Food, culture and sustainability

I stumbled on a new blog this morning called Home Grown Alberta, a blog about food and social change. (Thanks to D’Arcy for posting about this on his blog).

In her opening post A Call for Dialogue …, Gwen, author of Home Grown Alberta, describes her impetus for writing in the blog:

This is my experiment in catalyzing social change through food. What we
eat matters profoundly, not only for our personal health, but also for
broader ecological and economic sustainability. Can we create
significant social change by altering our diets as well as our approach
to food and eating? I think so!

Food is a lot like air. Not only is it necessary for life, but it is so ubiquitous that we notice it only by its absence. I am thankful, by the way, that I have never personally experienced the lack of food – there are many people in the world and even in my own community who have not had this good fortune. Food is not only necessary for life, it is a central part of our lives and culture. Many alumni of Rick Schwier‘s Historical and Theoretical Foundations of Educational Technology class (which is much more engaging than the title would lead you to believe) in the U of S Educational Communication and Technology M.Ed. program will remember how big of a role lunch has in the course. In my memory, at least as much learning happened over lunch as in the class. Sharing food is a generator of much social capital. When we break bread with friends or family, we refer not only to the sharing of food but also the enjoyment of each other’s company.

One of the ways that my wife and I use our food choices to support our beliefs about the social good and sustainability is our participation in a local vegetable co-op. Once per week during the summer and once per month during the winter, we get a share of vegetables that have been grown locally. One of the members of the co-op will drive out to the farm then bring the vegetables back to town, then the rest of us will go to their house to pick up the vegetables. There are lots of similar vegetable co-ops, I am sure. But there are some differences in ours. The farm is not only organic, but non-mechanized. The owners of the farm are genuine back-to-the-landers who have chosen that way of life as a conscious expression of their beliefs about how they want to live their lives, as well as about sustainable agriculture. They refer to the co-op as being about agri-culture, not agri-business. They don’t have or want a lot of stuff, so the money isn’t the main point of operating the vegetable co-op, it’s about friendship and sharing – all that breaking of bread stuff again.

Another difference from other vegetable co-ops is the food pick-up. Everyone in the co-op takes their turn to go to the farm to pick up the veggies, but it isn’t a simple loading of the truck/trunk of car sort of pick up. We go out into the field and pick the food right out of the ground or right off the plant. We get dirt under our fingernails, reminding us of that connection between us and soil, sun and rain. There is as much (or more) talking and discussion as harvesting. Sometimes our conversations turn to the relationship between food, culture and sustainability. If you ever start talking to a farmer about these things, you will find yourself in a long an engaging discussion. They understand that culture and sustainability are grounded in (pun quite deliberate) growing and cultivating food.

There are a number of big ideas and points of discussion around the relationship of these things – 100 mile diet, food security, etc. If you want to be engaged in some of these ideas, head over to Home Grown Alberta for a western Canadian (and especially Albertan) point of view.