Re-Localizing Food?

Tracy Sutton
Zone Editor

SAN FRANCISCO — It wasn’t that many generations ago that nearly all food was local food. In 1900, 40 percent of Americans farmed, down to a little over 1 percent today.

Back in the day, eating close to the land wasn’t a “locavore” ideal, it was a simple geographic necessity. It’s an oft-cited statistic that food now travels an average of 1,500 miles to arrive at your plate. But the days of cheap fossil fuel that make reliance on transported food the cheaper economic choice are coming to an end, say experts. Coupled with climate change, depleted water resources, and an aging farmer population, the United States is looking at an agricultural revolution in the next 20 years.

These issues prompted a panel at the Slow Food Nation conference in San Francisco to examine how America can strengthen its local food resources.

The “Food for Thought” lecture series panelists included Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”; Dan Barber, chef and creative director of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture; Gary Nabhan, founder, Renewing America’s Food Traditions Alliance; and Winona LaDuke, Native American economist, author, and founding director of White Earth Land Recovery Project.

When did the majority of food stop being produced locally and why?

Michael Pollan offered several factors. First was post-war agriculture policies that nationalized the food system. Second, the interstate highway system that burgeoned in the 1950s meant that California and fruit and vegetable growers from Southern states could sell as far as the East Coast, beyond our traditional seasons. Third, supermarket chains became more powerful, and as their influence grew, it put power in the hands of a few suppliers. These chains found it was easier and economically more advantageous to buy from a limited number of large suppliers versus a diversity of smaller local producers.

"Today,” said Pollan, “this system is breaking down.”

“Three years ago, to ship a box of broccoli from California to New York was three dollars. This year it’s ten. Suddenly, suppliers are looking to New England farmers to grow broccoli,” Pollan said.

That’s good news for New England farmers.

The demand for traditional, local foods is exploding. “Now there is recognition that the word ‘local’ is magic in the market place,” continued Pollan. States are exploring labeling that identifies their produce as local and it’s prompting big retailers to sit up and take notice. Even Wal-mart is now on board with buying from local farmers.

“The question is, how do we get these stores to engage with the small guys?” asked Pollan. “We don’t want to dismiss their efforts. We need to help them do it well.”

Several panelists pointed out that large retailers like Wal-mart and Sysco aren’t buying local to be politically correct, rather they’re seeing an economic shift that affects their bottom line.

Rick Schnieders, CEO of Sysco, addressing another audience of activists at the Slow Food conference, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “We need to get small farmers into the distribution system.”

Panelists questioned the efficacy of relying on a paradigm that assumes cheap resources, like fuel and water. Referring to the water scarcity in California, panelist Nabhan said “When California exports water to New York in the form of tomatoes — it is ridiculous.”

But strengthening local food systems isn’t just good news for small farmers and national markets, said panelist LaDuke, that’s good news for our food traditions too.

“Local, indigenous foods are the best foods!” LaDuke said. “In America, we’re alienated from real food.” LaDuke is a member of the Objibwe tribe in Minnesota. She shared that one-third of her reservation suffers from diabetes, as generations have turned away from their healthier, traditional diet. Now, through farm-to-school programs at tribal schools, they’ve re-introduced traditional diet staples such as locally grown brown rice and squash. Children are learning to “reacclimate” to these healthier foods. In Objibwe culture she explains this reintroduction of lost foods is akin to “remembering your relatives — fins, paws, roots. This is how we recover our humanity and it’s the key to our survival.”

Relocalizing food is good news for our taste buds as well, according to the chef on the panel, Dan Barber. Barber shared a story of a benefactor who sent a check to Stone Barns in New York along with a box of seeds for an heirloom variety of corn, which was indigenous to the United States. The farm at Stone Barns is now the only place in the U.S. to grow this corn (oddly, he related, it grows in Italy, where it is made into polenta). Barber researched the corn, grew it with accompanying “sister” crops, per Native American tradition and reported 100 percent germination — and a delicious harvest that was turned into entrees for his N.Y. restaurants. Barber, a renowned chef, said using these old world seeds “gives us flavors we never knew existed.”

If cost, health, and flavor aren’t enough to push farm policy toward localizing food, said Pollan, the U.S. should consider food as a national security issue.

He stated that after 9-11, the government had conducted a study looking at the vulnerability of the current food system to bioterrorism, contamination, and disease. The conclusion? We need to “decentralize our food” and avoid a “monoculture” that leaves us vulnerable should a centralized system fail.

In coming years, “there will be instability,” said Pollan. If the presidential candidates are serious about looking at climate change, the energy crisis, and health care — intersecting all of these issues is our food supply.

There’s no way around it, said Pollan, “They must deal with food.”