Food, Farming and Democracy

FOOD, FARMING, and DEMOCRACY –– UU Society of MV
Rebecca Randall Gilbert of Native Earth Teaching Farm - FEB. 8, 2004

I might appear to be alone, but there are three groups of people standing behind me whispering and talking with concern among themselves. I am here to speak for them. Let me tell you who they are.
First, out of our past, I hear the ancestors. It is good to be grateful to them because right and wrong, known and unknown, they brought us here. Now it is our turn to hold, maintain, and pass on the legacies that they have left us, insofar as we find them still viable and worthy. Our relationships with our food species, both plant and animal, refined over the aeons, comprise an almost inestimable gift. Dating back to before we became human, these relationships have been more central to our survival and development than the wheel or even the opposable thumb. Eight to ten thousand years ago we entered into domestic, almost marriage like long term committed unions with our main food species, many of which would no longer survive without us. Each one of these food crops represents a great work of the ancestors. And these aren’t great works that are laid down and there they are, like a Roman road. They must be maintained, grown, raised, bred selectively, breeding stock and seed kept safe, renewing themselves through patient care and effort year after year, life after life, century after century, through war and plague and starvation and all kinds of hell. Sacrifices were made to bring us these foods, and the recipes and rituals and celebrations and festivals and ceremonies that go with them. They are a gift of time.
We should be grateful, and as individuals, we are, especially when we get to eat something delicious fixed just the way our grandmothers used to cook it. Yum, yum. That’s why I feel we should act vigorously to counteract the current situation. Our government is actively promoting and protecting dangerous practices (such as genetic manipulation, one-crop farming, the patenting of life, and overuse of poisonous chemicals,) which threaten to negate all the thousands of years of work that our ancestors have put in. I am not willing to give up the variety, safety and flavor of traditional foods, nor the cooperative nature and environmental sustainability of traditional methods, just so some corporations can make even higher profits than they do now. I do not think that the farmers and grannies of the past are pleased with this development and I believe they depend on us to try to set things right in our time as they did in theirs.
The second group I hear are real live people of the present who are concerned –from movements springing up all over the world, joining farmers and citizens to address issues of food, land ownership and social justice. These people happen to be mostly the ones I was taught to call ‘the less fortunate’… poor, indigenous or foreign, probably non-white – the kind of people who are the majority everywhere. If we care for the principles of democracy, or the teachings of Jesus or the Goddess Isis, (etc.) these are the people whose interests should come first with us, and whose concerns should be our focus. What are their concerns? Let’s listen carefully to some of their words; we are often shielded from their influence, and they have much to teach us. These quotes are from the book Hope’s Edge, 2003, by Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe

Let’s begin in Africa, where both humanity and agriculture began:
KENYA - the Green Belt Movement – their motto is: AS FOR ME, I’VE MADE A CHOICE

Joseph Karangathe: “…conventional farming is promoted for the benefit of those who produce the inputs. See, the government training package for farmers is not determined by the government – it’s designed by the companies who sell the chemicals. Now I say to the government agents, ‘You’ve promoted chemical fertilizers and pesticides for thirty-five years, and people are still hungry. So what’s your solution? More fertilizers and pesticides?’ …I felt I had to do this…I wanted to do something that satisfied my heart. If you just get money, it only makes you disturbed.”

Elder, Lea Kisomo: (the traditional foods)…”they’ve been forgotten. Now our children are getting funny diseases. They’re getting sick with things they never had before. They’re a lot weaker now…When you get home, tell your people that we Kamba people had lost our culture, especially our food security, but now we are going to regain it. What we’ve lost, we’re getting back.”

INDIA – Vandana Shiva’s organization, Navdanya – NINE SEEDS

Darshan Lal Chowary (elder of a village of eighty families): “Before, there were no serious pests in this area, we had only one problem – fungus. So the government said,’Use this pesticide to kill it. You can have it for free.’ We started using pesticides, but we must have killed many helpful insects, because many pests started coming. And the pesticide wasn’t free anymore. We had to buy it. The food didn’t taste good, either, and we didn’t feel good – we had health problems, stomachaches, body pain, trouble with breathing.”
“We’re documenting our ecological resources, all our plants and animals… (this) book will describe what they are used for – food, tea, medicine. We’ll have more than one thousand plants in here when we’re finished. Now, no one can come into our community and claim a patent on these plants and tell us they’ve discovered the plants’ uses…”

Vinod Kumar Bhatt: “We grow fifty crops here, including four hundred different varieties. In rice alone we have over two hundred varieties. We’re collecting more varieties from farmers every year. … What’s most surprising is that people are joining us. People who didn’t believe in eco-farming are now with us, after seeing our results. They see that the quality and the taste is much better, whether it’s tea, milk, rice, onions, potatoes, whatever it is.

BRAZIL - the Landless Worker’s Movement ( Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) where they ask the little children in the settlements: WHAT KIND OF BRAZIL DO YOU WANT?

Izabel Grein: “…it’s impossible to look just at hunger. We started out working on land but soon realized that every aspect of life has to be included – health, gender, education, leadership, philosophy… and I don’t mean just included in discussions, I mean people gaining their own voices in bringing all these changes into their lives.”

Joao Pedro Stedile: “The first step is losing naïve consciousness, no longer accepting what you see as something that cannot be changed. The second is reaching the awareness that you won’t get anywhere unless you work together. This shift in consciousness, once you get it, is like riding a bike: no one can take it from you. So, you forget how to say ‘yes, sir’ and learn how to say ‘I think that…’ This is when the citizen is born.

Jacir Pagnussatti: “It’s not just that farming without using pesticides means less hazard and lower costs for us. Why would we go to all this trouble and risk to grow food that’s just going to hurt people? We are concerned about the people in the cities, too.”

USA: Garden Project: San Francisco Prison System

Anthony Travis (ex-con): “It’s hard to get out of jail and stay out. There’s no one to help you get on your feet. They say jail is about setting you straight, but it’s really about breaking you down…Jails are built for violent criminals. But a lot of people in there are just trying to make it from day to day, they aren’t violent…”
“We always say, ‘We don’t just grow flowers and vegetables, we grow people. This is a program built to help one another. If we can help one another, we can cut down on crime.

Police Captain Ron Roth: “After twenty three years on the police force I was transferred to this neighborhood. At first I didn’t want to come here…(Now) I’m probably the healthiest I’ve ever been. I get disgusted when I think what I was a few years ago. Now, I try to stay away from fast foods…I take the Garden’s greens out of my car trunk and make a salad…I know there’s a connection between healthy bodies and healthy minds.”

So, with gratitude to the ancestors and honor to the peaceful warriors here among us in the present day, I ask you to turn your thoughts to the future and the children. I’m not talking about the distant future, but about next year, next decade, this century. I am talking about the children you know. Those in your family, those of your friends, those you see in the grocery store. Think of their names, their faces, and send them each a little blessing. And when you look at these children, ask yourself – what kind of Brazil? what kind of world? what kind of life do we want for them? And what will they have good to eat?
In conclusion, I urge you to defend the foods that you love. Look into increasing their ‘food security’. Do what you can to keep the foods and feasts of our ancestors part of our living tradition. Shop wisely – eat well – garden – bake from scratch. And share some with a child! That’s my advice. I will end with a recipe; a favorite of mine, and probably the most democratic recipe ever! Enjoy.

Jim Will, (Cherokee, North Carolina, 1950):
“CORNMEAL GRAVY: Put some water (milk if you have it), salt and red pepper in a skillet where meat has been cooked, if you have meat, but if you don’t have meat just put it in a clean skillet. Add cornmeal and cook until the meal is done. Eat this by itself or with bread for breakfast or with vegetables if you have some.”

(from “Corn Recipes from the Indians” compiled by Frances Gwaltney in 1988)