Food and consequence

[Guest guest]

http://www.startribune.com:80/commentary/story/1295268.html

 

Wendell Berry: Food and consequence

 

 

Published: July 11, 2007

 

 

Wendell Berry is a celebrated author, an advocate of sustainable

agriculture and himself a small farmer in Kentucky. He was in the Twin

Cities recently to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Land

Stewardship Project, a Minnesota nonprofit that supports small farmers

and environmental stewardship. He spoke with editorial writer Dave

Hage.

Q A few years ago, in an essay about globalization and the economics

of food, you coined the phrases " total economy " and " local economy. "

Can you explain what you meant?

 

A Yes. The total economy is an economy in which people do nothing for

themselves. It's an economy in which they pay for everything; they are

total consumers. A local economy is one that exists by virtue of

people's willingness to take back a certain amount of economic

initiative and do things for themselves. It's a way to recapture

economic choice. It's self-determination.

 

Q Do you see our society today in a struggle between those two?

 

A It's not a struggle yet, but there is a movement toward the local

economy. And it's coming about as a response to people's understanding

of the costs to the world of an economy based entirely on long-

distance transportation. They say that the average distance that food

travels from the field to the dinner plate is 1,500 miles. And this

has a cost in fuel depletion and pollution. It's a part of the

permanent drawdown of necessary resources that are the basis of an

industrial economy.

 

Q There's a good deal of talk today about community-based agriculture

and buying local. Is this significant?

 

A Well, it's the most reasonable thing going on in agriculture. To

shorten the distance as far as possible from the farm to the dinner

plate just makes sense. But it also begins to elevate food in human

culture back up to where it ought to be. We've allowed it to decline

from a kind of sacrament and a kind of center of conviviality, through

commodification, to a kind of stuffing.

 

Q But some people would say, gee, I like having fresh tomatoes in

January, even if they come from Mexico. Does this mean Minnesotans

would get fresh tomatoes only in July?

 

A Yes, but it also means you like them better. (Laughs) Of course

people like to have things out of season. It's part of the general

culture of self-indulgence. If you want a raspberry, why shouldn't you

have a raspberry? But the present economy doesn't give people any idea

of the true cost involved. So, yes, you want the raspberry. The

question is do you want to pay the cost -- in pollution, in the

drawdown of resources, in the damage to the environment?

 

Q You've been writing for a long time about sustainable agriculture.

Do you think the concept is gaining ground?

 

A Yes, no question. The concept is gaining ground. But it's still a

losing side. I mean, who's for it? Where are your champion politicians

who are willing to talk about sustainability? I saw Al Gore's movie --

there's nothing in that movie about sustainability. The assumption is

that we can keep on living the way we're living in an economy that is

necessarily destructive and wasteful, yet somehow make adjustments to

keep the glaciers intact. I think we've got to face the possibility

that the industrial economy is essentially destructive.

 

Q Would that mean going back to the kind of life that our grandparents

led -- where you can your own vegetables and don't fly on airplanes?

 

A Canning vegetables is not a bad idea, and it's not a difficult

science. So, yes, that's a possibility. But we're not going back to

anything. That's not a possibility. Our grandparents lived the way

they did because they knew how, and they were by and large far more

skillful than we are and had better use of their own minds than we do.

But we can't be them.

 

Q Absent leadership from the public sphere, what can an individual do

to bring about a sustainable economy?

 

A Well, it's fairly limited. There's none of us without sin on this --

my wife and I own two vehicles. We live in the country; we have

different duties in different directions. That's just the way it is.

It would make sense in a lot of ways if we didn't have any vehicles,

but the fact of the matter is that my great-grandfather had better

public transportation than I do -- true!

 

But individuals can learn something about their food economy. And the

first thing they learn is how extraordinarily difficult it is to learn

anything about it. If you wanted to find out where your December head

of lettuce came from and what it cost, to the people and the land it

came from, you'd have a hard time. So the next thing they ask, if they

can't find out much about the mainstream food economy, is where can I

find food that I can learn about? And that's your local food economy:

Where can I find a farmer who could sell me a quarter of beef? Where

can I find a farmer's market? How can I join a local community-

supported agriculture enterprise? Or where are the restaurants that

buy from local farmers? Those questions, nearly everywhere in the

United States, now have answers.