Can (Insert Place) Feed Itself?

This question, “Can (insert place) feed itself?” is a hot question. Researchers at Cornell University recently did a study that answered this question, and the answer was no. Making the most efficient use of available land, New York could feed about a third of its population. (The important part of that answer is the “available land” part. The researchers only included “agricultural” land in the calculation. Every residence in rural New York, at least for tax purposes includes at least about two acres of “residential land,” enough land, according to the calculation to feed three people. We need only bring up, once again that at the height of the Victory Garden era, 40% of vegetables and fruits consumed in this country were grown in home gardens. Using residential land, New York could feed more than a third of its population)

My interest this morning is actually not in debating this question, but in wondering whether this is the right question. It is, no doubt, an interesing question, but whether we should be asking it is just as, and in my eyes, more, important than the question itself.  Wondering whether it is the right question is so imortant because the question itself is indicative of the trajectory of the thinking of proponents and researchers of local-regionalism. And, perhaps more importantly, the question can be seen to mark the goal of local-regionalism, and with the goal thus marked all that opponents of local-regionalism need do is point out that it is impossible for (Insert place) to feed itself, so the whole local-regionalist enterprise is misguided.

What is the idea behind the question? That is, from what intellectual perspective or position does the question emanate? What are its underlying assumptions? The idea behind the question is that (Insert place) might be able to feed itself. The intellectual perspective or position — which runs very close to an ideological perspective in this case — is that the converse (or it is the obverse; I always mix them up) of rampant globalization is radical local-regionalization, and the underlying assumption supporting this persepective is that historically speaking (“before World War II”) (Insert place) did feed itself, and so as we “re-”create local-regional farm and food systems, we should be making an effort to be fully self-sufficient.

This underlying assumption is totally false. It is based on a complete myth. At no time in the history of non-indigenous people in what has become this country, at least as far I have been able to discover, has (Insert place) been self-sufficient, except perhaps for those first few starving months after imported stores ran out in newly settled lands, or while it was so sparsely settled as to hardly constitute a “place.”

Do not forget that the initial impetus for the settlement of North America by Europeans was exactly to seek out new raw materials and products for export to Europe. Even by the close of the 15th Century, “globalization” had very firmly taken root. While the three months or whatever it took to cross the Atlantic seems today like a lifetime, do not forget that to the people living at the time transatlantic shipping was a major advancement.*

I am continually amazed by the prevalence of the myths of local-regionalism because all one need do to see that they are complete myths is actually read historical texts. What got me writing this post this morning was this quote from a 1931 article in the Journal of Animal Science on improvements in pig farming in Pennsylvania:

At present time the farms of the state supply less than one-fourth this number [four million head consumed in the state each year]…. [An] advantage in favor of the Pennsylvania farmer is the fact that a large percentage of his hogs are sold direct to the consumer.

It would not be economically sound for the Pennsylvania farmer to attempt to produce enough hogs to supply the consuming population in his state, as that would mean the importation of feeds to produce animals in competition with the farmer in the central west. Pork products, which are largely grains in concentrated form, can be imported more economically. However, with the diversified system of farming practiced on most Pennsylvania farms, a few hogs can be kept to advantage and at a profit.

So, here we are in 1931, a decade and a half before the “big shift,” and Pennsylvania is importing at least 3/4 of the pigs it consumes. If the text were from 1850 instead of 1931, the story would be much the same. Animals would have been fattened in the corn belt and shipped east for consumption. (The major difference would have been that in 1850 the animals would have been shipped live for slaughter, but only for another twenty-five years or so until the “perfection” of the refrigerated rail car that would very rapidly lead us to Upton Sinclair’s jungle)

The point is that the supposed heyday of local-regionalism looked nothing like what advocates of local-regionalism point to. There is no “there” there to return to. A local-regionalism based on the goal of self-sufficiency is a radically new concept, and would require a revolution in culture and infrastructure. I am very much not averse to such a revolution. However, in order to get anywhere, advocates of local-regionalism are going to need to get the story correct. If their underlying assumption is that what they are trying to effect is a return, they will fail miserably because, again, there is no “there” there to return to. There is no cultural memory to guide us. There are no vestigial infrastructures to reinvigorate. There is only a relatively quaint import-export system containing within it a minor but more robust local-regionalism than we have today.

If we get the story right we will be better able to identify an attainable goal and to develop strategies to get us there. If we insist on constructing and perpetuating mythical places to return to we will never get there, because once again and finally, there is no “there” there.

 

*This would be a good place to go off on an aside about my theory that “progress” is relative in the same way as time, but I will resist. Suffice it for me to point you to any of the various Stargate SG-1 or Stargate Atlantis episodes that deal with relativity via “time dilation” fields that show how time inside the field passes at normal speed for those people inside the field while it passes exceedingly slowly (or quickly) for those outside the field. So too progress. If technology continues to develop, our most amazing communications technologies, the internet, for example, will seem (from outside our “progress dilation field”) like they are practically standing still to our future selves. This appearance does not negate the “reality” of the experience of our present selves (from within the progress dilation field) — that communications technology is amazing (and amazingly rapid). So too, then, the experience of techological progress is the 16th Century, for example. On the ground in the 16th century things are moving very quickly. Outside the field (from the perspective of the 21st century) things are moving exceedingly slowly.

 

The Farmer As Rock Star

The year before Jen and I left Philadelphia for Schoharie Jennifer took over managing a stable in Fairmount Park. One day before they left, Jen and I were talking to the previous managers and one of them, the male of the male-female couple told us about being a jouster at renaissance fairs. He said, “It’s about the closest thing to being a rock star.” Jen and I got a huge kick out his saying that then and we still get a kick out of it every now and then. Yesterday a funny thing happened at the farmers market that made me think immediately of that jousting rock star.

Last week I was on a panel to discuss the film Eating Alaska, which was very good. The film was about the challenges of a former vegetarian to eat locally in Alaska, dealing primarily with the struggle over eating game, which is the principle source of nutrition for Alaskans. I think there might have been about thirty people there. In the discussion, we shifted the context from Alaska to here, and so shifted our focus from the meat of wild game to the meat of livestock. There were two other people on the panel, another farmer and a person who works in multiculturalism. Unfortunately, the multiculturalist got short shrift I think because most people were interested in talking about things more directly related to farming. I did my best to find ways to relate the discussion to culture — multi- or otherwise –  because that is one of my own areas of interest, but the multiculturalist only had an opportunity to participate a few times.

Yesterday while at the farmers market I was interacting with two customers at my booth and one of the women suddenly realized that I was one of the panelists from the other night and she told me how great she thought the discussion had been. We spoke about it for a minute or two and then her friend bought something and they left. Then about fifteen minutes later the woman that had recognized me came back and as she was looking over the tables for what she wanted she joked that she “had been so star struck that she forgot to do her shopping.” Suddenly I felt the weight of the jousting lance tucked under my arm as I rode steady in my saddle above the thundering hooves of my most trusted horse as he galloped down the field….

The farmer as rock star has been a recurring theme over the past few years, in the media especially. While I think it is wonderful that so much attention is being paid to farmers and farming, I find elevating farmers to celebrity status highly problematic, primarily as it relates to the gathering steam of the local-regional farm and food systems movement, for a couple of reasons. First there are very few rock stars in the world, and their lights blot out the work of the masses of people just as talented and important as they. Second, as our lenses become more and more narrowly focused on just a few rock stars, the horizon of ideas also becomes ever narrower. For example, Joel Salatin, who is currently the rock star farmer, really is something of a treasure when it comes to focusing our attention on the ecology and ethics of grass farming. However, as it relates to creating farm and food systems, I find his anarcho-capitalist agenda highly problematic (his libertarianism is so extreme that I do not think the anarcho- is an exaggeration), but because he is such a grass farming rock star, his ideas about farm and food systems are prioritized as well. The idea of food justice is not even a roadie on the Salatin farm rock tour.

If we were able to suspend our cultural inclination to elevating just a few of our community members to rock star status, the horizon of ideas would be much broader, and the base of the movement would be firmer, more sound, and so less susceptible to being made a tool for the promotion of a narrowly held agenda. I, of course, want people to hear the ideas and thoughts that I am attracted to, and I hope, given the opportunity, to be able to present those ideas in a way that entices people to be similarly attracted to them. However, what I want is for those ideas to be the faceless ideas of a movement, to seem to have come from out of the depths of the movement itself. I want those ideas to be out there, appearing unsourced and infinite, just zipping around available for people to adopt and cherish, defending and promoting them as an integral part of their worldviews.

Movements move not by the light of a few rock stars, but by the weight of the masses. Rock stars are a mistake.

 

Getting Closer to Giving Up Industrial Food Completely

At this point, I eat very little industrial food, but I do still eat it, primarily out at restaurants, but also at home, especially condiments like ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, and also canned beans and the occasional box of brownie mix, etc. However, it seems that enough might finally be enough — E. Coli 0157 has shown up in cookie dough, sickening 65 people. How does E. Coli 0157, which lives in the intestines of heavily grain fed cows, end up not only in a cookie factory, but inside the cookie dough? How messed up must the system be for such a thing to happen?

The article states that “President Obama has identified food safety as a priority,” but it is already clear in the few public statements that I have seen that he is not serious. In a recent post I mentioned that myopia and tunnel vision are endemic in American politics, and Obama is no different. He can see only five feet in front of his face and within the margins of industrial capitalism. Food safety, yes, but without substantially compromising the profitability of our industrial behemoths (according to the numbers in the article, at any given time, there are over 600,000 cases of refrigerated cookie dough products out there), and without increasing the cost of American food. American food is cheap and must remain cheap.

The prevailing myth of the local foods movement is that all food was local until after World War II. I am not sure how this myth became so entrenched considering, for example, the popularity of Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, which, incidentally is a socialist critique of American capitalism; the “muckraking” exposure of the vile practices of industrial meat packing companies was incidental to the socialist critique. It is clear that already in 1906, meat, at least the meat eaten in cities, was not local. (Meat packer Gustavus Swift had functional refrigerated rail cars in service in 1880, and within just six years of their appearance the percentage of live cattle shipped from Chicago to New York declined by nearly thirty percent, while the percentage of dressed cattle increased by over twenty five times [Wikipedia]. Before that, the Erie Canal eviscerated local New York farm economies, and before that cheap foodstuffs raised in the English colonies in the New World and shipped across the Atlantic undermined local English and other European farmers) The answer of local advocates, therefore, is a return to a pre-World War II local model. As evidenced by the Chicago packing industry, however, such a thing never existed. The answer, then, is something entirely new, a loosely connected web of comprehensive, including production, processing, and distribution, local-regional farm and food systems. If, however, such a thing is not even on the radar of the most ardent advocates of local-regional food, it is not even within the universe of possibility in American politics.

Sincere or not, Michelle Obama’s organic garden is a gimmick. Home gardens are not viewed by American politicians as a serious alternative to industrial vegetables and fruit, in spite of, or, more likely, because of the fact that at the height of the Victory Garden era, 40% of American produce was grown in private gardens. Organic vegetable gardens like Michelle Obama’s do not promote economic growth. In fact, they do the opposite. If 40% of American produce were grown in private gardens, the California farm economy and the fresh produce import market would collapse.

The food safety efforts of American politicians, including of politicians who make food safety a “priority,” are, even at their most energetic, geared towards only treating the symptoms of the disease of rampant industrial capitalism. This will not change any time soon. (One way to help it change would be to get private money out of American politics)

What then, is a person to do? It seems to me that there is only thing to do, opt out, quit the industrial food system altogether. This is a tall order — I am an American, which means I like ketchup, and not just that I like ketchup, I like industrial ketchup; homemade ketchup just makes me miss my Heinz ketchup. In other words, there is a tremendous amount of cultural work to do. Nevertheless, it is pretty clear that it is time to do that work. I don’t know if I will be able to do it; I am pretty apathetic, after all. But, I am going to try. I’ve already got the meat taken care of, and for most of the year the vegetables and fruit, and I pretty much only drink water and coffee. I just need to trim away the industrial accoutrements — the condiments, the snacks, etc.

When a pathogenic bacterium that lives only in the guts of heavily grain fed cows (and other ruminants) ends up in refrigerated cookie dough, it is time to get the hell out of Dodge.