Our current system for providing food is severely unsustainable, most of it illogical and possibly insane when put into perspective. To help frame where I am coming from let me tell you about my school lunches at Sparta, Michigan. Then I will go into more detail about the statement.
Sparta, the self proclaimed Apple Capital of the Midwest, is a small country town about 20 minutes north of Grand Rapids, Michigan. A faint smell of cow manure always trailed down the halls. A few of my classmates already had plans of inheriting there parents farm, so most didn't care to try much at school. For lunch there was always a main course of some sort of pre-packaged burrito or the 'grand slam' burger. All of which arriving by semi-truck labeled Sysco. There was also a beverage of choice, Country Fresh milk, juice, or a soda. Then after paying, the line wrapped around to a salad bar. The lettuce was iceberg lettuce with bits of cabbage and shredded carrots out of a Sysco bag, to the end was the fruit. Usually there were usually apples, oranges and bananas. The apples were always disappointing. They were a deep burgundy, high-glossed, and thick skinned. They lacked flavor, often tinted green signifying they were picked too soon. There was always a sticker to peel off; they were often from Washington or Chile. I didn’t think much of any of this back then besides being disappointed.
Now I look back at this and wonder why in Sparta, Michigan, the apple capital of the Midwest, we were not eating Sparta apples. To me this is illogical. Why would it make sense for an apple travel over 2000 miles, when they are growing outside our door?
In this region of the world apples aren't just apples, they have different flavors colors and textures. Some are good for caning, others good for pies, some better for storage, all of them good fore eat'n. Though some preferred to others. My grandma likes the Northern Spy for her pies. The Gala's used to be the best for just eating but now that the trees have aged or maybe its been the weather, but they haven't been as good the past couple of years. At the farmers market the buzz is all about the Candy Crisp which seems to be the predecessor to the honey crisp which was all the buzz last 2-3 years. There are so many different flavors though, each a little different then the other. So what I am saying is that apple isn't just an apple, it's an experience, each apple is unique.
Did you know that there are 2,500 known varieties of apples grown in the United States (some sources now say 1000) and over 7,500 grown world wide as of 1999? 15 apples accounted for over 90% of production in 1999. These numbers have been greatly reduced over the past 100 years. At one time there was said to be well over 7000 in the united states alone.
Somehow industry has managed to produce a variety of apple for our school lunches that is consistently of horrible quality by my standards and lacking any character. To industry apples are burgundy, yellow, or red. That's it.
At Sparta, “All meals served must meet patterns established by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.” The department of agriculture is run by representatives from Monsanto. Large corporations have monopolized the market, making it hard for smaller local farms to compete.
“Agri-business,” as some call it, receives most of the federal subsidies, making it possible to produce food more “cheaply”. 10% of the farms are collecting 71% of the subsidies, an average of $123,909 annually and the bottom 80% receiving less than $586 annually. This is OUR tax dollars used to make it possible to make it possible to for these large farms to be able to sell their produce for cheaper than our local farmers. I wonder what an apple from Chile or Washington would really cost if they weren't receiving these subsidies, or tax breaks.
when wagering the costs of producing "cheap" produce the environmental, social, and ecological costs are often not taken into account. What is not factored in is the packaging, the unknown health effects of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the amount of oil used (to transport the product, to make and transport the packaging, used in fertilizers, used in production), unfairly paid labor, lack of connection locationally and psychologically to food and how it is produced and where it comes from, the effects of Genetically Modified foods to us and our environment, Mono-cropping (large fields of one crop), how modern practices are effecting our depleting top soil, the list goes on.
I think the first and most important step is to support local. Then start advocating for more sustainable practices from these farmers, from restaurants, and from our stores.
In investigating why my former school system would choose not to use local suppliers I found a document that presented all of the hoops that would be 'necessary' in order to use local produce. Making it seemingly intimidating, difficult, and risky to use local suppliers.
It's focus is on food safety. But in reality most of the problems with food have come from the large industrial farms.
