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.
