The current global food system is a system of power, discrimination, and corruption. It has been shaped by our politics, economics, and society. The food system is taking a toll on everyone's’ lives, but mostly on those who are vulnerable and have very little power. But there is a Food Justice Movement (FJM) that fights against this food system through hundreds of organizations that work towards all kinds of different forms of justice. Many problems lie within the food system, but in my paper I am going to be highlighting some of the food system problems that I see my food organization fighting against. These problems are the unsustainability of the food system, the hourglass figure that it has created, and the problems of production and distribution.
The organization that I chose to work with and study is the CUE Farm here at Butler. I currently intern with the CUE farm so my internship and this class tie together extremely well. I work about six hours a week on the farm learning the agroecological side of the farm as well as the market side of the farmers stands on Thursdays. I get to talk to Farmer Tim on a weekly basis about how they maintain a environment-friendly farm that produces food for the farm stand and the CSA (community supported agriculture) program. While the CUE Farm is technically a project for the university and students, it has taught a lot of people about the benefits of small-scale, sustainable farming.
The CUE farm is a small, one-acre farm at Butler University managed by the Center for Urban Ecology (CUE). While the CUE Farm’s direct mission is not serve to those in need of food, it is still a great example of a local, sustainable farm that provides fresh food to its local community members. The main missions of the CUE farm are to provide education about sustainable agriculture and the local food system to students of Butler and its community members. It is also a resource for many different kinds of research for students and faculty. Something that the CUE Farm deems really important is transparency. They want its customers, community members, and Butler students and faculty to see everything that goes on at the farm from the labor to sales. The CUE Farm provides jobs, internships and volunteer opportunities to Butler students and faculty/staff and local community members. They receive their funds from their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, weekly farm stands, sales at local restaurants and grocery stores, and a grant from the National Science Foundation.
While the global food system is large and strong, the FJM is fighting against it with the help of local organizations everywhere. Also, not all organizations that assist in FJM are food groups. For example, economic justice groups, animal rights groups, immigrant rights groups, and more all assist in the FJM in different ways (Gottlieb and Anupama, 2013). They are all different and all have their own mission, but they are all crucial. The CUE Farm mostly operates to educate which is extremely important because it is difficult to debate and protest against the food system if you are uneducated on its issues in the first place. While change is often seen as being at higher levels within the government and policy making, local pressure is needed in order to get these policies put in place that will change the global food system.
One of the big problems within the global food system is that it is not sustainable and it is destroying our environment. Agriculture is one of the largest contributors to climate change. “Agriculture, deforestation, and other land use account for roughly 20% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.” (Colombo, et al.) All over the world, countries are cutting down forests and burning trees to make more space for monoculture farms. This includes corn, soy, and livestock farms. Deforestation is harming the ecosystem and its biodiversity as well as releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Also, once a farm becomes so large, it needs large machines to maintain it and these machines also need gas to run and then release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Another negative aspect of a large-scale farm is that large amounts of fertilizer are often used as well as pesticides and herbicides to manage pests and weeds. One of the aspects of the CUE Farm is that it is a small-scale agroecological farm where Tim mimics nature, which means no large-scale machines, chemicals, or large amounts of waste.
I have seen and gotten to talk with Tim and Dr. Angstmann about all the different ways that the farm practices sustainability. As an agroecological farm, the two main focuses are soil quality and biodiversity. Many of the large-scale farms within our food system have destroyed the soil it is on as well as wiped out any animal and insect biodiversity that was there. In order to have good soil quality and soil diversity, Tim uses crop rotation, cover crops, and does not till his beds. This allows for maximum soil nutrients within the beds as well as pest and weed management. This is how Tim is able to avoid using pesticides and herbicides unlike large-scale monoculture farms. Biodiversity is important on the farm because it helps with resiliency against weather, pests, and weeds as well as contributing to a balance within the ecosystem. Another benefit of biodiversity on the farm is that it provides pollinators and predatory insects that help minimize pests (Angstmann 2018).
We also compost down at the farm. We take vegetable scraps or “ugly” produce that does not get put out at the farm stand or in the CSA boxes and add it to the compost pile. Then we add straw and leaves in between. The greens and veggies are rich in nitrogen while the straw and leaves are rich in carbon making a great fertilizer for the beds. This way we are making our waste useful and participating in a circular form of farming.
In the book we read, Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel, we were introduced to the “Hourglass Figure” of the global food system. Patel describes the food system as an hourglass figure where at the top there are very large numbers of farmers, at the bottom are large numbers of consumers, and in the middle are the gatekeepers between the two. The gatekeepers are the food processors, distributors, chemical industries, seed sellers, retailers, and etcetera. While there are more farmers and consumers than there are gatekeepers, they have more power and control because they have more money, experts, and say in decision making. These gatekeepers destroy the relationship between farmers and consumers and consumers are becoming so used to not knowing where their food came from or what it is made out of that they no longer seem to care. A lot of urban farmers focus on connecting with their consumers because they know this connection is so rare and unique now.
As I had mentioned earlier, the CUE Farm believes in transparency and having its customers connect with the farm and see where their food is being grown. The farm stand that is held every Thursday is down at the farm, so customers get exposed to the farm. When they are exposed to the farm, they ask a lot more questions that if they did not see it. Customers ask us things like “What are you growing this season?”, “How did you grow this?”, “What is this vegetable? What can I make with it?” I have made a lot of new relationships with our customers and it makes me realize why Tim refuses to have the farm stand at a more central location on campus. When people get to connect with the farm, food, and the farmer, they learn more about the foods and can see the benefits of an efficient, small-scale farm.
Another way that the CUE Farm connects to its consumers and observers is through education. One of the core focuses of the CUE Farm is educating people on sustainable agriculture and the local food system. It provides jobs, internships, and volunteer opportunities for people to get educated and involved in sustainable agriculture. The farm also gives tours to students of all ages, adults within the food system, and other groups of people. Many classes use the CUE Farm for projects or research. Some of these classes are more biology based, other are environmental studies focused, and others are directly studying the food system. Regardless, it is allowing for more participation, interaction, and increase in awareness of what the CUE Farm is doing. While it may be educating students on more specific empirical data, it also introduces them to this broader concept of urban farming and why it is important.
Something that stood out to me in Michael Pollan’s book, Omnivore’s Dilemma, was when Joel Salatin refused to send his meat through mail to Pollan because it goes against his farming lifestyle beliefs. The global food system has been wiping out local economies for years because huge grocery stores get brought into towns and bring it food from across the world instead of buying it from local farmers. The food system is not interested in local products, they are interested in the cheapest products. This way of production and distribution allows consumers to get whatever food they want during whatever season it is and it destroys the idea of “seasonal foods”. The CUE Farm and other urban farms highly value seasonal fruits and vegetables as well as providing food for their local community. You won’t find many small-scale urban farms that will ship their strawberries to another country that doesn’t have them in season.
At the CUE Farm, Tim provides produce for our local community members at the farm stand, by selling it local restaurants, and through the CSA program. Tim is in contact with different chefs in Broad Ripple and Indianapolis who are interested in buying fresh, seasonal produce from local farmers. Our CSA program provides seasonal vegetables for its members every week for 21 weeks. All of our CSA members live nearby and are contributing to “buying local”. The more obvious pro is that it is good, stable source of revenue for the farm each year, but a less obvious pro is the relationships created between the customers and the farmer as well as others who work on the farm. Another pro is that the CSA program gives exposure to the urban farm environment as well as education on what we are doing and how we do it. One of the cons is that the CUE Farm can typically only have about 20 CSA members and the farm stand is fairly small. If we expanded, so would the production and distribution and we would start to lose some of the values of the small-scale farm. To have a more efficient food system, we need a lot of small-scale farms evenly distributed throughout communities rather than a few large scale farms. Another issue that we face with our CSA program is that every year our members are almost all white, middle to upper class citizens. This is because the price of the CSA program is to be paid upfront and a lot of families cannot afford to do that. But the CUE Farm’s mission is not to serve directly to those in need, there are other farms for that. The CUE Farm focuses on education and modeling a successful small, urban farm, which still contributes to the goals of the Food Justice Movement.
The Food Justice Movement (FJM) is a movement that is fighting against the global food system. It is doing this with three main goals in mind. The first is that they want to challenge and restructure the dominant food system as well as create alternatives. Secondly, it wants to provide a core focus on equity and disparities of those most vulnerable. Lastly, it is working to establish common goals with other forms of social justice activism/advocacy. (Gottlieb and Joshi, ix) The FJM is a local, grassroots movement that requires a lot of local activism and advocacy. It requires that people in communities fight against the system to gain food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is the right to produce and consume your food of choice as well as decide your food and agricultural policies. Many different organizations make up the FJM such as economic justice, environmental concerns, immigrants rights groups, anti-globalization, animal rights, education advocacy, and health organizations. The FJM believes it takes all of these different organizations to fight against the global food system.
The CUE Farm contributes to FJM’s first goal. It challenges the dominant food system by directly connecting with its consumers and avoiding gatekeepers. It has also created alternatives to the common intake of Americans: processed and preserved foods. Vegetables and fruit take up a very little portion of our plates during mealtime, and when they do, they have typically been preserved in some way because they are from the other side of the world. The CUE Farm provides seasonal vegetables and fruits as an alternative to this.
But in the same way that the FJM is made up of different organizations, the small-scale farms and organizations have different missions that work together to fight against the food system. Focusing just on small-scale urban farms, they are like an ecosystem. They are all different with different missions that are vital to the ecosystem. If you take away something, it will affect the rest of the ecosystem. For example, I have interviewed and worked with many different urban farmers through my internship and I have learned that some are more education focused, some are market based, some serve directly to those in need, and some serve to those who have the means to make higher-level change in the system. The ecosystem of all the different farms would not work properly if every single one gave to those in need. All people affecting by the global system need attention from these farms and organizations.
Throughout this paper I have addressed a few of the key issues within the global food system and the ways the CUE Farm confronts and provides alternatives to these issues. Our food system is extremely unsustainable and is greatly contributing to global warming. Being an agroecologically-focused farm, the CUE Farm practices sustainability through soil diversity, animal and insect biodiversity, and composting. Within the food system there is the hourglass figure that represent how gatekeepers of the food system disconnect consumers from their foods and the farmers of their foods. Farmer Tim cares a lot about connecting with its consumers and connecting them with their foods and the farm as well as educating them. Lastly, the food system’s production and distribution destroys local economies as well as distributes non-nutritional, processed, and preserved food. The CUE Farm supports local restaurants and provides fresh, whole, seasonal foods for local community members living nearby. But the CUE Farm cannot solve all of the problems within the Global Food System and that is why the Food Justice Movement exists. The FJM connects all kinds of different organizations to fight against our current food system to gain environmental justice, food justice, and human rights. Different organizations within different missions contribute to the bigger picture of justice and equality, which means different things for different people. Local participation and activism in organizations around you is the first step towards equality and justice for all people.
References
Angstmann, Julia. Personal Interview. October, 2018.
Colombo, Barrett, et al. “How Does Agriculture Change Our Climate?” Environmental Reports, http://www.environmentreports.com/how-does-agriculture-change/
Gottlieb, Robert and Anupama, Joshi. 2013. Food Justice. MIT Press.
Patel, Raj. 2012. 2nd Ed. Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Melville House.
Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Books.
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