Author Archives: Aaron Baker

Salish Center and the Importance of Food Sourcing Education

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My work with the Salish Center was focused on establishing a PDO (protected designation of origin) for all seafood harvested in the Salish Sea. In effect, this would ensure that all seafood derived from the Salish Sea would be labelled as such, and that no non-Salish Sea seafood could be labelled as a product of the Salish Sea. The concepts that we focused on reminded me of Wendell Berry’s work on The Pleasures of Eating and Karen Litfin’s work on Localism. In this way, my work with the Salish Center highlighted the intersection between the legal classification of food and how this fosters community development and pride in local food production.

Salish Sea Certified designation

Sample medallion for Salish Sea Certified PDO. Image courtesy of: https://salishcenter.org/#mission

As our program director told us, one of the primary goals of establishing a PDO for Salish seafood was to foster community pride in what he considers to be a superior food product relative to other seafood. By identifying a superior product as Salish Sea derived, the Salish Center hoped that local populations would be driven to protect the sanctity of the product’s origin. This is reminiscent of Berry’s quote that “eaters… must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world” in order to contextualize their place in a larger food system. By stressing the importance of the health of the Salish Sea in bringing about its superior seafood, the Salish Center was essentially working to help consumers remember that their seafood and the quality thereof was contingent on a tangible, mutable part of the world.

See the source image

The Salish Center’s work helped remind consumers of the tangible source of their product’s origin. Image courtesy of Puget Sound Action Team.

Further, by identifying superior Salish seafood as a local product, the Salish Center  worked to incentivize consumers to reduce their “food miles” by buying local. The rationale behind this is that consumers would recognize and respond to the superiority of the Salish Sea’s products with increased consumption thereof, thus simultaneously supporting their own appetite and local food economies. As Litfin points out in “Localism”, “a local economy will have lower energy requirements and therefore be ecologically friendlier”. In this way, the Salish Center’s work contributed to environmental conservation.

My takeaway from this project is the power that something so simple as food labelling has in forming and protecting a community. Prior to working with the Salish Center, I could only imagine the corporate incentives behind labelling food as “organic” or “Walla-Walla sourced”, for example, but now I understand the importance that such labels have to protecting the source of the product and reinforcing pride in local food economies.

In Response to ”What Contemplative Practices Have Taught Me About Problem Solving”

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What I found most intriguing about Sydney’s analysis of contemplative practices was the relationship between her argument and the concept of individualization as a whole. Indeed, her conclusion that “finding solutions to a complex problem first requires an analysis of one’s relationship to it” brought me straight back to Michael Pollan and Michael Maniates. In this way, I will agree with Sydney’s thesis and further a brief argument that reflecting on contemplative practices works against the pitfalls of individualization.

What power does the individual have in influencing a system larger than itself? How should this answer change how we approach problem solving?
Image courtesy of www.ruzivodigitallearning.co.zw

A chilling case-study of individualization can be found in reviewing Pollan’s New York Times Magazine article “Unhappy Meals”. In Pollan’s universe, problems like industrialization of agriculture can be addressed by eating carrots rather than chips. Pollan fails Sydney’s test because no aspect of his argument attempts to analyze the power of the individual in relation to the power of the existing structures that he claims must be changed. This is to say that Pollan’s solutions cannot be comprehensive for want of self-reflection.

In contrast to Pollan, Maniates’ article “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” (abstract) embraces Sydney’s thesis in its recognition that the power of the individual relative to the system they seek to change determines the feasibility of making a difference at all. Maniates’ solutions to climate change are thus comprehensive to the extent that they recognize power limits inherent to an individual.

Examining Sydney’s thesis is how I’ve come to understand the relationship between contemplative practices which force integrative thinking and the validity of the solutions furthered by the authors we read for this course. Though I agree that the utility derived from these practices is contingent on my mood, going through them shows me which authors have considered their relationship to the structures they study and which haven’t.

For further reading, and to address Sydney’s point that finding the correct headspace is necessary to reap the benefits of contemplative practices, I suggest this article on learning to meditate which proved quite helpful in teaching me how to approach these contemplative practices after a number of admitted failures.

Is Your Hunger Natural or Affluent?

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Image courtesy of: https://www.opploans.com/oppu/articles/wants-vs-needs/

Our April 28th contemplative practice invited us to reacquaint ourselves with hunger, an ostensibly basic human experience. Having successfully avoided food for hours leading up to the video, I could be forgiven for assuming I had indeed realized the stated point of the practice; after all, I certainly wanted food, my stomach hurt a bit, and I resolved that fasting wasn’t really for me. On reflection, however, it occurred to me that I didn’t feel any more connected to basic man than I had at the outset. Where had I gone wrong?

About three minutes into the practice, we’re introduced to Einstein’s philosophy that such baser experiences as hunger, love, pain, and fear create the foundation of self-preservation upon which we define our state of nature– basic man. Hunger (along with the other experiences) thus lacks a purely for-itself purpose; it exists primarily as a tool with which to protect the self. Taking this definition of hunger for granted, it is plainly impossible to experience hunger absent the need for self-preservation, for it is the need of preservation that creates hunger to guide us to safety.

Just as hunger may be ubiquitous in the state of nature, it is equally possible for it to be absent entirely in a relatively affluent state in which the parameters of self-preservation have been redefined. Though we all need food, most of us have never been reduced to a primal, naturalistic being in search of food primarily. Our hunger is not the hunger of the state of nature or even of the rest of the world, and so try as I might, I never stood a chance at connecting with a basic human instinct.

While I never felt hunger, this contemplative practice provided fascinating insight into what hunger really is. I believe that considering hunger a component of self-preservation provides greater credence to arguments that access to food is a fundamental human right (a natural extension of the Lockean ideal that a right to self-protection births all other rights), and thus I consider understanding hunger in this way paramount to creating a compelling argument regarding ensuring universal access to food– an optimistic (if naïve) policy aspiration.

Food Supply Chain Consequences of COVID-19

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While the impacts of COVID-19 on the consumer food industry have already been felt via restaurant shutdowns and reduced grocery store hours, a recent article published by the International Food Policy Research Institute predicts that developing countries will soon also face food shortages and price inflation as a result of the virus.

According to the article, a majority of residents in Asia and Africa rely on small- and medium-scale food enterprises (SMEs) to satisfy their food needs. As the virus continues to necessitate the enactment of strict lockdowns, these enterprises will be unable to continue producing food due to their inability to meet new public health guidelines.

As supply dwindles, consumers can expect to pay more for less following a sharp increase in food prices.

As supply from SMEs (S-curve) shifts from S to S’, consumers (D-curve) will be forced to pay the resulting increased price (vertical axis) of p’. Many will not be able to afford this price. Image courtesy of Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com./topic/supply-and-demand

Though the article does predict a short term increase in unemployment for these enterprises, it doesn’t recognize the long term consequences of shifting consumer preferences following a decrease in supply. Since consumers’ demand for food is stagnant, they will be forced to find other means of consumption if SMEs prove insolvent. The luckiest will be able to turn to large-scale enterprises, supply chains ending in supermarkets familiar to the Western consumer. Others will choose between starvation, poverty (if they accept inflated SME prices), and theft.

Unfortunately, no plausible solution comes without dire consequences, but failure to address the supply chain issue will leave entire countries in turmoil.

Governments of developing countries must either subsidize SMEs by providing materials necessary to produce food safely or ask for support from large-scale enterprises to avoid eventual famine. While the latter will further cement the monopoly these enterprises hold on the world food system, the severity of the consequences following adherence to the status-quo demands immediate action, and these large firms may be the best equipped to provide it.