Working Toward a Sustainable Food System
added 10/23/09
by Rosemary Fifield,
Director of Education and Member Services
“How can the average consumer hope to influence the big food corporations?”
“What is the difference between organic beef and natural beef, and who checks to make sure the products meet those standards?”“How can small family farms even begin to hold their own against the power of agribusiness?”
“If I don’t want to support industrialized living conditions for livestock, what are my alternatives?”
These were just a few of the audience questions inspired by the film Food, Inc., shown at Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts in October.
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An estimated 450 people attended the screening of the film, and the vast majority stayed for the discussion that followed with Professor Anne Kapuscinski of the Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth College Sarah McGinley-Smith, representing King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont; and myself.
In some ways, we were speaking with the converted; I recognized many of the audience members as local farmers, environmentalists, and “foodees.” However, I think the film also raised the awareness of many—and reminded the rest of us—about the true price of the food we eat, whether measured in environmental, animal, or human costs.
Food, Inc. illustrates the work of food writers Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) on the cause and effects of our modern industrialized food system. It also reveals the uncontrolled power of corporations such as Tyson and Monsanto over the livelihoods—and lives—of farmers and growers in this country. Finally, it raises some thought-provoking questions regarding the pros and cons of food businesses perceived as highly ethical, like Stonyfield Yogurt, selling their products through conglomerates like Walmart.
In contrast to industrialized farming with its limitless acres of corn and hundreds of thousands of cattle standing in manure-filled feedlots, the film introduced Virginia grass farmer Joel Salatin. Grass farmers raise a variety of animals on pasture as part of a food chain in which grass is the primary link to the sun, as opposed to fossilized sun energy in the form of petroleum. Salatin’s cattle, pigs, and chickens rotate through his pastures, continuously replenishing the land by spreading their own manure and working it into the soil, while living healthy lives in fresh air, finding nutrition among the variety of species growing in a healthy pasture. Salatin only sells meat directly to customers at his farmgate.
Food, Inc. did a good job of bringing the problem with industrialized food production to the forefront, but offered few, if any, solutions short of raising one’s own food or moving closer to Salatin’s Polyface Farm.
So how can the average consumer hope to make a difference, and what are our alternatives to reinforcing current food production methods? How can small family farms survive and even thrive?
As consumers we have enormous power vested in us by virtue of the food choices we make. We need to learn more about what our choices are and how to increase the accessibility of those products we wish to choose. The conversation has just begun, and we are looking forward to learning more together in the coming months.
Let’s begin by finding out how Equal Exchange —familiar for its Fair Trade coffee, tea, and chocolate—is now giving us a chance to vote with our dollars for a more equitable banana industry.
What Do You Think?
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