January 17, 2011:
A Revolution in Local Food and Farming!
“Is it really practical to be reliant on a food system addicted to fossil fuel? Is it realistic to build a food system entirely dependent on energy from ancient sunlight—from the coal, oil, and natural gas reserves we are quickly depleting—when instead we could build a food system tapping current sunlight? We can flip the argument on its head: What’s naïve—utterly impractical—is the belief that we can continue along the path of corporate-controlled, industrialized food and survive and thrive as a planet.” –Anna Lappé
The Fall 2010 Edition of Boulder County’s EAT LOCAL! Resource Guide and Directory represents a significant expansion over our Spring Edition. New farms and restaurants are popping up throughout the county, eagerly responding to dramatically-increasing public demand for local organic food. It’s now clear that the revolution in local food and farming is well underway right here in Boulder County, and it’s accelerating.
In this issue, author Anna Lappé (Diet for a Hot Planet) offers her compelling views on the promises and premises of agricultural biotechnology. Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini shows how industrial agriculture is “eating” our environment. In an exclusive interview, lawyer/economist Michael Shuman (The Small-Mart Revolution) discusses the economic prospects for relocalizing food. Farmer/philosopher Fred Kirschenmann (Cultivating an Ecological Conscience) prepares us for the transition to a postindustrial agriculture and food system.
Locally, Dave Georgis of Everybody Eats! explores how relocalizing our food and farming system could significantly reduce Boulder County’s contribution to climate change. CSU Extension Agent Adrian Card tells the story of aspiring new farmers who are learning the business skills necessary for economic viability. And we take a fresh look at the potential importance of the emerging Boulder County Farmer Cultivation Center.
Since 30,000 copies of this issue are being distributed throughout the county, we are also repeating our previous stories on the EAT LOCAL! Campaign and our 10% Local Food Shift Challenge and Pledge, in the hope that many thousands of people will join us in these efforts.
You may also notice that the Directory has grown, now with nearly four times as many listings as in our first issue in 2007. If you discover that your farm, restaurant, organization, or food-related business has not been included, please let us know and we’ll immediately update the online version (www.EatLocalGuide.com) and make sure you’re listed properly in the Spring 2011 Edition.
Meanwhile, below are some thoughts worth sharing and discussing together.
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We are all living at the end of an era of food and farming that most of us grew up with and that we have come to take for granted, but which will change quite radically in our lifetime—beginning in the next few years—because our “traditional” food and farming system is failing us.
We are living in a moment of historic transition, a moment when it’s difficult to clearly understand our collective predicament and to see where we’re moving to next. In the domain of food and farming—a domain in which we’re all deeply involved, albeit often unconsciously—what are we moving from? What are we moving to?
We are moving from a vast “foodshed” that now stretches around the globe—to Europe, China, and South America—to a localized foodshed that must provide most of the nutritional needs of all our citizens within a radius of perhaps a few hundred miles, a much smaller foodshed that will reflect the limits and possibilities of our bioregion.
We are moving from a diet that now mostly comes from 1500 miles away or more, to a diet that will be grown as locally as possible.
We are moving from a diet that enables us to eat any type of food we want at any time of year, to a diet that reflects the seasons and capacities of the region in which we live…
…from a diet that overfeeds us with protein from meat and fish, to a diet that is largely plant-based…
…from a diet that is mostly purchased at the supermarket, to a diet that is mostly purchased directly from local growers, and supplemented by what we are able to grow in our own home gardens…
…from a diet that is comprised largely of highly-processed, genetically-modified foods prepared at remote locations, to a diet that is comprised almost entirely of fresh, organic, locally-raised and locally-prepared plants and animals.
We are moving from a food and farming system that is almost completely dependent on rapidly-depleting fossil fuels for pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, to a food and farming system that is free of the need for such inputs and has greatly reduced fossil fuel use in processing, storage, distribution, and transportation.
We are moving from a farming system that depends primarily on chemicals in order to provide nutrients to plants and thereby depletes the soil, to one that recycles nutrients and enriches, restores, and rebuilds the soil.
We are moving from a farming landscape that is heavily dominated by animal crops and pastures, to one that carefully integrates animals into farming operations, providing vital nutrients to the soil.
We are moving from farming methods that stream wastes into our water system, into our atmosphere, and into our biosphere, to farming methods that turn waste outputs into essential inputs for other processes within the food and farming system.
We are moving from farming methods that unintentionally release high levels of carbon, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, to carefully considered methods that sequester carbon in the soil, reuse methane for fuel, and eliminate nitrous oxide outputs.
We are moving from a food and farming system that produces 18 – 31% of our CO2 equivalent emissions, to one that is essentially climate neutral.
We are moving from a food system that is dependent on processing at remote locations, to one where processing is easily accessible within the local foodshed (within 1-2 hours drive).
We are moving from a fragile food system that at best leaves 10-15% of our local population food insecure—and is unable to withstand energy shocks, economic shocks, and supply line shocks—to one that is robust, resilient, one that not only meets the food needs of all our citizens but also provides a surplus that can be traded beyond our local foodshed.
We are moving from a food system where the most nutritious, locally-grown organic food is accessible and affordable only for the wealthiest or most committed of our citizens, to a food system where locally-grown organic food is accessible and affordable for all our citizens.
We are moving from a farming system that is based largely on producing commodity crops for feed and export, to one that is based on meeting the needs of its own community first.
We are moving from a food and farming system that disconnects us from the land, cuts us off from the natural cycles and processes of life, alienates us from nature, and destroys our relationships with each other…
…to a food system that reconnects us to the land, brings us back in touch with the natural cycles and processes that are fundamental to life, restores our relationship with nature, and renews our experience and sense of community with each other and with all life.
We are moving from a food and farming system that erodes soil, wastes water, diminishes biodiversity, burns fossil fuels, spews carbon, relies on machines, modifies genetics, pollutes water and air, poisons the land, depletes the spirit, destroys community, creates economic disparity…
…to a food and farming system that restores and rebuilds soil, recycles and conserves water, increases biodiversity, sequesters carbon, produces its own energy, relies on human labor, breeds for resilience and saves seeds, purifies the water and air, heals the land, feeds the spirit, builds community, and creates economic parity.
We are moving from a food system that enables the rich to eat well and forces the poor to eat poorly, to one that makes a wholesome, healthy diet a basic right for all citizens, where this is taken as a responsibility and not a luxury.
We are moving from a food and farming system that is based on extraction and consumption, to one that is based on preservation, restoration and regeneration; from an exploitive, anti-ecological and community-killing agriculture, to a nurturing, ecologically sustainable and community-enhancing agriculture.
This transition or revolution in food and farming is already beginning to happen, and will ultimately happen whether we want it to or not. You could say that it is a course correction that has become not only necessary but inevitable… if humanity is to avoid simultaneously committing suicide and ecocide.
For most people, perhaps, the triggers for this transition will be such things as the end of the era of cheap and abundant fossil fuels, the arrival of dramatic impacts of climate change, an accompanying long-term global economic depression, and the inevitable collapse and utter failure of agribusiness and the industrial agriculture system to feed the world’s people.
It may seem that these events loom in some far-off future, a future that many of us hope that we will never live long enough to see. But if we look carefully, if we make the effort to do the research and connect the dots, we will see that these events are much more imminent than that. Indeed, they are already beginning to unfold in our world, and we can even begin to map their trajectories.
For now, many of these changes in our local food and farming system may seem “alternative” or optional. But in the coming months and years we are all likely to awaken to the inevitability of these changes, and the reality that implementing such changes sooner rather than later will help to ensure food security and economic sustainability for all citizens of Boulder County.
For those who are already waking up to these realities, the triggers for this transition in food and farming and our involvement in them are somewhat different. What moves us most, I’d like to think, are the opportunities we see:
- The opportunity to restore some measure of balance and fairness in a world of imbalance and injustice.
- The opportunity to restore our connections with the place in which we live, our home.
- The opportunity to heal the land that we have so profoundly abused.
- The opportunity to heal and regenerate community.
- The opportunity to rebuild our collective self-respect and self-confidence in our ability to meet our own essential needs locally.
- The opportunity to regain a sense of meaningful purpose.
- The opportunity to ensure human freedom.
- The opportunity to experience the deep joy that comes from wholeheartedly contributing to the future of life on this beleaguered planet.
We invite you to be part of this revolution, to join the thousands of people who are multiplying backyard and frontyard gardens, raising chickens and keeping bees, committing to buying more food that is local and organic, demanding that supermarkets stop importing food we could produce here ourselves, converting our local agricultural lands to growing food for local consumption, rebuilding local food storage and distribution systems, and encouraging young people to learn farming as a wise and sustainable career choice.
Bon appétit!
Michael Brownlee
Editor and Publisher
