Author Archives: Sydney

Sovereignty and Shellfish

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Food sovereignty is no simple thing in today’s food politics discourse. The modern American, whether they like it or not, is deeply embedded in a global food network. When we ask ourselves what it would mean to become food sovereign people, we must determine what self-sufficiency can and should mean within our community. As Raj Patel argues in his article “Food Sovereignty Grassroots Voices”, food sovereignty must account for the power politics of the food system. In working alongside the Center for Food Safety, a national nonprofit group that works to protect human and environmental health by advocating for sustainable practices and curbing harmful food technologies, I developed a scoring system to grade the sustainability of Washington’s shellfish operations.

Through this work and Patel’s point on power politics, I built an understanding of the simple fact that food sovereignty must begin with knowing where your food comes from. To know where your food comes from must mean to know more than its location, but to know the methods and labor that went into its creation and the impacts of this production on people and the ecosystem. My contribution to the development of the shellfish scorecard is both a contribution to the transparency of the industry as well as to the normalization of consumer-facing food transparency.

“Shellfish Aquaculture in Washington: Pesticides, Plastics, and Pollution Impacts to Our Environment” Center for Food Safety. October 24, 2019.

Food sovereignty discourse often revolves around food and farmers. While these are significant aspects of developing and defining a food sovereign community, this approach ignores the larger economic and political systems that encase our culture of food. This multidimensional image, which is explored in-depth in part eight of “Introduction: Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty”, must include a notion of sustainability and justice that addresses these larger systems. In defining food sovereignty with the consideration the multidimensionality and the inherent need for consumer facing transparency, the creation of and use of the shellfish scorecard begins to take on a larger weight.

As my group approached the scorecard, we carried the lessons of food sovereignty and systems thinking into our research process. We developed a scorecard that grades the sustainability of a shellfish operation on how the operation relates to Washington’s ecological feedback loops and the policy positions of the operation. This scorecard reflects values of food sovereignty and will aid consumers in their ability to support sustainable businesses.

Migrant Workers Have Always Been Essential, So We Should Be Treating Them Like It

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In response to “‘Essential Workers’: Heroes or a Sacrifice to Capitalism?” by Ashley (@ash_marie)

The U.S. has historically relied on the labor of minority groups to provide this labor since the conception of the nation even in times of normalcy. From the use of slave-labor on plantations to the current use of Latinx labor, minorities have driven commercial agriculture for centuries. Yet many Americans hold the notion that these migrant workers are not essential workers but are actually stealing the jobs of American citizens.

The view that these essential workers are “stealing jobs” has been strongly held, even in recent years. We must question this and ask why it is that minority groups have been the main supply of agricultural labor in the U.S.. This question appeals to the larger system of immigration and class structures, and it is deeply intertwined with the history and politics of the U.S. and the countries that the migrants had immigrated from. It all boils down to this: employers seek the cheapest labor, and the cheapest labor can be provided by the most vulnerable populations. The essential work that these workers provide is low paid and the conditions are often unsafe. Even when the United Farm Workers launched the “Take My Job” campaign, a counter discursive act against the “stealing our jobs” mentality, incredibly low numbers of American citizens moved to take on these jobs due to the labor conditions that they present.

As we begin to recognizing these workers as essential during this pandemic, their conditions stay the same. They continue to receive low wages and their working conditions do not comply with the basic precautions of social distancing that are so vital in this pandemic. Instead of calling these workers “heroes”, a term which normalizes their deaths as an inevitability, we must improve the conditions of this essential labor.

What Contemplative Practices Have Taught Me About Problem Solving

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In a course about the food system, it makes sense that we have time dedicated to digestion, to contemplation. To the breaking down and consideration of our place within the complex global food system.

But truth be told, my experience with these contemplative practices have been mixed. They have provided me with a chance to dive into my own experiences relating to food and to the world beyond my immediate reach. But there have been times when I simply could not comfortably sit through a full practice. I had to ask myself why did I have this sense of restlessness? I found that my response to the practice is dependent on two things: content and headspace. 

Contemplative practices will often require that I reflect on my own privilege within the food system. I recall sitting through a practice reflecting on the production of chocolate, and throughout this practice I alternated between feeling restless and driven as I began to try to figure out ways that I, as both a consumer who benefits from the current production methods and as a citizen who finds the use of unpaid labor appalling, could make a difference that actually matters.

I had entered this practice with a relaxed and clear mind, unlike days where I had entered a practice feeling mentally exhausted. Having a clear headspace allowed me to delve into the mixed feelings and thoughts I had in a constructive manner. On days where I enter feeling strained, I struggle to escape my anxieties and to focus my mind on the material.

Image is my own and may not be used without my permission; illustration of introspection within a particular headspace

These practices have ultimately led me to the following conclusion about how we approach systems: finding solutions to a complex problem first requires an analysis of one’s relationship to it, yet such analysis cannot be effectively done by an exhausted mind.

 

Tons of Hungry People and Tons of Wasted Food

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It is the age of a global pandemic and for many Americans, it is a time of heightened economic vulnerability. The services of food banks are in increasing demand from both old and new customers as food insecurity explodes as unemployment skyrockets amid the COVID-19 crisis. At the same time, experts predict that we will be seeing a stark increase in our already high levels of food waste. In a good year, America would see 40 percent of its food wasted – 63 million tons. 

Source: Getty Images

This is not a good year. This is a year of panic buying and closed down markets and cafeterias, meaning that we can expect to see more than 40 percent of our food go to waste. The interconnected problems of food insecurity and food waste are certainly not new, but with the rise of COVID-19 they have gained higher visibility and have more far reaching impacts than ever before. 

Food waste management stretches from farm to table. With farmers leaving up to half of their crops unharvested due to cosmetic imperfections and American households representing the largest source of food wasted, food and money are lost at every step of the food system. While it may be tempting to think that our individual choices about how we consume don’t matter within the larger food system, it is this type of thinking that yields high volumes of food rotting in refrigerators and leaves misshapen foods in grocery stores to go to waste.

By changing our individual behaviors, we can dramatically decrease the waste we contribute and thereby improve the food system. And instead of allowing imperfect foods to go to waste on farms, we should be supporting infrastructure that enables these foods to be transported to food banks. If we make change now, we will save lives.