If what we have been saying for many years is true, namely
            that industrial food production does not give nutritious,
            healthy food, then it is normal that consumers eventually
            feel the lack of nutrition and go for something better.
          c0e433b1-b084-19a6-600b-d6531c9c1a2d@lobo.net"
            type="cite">
            Food Liberation: Why the Food Movement
              Is Unstoppable 
            http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37564-food-liberation-why-the-food-movement-is-unstoppable
            
             
            Over the long run of history, the most effective
              opponents of excessive wealth and privilege have not
              normally been city dwellers, workers or unions. Instead,
              they have usually been those with close links to food and
              the land, what we would now identify as the food movement.
            Even today, in more than a few countries, food is the
              organizing principle behind the main challengers of
              existing power structures. In El Salvador, the national
              coordinator of its Organic Agriculture Movement (MAOES) is
              Miguel Ramirez who recently explained:
            
              We say that every square meter of land that is worked
                with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it
                as a tool to transform farmers' social and economic
                conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the
                unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that
                oppresses farmers.
            
            According to Ramirez, the Salvadoran
                organic agriculture movement wants much more than
                improved farming. It is seeking enhanced political
                rights, long-term ecological sustainability, social
                equity and popular health. Ramirez calls it "this
                titanic but beautiful struggle, to reclaim the lives of
                all Salvadorans."
            They may be small farmers, but they have a grand
              ambition. This ambition is even shared worldwide. But how realistic
              is it? Are they right to imagine food and farming are the
              missing vehicle for transformative social change?
            The question is timely. Not long ago, The New York Times
              asserted that the center aisles of US supermarkets are being called "the morgue"
              because sales of junk food are crashing; meanwhile, an
              international consultant told Bloomberg magazine that
              "there's complete paranoia" at major food companies where
              food movements are being taken very seriously.
            Food movements are rapidly growing across the world. In
              the US alone, there have been surges of interest in
              heirloom seeds, in craft beers, in traditional bread
                and baking, in city garden plots, in organic food
              and in opposition to GMOs. Simultaneously, there has been
              a massive growth of interest in food on social media and the initiation or
              renewal of institutions, such as Slow Food USA and the Grange movement, to name just a
              few.
            Even at the normally much quieter farming end of the food
              value chain, agribusiness has had to resort to buying up "independent" academics and social media
                supporters to boost the case for GMOs and
              pesticides.
            All of a sudden, individuals all over the globe are
              scrutinizing the products and processes of the food
              system.
            The Direction of the Food Movement
            The food movement has a unique philosophy. Unlike all
              other systems of Western thought, its philosophy is based
              on a biological understanding of the world. It seeks to
              replace political and economic ideologies deeply embedded
              in our culture with a biologically-inspired imperative
              which fulfills the need to align human needs with the
              needs of ecosystems and habitats. It is a philosophy which
              recognizes that our planetary problems and our social
              problems are really the same problem and seeks to
              transform our relationships with each other and with the
              natural world accordingly.
            For this reason, the food movement is unexpectedly
              radical. Its philosophy exposes longstanding weaknesses in
              some of the most fundamental ideas underpinning Western
              political establishments. So, while neoliberalism and
              socialism are ideological variants of enlightenment
              thought, the food movement is concerned with erasing (at
              least so far as is possible) all ideologies
              because all ideologies are, at bottom, impediments to an
              accurate understanding of the world.
            This philosophy is apparent in five of its most notable
              qualities:
            1) The food movement is a leaderless movement
            The food movement has no formal leaders. Even the most
              famous members of the movement -- such as Frances Moore
              Lappé, Vandana Shiva, Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan --
              do not set goals, give orders or decide on the movement's
              tactics. These individuals are not power-brokers but
              rather sources of inspiration. The food movement is a
              social movement that is organic, anarchic and self-organized.
              It is a food swarm, and the absence of formal leadership
              within it is not a sign of weakness but of strength.
            2) The food movement is a grassroots movement
            The food movement is also unusually inclusive. It is
              composed of the urban and the rural, the rich and the
              poor, of amateurs and experts, of home cooks and celebrity
              chefs, farmers and gardeners, parents and writers, the
              employed and the unemployed. There is no upper limit to
              membership of the food movement. It is not defined in
              opposition to anything -- it would include the whole world
              if it could -- and so there is no essential sense in which
              it is exclusive. Exclusivity is often the Achilles heel of
              social movements, but though its opponents have tried to label it as elitist, for good
              reasons, they have not succeeded. Granted, Prince Charles
              is a very enthusiastic member, but so too are hip hop artists from Oakland, the landless peasant movement of Brazil,
              the instigators of the Mexican soda tax and the urban
                agriculture movements of Detroit, Chicago and
              Cleveland. Such groups are neither elite nor elitist. The
              food movement reaches across class lines. It is indeed
              beyond grassroots.
            3) The food movement is international
            The food movement is international and multilingual. In
              each locality it assumes different forms. The Campaign for
              Real Ale, Via Campesina, the Zapatistas, Slow Food and Europe's anti-GMO movement are very
              different, but instead of competing or quarreling, there
              are remarkable overlaps of purpose and vision between the
              parts. This was on display at last winter's British Oxford Real Farming Conference where
              food producers and good food advocates from all over the
              world shared stages and perspectives and the effect was to
              complement and inspire each other.
            4) The food movement is low-budget
            The fourth distinguishing characteristic of the food
              movement is that it has little money behind it. Despite
              efforts by corporations, such as the Walmart Foundation,
              to sway the movement's direction through multimillion-dollar donations to the
              Food Research and Action Center and Feeding America, on
              the whole, the movement owes little to philanthropic
              foundations or billionaire backers. Instead, it consists
              overwhelmingly of amateurs, individuals and small groups
              and whatever money they possess has followed, not led
              them. This is an indication that the food movement is
              spontaneous, vigorous and internally driven.
            5) The food movement has many values
            The food movement has multiple values and many component
              parts. It integrates concerns about human health, animal
              welfare, agricultural sustainability, ecological
              sustainability, food justice, political empowerment and
              more.
            The Philosophy and Synergy of the Food Movement
            The food movement embodies a profound philosophical
              shift.
            The narrative dominating international food policy,
              especially post-1945, has been that food is a commodity (when it is not a weapon) and
              agriculture is a business. This conceptualization of food
              is an ideological extension of the current dominant
              Western philosophy, which is atomistic and mechanistic, so
              that in the formal and official worlds of business,
              government, the law and education, phenomena are assumed
              to be unconnected until proven otherwise.
            This ideology allows the agriculture "industry" in the US
              to be exempt from most anti-pollution legislation and for
              doctors not to be educated in nutrition. This ideology
              also values the health requirements and food needs of one
              species (humans) -- and usually just a few of those --
              above that of all other organisms.We are thus surrounded
              in everyday life by institutions and practices whose
              founding rationale is the ideology of disconnection.
            In contrast, the food movement believes in something very
              different: that the purpose of life is health and that the
              optimal and most just way to attain human health is to
              maximize the health of all organisms, with one of the most
              effective ways to do that being through food.
            This belief system is derived from practical experience.
              The food movement has internalized certain observations,
              such as the potential of compost to improve crop growth
              and soil function, the human health benefits of a varied
              diet, and the successes of numerous farming systems in the
              absence of synthetic inputs. It also has noted apparent
              powerful connections between health, agriculture, animal
              welfare and the environment. These connections allow for
              the existence of a virtuous circle in which the most
              ecologically healthy farms generate foods that are the
              healthiest and the tastiest. These farms are also the most
              productive. (For US examples, see here, and for an example from
              rice, see here.)
            Food philosophy thus replaces the neo-Darwinist narrative
              of life-as-competition with the idea that life thrives in
              the presence of other life. There is perfectly good
              evidence for this -- we know, for example, that the tens
              of millions of species on Earth are interdependent. Plants
              and algae excrete oxygen, which all animals need. Animals
              eat plants and algae, but excrete nitrogen and phosphorus,
              which all plants and algae need.
            Similarly, all biological organisms are, in fact,
              self-optimizing and self-repairing systems. They therefore
              tend to maximize their own robustness and health unless,
              as unfortunately but commonly occurs, they are actively
              prevented from doing so by a limited environment or a
              deficient diet.
            The Origins of Food Philosophy
            This food philosophy has three notable antecedents. One
              is philosopher Peter Singer's famous anti-speciesism
              argument from his book, Animal Liberation: that
              humans have a duty of care towards all animals,
              with the crucial difference being that the food movement
              extends Singer's argument to all organisms, not just
              higher animals.
            The second precedent is Gaia theory, which proposes that
              life forms create and enhance their own living conditions.
              The main difference being that food philosophy applies
              this thesis to every scale, notably to soils and to
              landscapes.
            The third precedent is Barry Commoner and his four laws
              of ecology. His second and third laws are consistent with
              food philosophy. However, Commoner's first law:
              "Everything is connected to everything else" needs
              modification. The reason is that all things are not
              connected equally -- most connections occur through food.
              Commoner's fourth law, "There is no such thing as a free
              lunch," is flatly contradicted by the virtuous circle of
              the food movement. All ecological systems generate
              synergies, and synergies between organisms are essentially
              free lunches; that is why species diversity and biological
              productivity on Earth have risen over the eons.
            Food philosophy, therefore, represents a major split from
              post-enlightenment philosophy in its vision of life and
              biology. It doesn't ask, as Descartes did, What does
                rational thought reveal about how we should live?
              It asks: What does nature reveal about how we should
                live?
            We might thus summarize food philosophy as follows:
            (1) Biological interactions allow synergisms of
              individual health and system productivity, which can be
              taken advantage of in good farming.
            (2) Biological interactions occur primarily through food,
              which represents the chemical energy running through the
              system.
            Implications of Food Philosophy for the Food
                Movement
            The attitudes of the food movement reflect this
              philosophy. Since the philosophy is universal,
              constructive, inclusive, flexible and nonviolent, so is
              the movement. For example, whereas people outside of the
              food movement tend to see the issues of human health, food
              quality, animal welfare and ecological and agricultural
              sustainability as concerns to be solved separately (if at
              all), those inside the food movement are likely to see
              them as connected and therefore insoluble except together.
            Consequently, alliances between individuals and between
              organizations can and do form around common goals, and the
              food movement emerges as a synergy between issues formerly
              identified as distinct, channeling a vast reservoir of
              positive social energy in consistent directions.
            Being guided by a food philosophy causes its members to
              use whatever resources are at hand in the most appropriate
              manner. They do not await orders. They develop arguments,
              write letters, make calls, avoid products, share
              information and so on, wherever they perceive the need or
              opportunity to be greatest, just as the workers of an ant
              or bee colony do whatever job appears in front of them
              without explicit instructions. To the multinational
              corporations who are its targets, movement activity may
              feel like a piranha feeding frenzy. Blood is scented;
              arguments are sharpened; protests register on social
              media; more attackers arrive; the target howls;
              opportunistic journalists pile in (and maybe some
              legislators too), until finally the target agrees to
              amend, label or remove the offending product, ingredient
              or publication. These are food swarms and they are what
              direct democracy looks like. Similarly, a government can
              instruct people that irradiated or GMO food is safe to
              eat. But it cannot make them eat it.
            Resistance based on food logic is always likely to beat
              enlightenment logic when the subject is food because it is
              both rational and relatively easy for the people to form
              their own opinions and spend their money elsewhere. The
              food system is perhaps the one domain where the people
              retain this power, certainly more than they do in any
              other domain of public life.
            The successes of the food movement are now sufficiently
              evident so that major parts of the old environmental
              movement, plus the health and wellness movements, and even
              parts of the labor movement have begun to reframe their
              activities as coming from a food system perspective. Some
              have largely migrated into the food movement altogether.
              For example, the Coalition
                of Immokalee Workers is much better known to the
              public and has been more successful through its
                food connections than through its union ones. To a
              significant degree, once-separate social movements are
              converging to become branches of the food movement.
            In other words, food is a highly successful rallying
              point. It serves well because food is not only a
              conceptual framing for much of human affairs
              that is strongly distinct from the standard enlightenment
              framings of economics and social Darwinism, but also
              because it acts as a potent organizing principle for
              individuals to act around. The frame used by the food
              movement precisely reflects the key biological reality
              that a universal daily requirement of all humanity is
              food. And the same is true for other species. Thus, our
              good food also needs good food, and so on ad (almost)
                infinitum. Anyone who adopts that devastating logic
              has a huge advantage, not only in understanding how the
              world really works, but also in acting on that
              information.
            How Will the Food Movement Impact Society?
            Ideas are the currency of power. Philosopher Peter Singer
              wrote Animal Liberation in 1975. It
              spawned the international animal rights movement and drove
              society-wide debates on the human usage of animals for
              research and in agriculture. Forty years later, the
              increasing popularity of veganism shows his ideas are
              still gathering momentum. Singer's achievement was to show
              that enlightenment thinkers had attempted to rationalize
              -- rather than ditch -- the concept of human
              exceptionalism, which dated back at least to the Bible's
              authorization of the dominion of "man" over the Earth. At
              a stroke, Singer destroyed the arguments for treating
              animals badly and provided a perfect example of how
              enlightenment rationalizations have functioned to
              constrain modern thought, and most particularly, the human
              potential to do good.
            Because they go far beyond our treatment of sentient
              animals and extend to all organisms, the implications of
              food philosophy are significantly more profound and
              far-reaching than those of Peter Singer. Food philosophy
              is an intellectual key to overthrowing mechanistic
              reductionist society. To the many individuals who suspect
              that enlightenment thought is the engine driving our
              societies over an ecological cliff, food philosophy offers
              the conceptual way out, and just as the food movement is
              feeding and growing as a consequence of its philosophy, so
              also the expansion of the food movement will in turn
              enable this philosophy to challenge existing political
              systems.
            In just this way, enlightenment thinkers laid the
              groundwork for a meritocratic and commercial society to
              replace feudalism and their ideas justified the necessary
              concepts that the founders of the new society came to rely
              on: mechanization, individualism and competition.
              Nowadays, their ideas are used for preserving this order,
              even as the intellectual flaws of that understanding are
              increasingly manifesting as ecological crises, not least
              in the form of global climate change -- a crisis that the
              food movement could play a critical role in addressing.
            Confronting Climate Change
            The food movement did not come together to solve the
              issue of climate change but many in the food movement
              believe they have the tools to largely solve the problem.
              The reasons are simple. First, perhaps as much as 50
              percent of all greenhouse gas emissions result from the activities of the
                industrial food sector. Secondly, carbon can easily
              be removed from the air and stored in soil and in the process create the type of soil actively
              desired by organic and agroecological farmers. These
              farmers are still developing their techniques for carbon
              sequestration, but anecdotal evidence suggests that soil
              sequestration can combine with food production to store
              many tons of carbon per acre per year. Thus, as a recent report suggests, the
              food system desired by the food movement can make our
              atmospheric carbon problem manageable and perhaps solve it
              completely.
            The leaders of the mainstream climate movement, however,
              seem to believe climate solutions must be technical or
              social, but windmills, solar power, electric cars, dams,
              divestment, and infrastructure protests are largely
              symbolic actions. Unlike reducing demand for energy by
              reforming and localizing the food system or storing carbon
              in soil, they do not necessarily reduce overall use of
              fossil fuels and do nothing to prevent the loss of
              greenhouse gases from ecosystems. Worse, as
              resource-inefficient ways of generating and storing
              energy, technofix solutions have the effect of increasing
              other forms of pollution.
            Hopefully sooner, rather than later, the well-meaning but
              misled climate movement will come to understand the error
              of singling out individual forms of pollution, like carbon
              dioxide or methane, and become the next social movement to
              join the food liberation movement.
            In any event, the food movement is going to continue to
              grow, and its vision will force a social and intellectual
              transformation of our society. The benefits of this
              transformation will be immense.
            
            
            
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