Food - A Prime Focus for Civic Engagment

How can food be a focus for elderlearning with any room for civic engagement?

FOOD IMPACT

• Water, land, and soil - our environment
  - High usage of fossil fuels is required to sustain modern practices.
  - Depletion of water and soil is a known fact in the U.S.
• Life and death - our health
  - The obesity epidemic has reached global proportions.
  - The dollars spent on medicines, healthcare, and research into cancer and heart disease have skyrocketed as our attention (time/money/knowledge) to nourishing food has diminished.
• Poverty - our justice
  - Too many farmers, food processors, and their families live in poverty - in America.
  - Our national government and business strategies destroy the sustainability of local economies in foreign communities.
  - Those in poverty must fight harder to be healthy.
• Isolation and Brokenness - our community life
  - Modern ways of food preparation and eating isolate people rather than bring them together.
• Cruelty and Oppression - our selfishness
  - Farm and factory workers in America and around the globe face low wages and oppressive working conditions.
  -Animals experience inhumane treatment for the sake of cheap (unhealthy) meat and dairy products.

Ideas taken from:
Moreland, Rachel Miller. Simply in Season: Leader's Study Guide. Herald Press: Scottdale, PA. 2006.

GLOBAL
La Via Campesina - the international peasant movement - reports 100,000 farmers of India died by suicide since 1993. A high proportion of farmers live in areas dominated by genetically engineered seeds. La Campesina mobilizes hundreds of thousands of farmers across the globe to gain back food sovereignty in a world becoming increasing dominated by a decreasing number of huge multi-national companies.

NATIONAL
Community Supported Agriculture - Farmers across America who are not willing to destroy the goodness of their land with industrial agricultural practices developed Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as a viable way of life. Families in nearby towns and cities support a farm with money, skills, or labor to receive a share of its freshly picked, organic produce.

LOCAL - Nashville, TN
Truth and Reconciliation Project - Focusing their energies on sustainable food and energy practices, these visionaries are jumpstarting change in our city with their grassroots approach. Believing that everyone in our city should share in the bounty of our food, they have mobilized hundreds of people and many businesses to bring farm fresh produce to elders, children, and individuals with disabilities. One of their projects brought five young men together to learn about the local food cycle, partner in building a community garden, and develop cooking and sharing skills. In 2007, they plan to rennovate a nearby home for energy sustainability and its yard as a community garden.

Earth Matters Networks - "Mission: We are a dynamic team of earth educators, from various backgrounds, dedicated to growing healthier neighborhoods thru GRACE.... Gardens... Recycling... Advocacy/Action... Composting... Education...." What a gift to our neighborhoods! Gardens right in the midst of our urban areas and energy to spread the word about the truth of a better way to live.

IMPACT OF FOOD
Most of us have no idea how significantly food choices alter our existence as a community. Simply in Season highlights the power of modern agricultural practices in relationship to traditional/community supported practices.

Impact of Modern Agriculture

Depletes our water sources by using much more water than drip irrigation requires.

Depletes soil, erodes soil, and deteriorates the workforce of farmers through the prevalent practice of monoculture (one-crop) farming.

Increased the use of poisonous pesticides by ten since 1940 even though pest damage also increased since that time.

Destines our globe to the unknown risks of genetically modified foods.

Colonizes developing nations and oppresses the poorest laborers by patenting life and forbidding farmers to use their own seeds, requiring them to depend on multi-national corporations for their survival.

Impact of Traditional/Community Supported Practices

• Preserving the genetic diversity of crops (growing many species rather than one or two):
  • Wisely cares for what our Creator entrusted to us,
  • Understands that all species are related in a closed system (no new life or energy will enter),
  • Keeps open the healing and nourishing possibilities of unexplored species,
  • Does not open the option of a disease of one species forcing a famine on entire countries.
  
  
• Supporting local or small farmers builds some of the poorest communities in our country without handing out charity.


• Supporting sustainable agriculture pursues growing “enough safe, healthy food for all of us.” Practicing sustainable agriculture cares for the soil, water, air, and wildlife, demands economic viability, and nurtures the quality of life of food producers and the rest of our community.

Lind, Mary Beth and Cathleen Hockman-wert. Simply in Season. Mennonite Central Committee. 2005.