Food Rebels,
Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas:
Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture by Mark Winne
Reported by Jill M. Piacitelli
Today,
people are persuaded more than ever that they have perfect freedom, yet they
have brought their freedom to us and laid it humbly at our feet… And we alone
shall feed them…. Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No
science will give them bread so long as they remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our
feet, and say to us, “Make us your
slaves, but feed us.”
-
Fyodor
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Here’s a picture of the author – which I bet
is exactly what you thought he’d look like.
Me too. Mark Winne was long-term
Executive Director of the Hartford Food System, organizing community self-help
food projects that assisted the city’s lower income and elderly residents
including the development of commercial food businesses, Farmers’ Market
Nutrition Program, farmers’ markets, a community supported agriculture (CSA)
farm, a food bank, food and nutrition education programs, and a neighborhood
supermarket. He is also co-founder of a
number of food and agriculture policy groups.
He just finished up a Visiting Scholar position at Johns Hopkins University
school of Public Health and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Most of the book draws on his experiences
with these foods and policy groups/circles that he works within – though I
didn’t quite get that until looking him up.
I just thought he was really
interested in New Mexico and Connecticut.
I hated Chapter 1 – as in
thought that I would not read the book and didn’t for a long time. I skipped that first Chapter, a ten page
futuristic glimpse into a story of 2020 with fictional characters – and
everything got better. Much, much
better. He ended up being a smooth,
poetic, compelling writer highlighting all the right stuff and right people for
the right amount of time. My complaints would be that opening chapter and that
for being published in 2010, most of the statistics used were from 2006 – which
makes a 2012 reading of them feel really antiquated.
The message of this book is: You have a choice between the global
industrial food system (the system from which most of us eat whether we like
it/know it or not) and a new, emerging food system that is undergirded by a
respect for locality, sustainability, and equity (a distinctively different model of food production, processing, and
distribution). The only choice you don’t have is to not choose. You can be an
obedient food consumer and eat what they
hand out, or you can muscle up some moxie and set the table to your own
specifications.
The industrial food system is
highly organized, rational, efficient, and possesses a singular focus on the
financial bottom line. This book is a
call to arms against the industrial food system, which fills the first half. He writes of policies that promote “food
sovereignty, sustainability, and ensure that the social conditions of the
people who produce food are just and fair, and promote equal access to fresh,
affordable food.” The US food system does not do this. He highlights the country’s current policies
that undermine food sovereignty, most grossly by pointing out some trade
stories and detailing some impact that CAFOs have over agricultural land and
water. These policies devalue local food systems and communities, and sustain a
distorted domestic food market dominated by a handful of large corps.
Major takeaways: Monsanto = gross, meat=disgusting (unless you
are really intentional about it), CAFOs= horrible labor practices, and warning!
warning! Watch out of philanthropy
becoming partner to agribusiness.
Danger! Danger! Danger! (Example:
the Gates Foundation partnering with Archer Daniels Midland to “have
compelling conversations on topics related to enhancing feed security”.) Calls fast food expansion into other
countries a “modern form of colonization” and says we are exporting our disease
(much like colonial white settlers in Massachusetts): obesity and diabetes.
Local food, as best I can see,
varies by definition. Some states
consider anything in the region or the state (Walmart), to be local. Whole Foods says it’s food that doesn’t
travel any more than seven hours to the store where it’s sold. One cattle organization said 300 miles and
Barbara Kingsolver narrowed that down to 100 miles in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
It is distinct in that it has positive impact on regional economies,
individual health, and the quality of community life = intimacy. It also promotes “good food”.
“Good food*” is:
1.
Healthy
– food that is nutritious and readily available; wont’ over time lead to heart
disease, diabetes, or other chronic diet related problems;
2.
Green
– produced in an environmentally sustainable manner but not necessarily
organic;
3.
Fair – all who
are involved in the food system from production to point of purchase receive
fair wages and have safe working conditions; no on in the food chain is
exploited;
4.
Affordable –
people have the means to purchase it.
*In 2007,
only 1.8% of U.S. Food sales was classified as good food.
He highlights the work of Maurice
Small in Cleveland who gave me maybe my favorite quote of the book: “I can’t wait for the politicians or policy
to turn this around. This (the garden)
is the kind of practical politics
I’m talking about.”
And: “We’re going to make this the model,
man! You gotta tweak ‘em; get that virus
in their (the institution’s) veins. Yes,
it starts in a poor community because a wealthy community wouldn’t accept a
compost pile.”
Loss of land, loss of skills (grow and cook
own food). Increase in number of mouths
to feed –especially in poor communities or countries. The industrial food system would tell you
that the only way to feed them is these huge systems. This is not true. Brahm Ahmadi – who is forwarding the People’s
Grocery in Oakland is trying to overcome the “leakage” created by a food
desert, transportation system cutting through the city, and so on. He is great example of one who “accepts
democracy as a first principle and then actively promotes it by building the
systems what will allow it to flourish.”
He also probably hates alternative breakers, but would love ones that
have taken the diversity workshop seriously.
Food justice acknowledges that we
have two food systems in the US – one for the poor and one for everyone else.
Hunger, food insecurity, food banks, food stamps, and Wal-mart are on the menu
for those at the wrong end of the food gap, while local, organic, Whole Foods,
farmers’ markets, and CSA farms are set graciously before those at the affluent
end. The divide is wide, growing, and
potentially disastrous for a nation that prides itself on its social equality
and justice. “What justice demands of us
is to ask ourselves what more we can do… and then do it.”
Take down the system by: urban gardening, policies around food
deserts, getting food education into elementary schools and into high-risk
communities (i.e. Hispanics in New Mexico with Happy Kitchens). “So there you
have it, my recipe for a simpler, self-reliant, and more fulfilling life. Eat local and season (start with the food
closest to you and build out), support causes that are promoting the same for
everybody, and get loud with your lawmakers.”
My favorite parts were this
wildly interesting insertion into Chapter 2 of a couple of pages (see opening) from The Brothers Karamazov, specifically a peak in the novel called
“The Grand Inquisitor.” “God and the
devil are fighting… and the battlefield is the heart of man.” Set in Spain in the 16th Century,
Christ is imprisoned and the Grand Inquisitor (who has sentenced him to die,
fearing his power) visits him in his cell.
Their conversation centers on whether freedom is a gift to humankind or
a burden it’s better relieved of. The
Inquisitor criticizes Christ for His rejection of the three powers that hold
humankind in their sway: “those forces are miracle, mystery, and
authority.” We have given away
life-affirming choices around food to mystery, miracle, and authority – just
give us bread.
Recommended Reading:
The Brother Karamazov – well, the 16 pages with the Grand Inquisitor
anyway
Self-Reliance – Emerson
Studies from the Leopold Center (which has churned out more research on local
and sustainable food systems than just about any other academic institution)
June 19 & 20 – Macon,
Georgia – Mark Winne presenting to Central
GA Food Policy Council Regional Meeting at the Macon Marriott City Center
Hotel.
Remaining Questions: What happens to all that manure? Seriously?
And why all the farm subsidies again?
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