Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Day 22: On Food Security

As Michael Pollan so clearly points out in this article published in the New York Times earlier this month, the US is rapidly approaching a food crisis. The days not only of big oil and big meat, but of big corn and big soy are rapidly spiraling into the same deregulated chaos that the financial markets now find themselves in. We are so removed from our food, Pollan states, that we have created economical sinks across our country; farmers can no longer afford to grow anything but cash crops, and those cash crops don't always pay anyway. The days of local agriculture in our most fertile areas are nearly dead, and this is often at the hands of legislators.

I'm likely preaching to the wrong crowd here, but the most revolutionary acts at this point are the ones that make us more independent in sourcing our food and aid others in doing the same. I tried my hand at gardening this year and found that it doesn't take nearly as much time as I thought it would, and yields a surprising amount of munchables. Victory gardens are returning to fashion, and I'm so down with that.

Check this article on volunteerism and food security while you're reading up.

1 comment:

Bethany said...

the state of food in the US scares me. Though I think the Seattle area is pretty good w/ all the farms we have.

I want to start a garden next year. I am prepping the back yard now. We'll see how far I get before the rain really starts.