The Kel Word: Chew on This

After spending two months on an organic farm and lots more time than that mulling the matter, I have come to regard food security and sustainable agriculture as two incredibly under-valued initiatives facing the world today. Talk about grassroots activism! These two interwoven ideas are the thrust of entire communities. The reason being, food/agriculture encapsulates numerous other categories of import: public health, environmental policy, social justice, human rights, community development, economic justice, animal rights, and national security chief among them.

The Community Food Security Coalition frames their challenge like this: “Community food security is a condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice.” While Sustainable Table outlines their goal thusly, “Sustainable agriculture is a way of raising food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities.”

If individual communities are able to build a “stable local agricultural base” that provides all of the resources they need, then they are free from the greedy sacerdotal Big Ag companies like Monsanto who insist every person on the planet go through them for food. There's an appreciable argument to be made for such a trajectory and, in fact, a jacquerie toward that end is already alive and kicking all across America... and beyond.

I keep thinking that the Amish are pretty clever cookies on this front. They have maintained their pioneering spirits and connection with the land. They know how to build their houses and grow their food. They serve not modern technology, but the Ordnung of community standards. They abide by principles that prize a healthy collective over individual freedoms so that the whole is made greater than the sum.

That's only possible when the commitment to community is complete. Citizens must make sacrifices in order to uplift and support the larger group, the bigger picture. Neighbors must recognize the injustices in their midst and be willing to take one for the team, if need be. Maybe that means paying a buck extra for a bunch of kale; maybe it means volunteering two hours a week at the local animal shelter.

When that happens and tribes band together fully and intentionally, Big Ag will tumble. Slowly, quietly, humbly, groups in towns such as Brattleboro, Vermont, Portland, Maine, Santa Fe, Des Moines, and Seattle are laying the groundwork with alternative energy projects, community gardens, low power FM radio stations, created wetlands, green spaces, and more. The revolution may not be televised, but it is happening nonetheless.