The term
“local food” can mean a variety of things and isn’t always a clear-cut
definition. Though Congress attempted to define local food products in the 2008
Farm Bill as:
“those that
are ‘raised, produced, and distributed in the locality or region in which the
final product is marketed, so that the total distance the product is
transported is less than four hundred miles from the origin of the product, or
within the same state where the product is produced’… (though) The distinction
between local and regional food is not always clear (Chase & Grubinger, 2014, p. 19).”
For the purposes of this paper, I
will use a personal definition of “local foods” as ones grown and sold within
the State of Arizona, and “regional foods” as those produced within a 500 mile
radius of the City of Phoenix, where I reside.
As it
currently stands, due to the limited availability of local farmer’s market pop-ups
at times when we are available to shop, the cost of the food found at the pop-ups,
and the convenience of grocery stores within a 3 mile radius of where we
reside, we do not go out of our way to shop local. We frequent the major, multi-state chain market,
Sprouts Farmers Market, to purchase fresher produce at a more convenient time,
and a more reasonable price than the traditional farmer’s market pop-ups that I
have seen around the area. We do not
make a conscious effort to seek out local food beyond supplementing our chain
grocery store purchases with a trip to Sprouts.
Ultimately, my goal is to own my own farm, harvest when in season, and
can (or freeze) and store the harvest for use year-round, but for the meantime,
we go for what is convenient and cheap.
It’s not convenient to chase a pop-up farmer’s market around the valley,
in the early morning hours of a weekday.
After reading the material in this
module, it became a bit clearer to me that there really isn’t a universal
definition for what is and isn’t a local food.
For example, Sprouts is also a health food and organic store, frequently
selling salmon from across the world next to blueberries that were grown just
over the border in Mexico. According to
our text, “Local food is often considered to be a part of sustainable
agriculture, which emphasizes community connections to farming and food systems
(Chase et. al., 2014, p.22).” Yet I
wonder if this is always the case.
At Sprouts, I can purchase produce that
was grown within a 500 mile radius of the market, but I definitely don’t feel a
connection with the farmer, nor do I have a way to verify that the produce was
grown sustainably. There are plenty of
commercial operations producing produce grown locally and regionally, usually
using unsustainable methods. A great
example of this is Romaine Lettuce.
Grown in nearby Yuma, Arizona, it certainly qualifies as locally grown
by my above definition, and I do purchase it regularly, but recent attention on
Yuma lettuce farms, for producing lettuce that contains the E. coli virus,
proved that not all locally grown food is actually sustainably grown as Yuma lettuce
farms are heavy commercial operations, utilizing heavy chemicals, and I have no
attachment to the owner of the farms, the migrant workers who tend the fields
and harvest the crops, or the truck drivers who transport it barely three hours
from field to store.
Pop-up farmer’s markets are always
a rare treat to attend, and I feel a strong connection between the goat cheese
and the goat farmer at these pop-ups.
However, the pop-ups normally occur at times when we are unable to go,
and, though I realize the increase in cost is do to the love and care that this
food gets before it is driven to the pop-up, it is still often out of our
budget. “Meanwhile, smaller local
producers – unable to match the volume and prices of larger, faraway
competitors – have either gone out of business or receive lower profits from
their sales (Food Distribution and Transport, p. 3).” Were I to have free time at 9am on a
Wednesday morning, I am positive I could go to the local pop-up farmer’s market
and purchase premium produce for my family, but these pop-ups normally have
limited hours of operation, frequently change location, and offer a limited
selection of foods. The relative
infrequency of pop-up markets and the early morning hours doesn’t help me when
I need two tomatoes and a head of lettuce for tacos at 7:30pm. And it’s
entirely possible that were I to plan ahead and buy my produce at a pop-up,
that doesn’t always equate to fewer food miles, which is – I feel – the
ultimate goal of the “local food movement.” While technically I am purchasing
local heads of lettuce when I go to my local Kroger, especially in the winter,
the methods used to cultivate that lettuce are a far cry from the sustainable
methods used by local farmers, and the cost is usually less, because it simply
costs less, per capita, to run a commercial operation than a small farm. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the
produce I can buy at a pop-up uses more greenhouse gas emissions than the
commercially grown head of Yuma lettuce.
“Transportation accounts for
roughly 11 percent of the GHG emissions from the U.S. food supply chain (Food
Distribution and Transport, p. 3).” With this important detail, it would appear
that locally grown food from a small, organic farmer would have lower GHG
emissions than the big supply chain.
Yet, as is stated later in the same article:
“Shorter
transport distances do not always equate with less fuel use or fewer GHG
emissions. It is sometimes more efficient to trade with faraway places that
have advantages in producing certain foods. Recent studies found that shipping
diary from New Zealand to the UK, for example, uses less energy and releases
fewer GHG emissions than producing dairy in the UK (p. 4).”
Due to their increased payload, a
truck filled with Yuma lettuce that is headed into Utah might have advantages
when it comes to lowering GHG emissions over the small farmer who drives fewer
miles in less fuel efficient vehicles, to constantly moving pop-up farmer’s
markets.
My current diet contributes
significantly to GHG emissions. We
consume a lot of animal products, which account for a majority of food systems
GHG emissions. And while there will be
fewer food miles getting from the Shamrock Farms dairy processing plant on
Black Canyon Highway to my local grocery store than it would be if I were to
buy milk processed in another state, there is a lot more involved than just how
far the milk traveled, as stated above.
According to the video, “Life Cycle
Assessment of Animal Agriculture (2015),” almost 72% of all GHG
emissions involved with producing a gallon of milk happen before the milk even
gets on the truck to the store (14:11).
There are many factors to consider in the “Cradle-to-Grave” analysis,
such as the methane released by the cows, the chemicals used to produce their
feed, the soil where the feed grows, and even the cooling of the product
(10:57). In research published by Carol
Johnston and Chris Wharton, “foods like peanuts and protein powders were most
efficient at delivering protein with a small environmental cost, while cheeses,
grains, and beef were least efficient (Greguska, 2019).” As omnivores, we consume red meat,
cheese, and grains as a large part of our diet, especially rice which is listed
in the research as a “sometimes” food. I
have known for a long time that the cattle industry is one of the least
sustainable agricultural industries on the market. When we pick up a pound of ground beef at
Kroger, we are contributing to inhumane animal treatment, unsustainable crop
operations needed to feed these mass produced cattle, and GHG emissions. Part of why I got into sustainability is that
I would like to keep eating steak, but at present, the commercial cattle
industry is completely destroying our planet.
When I lived in Las Vegas, I was able to purchase into a cattle farm
co-op to purchase wholesale meat raised in sustainable conditions. Every three months, they would deliver high
quality and sustainably farmed beef, chicken, and pork at an affordable
rate. I’ve yet to find an equivalent in
the Phoenix metropolitan area, but I am very interested in purchasing animal
products from a smaller butcher who has direct access to the farm itself. After all, one of Arizona’s five C’s is
cattle. We have a vested interest in
making sure that the cattle products that we will eventually be able to afford
is farmed sustainably, as cattle does not tend to do very well in the middle of
the desert. Does this change how I
purchase my animal products? I am, at
this point, resigned to supporting an industry whose practices I do not agree
with for the sake of cost, availability, and convenience.
After reviewing the previous
module, we decided to add a few cows to our (purely hypothetical) farm, to
increase the hardiness of the crops, till the land with their stomping, and
enrich the soil with their manure. I
don’t plan to ever give up animal products, but I recognize that picking up
that Styrofoam and plastic prepackaged ground beef and putting it in my cart is
a silent supporting vote for the currently unsustainable Industrial Food Animal
Production (IFAP) practices. But my hope
is that one day I can assist with the development of technology that will not
only maximize profits for “concentrated animal feeding operations” (Food Animal Production), but assist with
making the process more humane (as with “The Grandin Method,” which keeps cows
moving in a rotational pattern to keep them calm as they are led to slaughter),
and less destructive on the environment.
Right now, my options are to buy highly processed plant based meat
replacements for meals, which can often be much more expensive and less
nutrient rich as animal protein (Food Processing, p. 2), or silently support
an industry I fundamentally disagree with because of its impacts on, not just
the planet, but the individual animal welfare.
Right now, I have to save every
penny that I can, and a plant based diet in our price range just wouldn’t be
able to support the nutrients we need the way that commercial animal
agriculture does. When we earn a little
more, we will be better able to endorse with our wallets and support small
business by purchasing meat either through a co-op, like the one in Las Vegas,
or directly from a butcher who has direct access to the cows he will be
processing for my next meal. Later on
down the line, when we establish our small farm to fully sustain ourselves, we
will invest in animals to keep the farm healthy and eventually be slaughtered
and processed by an independent butcher for our meals. This way I know exactly how my steak was
treated before it hit my plate. I know what it ate, I know how it was treated,
and I know its valuable contributions to our family, both as a potential dairy
cow and eventually as processed beef. As
my stakeholder friend, Liz, always says, “Every day of an animal’s life should
be good up until the last one.” That’s
just not the case in CFAO’s.
As proven by the earlier referenced
Yuma lettuce farms, food safety doesn’t just start with a quick spin in water,
a clean knife, and a disinfected cutting board. It starts on the farm.
Currently, the FDA is largely responsible for keeping tabs on industrial farms
to make sure they use tactics to reduce the spread of disease, but the last
time the laws were updated was in 1938 with the FDA Food Safety Modernization
Act (FSMA) (Food Safety Modernization Act, 2013,
0:17). But 1 in 6 people will get
sick of a foodborne illness, and 3,000 people die annually as a result
(1:10). Causes that affect the safe
handling of food from farm to table are animals entering the field, workers
with poor hygiene, and water with pathogens.
In the case of the lettuce farms, food tracing was able to backtrack
thousands of cases of E. coli to poor conditions on the farm. Commercial lettuce farms often hire migrant
workers, many of whom aren’t allowed time for a bathroom break, much less
taught proper food handling methods. The
farms also likely do not use potable water for their crops, as potable water is
a much more expensive purchase than reclamated water, which is often full of
pathogens since it has not been properly sanitized. As a result of the owners’ desires to make as
much money as possible while spending as little money as possible, they put the
public health at risk to turn a profit.
In one documented case described in our text, “one egg company in
particular was well known for repeatedly being fined by state and federal
officials for violating workplace and environmental regulations in several
states, stretching from Maine to Iowa (2014, p. 191).” Given the case of the
egg company that would rather pay millions in fines than clean up their hen
houses, I don’t believe it’s worthwhile to trust the commercial food industry
to care about anything other than profits.
There’s a scene in “Fight Club”
where the Narrator explains to Tyler Durden that if the cost of a recall is
more than the cost of the litigation, they don’t do a recall. I feel that this egg company took a page
right out of that playbook. It is
cheaper for them to continue operations as is, regardless of the health and
safety of the consumer. And
fundamentally, that is the driving force behind most commercial agricultural
companies – profit. As we saw with the
Yuma lettuce, poor working conditions, abuses of the migrants tending the
field, the use of highly toxic chemicals on the plants that cause leukemia in
their workers, the GHG emissions caused by their massive machinery, the soil
erosion of monocropping, using inferior water instead of potable water, and the
other factors that led to the perfect storm of an E. coli outbreak across the
nation, profits are more important than precaution. I personally think the government is
overspent, and there’s very little that the FDA can do to keep a set of eyes on
every food crop grown in this country, and every crop that’s imported. There have been improvements in regulation, but
we can’t be everywhere at once. The American people just wouldn’t fund an expansion
like that, no matter how much it mattered to their health. Much like with Covid-19, food poisoning
generally just causes a few days of feeling under the weather. Far less people die of food borne illness per
year than die by the annual flu. It’s seen
as a non-issue to many Americans, an almost insignificant number of people, a
statistical margin of error, rather than a public health risk worth looking
into. Big business doesn’t want more
eyes on their operations. Americans
don’t want to pay for enough funding to keep us all safe from preventable
illnesses, choosing instead to blame the individual for not washing their
lettuce well enough, instead of inspecting the contaminated water that is
poured onto crops and seeps into the soil.
As to the final question, I was
actually impressed with all of the information on vertical farming and growing
indoors. I had always planned on having
a few greenhouses on my little farm, mostly to grow Bell Peppers, and crops
that otherwise wouldn’t survive in the cold Ohio winter soil. What I hadn’t
considered is that, instead of spending 18-24” of land per Bell Pepper plant,
and then adding in various other crops to fill in the gaps and manage the many
problems that come with growing in the raw land, I could grow the plants in an
indoor vertical farm, virtually eliminating the need for cover crops, staking,
and friendly IPM neighbor plants. This
revolution is how technology is going to revolutionize the agriculture area. In the first video of the module, we’re shown
an indoor vertical farm where the Dutch are growing 35% of their country’s
vegetables on 1% of the land (Could Indoor Farming Help Address Food Shortages?, 2017). Advances in LED lighting, retrofitting unused
urban structures, water delivery technology, and the water cycle are allowing
us to now farm seasonal plants year-round, as is the case with the mushroom
farm. The initial cost can give a bit of
a sticker shock, but once you have the set-up, the possibilities are almost
limitless, well beyond spinach, leafy greens, and mushrooms. If we were to farm on 10 acres, we could save
valuable land space with indoor vertical farms and greenhouses. There are advantages to the traditional
methods of growing, for sure. But with our
population exploding and cleared land becoming a very valuable commodity,
indoor vertical farming provides a solution to the most perplexing problems of
my little Ohio farm: that of preserving habitat for native wildlife, while
preventing native wildlife from breaking in and eating all my lettuce
harvest. If it is all in a closed-door
green house, stacked vertically in columns on the walls, native wildlife can’t
just open a door and eat my whole farm apart, destroying my family’s food
supplies, and forcing us back onto the grid just to feed ourselves.
We can only do so much with what
remains of our land, and vertical indoor farming seems to be the best idea we
have come up with thus far to feed an exploding population without taking up
too much space. Rooftop gardens turn
bleak heat islands with no other purpose into green spaces that provide
ecosystem services far beyond just snacks to eat. Turning old warehouse buildings into wall
farms means less impact to the urban landscape while providing huge yields. And on my little farm… a few animals - some
to breed, some to sell, some to milk, and some to butcher – can easily trample
the land where crops grow that are better suited for the Ohio landscape. They can graze openly on clover as I enrich
the soil for a crop of corn, stomping some of the plant matter into the soil as
biomatter, using their manure to add nitrogen and phosphorus, eating a more
natural diet than they do penned up in cattle farms. And with the further development of
technology to advance some of these early experiments, it is entirely possible
that we CAN turn the completely destructive CAFO’s into sustainable animal
agriculture farms, thereby ensuring that we can still enjoy a steak without
destroying our planet in the process.
It all started with one question:
How can we do this better? I recently went to visit those old cotton crop
fields where I first asked that question, and what I found amazed me. Unlike the poor sharecroppers in the George
Washington Carver video (Modern Marvels: George Washington Carver Tech, 2005) who only grew cotton
in all of their fields, with no crop rotation, no cover cropping, no soil
enrichment, and leaving themselves completely vulnerable to total crop failure,
I was surprised to see many sustainable practices in use in those commercial
fields. Of the four fields on the
100-acre farm, one was actively growing cotton, two were covered in native
grasses, and one was sprouting a new winter crop that I couldn’t yet identify. The irrigation canals were properly
maintained and slowly adding water to the two crop fields. The soil was moist and looked healthier than
any I’ve seen on a commercial farm. And
I smiled when I stood in the field where I first asked that question, while
watching it being harvested by large farm equipment, to see it covered in a
regenerative cover crop, surrounded by native vegetation (and wildlife), and
the crops being rotated around the 100 acre property. It gives me hope. Just like indoor and vertical farming give me
hope. We have to figure out how to feed
almost 10 billion people within 30 years.
If those farmers behind my old neighborhood have figured out how to
maximize yield while maintaining sustainability for their crops, we can figure
out the technology that will help us use far less space to grow far more
food. And who knows. Maybe we will be able to reproduce the
success rate of the Dutch tomato farmer, with his 2.5 million pounds of
tomatoes on 20 acres of space. With the
right technology, I think sustainable eating is not only a possibility for me
and my family, but possible for the world.
And it all started by standing in a cotton field, for me as well as
George Washington Carver.
References
Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms,
and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New
England.
Could Indoor Farming Help Address Food Shortages? (2017). [Motion Picture]. PBS News Hour.
Crumpacker, M. (2019, January 31). This is What
You Need to Know about Aquaponics. Retrieved from Medium:
https://medium.com/@MarkCrumpacker/this-is-what-you-need-to-know-about-aquaponics-596f73cefbe
Food Animal Production. (n.d.). In Teaching the
Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
Food Distribution and Transport. (n.d.). In Teaching
the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
Food Processing. (n.d.). In Teaching the Food
System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
Food Safety Modernization Act (2013). [Motion Picture]. U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.
Greguska, E. (2019, June 21). The Environmental
Impact of the Protein We Consume. Retrieved from Health@ASU:
https://health.asu.edu/environmental-impact-protein-we-consume?_ga=2.127890830.2092213379.1604219347-1055522527.1585865428
Life Cycle Assessment of Animal Agriculture (2015). [Motion Picture]. Livestock & Poultry
Environ. Learning Community.
Modern Marvels: George Washington Carver Tech (2005). [Motion Picture]. History Channel.
----------------------
Grade: 100/100
Comments: Excellent, (Katlin)!!
Part 1: Excellent discussion, (Katlin). Nice examples, especially Yuma.
Part 2: There are some ranches local-ish to Phoenix that you might consider looking into; I've heard good things (prices & sustainability)!
Part 3: Love that you used a "Fight Club" reference! A first :)
Part 4: I think a couple of the videos in Mod 7 about the future of farming/ag will intrigue you! Some neat ideas for your soon-to-be (hopefully) farm.
"[I]t is entirely possible that we CAN turn the completely destructive CAFO’s into sustainable animal agriculture farms, thereby ensuring that we can still enjoy a steak without destroying our planet in the process." I think we can!
George Washington Carver was amazing, wasn't he?! Loved that you had shared moment (in a manner of speaking).
