Soil Conservation in Brazil & The World Food System Beyond

Blue and Yellow Globe

Brazil is one of the largest agricultural exporters in the world. In my research group, we found that land rights and soil conservation are key issues within the context of Brazil’s agricultural production. If the trend in poor land management of degraded pasturelands and encroachment into the Amazon region continues, it appears soil erosion—and nutrient loss along with it—could increase by up to 20%, according to this study’s findings.

Trade, Self Sufficiency

In chapter 3, “Agricultural Trade Liberalization,” of Jennifer Clapp’s book Food, it’s clear that international trade in the food system is a marketplace rife with inequalities and contradictions, often at the expense of people lower on the socioeconomic ladder, and especially those in developing countries whose main trade output is agriculture. However, even for an industrial nation such as Japan, boasting one of the highest GDPs in the world, the nation’s reliance on food imports point to the fact that money alone cannot buy independence.

In a 2012 article from the United Nations University publication Our World, Japan’s low food self-sufficiency (60% of their calories are from imports) was discussed and ramifications contextualized. It’s notable that the goal to increase the self-sufficiency to 45% by 2020 have since been pushed back to 2025. What it means for food to be “Japanese” has changed over the decades alongside changing consumer preferences and decreasing domestic output. This is an issue the world over, as the Columbian exchange of the 21st century has seen hamburgers and big gulps from the U.S. in Mexico City, to Bangalore, to Riyadh, to Tokyo and beyond.

People Standing Near Restaurant chain

Once native to the United States, the seeds of McDonalds have now been sown across the globe thanks to the 21st century ship called globalization

 

In Brazil, food self-sufficiency, ecological damage, Indigenous rights, resource management, and economic concerns all come into consideration when we talk about food and agriculture. Perhaps, as has been suggested in the UK, farmers can be part of the solution. Something will have to change if Brazil is to remain ecologically viable for agriculture in the decades to come.

 

Person Digging on Soil Using Garden Shovel

Soils are both the lungs and the womb of our earth. They are responsible for the sustenance that comes out of them and our mistakes (C02) that go in

 

The Big Picture

In considering the food on our plates, Michael Pollan makes it sound simple. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” While I don’t disagree with his prescription, the fact of the matter is that the food in the grocery store, and in markets around the globe, are products of, and tools in, the political ecology of the world food system. A system which is itself comprised of ecologies and systems.

The world has increasingly become a web of interconnectedness. Understanding it requires the ability to constantly look at micro and macro structures thereof. Our world food system is no different.

 

 

 

Our Society Was Sick Well Before Covid-19: The Elephant in The Room

Thibault Cancel recently wrote about the link between Covid-19 and obesity in the United States. He cited a CIA statistic from 2016 that 36% of the adult population was obese, compared to around just 4% in Japan. Thibault makes a great point about the rise of obesity and how it relates to the rise of processed foods, which have been marketed with various health claims. Claims based on nutrition buzzwords like “protein” and “whole grain,” among others.

Michael Pollan touches on this point in an article for the New York Review of Books. Citing the CDC, he notes the strongest predicting factors of those hospitalized with Covid-19: 49% had pre-existing hypertension, 48% were obese, and 28% had diabetes.

Person Holding Pizza on Box

All are conditions we are predisposed to because of the standard Western diet of processed foods, large quantities of meat, and little fruit or veg. The food system in our country promotes the production of foods which, “are reliably supplying the supermarket shelves and drive-thrus with cheap and abundant calories, it is killing us—slowly in normal times, swiftly in times like these,” Pollan writes.

Please No Smoking, Littering and Radio Signage on Gray Wall

How many dollars and lives has it taken to get the PSA out on the toxicity of Tobacco products? When might we see a similar campaign to properly educate consumers about the foods we see every day on the supermarket shelf, or on that impulse-buy at the counter, which cause disease and increase the threat to viruses such as Covid-19.

It’s high time we address the elephant in the room; Not only do our food choices affect our health and happiness, they also are linked directly to inequities in our society. While I don’t expect everyone to have the resources to eat a healthy diet, we all have personal responsibility over our bodies, and it’s time we get them moving.

Person Running Near Street Between Tall Trees

The Time to get to Know What’s in My Cup

There are many types of meditation, while riding the calm wave of one’s breath. A contemplative practice is but one form of meditation. It serves as a moment for critical thinking, noticing, wondering, etc. Questions of how and why, and whatever else comes up along the way. This intentional moment to explore can be applied to anything in the imagination.

 

Dark beans…

 

I don’t usually think “exotic” when I think of coffee. Strange, because it’s possible that the coffee I drink comes from the same place my bananas do. In writing this blog, I also noodled around google images and found that raw coffee cherries have a color as vibrant and varied as a bag of Skittles. So why a disconnect between the two? Coffee is experienced through aromas, the sounds of grinding and brewing; dark beans, or dark powder. Now with coffee pods, you don’t even see the coffee.

 

In considering coffee and bananas, and tropical foods in general, during our class’s contemplative practice, it became very clear how     interdependent I am on world food systems for both sustenance and pleasure. Technically I don’t need coffee, but a life without my cup of Joe is not one I’m interested in. This process made me more appreciative of what I have in respects to coffee. In that sense I think that a contemplative practice is great, though I don’t necessarily know what to do with that recognition.

 

The world coffee trade is something I feel I have little control over, aside from buying organic and hoping that a rainforest wasn’t cut down for the sake of my morning ritual. But, in order to take care of something, it has to be valued. Perhaps with recognition and a willingness to pay a little more for coffee, that can make some difference.

 

Food Supply Chain “Strong” But Questions Remain

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee declared a statewide shutdown of restaurants and other public spaces back on March 15th, assuring Washingtonians that the supply chain was strong, hoping to alleviate fears and hoarding by consumers. And while grocery stores have remained open, albeit with sparsely stocked hand soap and toilet paper shelves, an NPR article released a few days later raised questions about the trying times about to strike those in a different—yet equally vital—part of the supply chain: agricultural workers.

Workers in Wapato, WA. Photo Credit: Elaine Thompson/AP

The good news is that most seasonal workers coming from Mexico will still qualify for their H-2A visas. The bad news is that these people will be traveling far and wide, often living in close proximity to one another once they reach their employer’s fields, meaning exposure to COVID-19 is a strong possibility. While distributors and farmers deal with the logistical and financial strain of re-routing products from shuttered restaurants, the last thing they need is a labor shortage.

So what can be done? Greater government involvement in clean and safe housing for workers? Incentives for workers exposing themselves in travelling long distances across borders and state lines, like short-term medical benefits, or insurance, for seasonal workers, to protect them if they fall ill? And what of farms that will be closing from decline in business?

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. COVID-19 has put our healthcare system in crisis. No matter your politics, it is clear our systems simply aren’t geared for dealing with a calamity. In the age of the Anthropocene it hardly seems this current health crisis will be the end of hard-times. If we don’t prepare now, addressing weaknesses in our systems, the next crisis we face could mean not just soap and paper products disappear from store shelves.