Making California America’s Organic Farm

[Guest guest]

Making California America's Organic Farm

Posted by: Adam Starr

on March 23, 2009 at 8:00 am

Alice Waters isn't the only one pushing the effort to convert California to

wholly sustainable agriculture. If even the government agrees it's possible by

2030, what's the holdup?

It's late February at Whole Foods in Berkeley, California, and a half pint of

organic blueberries is selling for $5. I admire nature's bounty; the access to

fresh fruit is one reason I call California home. The blueberries don't, though.

They hail from Chile. So do the nectarines. The blackberries, meanwhile, are

from Mexico, and the bananas voyaged from Ecuador and Costa Rica.

California produces more food than any other state. In fact, it's the fifth

largest food producer in the entire world. But for all its agricultural prowess,

California imports huge volumes of food. The state is the biggest importer of

FDA-regulated commodities in the United States. Much of this is produce, sold in

foodie Meccas such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

But this produce is laden with plenty of baggage. The blueberries didn't just

wash up on our shores 6,000 miles from their South American home in a

polystyrene box; it took oil to transport them here. Fossil fuels are involved

in every stage of industrialized agriculture, from petrochemical fertilizers to

machinery operations to sprawling food distribution and shipping networks. And

for many years, this oil-drenched food seemed palatable: Oil was cheap and we

became dependent on it to bring us cheap food. As global oil resources dry-up,

the costs of imported food will rise.

How California gets its food may soon change, though. With the growing awareness

that the current practices are unsustainable, people are beginning to rally

around the idea of creating a wholly sustainable agriculture in California by

the year 2030. What this agricultural system will look like is outlined in a

12-point manifesto—created by a nonprofit called Roots of Change—that emphasizes

local food, humane animal raising, and environmental protection. But

accomplishing this goal requires that the public understand the hidden costs of

industrialized food. The looming question is, how do they get the entire state

up to speed?

Roots of Change has been on the case for almost a decade. Founded in 1999 to

oppose the growing industrialization of food, ROC is uniting various leaders and

institutions who share the 2030 goal. They've partnered with San Francisco Mayor

Gavin Newsom on a project that has the potential to sustain that city, and, on

the national level, are collecting signatures for a petition to ask that

Congress add aggressive sustainability measures to the next farm bill.

But according to ROC, the effects of a switch to sustainable agriculture would

have impacts far beyond what Californians consume at the dinner table. Michael

Dimock, ROC's president, explains that " in essence, sustainable farming is

producing crops and livestock using methods that neither exploit the working

people on the farms nor degrade resources like soil and water to a degree that

prevents continuous food production. "

Indeed, true sustainability isn't just about food and soil. As Gail Feenstra, a

food systems analyst for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

Program at the University of California, Davis, says: " A sustainable food system

must be economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially just. "

Particularly when it comes to the human factor, Feenstra cautions against the

marginalization of the working class—whether the " working class " refers to the

laborers toiling in unsafe fields and slaughterhouses, or the inner-city

families struggling to gain access to the same nutritional food enjoyed by the

patrons of the typical farmers market.

Bringing about this revolution in California's food system by 2030 is an

audacious goal, but recently, the California Department of Food and Agriculture

chose to adopt the same target to coordinate its AG Vision programs, which

include progressive stewardship, water conservation, and renewable energy

projects.

" You change the production of food overnight. It's about paying the real cost of

food, it's about putting the money up front instead of having to pay for

people's health care out back. " —Alice Waters

Of course, these ideas aren't altogether new. The Berkeley restaurant Chez

Panisse—a temple to the locavore ethos—introduced sustainable eating to

California (and the nation) in 1971, and the movement has reached something of a

fever pitch in recent years. Alice Waters, chef of Chez Panisse—and, in many

ways, the voice of the sustainable food movement as a whole—believes that

creating a sustainable food system by 2030 is possible. For Waters, the key to

realizing that goal would be a greater investment in food education. Creating a

new generation of educated eaters could create a huge market for local foods.

" We need to educate the children from kindergarten, " Waters says. " Twenty

percent of the population is in school—we're talking about buying power.

Waters also suggests bringing not only food education, but sustainable food

itself, into schools. " Chez Panisse only feeds five hundred [people per day] and

think of what we've done. The Berkeley school system alone feeds ten thousand

[people per day]. You change farming overnight, the production of food

overnight. It's about paying the real cost of food, it's about putting the money

up front instead of having to pay for people's health care out back. "

Dimock concurs. " In the last fifty years we have created an expectation that

food should be cheap. Our expectation of cheap food has harmed us because it has

forced us to externalize the costs on labor, on the environment, and on our

health. We have to realize that internalizing the true costs of food production

are going to make for a healthier planet. "

The key, then, according to Dimock, Waters, and others, is education. " What the

city has is money, markets, and policy power, " says Dimock. " What the

countryside has is stewardship over all the resources that the city needs to

survive: water, food, land, and renewable energy production. The city and the

country are totally interlinked, and the more each becomes conscious of the

other, the more stability the entire civilization has. "

Steve Lyle, of the CDFA, also stresses the importance of educating the public

about the system, " by connecting individuals to agriculture, [the food we eat]

through school gardens, farmers markets, farm tours and county agricultural

fairs. " Through such a process, Lyle predicts a strong and viable future for

California's agricultural model.

In the 150 years since the advances of the industrial revolution were brought to

America's farms, agriculture has become an enormous and enormously powerful

business, contributing $130 billion to the economy in 2008. Thus far, this

engine has maximized profits and cheap calories at the expense of health, food

security, and our natural resources. Now, the time for cultivating our nation's

health through sustainable farming seems to be gaining currency, even at the

highest levels. The White House has now announced plans for its own vegetable

garden.

Waters finds this encouraging. For some time, she has been focused on the White

House for its symbolic and legislative power to influence food. " I think what

Barack and Michelle Obama say and do will be understood by everybody in this

country, " she says, " and they are beginning to say it, and they are beginning to

do it, and it's a beautiful thing. "

So will California be sustainably farmed in 2030? Maybe. The single biggest

hurdle to making California a sustainable agricultural system is a general lack

of understanding of our food system. But that understanding is growing.

Ultimately, such an emerging food system hinges upon a growing market of

consumers that actually put their money where their mouths are. This doesn't

have to be a painful process, but can provide a national reawakening to our

Jeffersonian roots—after all, it was our third president who first and foremost

saw us as a nation of farmers.

Dimock thinks that now is the time for national investment in our collective

food future. " Our culture decided a long time ago that there is room for public

investment: We did it for watersheds, we did it for trains and highways, we've

done it for education, and we need to do it in a better way for the food system.

… We've already invested in cheap food, in cheap calorie production, now we just

need to make an investment in healthy food and agriculture instead. " It's an

evolving process, but one that we can influence by eating seasonally; by

thinking more about provenance before we consider the call of those winter

blueberries

http://www.good.is/?p=16439