Blog Prompt # 2 from Joe Franzen: Sustainability, Ecology and Economy:
For me these summers of exploring the local food system while working the Fern Creek High School garden with my students, allows me to put into action many of the practices from the FoodWorks community, the local institutions, and the wisdom of Wendell Berry. I hope all of you are experiencing the same process of internalization of experience and the opportunity to make it your own in action during these weeks. Although Berry focused on the “family farm” in his 1986 essay In Defense of the Family Farm, it seems like many in American society have been removed one, two, or three generations from having a tangible memory of what that means. On account of that, upon reading his words and putting them in my world, I saw the absence of neighborliness in the trash on Bear Grass Creek on which we canoed. I saw the commodification of labor in my students who work fast food for minimum wage. I saw the distance between value, quality and quantity in the disgruntled face when they read “3$ per dozen” on the eggs sold at the school’s farm stand.
At the end of the essay, Berry offered a series of Amish principles that can serve as handles to our conversation. Grab hold of one of them and connect them to your life, your summer experience, your studies, and your own explorations of the concepts of sustainability, ecology, and economy. Having gone away for college and now living in a state 11 hours away from home, some of these principles immediately put me on the defense, especially #1 and &7. If you feel inclined, how does being a Middlebury student interact with these principles? Are they compatible, at odds, and how could they serve the same purposes.
Some Amish Principles: pg 47
1) They have preserved their families and communities.
2) They have maintained the practices of neighborhood.
3) They have maintained the domestic arts of kitchen and garden.
4) They have limited their use of technology so as not to displace or alienate available human labor or available free sources of power (the sun, wind, water, and so on).
5) They have limited their farms (interpret how you like-Franzen) to a scale that is compatible both with the practice of neighborhood and with the optimum use of low-power technology.
6) By the practices and limits already mentioned, they have limited their costs.
7) They have educated their children to live at home and serve their communities.
8) They esteem farming as both a practical art and spiritual discipline.
Maintaining skills in the kitchen and garden is significant in so many ways. It’s especially important in creating a strong connection with our food. As we were discussing during our last fifth day, growing food is caring for a living thing. We often forget that plants (and fungi) are living; and while it is obvious that the animals we raise for food are living, they are commodified and often treated like feelingless objects as well. I try to remind myself of this, and of all the work that goes into the growth and preparation of food, but it’s easy to forget and eat mindlessly. It makes me appreciate my food so much more when I keep this in mind. It also makes me feel really bad if things go to waste. For example, if meat gets thrown out it’s especially terrible, knowing an animal was killed to be eaten and we didn’t even eat it all.
My family has a garden at home, which has been a great experience for me. When we eat something out of the garden it’s so exciting because we watched the food grow and know exactly where it came from. Plus it’s so fresh. We also frequently share produce with neighbors, which helps us become closer as friends.
Upholding the skills of gardening and cooking can also preserve culture and biological diversity. Large, conventional agriculture has been focused on monoculture lately, while gardening is all about variety. This diversity helps keep and promote heirloom varieties of plants, which is also important in livestock. Maintaining diversity in food is essential because the fewer species and varieties of organisms we rely on, the more susceptible we are to severe problems if these organisms are somehow wiped out (ex: by disease, environmental conditions, etc.) And, as Wendell Berry explains in Bringing It to the Table, different organisms have developed over time to be excellently suited to the areas in which they live. Thus, having a variety of plants and animals living in the areas to which they have adapted is more efficient and less risky than raising a single organism all over under a variety of different conditions. Also, these varieties present an exciting collection of flavors and aesthetics, making gardening and eating more enjoyable. Unfortunately though, our food is less diverse than ever, and we are continuing to lose heirloom foods. Promotion of heirloom varieties and seed bank projects can help, but I think the most important thing is to change our values as a society. We should favor quality and diversity when it comes to production instead of aiming for the goal of “how much could we produce all at once?,” and I really feel gardens and small farms are the way to do this. Plus, gardening and cooking skills can help us gain independence, since we won’t have to rely as heavily on conventional agriculture and pre-processed foods from big businesses.