Hello everyone,
I hope this note finds you
well. We've had a change in weather here, with rain and cooler
temperatures setting in ... a reminder that autumn really is going to happen.
Lately, I've done a lot of
reading about climate change and the serious changes to water tables,
agriculture and people that will result. It is a burden to realize the
truth of the reports from IPCC and the United Nations, and crazy-making to read
some of the climate change denial propaganda that's around.
This evening, however, instead
of my too-often down feeling, I found myself bopping around the kitchen to the
music on CBC radio. I was
stirring a pot, cooking tapioca pudding of all things, and browsing the Simply
in Season cookbook to give myself something to do while stirring. (2005 from
Mennonite Central Committee).
The full title of the book is
Simply in Season: recipes that celebrate
fresh, local foods in the spirit of More with Less (an earlier cookbook
which I treasure). I'd never gone through a full chapter all at
once and read all the anecdotes and ideas tucked in alongside the excellent
international, seasonal recipes.
Simply in Season is a radical book. It is a
food, agriculture and food sovereignty course, written in short anecdotes,
recollections and factual comments. It is family, community, and
good-heartedness addressing serious issues of hunger and economic
inequality. And you take in ideas one at
a time as you cook or browse. Mandala
books probably carries this recipe book or could order it for you (190 Central Ave, London / 519-432-9488 / www.mandalabookshop.com )
Cathleen Hockman-Wert, one of
Simply in Season's authors says:
Browse any supermarket aisle and it'll appear that you
have no lack of choices: the number of different brands may even seem
overwhelming. What you don't see is that
most of these brands are owned by just a few transnational corporations, such
as Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill,
ConAgra, General Mills and Philip Morris.
You can picture our agricultural economy as an
hourglass. At the top are farmers and at
the bottom are consumers; food flows from one to the other through a few
corporations in the middle. Those
businesses hold enormous power. The farmers
have limited options in terms of selling their products, so the corporations
set the prices the farmers receive. The
corporations also set the prices paid by consumers, and research indicates that
market concentration results in higher prices.
Here's a simple side step around this conundrum. Buy
food - whole, unprocessed food - directly from farmers.
A quotation from Melanie
Boldt of Pine View Farms all-natural poultry farm speaks to the squeeze a
typical American or Canadian farmer faces:
When people choose to buy the cheapest food they can
find ... that choice has an impact right back to the farmer. People say they don't want genetically
modified food or pesticides, but the farmer has to use those tools when forced
to survive on razor thin margins.
Nettie Wiebe, Via Campesina
representative, Delisle, Saskatchewan, said:
I have worked with rural leaders from many parts of
the world. When we compare experiences,
it is clear that agriculture everywhere is being reordered through trade agreements
and financial instruments. Peasants in
poorer countries are under pressure to use their best land for raising
specialty crops for export. Others are
simply displaced as their local markets for staple foods are taken over by
cheaper imports from industrialized countries.
This destroys traditional food cultures and undermines the autonomy and
food security of peoples.
Genuine food security requires food sovereignty. The Via Campesina is leading the global
struggle for food sovereignty because we recognize that food security can only
be achieved if food production is broadly based, environmentally sustainable,
and locally controlled. This means that
peasants must have access to land, seed and water and that the rights of people
to produce their own food must be protected.
Food sovereignty treats food as the basis of life and
culture, not just another commodity.
Jennifer Shrock says:
If I had to put what I believe about food and the
environment into two words of advice, I would say this: Celebrate hope.
If you can find a farm, a market, a store where you can
see that love for the earth and for future generations is a priority, sell all
that you have and buy their food. If you
can find friendly faces in your local food system who are willing to go beyond
public relations and discuss tough questions, hug them! If you can smell the Spirit of God on their
sweet potatoes, buy 20 pounds! Eat these potatoes with gusto, thanking God that
someone, somewhere has a vision.
Celebrate hope everyone! Very best regards,
Why's Woman
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