Good Food is Everybody's Business
At this year’s Tilth Producers of Washington conference, now referred to as T-40, a few attendees of the first conference – older, wiser, and grayer – mingled with younger farmers (some not yet born when Berry spoke in 1974 at “T-1”) to share ideas, advice, and plans for the future.
The Ebola outbreak – which has led to rising food prices and potential food shortages – reinforces the need for self-sufficiency and food security in times of crisis. Liberia has just begun to stabilize a network of rice growers and processors; rice grown in Liberia could go long way to support the Liberian population during this crisis.
The fundamental problem with genetically engineered food crops in US soil today: rather than reduce pesticide inputs GMOs are causing them to skyrocket in amount and toxicity.
The problem is this: seeds need a place to grow; not just a place to grow but also a place that matches the seed. Not a new place, but the pre-existing ecosystem where the seed was produced, or something that closely mimics the original ecology. The challenge then is to rediscover and restore as much of the local resiliency expressed in the natural ecosystems we have left and to replant the seed accordingly. The quality of the soil and water is as important as the seed; that is to say, without it (like we humans), the seed will die.
Vermont organic growers on food and farming and building natural webs of biological communities. Growing and eating organic is better for the farmer, better for the animals, better for the environment, better for your health.
William Tolbert, a Liberian citizen educated in the US, was inspired by the organic movement here and moved back to his home country in 2010 to implement organic farming techniques. He exemplifies the “Triple Bottom Line” – Environment, Economy, and Ethics – it his farming practice. Now Tolbert is building a program to provide training, support, and microloans, and connections to quality buyers for subsistence farmers so they can grow more and better produce and generate higher incomes and profits.
How do we really know what to eat? Perhaps it’s environmental. Sure enough! If nothing but markets decide now – and they seem to be careening out of control – and history doesn’t count, everybody can be like everybody else and have any kind of food. Then maybe it isn’t so much a matter of knowing what to eat as it is regaining a sense of who we are. Perhaps the first step is to reconnect our food to place, good places – not industrial wastelands.
We in the independent small farm sector probably need to keep an eye on new threats to organic farming. It seems there is no end of manipulation by industry to control markets and government continues to be driven by special interests.
