It’s rather trendy these days to be deeply interested in your food and its origins, to want to know where and how it was grown, even by whom, or, better yet, to do the growing yourself. I am absolutely a fan of this new agro-consciousness. Bring on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, The 100 Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, almost anything by the prolific but obnoxious Mr. Pollan, and dozens of new titles seemingly every month. In the 20th Century, we learned how to feed the world’s growing population with the advancements of the Green Revolution. In the 21st, our challenge is to continue to feed all 6.7 billion of us (or whatever the number is these days) but to do so in a sustainable manner, conserving resources. In Locavore: From Farmers’ Fields to Rooftop Gardens – How Canadians Are Changing the Way We Eat by Sarah Elton, Elton explains the issue in her introduction:
The way we eat today is not sustainable. In the years since the Second World War, we have industrialized the practice of farming around the world and created a polluting food system that is dependent on fossil fuels. On the farm, we use machines powered by oil and gas, instead of human muscle and horses, to work the land and to irrigate it too. The good news is that technology has allowed farmers to reap high returns per hour of labour they spend in the fields, which has meant a huge improvement in standard of living of all of us. We’ve been freed as a society from the drudgery and poverty of subsistence farming that was the reality of life for so many Canadians over the centuries. A farmer today is able to produce, per hour of labour, 350 times more than a First Nations farmer would have on the same North American soils. To live free from subsistence farming is undeniably a good thing. However, to support this way of farming, we use natural gas to make fertilizer to treat the soil so we can plant the vast monocultures – only one crop planted over acres and acres – that epitomizes large-scale agriculture. These monocrops are more susceptible to pests, so we then make pesticides from oil to kill the insects. Then we continue to use our precious resources to irrigate, transport, and process the crops. (P. 11-12)
Elton has written as fascinating survey of agriculture in Canada at the start of the Twenty First Century that is refreshingly reasonable and well-balanced. Divided into two equally fascinating sections, the first dealing with the rural farmers, the second with consumers in the city, Elton managers to remain optimistic as she considers the struggles both groups face in the name of sustainable agriculture. The farming section is, as was to be expected, the most depressing. Most farmers in Canada are nearing or past retirement age with no children to succeed them on family farms often mired in debt. Profit, if there is any, is usually minute, a lesson I learned well at University: my housemate started an agro-tourism business on his family farm while in high school and within two years it was generating more revenue than the cattle business they’d been running for generations. It’s sad that farmers, so vital to our survival, can’t make a decent wage but then it’s a global market and the reality is you’re competing for supermarket contracts with overseas producers who pay their labour pennies a day. What I loved was that Elton’s answer to this question – not so much hers as the farmers she interviews – wasn’t to subsidize farmers; it was to find new ways of distributing the yield and cutting out the middlemen who push the wholesale costs down so low. Farmers’ markets, local co-op stands or shops, CSA boxes, agreements between farmers and city restaurants…there are so many creative and productive options available that have been successful all across the country, in some cases for decades.
Elton also takes on the myth of food miles, the belief that eating something that was grown close to where you bought it is more efficient than eating something that was produced further away and shipped in because of the energy consumed in the transportation. I absolutely agree that it’s more intelligent to eat a carrot or a potato grown near you than one shipped in from California or Idaho. But are we going to give up eating bananas, or any number of delicious fruits, vegetables, and spices that have become a normal part of our diet over the last decades because we can’t grow them in our harsh climate? Elton takes a wonderfully level-headed approach to the question:
We don’t have to abandon coffee, chocolate and spices to support a new food system. Rather, the ideal of a strong local food economy is to eat good, healthy food that is produced with the least environmental impact. This usually means food that is produced nearby, but includes imports that are produced and transported sustainably. (P. 15)
Growing bananas in South America and shipping them north makes infinitely more sense than trying to replicate the South American climate in greenhouses across Canada. The focus, really, should be not on eating what is produced locally but what is produced and transported efficiently. In some cases that will mean eating what is local, in others what is imported:
Despite the prevalent belief that food grown closer to where it is eaten is better for the environment, food miles are not the best way to measure sustainability. In fact, it can often take fewer kilocalories to grow food and ship it great distances to where it is eaten than it takes for a local farmer to truck food to a nearby market. Because local doesn’t trump sustainable, the way we grow our food in Canada therefore must change too. (P. 14)
I thoroughly enjoyed Locavore. While I found the first section of the book the most fascinating, the second half dealing with city dwellers was equally well done, though I haven’t discussed it much here. Given that this is a topic I’ve been interested in for years (mostly because it was one that interested my family – both of my father’s sets of grandparents were farmers and at university he was a rural land use major) it’s not a surprise that I was so engaged throughout the book. However, it’s also a book that I would not hesitate to pass on to my only vaguely interested friends – both Canadian and foreign, since the issues facing Canada are the same ones facing most Western nations. Elton’s journalist approach to her topic, her graceful and engaging weaving of interviews and statistics, both educates and entertains. Indeed, I am certain that at least one person I know will probably receive this for Christmas!
And, for anyone wondering how we can move forward towards a more sustainable model, here’s Elton’s conclusion:
On the farm, we need to move towards a holistic understanding of agriculture that takes its cues from nature, supports biodiversity and relies less and less on fossil fuels. Farmers must make a living wage and be respected for their work, something achieved by rehumanizing the food chain and connecting farmers with consumers through farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture while at the same time developing new supply chains for institutions such as universities and hospitals. When devising our new food system, we need not dwell on the past and replicate subsistence agriculture. Instead, we can push forward to fashion something new and innovative, using our technology and our imagination to design energy-efficient greenhouses and other novel ways of producing food.
In the city, we need to grow some of what we eat and figure out how to incorporate food production into the metropolis. By connecting with the food chain, and eating well, we will be more likely to experience a cultural shift and watch a gastronomy of place take hold. (P. 209)
The Captive Reader 