety & Health: ”Factory farming produces the safest, cleanest food.”
- Marketing & Advertising: ”Junk food is what we really crave.”
Live Real – http://www.liverealnow.org/
National Sustainable Agriculture Coaliltion – http://sustainableagriculture.net/
Food & Water Watch – http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/
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