you are what you eat: sustainable agriculture
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One of the environmental issues that I tend to focus on is the issue of sustainability in agriculture. Not only is it a serious problem environmentally, but I also love food and it scares me the more I learn about how food is made. Forgive me - it has been a while since I have read some of these texts, so I will do some generalizing and paraphrasing. Most modern systems of food production and distribution are seriously flawed. If you suspend the issue of world hunger for this discussion, the environmental and health
concerns that modern agriculture raises is frightening. Although there are countless groups that support the cause, it tends to be a fringe issue and, for some reason, usually understood to be only for hippies and yuppies. Even with environmentalism being talked about more and more in the political and media arenas and the sudden influx of organic products, attention is not really given to the agricultural issue as a whole. Which I find really strange, because it encompasses so many environmental problems and doesn’t just concern what’s happening to the land but goes straight into our mouths. And people don’t take the time to realize that large scale organic farming is sometimes almost as bad as regular industrial farming, just without the pesticides.
just some of the issues that today’s agricultural practices raise:
- soil contamination, which leads to aquifer contamination, which leads to fresh and salt water contamination and threatens marine wildlife through the use of pesticides and fertilizers
- major fuel consumption in production and manufacturing
- major fuel consumption in shipping and distribution
- water table, stream, river, sea contamination from pesticides and fertilizers
- animal cruelty, if you can watch a documentary or look at detailed photos showing how they keep, feed, and slaughter cows and chickens while eating a macdonald’s hamburger….
- the fact that we eat diseased animals stuffed to their eyeballs with antibiotics and growth hormones which are compromising our immune systems
- massive clearcutting of world forests which leads to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, soil erosion, pollusion from slash and burning
- human health, including trans fats, obesity- especially child obesity, diabetes, food-born illness
- genetically engineered crops
- there is corn in everything. seriously, it’s really disturbing. what if there is a corn blight or something?
- why is everyone getting cancer now? hmmmm
It’s such a complex issue, but just a few points and some facts. There are growing local foods movements, networks of certified naturally grown farms, organizations of food growers and restauranteurs that adhere to certain qualities of food production and use, etc. And at least with the abundance of organic this and that everywhere, people realize it’s an issue, so even if most people don’t dig deep enough, some people do.
- more than a quarter of the products in the grocery store contain corn, including non-food items
- Earthbound Farm is responsible for 80% of the organic lettuce in the country. So we have supposedly organic lettuce being shipped 5,000 miles for sustainability
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a short reading list of interesting books:
The Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan. Published just last year, this is a really accessible, enjoyable, interesting read, though disturbing as well. He explores three types of food production - industrial, organic and self-grown/foraged - and uncovers some really interesting facts about America’s eating habits and agriculture. It sounds dry, but it isn’t, he writes for the New York Times Magazine and he’s really hands-on in his approach.
Silent Spring Rachel Carson. It started it all. Published in 1962, this was a seminal book in alerting the public to the environmental and health dangers of widespread pesticide use in agriculture.
The Gift of Good Land and The Unsettling of America Wendell Berry. Berry wrote what are considered to be classics in the genre in the 60’s and 70’s.
Eat Here Brian Halwell. All about the local foods movement.
Animal Liberation Peter Singer. One the most influential text ever written about the ethical treatment of animals. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to be a vegetarian, but the description of factory farms is so eye-opening that you have at least consider where you get your meat from.
a whole bunch of farming books by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms
websites and things to look up:
Polyface Farm, Virginia, owned and run by Joel Salatin. If you read Omnivore’s Dilemma and don’t wish Polyface Farm was in your state, then there’s something wrong with you.
slowfood.com The slow food movement with local chapters.
ediblecommunities.com Publishing magazines locally in cities across the country about local foods and really well designed!
grist.org Environmental news
sare.org Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education
chefscollaborative.org Local chapters with restaurant members that care where the food on your plate came from.
naturallygrown.org Certified Naturally Grown farms and communities. It’s better than organic in many ways.
foodroutes.org Where does your food come from?
Our Daily Bread, a documentary by Nikolaus Geyrhalter about industrial food production
some local farms that are great if you have access to a car:
-Wilson Farms, Lexington
www.wilsonfarm.com
-Allandale Farm, Brookline
www.allandalefarm.com
-Belkin Family Lookout Farm, Natick
www.lookoutfarm.com
-Volante Farms, Needham
www.volantefarms.com