“TO PROMOTE THE PRODUCTION, SHARING, AND PROPER USE OF FOOD” (1)

I don’t think I could say it any better than this.

This is a photo of the cover page on an original document I found on the 1943 Victory Garden Campaign. In this fascinating document from 1943, the Department of Agriculture lays out the plan for the Victory Garden campaign. I hope to post bits and pieces with some discussion over the next month or so.

I came across an article/lecture from writer Sharon Astyk who says:

“Human beings are very nervous about changes in their food cultures. So all of this is going to have to come with educational support, with a community of people who can teach others how to cook and enjoy staple foods, and make that cooking enjoyable and exciting, rather than onerous. Communities will need be mobilized in the ways they were during World War I and II, where those who did not go to war worked together to provide compensatory services – and besides teaching others how to garden and cook and eat good food, we are likely to find that the social benefits are enormous. Because none of this can be done without neighbors talking to neighbors, bartering, sharing work and seed and ideas, and people organizing in ways we have not in a very long time.”

Justice Gardens is trying to do this very thing.

Your Own Backyard…

Victory Garden, 1943.

Justice Garden, 2009.

Food is more than eating…

“We forget that, historically, people have eaten for a great many resons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity. As long as humans have been taking meals together, eating has been as much about culture as it has been about biology.”—Michael Pollin IN DEFENSE OF FOOD

When part of a community has food and enjoys eating, and another part of the (same) community lacks food and feels anxious about eating, something along the way has been lost in the business of the world, the diversification of income, and the separation of creation, from those that are to enjoy it.

Try this experiment.

Go into a grocery store chain. Walk the isles. The middle ones with all the boxes and cans and packages of “food” that are single-size servings and “1-minute” menu’s. Try to notice how people touch the boxes, the cans. How do they move through the isle? What expression is on their face? How much time do they spend looking at “food?” What will they do with it? They’re trying to figure it out.

Next, go to a trendy place for the upper-middle-class like Whole Foods. Stand in the large produce section. Take in the colors. Watch people. Do they linger? What are they touching? Boxes? Cans? Food. They don’t throw it into a cart. They pick it. Place into a bag. They are gentle. What will they do with it? They will eat it. Oftentimes whole.

Food is food, and boxes and cans are…well…boxes and cans…presumably boxes and cans of “food.”

Billions of dollars of scientific inquiry tell us that the nutritious content of food in a can or a box is inferior to the nutritious content of whole food like apples and beans and beets. The American food crisis is that the consumption of real food, without being coated in a box or packaged in plastic or frozen for toaster oven service—-is reserved for the trendy deeper pockets of American consumers. The injustice of the American food crisis is that it winds up being an injustice for communities, for families, and for creation. The handling gently of food can only be enjoyed by the upper crust. The vibrant colors of fresh veggies and the smell of fresh herbs can be enjoyed only by those who know what they would miss out on if they skipped the produce section. Food is more than eating. Plant a garden and give away more than just food.

Justice Gardens

Sixty-Five years ago our country was short of food.  In the spring of 1943, nearly 20 million families sowed seeds and prayed for a good harvest.  They were answering a call from the US government that encouraged Americans to grow their own food during this time of crisis.  And they did.  Backyards, empty lots, and city rooftops were turned into “Victory Gardens” producing almost 10 million tons of food.   The economics of this venture resulted in the price of commercially produced fresh vegetables dropping substantially, enabling the government to save money on the food they spent feeding the troops, which bolstered the war effort, and ultimately saved lives on the front.

Today, we are on the brink of a global food crisis. The price of rice has nearly doubled in past four months. The price of a barrel of oil (which is used to transport food) has risen almost 400% in the past 7 years. If you have the time to read this, it’s likely that you won’t feel the food crisis very much.  A bit more coin in the gas tank, one less trip to Chipotle this week. No biggie. This is your privilege of being middle-class America.

But there are people who are feeling it.  People working for justice feel it. People crying out for justice feel it. People in your neighborhood and in the next neighborhood over feel it too.

Let’s plant gardens. On rooftops. In backyards. In windowsills. In schoolyards. In highway medians.  Form co-ops with your neighbors and invite people who can’t afford fresh veggies to harvest alongside of you. Send them home with an armful of organically grown fresh vegetables.  Flood food banks with fresh produce.

Work for justice in your own back yard.