When it comes to philanthropy, few can top Bill Gates. He's donated so much of his money to various educational and health-related causes over the years that he's no longer the richest man in America. Good for him. Seriously. I think it's great that he is using his wealth to better the planet. What worries me is the credo his foundation seems to operate under, which could be summed up as technology uberalis. The foundation believes in using high-tech solutions for things like eliminating malaria in Africa, or, more recently, advocating for industrial farming practices in developing nations in order to produce enough food to feed everyone.
The Gates Foundation, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, wants to launch a new Green Revolution in Africa. While the Green Revolution had measurable benefits in a number of countries, its success relied primarily on industrial farming methods: use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers to boost gain.
Enter the UN report I posted a few days ago, which is referenced again in this report from Humanosphere, that proves low-tech farming is both more productive and better for farmers and land.
Still not convinced? Even if you think industrial methods are the best way to increase yields, all those pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers do enormous damage to the soil, rendering it less fertile over time. The runoff from all these industrial inputs contaminates water supplies. Most important, industrial farming relies on petroleum to create all those (say it with me) pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.
Uh, Mr. Gates? Petroleum is not a renewable resource (I don't have time to address the global warming implications of using a petroleum-based farming system here, but you can fill in the blanks yourself).
What worries me is that America's biggest philanthropist is so seduced by the lure of technology that he's willing to ignore or downplay low-tech methods that have a proven track record of success. I get it that low-tech isn't sexy. But if you really want to feed more people, and low-tech methods work better and are healthier for the farmers, the soil, the water, the people who eat the food, and, ultimately, the planet, you need to wean yourself away from the glitz and glamour of high-tech.
Gates has a penchant for reaching for the brass ring high-tech solution. In 2005 I read an article in The New Yorker about the Gates' Foundation work to eliminate malaria in Africa. Turns out one of the most effective methods is mosquito nets (very low-tech, and they've been around for thousands of years in one form or another). But Gates wanted to focus his efforts on finding a vaccine, because that would allow him to use science and high-tech to further his philanthropic agenda.
I'm not questioning Gates' sincere desire to feed the hungry, or make malaria a thing of the past. I do question, and object to, his slavish devotion to The Next Big Thing, the cool new technology, the sexy science, while ignoring proven low-tech, low-cost methods. I get that Gates, one of the best-known representatives of high-tech, wants to use the technology that made his fortune to right some of the world's biggest wrongs. His motivations are admirable, but it's his money that will make the difference, not necessarily the technology he champions. After all, what's important here is feeding people, or curing malaria. Let's not lose sight of that.
Showing posts with label food access. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food access. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
What he said
Marc Bittman says "ERF," and I agree. What's ERF? Read more here:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/is-eat-real-food-unthinkable/?ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tya1
As for who's Mark Bittman and why should you care what he says? Well, I'll leave that up to you to decide.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/is-eat-real-food-unthinkable/?ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tya1
As for who's Mark Bittman and why should you care what he says? Well, I'll leave that up to you to decide.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Monday, January 4, 2010
Shameless self-promotion for a good cause
So if you want to know about the Hazon Food Conference I attended last week in more detail, there are a number of posts on The Jew and the Carrot, which you can check out here. I wanted to mention specifically one article in the JTA online service, which quotes yours truly about food justice at the conference.
I plan to blog about my personal experiences at the food conference later this week, so stay tuned.
I plan to blog about my personal experiences at the food conference later this week, so stay tuned.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
White House Farmer's Market opens
Thanks to Michelle Obama for spearheading this effort. She rocks my food world. Check out the video:
Here's a great post, with pics, from Sam Fromartz' Chewswise.
I can't think of a better way to mark the new year, myself. Shana tovah.
Here's a great post, with pics, from Sam Fromartz' Chewswise.
I can't think of a better way to mark the new year, myself. Shana tovah.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Is the food movment elitist, and if so, does it matter?
My interest in food and my work within the food movement began, as passions do, at the personal level. I love eating and cooking and growing food, and I wanted to learn more about what went into the food I ate. Simple as that.
Over the past couple of years, I've done a lot of self-educating, in the form of reading, research and writing about food. I've also shared what I've learned with friends and family, who, to my pleasant surprise, seem interested in the topic, even if not to the total-immersion-extent that I am. The universality of this issue is clear, since we all need to eat.
Which brings me to the title of this post. The local/organic/sustainable food movement has been accused, with some justification, of being elitist. If you google the words “food movement elitism,” you’ll find a lot of attacks on Alice Waters, widely considered by many to be the founder of the local food movement in this country. Alice Waters is an easy target, and much of what she advocates can be construed as elitist, in the sense that buying and eating local fresh food is too expensive for a number of people to afford. For this reason, many are left out of the food movement, not because they are indifferent or unaware, but simply because they can't afford to participate in it.
However, there is another, seldom-acknowledged, form of elitism at work, specifically the assumptions that many within the food movement hold about people outside it. I recently had discussions with several friends and acquaintances, including a local farmer, about why low-income people don’t eat local, fresh, organic food. I was surprised at their responses (I’d characterize these folks as liberal progressives). One person said that if people just stopped buying soda they could afford fruits and vegetables instead. Another said that if people took the money they spent on drugs and alcohol and used it for food, they could afford to eat properly (he was apparently equating the term “low-income” with “substance abuser,” something that really surprised me). Several people commented, in rather disparaging ways, that if people understood more about nutrition and health they’d make better choices. Not one of the people I spoke with talked about the cost of high-quality food as a barrier to eating better. As a low-income person myself, I was amazed at these responses.
We must re-examine our own assumptions about who eats good food and why or why not. This kind of intellectual or moral elitism is equally damaging to the food movement, because it creates an “us” vs. “them” dichotomy. In fact, cost is the primary barrier to eating well. Another issue for many people is lack of access, in terms of geographical proximity, to a farmer’s market or full-service grocery store. If you don’t have a car, getting to the best food can be a challenge. A third issue for some people is lack of knowledge about how to cook fresh foods.
Is the food movement elitist? If by elitist you mean does it exclude people, then yes. Does that mean we should dismiss it, or disparage it? No. If all we do is participate in the local food movement ourselves, then we are being elitist, but if we make our personal participation a springboard for other activities that allow more people to have access to good local fresh food, then we are combating that elitism. Again, Alice Waters is a good exemplar. She is best known as the founder of the restaurant Chez Panisse in the Bay Area, and for her decades of advocating for greater availability of fresh local food. However, she is also the founder of an innovative school lunch program in the Berkeley school district, which serves a wide variety of children of various income levels and ethnicities. This program, Edible Schoolyard, provides fresh local foods in the school cafeteria, and also includes a school garden and cooking classes, in which kids learn to grow and cook the foods they eat. She’s also expanded the Edible Schoolyard program to the national level, in the hopes of putting edible gardens in public schools nationwide.
Another common target of the charge of elitism is Slow Food, a movement founded twenty years ago by Carlo Petrini in Italy. At its best, Slow Food’s events and efforts promote the best of the local food movement: fresh local food and appreciation for regional cuisine and unique food cultures. However, Slow Food has too often been what Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, a scathing critique of the global food system and its impact on cultures around the world, characterizes as “a bunch of tossers who sit around talking about olive oil.” Here’s an interesting discussion of Slow Food’s attempts to re-brand itself as a socially conscious movement.
In a recent article in New Voices, a Jewish student magazine, Michael Pollan, the food movement’s most eloquent advocate, acknowledges this elitism. “A lot of important movements begin as elitism—women’s suffrage, abolition, environmentalism,” he says. “And then, hopefully, they filter down and they don’t remain elite.” In an interview with Rebekah Denn in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Pollan added, “If the food movement is still elitist in 20 years, that is an indictment, that will be an indictment. But it's a very new movement and I don't think we should write it off because right now it's elitist.”
Pollan's historical overview of social change may be correct, and his assessment that the food movement in its current state is elitist is true, but we cannot simply sit back and wait for food equality to trickle down to the majority of the population. Access to high quality food should be a universal right, not a privilege. As Jews we are charged with the obligation of tikkun olam, repairing the world. If we have the means, it’s great to support local fresh food production where we live, through membership in a CSA, buying at farmer’s markets, or growing our own. However, it's not enough for us to merely participate in the food movement ourselves. We also need to channel our efforts to include everyone, particularly poor folks. Although the systemic issues that contribute to these inequities may not be solved except on a national level, as individuals, there are a number of things we can do right now within our own communities to insure everyone has access to high-quality fresh local food.
Some ideas:
1) Volunteer with an organization that helps low-income people grow their own food. In Portland we have a non-profit, Growing Gardens, which provides food security to low-income folks by teaching them how to grow their own fruits and vegetables. In several local community food assessments published here, a majority of the participants surveyed said they’d be interested in a home garden program.
2) Grow extra food in your own garden and donate it to a local food pantry. This is an idea that's been gaining national attention, particularly over the past year or so, and it’s an easy way to help bridge the gap. For an example of one such program, check out the Oregon Food Bank's Plant-A-Row program.
3) If you don’t garden but have a yard, consider renting your yard out to an urban farmer. In Portland we have a terrific program, City Garden Farms, a CSA that sells vegetables from a collection of urban vegetable plots and vacant lots scattered around Portland. If you're interesting in farming but don't have access to land, try doing something similar in your community.
4) Find out if your local farmer's market accepts food stamps and WIC vouchers. If they don't, work with them to include these programs and increase access to locally produced foods. In Portland, EBT (electronic benefits transfer) machines are provided to farmer’s markets at no cost, but these machines require a landline. For markets without access to a building with a landline, wireless machines are available, but they can cost up to $800. While many farmers’ markets in Portland have EBT machines, not all do. If this is true in your community, consider finding ways to fund the machines, either through allocation of city funds, or grant programs.
Our olam is in dire need of some tikkun, and where better to start than by making sure everyone can eat the best food available?
Over the past couple of years, I've done a lot of self-educating, in the form of reading, research and writing about food. I've also shared what I've learned with friends and family, who, to my pleasant surprise, seem interested in the topic, even if not to the total-immersion-extent that I am. The universality of this issue is clear, since we all need to eat.
Which brings me to the title of this post. The local/organic/sustainable food movement has been accused, with some justification, of being elitist. If you google the words “food movement elitism,” you’ll find a lot of attacks on Alice Waters, widely considered by many to be the founder of the local food movement in this country. Alice Waters is an easy target, and much of what she advocates can be construed as elitist, in the sense that buying and eating local fresh food is too expensive for a number of people to afford. For this reason, many are left out of the food movement, not because they are indifferent or unaware, but simply because they can't afford to participate in it.
However, there is another, seldom-acknowledged, form of elitism at work, specifically the assumptions that many within the food movement hold about people outside it. I recently had discussions with several friends and acquaintances, including a local farmer, about why low-income people don’t eat local, fresh, organic food. I was surprised at their responses (I’d characterize these folks as liberal progressives). One person said that if people just stopped buying soda they could afford fruits and vegetables instead. Another said that if people took the money they spent on drugs and alcohol and used it for food, they could afford to eat properly (he was apparently equating the term “low-income” with “substance abuser,” something that really surprised me). Several people commented, in rather disparaging ways, that if people understood more about nutrition and health they’d make better choices. Not one of the people I spoke with talked about the cost of high-quality food as a barrier to eating better. As a low-income person myself, I was amazed at these responses.
We must re-examine our own assumptions about who eats good food and why or why not. This kind of intellectual or moral elitism is equally damaging to the food movement, because it creates an “us” vs. “them” dichotomy. In fact, cost is the primary barrier to eating well. Another issue for many people is lack of access, in terms of geographical proximity, to a farmer’s market or full-service grocery store. If you don’t have a car, getting to the best food can be a challenge. A third issue for some people is lack of knowledge about how to cook fresh foods.
Is the food movement elitist? If by elitist you mean does it exclude people, then yes. Does that mean we should dismiss it, or disparage it? No. If all we do is participate in the local food movement ourselves, then we are being elitist, but if we make our personal participation a springboard for other activities that allow more people to have access to good local fresh food, then we are combating that elitism. Again, Alice Waters is a good exemplar. She is best known as the founder of the restaurant Chez Panisse in the Bay Area, and for her decades of advocating for greater availability of fresh local food. However, she is also the founder of an innovative school lunch program in the Berkeley school district, which serves a wide variety of children of various income levels and ethnicities. This program, Edible Schoolyard, provides fresh local foods in the school cafeteria, and also includes a school garden and cooking classes, in which kids learn to grow and cook the foods they eat. She’s also expanded the Edible Schoolyard program to the national level, in the hopes of putting edible gardens in public schools nationwide.
Another common target of the charge of elitism is Slow Food, a movement founded twenty years ago by Carlo Petrini in Italy. At its best, Slow Food’s events and efforts promote the best of the local food movement: fresh local food and appreciation for regional cuisine and unique food cultures. However, Slow Food has too often been what Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, a scathing critique of the global food system and its impact on cultures around the world, characterizes as “a bunch of tossers who sit around talking about olive oil.” Here’s an interesting discussion of Slow Food’s attempts to re-brand itself as a socially conscious movement.
In a recent article in New Voices, a Jewish student magazine, Michael Pollan, the food movement’s most eloquent advocate, acknowledges this elitism. “A lot of important movements begin as elitism—women’s suffrage, abolition, environmentalism,” he says. “And then, hopefully, they filter down and they don’t remain elite.” In an interview with Rebekah Denn in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Pollan added, “If the food movement is still elitist in 20 years, that is an indictment, that will be an indictment. But it's a very new movement and I don't think we should write it off because right now it's elitist.”
Pollan's historical overview of social change may be correct, and his assessment that the food movement in its current state is elitist is true, but we cannot simply sit back and wait for food equality to trickle down to the majority of the population. Access to high quality food should be a universal right, not a privilege. As Jews we are charged with the obligation of tikkun olam, repairing the world. If we have the means, it’s great to support local fresh food production where we live, through membership in a CSA, buying at farmer’s markets, or growing our own. However, it's not enough for us to merely participate in the food movement ourselves. We also need to channel our efforts to include everyone, particularly poor folks. Although the systemic issues that contribute to these inequities may not be solved except on a national level, as individuals, there are a number of things we can do right now within our own communities to insure everyone has access to high-quality fresh local food.
Some ideas:
1) Volunteer with an organization that helps low-income people grow their own food. In Portland we have a non-profit, Growing Gardens, which provides food security to low-income folks by teaching them how to grow their own fruits and vegetables. In several local community food assessments published here, a majority of the participants surveyed said they’d be interested in a home garden program.
2) Grow extra food in your own garden and donate it to a local food pantry. This is an idea that's been gaining national attention, particularly over the past year or so, and it’s an easy way to help bridge the gap. For an example of one such program, check out the Oregon Food Bank's Plant-A-Row program.
3) If you don’t garden but have a yard, consider renting your yard out to an urban farmer. In Portland we have a terrific program, City Garden Farms, a CSA that sells vegetables from a collection of urban vegetable plots and vacant lots scattered around Portland. If you're interesting in farming but don't have access to land, try doing something similar in your community.
4) Find out if your local farmer's market accepts food stamps and WIC vouchers. If they don't, work with them to include these programs and increase access to locally produced foods. In Portland, EBT (electronic benefits transfer) machines are provided to farmer’s markets at no cost, but these machines require a landline. For markets without access to a building with a landline, wireless machines are available, but they can cost up to $800. While many farmers’ markets in Portland have EBT machines, not all do. If this is true in your community, consider finding ways to fund the machines, either through allocation of city funds, or grant programs.
Our olam is in dire need of some tikkun, and where better to start than by making sure everyone can eat the best food available?
Friday, April 17, 2009
UN Discusses the Right to Food & Food Sovereignty
This is very cool, and long overdue, imo.
From the Community Food Security Coalition's latest email digest:
"The President of the UN General Assembly held a discussion on the Global Food Crisis and the Right to Food on April 6, 2009. The first panel, moderated by Brother Dave Andrews, entitled Policy Choices and the Right to Food in the Context of the Global Food Crisis, featured: Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for the United Nations; Professor Sanjay Reddy; Professor Daniel De La Torre Ugarte; and Congressman Jim McGovern. The second panel, Answering to the Poor: Right to Food and Sustainable Models of Agriculture, was moderated by Barbara Ekwall and featured: Henri Saragih; Molly Anderson (CFSC Board President); Dr. Judi Wakhungu; and Miguel Altieri.
From the Community Food Security Coalition's latest email digest:
"The President of the UN General Assembly held a discussion on the Global Food Crisis and the Right to Food on April 6, 2009. The first panel, moderated by Brother Dave Andrews, entitled Policy Choices and the Right to Food in the Context of the Global Food Crisis, featured: Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for the United Nations; Professor Sanjay Reddy; Professor Daniel De La Torre Ugarte; and Congressman Jim McGovern. The second panel, Answering to the Poor: Right to Food and Sustainable Models of Agriculture, was moderated by Barbara Ekwall and featured: Henri Saragih; Molly Anderson (CFSC Board President); Dr. Judi Wakhungu; and Miguel Altieri.
"Farmer voices were presented by Henry Saragih, General Coordinator of La Via Campesina, who discussed the state and international community’s obligation to protect the right to food, food sovereignty and the right to sustainable food production. Professor De Schutter made two presentations the following day in Washington D.C. to help increase policymakers and non-governmental organizations’ understanding of these issues.
Read statements from all panelists.
Read statements from all panelists.
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