THE JUDEVINE MOUNTAIN EMAILITE: A Cyberzine
An On-line and On-going Journal of Politics and Opinion
#49
23 March 2010

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To be interested in food but not in food production is clearly absurd. -- Wendell Berry

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In This Issue:

DAVID'S NOTES AND A COMMENTARY:

REACTIONS TO DAVID'S COMMENTARY

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DAVID'S NOTES 

This is the first of two JME's about food. The second will be along in a couple of weeks. 

On August 10, 2009, I did a commentary for Vermont Public Radio called AFFORDABLE FOOD FOR ALL about the new whole foods movement and who can afford the food and who can't. It looked back on my 40 years as part of the Back to the Land movement here in northern Vermont and asked some questions.

Read the commentary or listen to it (it takes 3:06) at: http://www.vpr.net/episode/46665/ 

The commentary caused a lot of reactions. Here are some of them.

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Reactions to My Commentary of August 2009 

TWO-THIRDS LOCALLY

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CHEAP FOOD AT THE EXPENSE OF GOOD FOOD

Yeah, it's a real problem. But on the other hand, you've gone through many years when you had very little money, and good food was still important to you. So I think part of the problem is a cultural one: how do you get people to spend more of their disposable income on food instead of lots of consumer goodies. I think we used to spend 10% of our income on food many years ago, but spend much less now. Since the 1950s, our agricultural policies have pushed cheap food at the expense of good food, and it's going to be very very hard to change that dynamic.

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A LOT OF EDUCATION NEEDED 

You bring up an important perspective on this movement.  I think that a lot of the Price Chopper customers don't go to the farmers markets because they not only think the prices are higher, but that many do not know how to shop for slow food products or prepare food from scratch.  There is a lot of education needed plus some way to make the slow foods more affordable for all.

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MAYBE IT'S NOT MEANT TO BE

The issue you're addressing, of course, is a tough one, insoluble.  You're looking not only for economic justice, parity, but also, implicitly at least, for everybody to be aware, conscious of nutritional & ecological choices, good taste, & so on--a tall order.  Maybe it's not meant to be?  Human beings being what they are.   

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THE WELL OFF BEING ENTERTAINED WELL AND FED WELL TOO 

Yes, I'd just turned on the radio, doing dishes, and heard this familiar voice. A very tricky idea, I think. We go to farmer's market here every Friday. We are fortunate to have the resources to spend that kind of money and support local folks. It goes farther than food. You may also know, with your performing, I need to find pockets of wealth, so I go to places like Bergen County and along New Jersey's coast with my slide shows. Ends up, we have the well off being entertained well and fed well too. 

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ALL AGES AND MOST ECONOMIC CLASSES 

Yep, we were part of that back to the land resulting in gentrification too.  I remember when the only cheese was "store cheese" and the bread was Wonder.  This town has always been a place of wealth and education, but it seems that the divide is larger than in years past.  Our Sustainable Woodstock effort is looking at all these issues.  One thing, David, I notice that all ages and most economic classes come to our two farmers' markets here. 

THE DELICATE BUT INSISTENT ISSUE OF CLASS 

I do agree that the farmer's market goers are for the most part the affluent class. Norwich is a prime example of that. Though, the question of 'affordability' is a difficult one. Growing, hunting, and foraging your own food, should be everyone's first skills.

And class division is also about culture and attitude, not just economics. Several years ago, I took a workshop on social classes-- the Human Services Agency sponsored it. The instructor said, 'it's wrong to have this assumption that people always aspire for the higher socio-economic class.' She was right, I thought. I am not in the wealthy class, and I don't have any desire to move up to the wealthy class. It's the identity thing.

Another thing I remember from that workshop: what people want from food. The people in the poor class want A LOT of it, to fill the belly. The people in the middle class want it to be TASTY. The people in the wealthy class want it to be PRETTY. (Well, Japanese people might be the exception to this rule. . .)

When I write about Vermont in a Japanese newspaper, it's hard to ignore and at the same time equally hard to articulate, this delicate but insistent issue of class in this country.

THE CONDITIONS OF WORKING PEOPLE

I'm glad you are highlighting the conditions of working people and raising questions about the consequences in relation to the sustainable/healthy food movement.  Growing poverty doesn't allow the means (or even the education) for people to enjoy good food. Cheap mass production of unhealthy food for the masses in the service of big profit is very disturbing.

One book on the topic of inequality that I read at NYU was INEQUALITY MATTERS. It's pretty tame (and I don't agree with their remedies), but still, it has many stats on growing inequality since the end of WW II.

The top 1% had 1500 times the wealth of the bottom 40% in 1983, but they had almost 4400 times the wealth of the bottom 40% in 2001.

In 1960, the gap in terms of wealth between the top 20% and the bottom 20% was 30-fold.  Four decades later it is more than 75-fold. In fact, research from tax return data has revealed that the average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers declined by 7 percent between 1973 and 2000, while the income of the top 1 percent went up 148 percent.

The post-WW II boom, that at least benefited some US workers, is over and global competition just pits workers against workers among nations in a race to the bottom.  All we are left with are more bad paying jobs, more outsourcing to cheap platforms of labor, and a national debt that isn't sustainable.

And as people get paid less and can't buy the products produced, then the system (like the housing market) will continue to implode.

The food part is obviously one connection to this whole mess.

RELOCALIZING VERMONT 

Here's an idea I've been contemplating for awhile, encouraged by Carl Etnier's program on WGDR (http://www.wgdr.org/) in Plainfield, Vermont, called "Relocalizing Vermont," which is to make some of our wonderful field available as gardening plots to folks in Plainfield village who may not have room to garden at their apartments. At no cost, and sharing the overabundance of horse manure we have due to my sister-in-law keeping her horses on our land. And perhaps folks could share seeds, since one packet often has too much for one family gardener.

I just learned that Nancy Chickering, a local emergency room physician and member of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier, as am I, has coordinated community gardens for Montpelier area for nearly 20 years and I'm hoping she can help me move from thought to action. 

Your piece is an additional goad to get moving. 

FARMS TO SCHOOLS 

One answer to your question is: Farms to Schools. More at: http://www.farmtoschool.org All the kids, rich and poor get to eat and garden and prepare and talk to their friends and families...that's good, and that is from the new, young and very smart new breed. And they do a lot of it outside!

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS 

The long-term viability of the localization concept depends on its accessibility to the entire community, and that in turn depends on how well local producers can adapt their unique models to address the specific needs and composition of the communities that they are a part of.  

I think that there is great vision and momentum, but, as with anything, the “devil is in the details” – and the details are what the big discussions need to be focusing on. 

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