This short presentation by Pam Warhurst is really thoughtful and lively. I encourage anyone who is interested about community-based, sustainable, agriculture or even just eating better quality food, to watch it.
She helped create a community-based group that combined community cooperation, economics, and education, to create a system to create (grow) and supply more locally grown food instead of importing it. People were able to come together as a community, learn about their food and where it comes from (eventually their front yards!), and benefit the environment, human health, and their pockets books at the same time.
A few minutes into the speech she makes a great joke about the town she lives in. She is questioning why all the landscaping consists of strange and exotic plants, most of them un-edible. She says for some reason every plant around the metro station was some kind of prickly cactus. Why is it that when there are people who are in need of higher quality food, the towns and cities they live in are paying landscapers and city employees to plant expensive or exotic plants that don’t serve much purpose, and will often be replaced in less than a year? If the argument is that these exotic, or expensive and useless, plants are to ‘beautify’ the city and can help boost tourism, or property values, then this seems to imply that plants we eat cannot do this. If you have seen an apple tree or a blackberry bush in full bloom it is easy to see why this argument falls apart.
It seems like it makes much more sense, especially if you are in an area where there are higher levels of poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and even obesity, tax dollars would be better spent to help kick-start neighborhood gardens. It does not make sense for state and local governments to spend money on landscaping public areas with exotic plants, while other tax dollars are spent subsidizing people in the community to go to the local grocery store to buy processed food that had to be transported halfway across the country. Almost everyone in this scenario is losing, certainly the vast majority are.
It doesn’t make sense to complain about disappearing rural communities, disintegrating community values, and a growing sense of alienation from where our food comes from, while we continue to choose boxed 3 month old sugar-coated cereal for breakfast (shaped like cubes and available in every color, complete with almost every known vitamin and mineral added during processing) instead of real food grown or produced a few miles down the road. If we want to see a resurgence in local communities then we have to realize we are a part of that community. Our decisions have consequences beyond our living rooms. You want more locally grown food, then grow it. If you can’t grow it, then think again, if you have a window for light, access to water, and can find some dirt somewhere, then you can put some seeds in it and watch your food grow. If you don’t want to grow it, then find someone who does and buy it. During different parts of the year many gardeners even end up with surplus food and give it away! In the end, maybe the most important message is that we all have the power to change things. Whether you want to transform your lifestyle to be more environmentally sustainable, healthier, or just to better support your neighbors and community. Sometimes even small differences in our purchases, or the way we use our time, can have large (positive or negative) consequences down the line. So next time you are trying to decide if taking a few hours and starting that vegetable garden is worth it, or the next time you are standing at the grocery store and you see a 2-for-1 deal on breakfast sugar-cubes, remember all these decisions add up, and what they add up to is your choice.
* When I said ‘real food’ earlier I meant something that when you look at it you can usually tell me what plant or animal it came from without having to ask for an ingredient list.
ConversationLife 