farmers in the windy city

Long silence I know - I have been travelling but more on that later. I'm posting from The Windy City on this fine Sunday afternoon. Today I decided to do an off-beat thing and check out the local Winter Farmer's Market. This is the first farmer's market that I have been to in America and it was a good experience. Being indoors, it wasn't massive and the perfect size so you don't get overwhelmed. Upon entering you are immediately assaulted with delicious smells of cinnamon and herbs. I later followed my nose to the smell of cinnamon and found a farmer selling organic apple cider donuts and promptly gave in.

The string band that was playing provided a lively, country feel to the proceedings. I was surprised at the amount of organic produce on offer - apples, mushrooms, honey, herbs etc. A few of the farmers I spoke to were very upfront with the fact that they did not want to eat chemically treated, processed food and were very concerned about human, animal and environmental well-being. Many of the produce were also converted into home-made pickle, jam, pasta, salsa, bread etc - all laden with organic, natural goodness without of a trace of chemicals in sight.

I also met a free range meat farmer who had grass-fed beef on offer - much healthier than the grain-fed, hormone-pumped options found in regular supermarkets. He also had free range chicken and pork on offer. There was another farmer with free range eggs and yogurt, milk, ice-cream on offer. There were plenty of food samples to go around as well as things like organic tea and bread which you could buy. One of the couples that I spoke to were based outside the city and kept bees. In addition to harvesting their own honey, they also made products from bee-wax like lip balm, soap etc. Another farmer was selling fresh herbs like basil, rosemary, sage etc - I resisted the temptation to buy it all and reined myself enough to only walk away with a heavenly smelling pot of basil.

In a country full of super-processed, chemical laden food with a penchant for over-eating and obesity; a farmer's market in a small testament that America is finally learning to eat right. I have noticed this time around that there are a lot more organic produce on super-markets shelves, better labeling and healthier food choices. The rest I believe, will follow - hopefully soon.

Photo: Akhila Vijayaraghavan ©

faced with a food and energy crisis, how can society improve its well-being?

This is the essay I submitted for the Vinyl Essay Competition which I didn't win. Oh well! there's always next time.

Abstract
Moving away from the consumerist mental-makeup and towards one where happiness and thereby contentment are priorities is social well-being. Re-assessing the way we use natural resources, eating locally and investing in alternative energy sources play an important role in achieving this. Global forums that co-ordinate and encourage these improvements should be given priority within every governmental institution. Awareness about the role of individual responsibilities should become an educational movement. These are the precepts on which our sense and intelligence have to act upon – this tipping point has to be hastened as the clock is ticking.

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Many attempts have been made to describe social well-being when this is simply a state of affairs where the basic needs of the populace are met. A healthy society is one where income levels cover basic needs; unemployment is insignificant, easy access to social, medical and educational services are available and where individual dignity is revered. The disparity between a want and need-based society is the reason for underlying unrest, world-over. Rampant consumerism and free-market economics have skewed a contented society where the socio-economic balance is finely calibrated. This is most apparent in the way the food and energy crisis is mismanaged.

We have put ourselves in a predicament because of our complacency and energy intensive lifestyles. The misuse of fossil fuels is finally threatening the well-being of ‘Our Home’ and its biodiversity. Climate changes due to global warming looms like an ominous cloud ready to rain us under. Solutions to prevent this flood of problems call for a mass revolution where society reassesses the choices made, governments the way they prioritize and industrialists the way they manufacture, market and distribute.

The pressing need currently in order to achieve the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) is a council of individuals in every country dedicated solely towards alleviating our problems. International bodies that regulate food distribution and control manufacture should be more aggressive in their approach in order to overcome these crises. Import of food that is energy intensive should be controlled; instead, resources should be spent on boosting local producers. This in turn supports small-scale farms and reduces fuel use for transportation. Movement of food should only be encouraged where surplus production is redirected towards an area when there is a shortfall, at subsidized rates.

A body that oversees, categorizes, quantifies and regulates alternative sources of energy should be set up. It should become mandatory that every country should start investing in alternative sources of energy and weaning itself away from fossil fuel with clear targets set for the next 10 years. Mass consumerism has led to over-production of many goods with tonnes of waste produced. A forum that constantly re-assesses and controls manufacture of all products and ways to curb raw material usage and energy expenditure is essential. Greening every aspect of human-lifestyle should become a priority if we are to meet these targets.

Regardless of economic situation, GDP of nations, education and lifestyle, it is time for people of the world to accept their responsibility in contributing towards these problems. Education should play a role in impressing upon the minds of children and young adults the importance of societal responsibility. Change will come rapidly and surely, if every person takes accountability to reassess the way they use the planet’s resources; without expecting the next person to pick up the slack.

Consumer choice plays an enormous role in managing the food and energy crisis. In order to make this a powerful tool, there has to be increased awareness of food production which is not only energy intensive but also puts enormous pressure on natural resources in every step. It is essential to reassess and revert to simpler ways of growing food - small-scale, organic farms that have been proven to increase yield per acre; reduce top soil loss and maintain soil fertility should be encouraged. Organic meat farms which manage animals in humane ways; do not add antibiotics, growth-hormones to their feed reduces associated problems like antibiotic-resistance, cancer etc. Government subsidies to such farms will reduce costs to make healthier eating more affordable.

A World Bank estimate states that there has been an 83% increase in food prices due to growing of biofuels in the last 3 years. Using agricultural land to support the production of crops for biofuels should be condemned as biofuels are not as carbon efficient as other sources of energy. Bio-waste from food production can be diverted towards production of biogas, cost-effective sources like algae which yield up to 10,000 gallons/acre of biofuel is not fully explored. Landfill mining for resources and tapping of methane should be explored.

The developing world’s priority is to conserve agricultural land, curbing sale of agricultural land for housing and industrial development and reclamation of contaminated land. The World Bank figures that 33 million can face unrest from food shortages and we have already seen riots in parts of the world. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned up to $20bn a year was needed to alleviate the crisis. People will not divert attention towards uplifting other social plagues like over-population, pollution, disease control, education etc unless these needs are met. Compromising on quality nourishment causes countries already burdened with epidemics like AIDS, malaria, Hepatitis-B etc to increase their health budget or get international aid which puts their economies in further debt. Distribution channels should be re-assessed and made more effective so that starvation is prevented. There are people living on less than $2 a day and when food prices increase, they are horrendously affected so rich countries should bear in mind that their food wastage can feed people in poorer parts of the world.

Old adages like ‘think local, act global’; ’waste not, want not’ should become slogans for the impeding revolution. Ultimately there has to be a major catalyst to act as a precursor to change, to bring about a paradigm shift in the way that social well-being is assessed. On the perilous road filled with indecision, arguments and power-play on one side; there are people dying without food and rioting for fuel on the other. Food and energy, fuel global economy and unless people are fed and their well-being taken care of, ‘business as usual’ will grind to a halt faster than the current financial crisis.

franken-food?

The onset of rise in food prices which is projected to get worse puts GM food squarely back in the spot-light. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be defined as organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. Genetic engineering allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between non-related species.

GM foods are developed – and marketed – because there is some perceived advantage either to the producer or consumer of these foods. This is meant to translate into a product with a lower price, greater benefit (in terms of durability or nutritional value) or both. Initially GM seed developers wanted their products to be accepted by producers so have concentrated on innovations that farmers (and the food industry more generally) would appreciate. The GM crops currently on the market are mainly aimed at an increased level of crop protection through the introduction of resistance against plant diseases caused by insects or viruses or through increased tolerance towards herbicides.

All of this sounds much like magic, you take a gene put it into another plant and hey presto! the plant is resistant to diseases which reduces use of pesticides. On the flip side, essentially what the technology does is introduce foreign genetic material into a natural environment.

What's so bad about that you might ask - nothing much, except that genes move around a lot and one of the things they are adept at doing is mutation. So this brings about the question of human health - how does consuming GM food affect human health? The three main issues debated are tendencies to provoke allergic reaction, gene transfer and outcrossing. It has been shown that people living near GM fields ave developed skin rashes and other ailments. As for gene transfer which frankly, worries me more - gene transfer from GM foods to cells of the body or to bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract can occur. This would be particularly relevant if antibiotic resistance genes, used in creating GMOs, were to be transferred. Additionally transfer of genes to other soil microbes is also a possibility. The movement of genes from GM plants into conventional crops or related species in the wild is outcrossing, as well as the mixing of crops derived from conventional seeds with those grown using GM crops, may have an indirect effect on food safety and security.

I'm not even going to get into the environmental hazards of GMO but for the record one of the things it does do is kill Monarch butterfly larvae. So why has such a relatively untested technology deemed safe after field trials that have lasted less than 10years? The simple reason is that GM represents big bucks to seed companies who can monopolize the agri-industry by touting GM as the new miracle food. These companies are based in the US and by clever marketing strategy have fooled poor farmers into thinking that this super-seed is better.

The US has embraced GM for the last 30 years and about 80% of soya and maize products consumed is now GM. The EU continues to oppose GM and India is slowly opening out into the new technology. India of course is under pressure to feed its growing population in the midst of failing monsoons. Inspite of this, let us be clear that there is no short-fall of food production (yet) but the country lacks proper distribution channels. Instead of spending on GM research; it would make more economical sense to invest in establishing better distribution channels, encourage the small farmers and protect existing agricultural land to ensure future food security.

As far as India and other developing nations are concerned, GM is absolutely the wrong way to go. One of the pit-falls that the big seed honchos fail to mention is that GM technology only works on large scale and India's agricultural backbone are the small farmers. In this scenario, small-scale permaculture or organic farming is the way to go which has been proved to produce more yield per acre as opposed to chemical farming.

Most worryingly India has no clear rules and regulations in place to check in-coming GM contamination by form of food imports nor does it have in place stringent methods of testing and approval of GM food products. The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in collaboration with Monsanto is now moving towards introducing GM Brinjal with the Bt gene transcribed to increase pest resistance. Think about this - with food grains, there is a processing stage that diminishes the effect of the toxin but with a vegetable, it is consumed with absolutely no processing. All I'm saying is that people have a right to know what they eat and where their food comes from. With current, very ambiguous laws in place, this information isn't going to reach the consumer. If Bt Brinjal is introduced in the market, we will not be able to tell the difference as India does not package and label fresh produce. As a result we will lose a basic consumer right of knowing what is in our product before we buy it.