Category Archives: Living Systems Theory

Colonialism, The Environment, and The Global Search For Justice

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More than anything this quarter, I have learned that problems do not exist within a vacuum—that the greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy industry are symptomatic of the same system that has allowed for the rise in obesity in America. Additionally, issues surrounding the environment and climate change do not exist in a separate world from social issues, and are in fact magnified by racism, sexism, and classism. The systems thinking approach that was modeled to me has allowed me to gain a new perspective on my role in the world food system, but my role in the global social system as well.

 

My work with Landesa this quarter has emphasized the relationship between the environment and social systems, especially how that relationship can be manipulated to bring about better living conditions to tackle poverty on a global scale. Much of their work involves securing land rights for farmers so that they are able to exercise more agency over how their land is used. Owning land is essential to the maintenance and development of wealth, because property rights “mold the distribution of income, wealth and political influence”, as scholar Gary D. Libecap writes for the Hoover Institute. By increasing the access to land rights, Landesa aims to counteract the widespread poverty in developing countries around the world.

From ThisIsAfrica.me. The Legacy of the Berlin Conference. By Socrates Mbamalu.

However, in looking at the work that Landesa is doing, it struck me that the racial problems that are disrupting the U.S. today are outcomes of the same historical system that created the massive wealth disparity between developed countries and developing countries. The intersection of white supremacist and capitalist ideologies encouraged imperialist nations to take Africans as slaves and use their labor to build their empires, wiping out indigenous populations as they did so. The same ideologies encouraged the Scramble for Africa, where the largest European players divided up spheres of influence in Africa based on available resources to exploit. Thus, the legacy that slavery has left on the United States is linked to the legacy that imperialism has left on many African nations. The struggle for racial justice, then, must continue on a global scale. 

Enacting change on a global scale is virtually impossible for the individual. One of the most important things I’ve learned in this class, though, is that I have power as an individual and a citizen to fight for the better world I want to see. 

2020: Here’s To Resistance and Not Going Back to Normal

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So far, 2020 has afforded society and chance to toss worn bandages from its wounds and address the source of injury. For our class, it’s been an especially important time to examine the socioecological systems in which our food system is embedded. The coronavirus pandemic is revealing weaknesses from distribution bottlenecks to unjust working conditions. It’s also reminding us that intense animal agriculture such as CAFOs are breeding grounds for future pandemics. The recent murder of George Floyd has set yet another alarm demanding a reckoning with, and dismantling of, institutions built upon a legacy of racism and inequality – our food system not being exempt from these ills. Being a class discussing food using a systems-thinking approach, these breakdowns across Earth and social realms unfolding at warp speed can be understood as the result of generations of exploitation. The universe is begging us to examine our relationship with our food and with each other.

Grappling with these system imbalances, I recall our discussion of Gaia theory, which sees Earth as a self-regulating macro-organism, it’s biotic and abiotic elements functioning and evolving together. Wondering how to feed ourselves on a finite planet, Gaia theory offers solutions in the way of thinking cyclically. As industrial agriculture requires increasing inputs to compensate for soil degradation and other externalities, we can learn from nature’s non-linear models, where output becomes input. Waste from one = food for another.

This “thinking in circles” held presence as our action group partnered with the Center for Food Safety, a non-profit organization resisting the factory farm model by advocating for organic, sustainable, and restorative agriculture. Our goal was to research and develop criteria for a sustainable shellfish scorecard, which will inform consumers about pesticide use and tending/harvest methods. Washington state is the leading national producer of farmed oysters, clams, and mussels, generating around $270 million annually. Bivalves filter phytoplankton, clearing water for photosynthesis, essential for eelgrass, which provides nutrients and predation refuge for fish and crustaceans. When done responsibly, shellfish farming can compliment an ecosystem. Done irresponsibly, it can throw an ecosystem out of balance.

Is this balance? Geoduck farm in Puget Sound. Photo: Sean McDonald, University of Washington

This work gave an up-close look at the potential within our food system for restoring some balance. I gained appreciation for the work CFS does to positively impact human and environmental health by standing up to powerful corporate and government interests, like speaking up for unprotected meatpacking workers, taking on the EPA and Dow Chemical, and helping shut down CAFOs.

It’s all connected. ~Image Source

Food is embodied energy, solar power transformed into calories nourishing bodies, minds, souls. It is deeply personal and political. Food is power. As we call ourselves out on unjust systems of power and call for reform, let us include those systems which feed us and our Earth as one. To heal our wounds will require not more sutures but a bloodletting. We cannot and do not wish to go back to “normal.”

Systemic Racism and it’s Lack of Coverage in Early Education Systems

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The United States education system grooms its young students to view racism as a dark part of our country’s past. Through white-washed lessons hardly covering the full scope of slavery

A scene from the film adaptation of Harper Lee’s well known book, “To Kill a Mockingbird”

and assigned readings of glorified tales like To Kill a Mockingbird, our education programs are an insult to our nation’s Black community who continues to face devastating violence and racism. Systemic racism is embedded throughout our society’s systems in healthcare, education, incarceration, and housing. Not until recently, did I discover the various avenues racism pervades throughout the world food system.

This course has responsibly educated its students how the food industry is saturated in racial inequities. Beginning with employment, Raj Patel’s research highlights how the Black community is substantially underrepresented in the food industry’s managerial positions. Many like to believe that the unlawful practice of

Raj Patel’s research presented in “The Color of Food”

employment discrimination would deter this behavior but looking at the unequal wage gap, lack of diversity in hiring, and rare job promotion opportunities reveals the contrary. Systemic racism also infiltrates chocolate, American’s favorite commodity. American mega-chocolate corporations’ successful profits are a result of abusive African child labor practices along the Ivory Coast. This is another area where the U.S. looks hypocritical for championing the values of opportunity and freedom yet doesn’t uphold that for their relationships with nations beyond its borders.

As a Palestinian American, I empathize with the black community and their fight against systemic racism. Like the Black community, Palestinians understand systemic violence under the power of an oppressive government and have shown remarkable solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement overseas. I am proud to be a part of a culture that is intolerant of

Palestinians protesting their support for Black Lives Matter overseas. Image Belongs To: https://www.dw.com/en/fatal-police-shooting-of-autistic-palestinian-sparks-outrage/a-53723002

racism and injustice and represents this through peaceful protest. The demoralizing narratives that plague Palestinians and the Black community serves to saturate false public perceptions of these communities. In order to rectify this, education needs to unlock stories like, Freedom Farmers, which disrupts the harmful narrative that Black farmers have oppressive ties to agriculture due to slavery and contradictorily focuses on how these farmers have powerfully utilized their land for activism, resilience, and survival against white supremacy and economic exploitation. Racism is clearly not a fixture in the past, but remains a problem in our present, and will continue to be a virus infecting our future if we’re not fully educated on how it pervades throughout the systems in our society.

Soil Conservation in Brazil & The World Food System Beyond

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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.

 

 

 

Slow Food Washington

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The action group I was a part of worked with Slow Food Washington to help gather resources to inform the SF community about Washington House Bill 2777 (SHB 2777), also known as the “Tamale Bill.” Slow Food is an international organization that promotes its three pillars of “Good, Clean, and Fair Food for All” through community engagements. The legislature created by another non-profit Ventures Marketplace permits home cooks to legally sell food without a commercial kitchen which directly aligns with Slow Food’s mission for fairness as it supports local businesses. Our role was to create a digital toolkit to engage the SF Washington community about SHB 2777.

The first page of our rough draft of the digital toolkit

Highlighting the importance of relationships with community members and other organizations in order to enact collective change, the project provided me a window into how a fairly large organization operates and the importance of communication. I learned tangible ways to get involved such as donating, volunteering time, or working with people in the community to create positive change.

Slow Food started as a wide-scale movement against the globalization of Western fast food and now as an organization, its mission is to support marginalized communities in taking active roles in the food system. My involvement in this project shaped my understanding of the importance of food sovereignty in local communities. Monica White, the author of Freedom Farmers, also shares a similar sentiment about the importance of food sovereignty through community-led organizations. White illustrates the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network’s successes in creating food security and economic autonomy through community farming. (White, 127)

All SF chapters are volunteer-driven communities working on different campaigns and initiatives important respective to their own needs in regards to food.

COVID-19 has disrupted the global economy and the food system, exposing weak links such as working conditions, overproduction, and trade deals leading. In a broader lens, allowing community members to start their own business out of their kitchen is one of the many ways communities can build toward food sovereignty. SHB 2777 and other campaigns like it proves that within a living system comes evolution and adaptation to challenging circumstances. This state legislature is one of many examples of how people’s direct relationship to food creates a personal, deeper understanding of the entirety of the world’s food system.

Also, just a few of the many resources out there to get involved in regards to the abolishment of the police: https://linktr.ee/acab

 

Work Cited:

White, M.M (2018). Drawing on the Past toward a Food Sovereign Future. Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement (pp. 117-140) Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press.

 

What does it mean to change the system?

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I’ve spent the last 10 days and nights at protests across Seattle on police brutality in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But the demands of protesters go well beyond policing and criminal justice and stretch into areas of education, jobs, and voting rights.

Demonstrators are constantly speaking in ways similar to how we talk in this class.

“This isn’t about one thing, it’s about changing the entire system,” is a common theme I’ve heard from protesters I’ve talked to in my role as a reporter.

And this idea made me think about how this class is structured not about food in a vacuum, but instead of food as a system that is part of an even larger system. You can change one part of the system, but the change won’t truly be visible and rightful until the system is entirely overhauled.

For example, on the protest side, people are calling for Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan to resign, but demonstrators note they will only replace her with someone similar and nothing will change for Black people in this city. This is not systemic change.

Mapping of the food and agriculture system showing its complexity. (Source: https://medium.com/@agwelker1/fixing-our-food-agriculture-system-with-systems-thinking-892893805df9)

And on the food side, one person can stop eating meat or consume more responsibly, but that won’t make a lasting dent in emissions from cattle. This is not systemic change.

Outlawing chokeholds and cutting police funding in half won’t make so much meaningful change for the Black community in changing outcomes. What is needed is economic assistance, educational opportunities, and justice for 400 years of wrongdoing that would start to make up for this country’s wrongs.

And similarly going vegetarian won’t get us substantively closer to a sustainable food system. What is needed is accountability, strict regulation of consumers, and likely a wholesale change in how people around the world consume food to get to the point where our antiquated structures are no longer harming our world.

The point is that true change isn’t as easy as one might think and that’s why it takes so damn long.

ENVIR 385: A Reflection

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My group had the opportunity to work with Landesa; a non-profit organization that helps secure land rights for the world’s poorest. Although Landesa covers a more general scope, our focus was to bring awareness to the issue of women land rights in underdeveloped countries, and to learn more about how it connects to resilience-building within communities in the face of a pandemic. 

We learned that the women in the regions we researched make up the vast majority of the agricultural workforce, but due to the huge gender disparity, the lack of land rights puts women in vulnerable positions, especially when facing a health crisis. If the patriarch falls ill or passes away, there isn’t much a woman can do to support her family. At least not with the current system.  

Women’s Land Rights infographic. (Created by Ashley Wright)

This quarter we talked about systems theory. We are all part of a system(s). If a part of the system is changed, then the other parts will be affected– impacting the system as a whole. This impact could either be negative or positive. Through our research we found that by giving women legal access to land, it could be the latter. They have the ability to help their communities build resilience by making an economic and ecological impact; all they need is change. The current status quo is an example of an unsustainable system.

Unsustainable systems are everywhere. We don’t have to go to an underdeveloped country to see them. Our food system is a big one. 

Individual, institutional, and structural racism lives in our food system. In the reading, “The Color of Food”, Raj Patel concludes that racial disparity in wages and representation can be found in most occupations along the food chain. POC are often limited to low-wage food jobs in the food industry, leading them to experience high rates of food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger. But consumers are oftentimes unaware of these exploitations because there is a great disconnect between consumers and the food chain. 

The Color of Food, Raj Patel

With the BLM movement in full force right now, it is important to understand that racism goes beyond just police brutality. It lives in different parts of our society. 

As this class comes to an end and our projects wrap up, I can’t help but think about the systems I belong to and the impact I’m having on them. Raj Patel stated that, “consumers vote with their purchases”. As a consumer in this unsustainable system, my choices matter when it comes to food. 

A Systems Approach to Racial Justice

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      I want to talk about the racial issues and tension going on right now. I think it speaks to the systemic approach of this class and how there is no such thing as an isolated event. When I think about racial tension, racism and the current protests there is a historical tie and overall a timeline of injustice. 400 years of oppression and the single event of George Floyd’s murder are intrinsically connected, it’s never just one bad cop it is the system that has fueled and allowed for these actions. Specifically when slavery was abolished the police force was created as a patrol to control freed slaves and was also used to maintain slave labor by imprisoning Black people for “crimes” and then forcing them to work as prisoners again. This shows that while it looks like police violence are isolated issues they actually are connected by the fact that the system was created as a racist oppressive force to control Black people. The protests while happening right now, are rather the culmination of 400 years of oppression, government disregard for its most vulnerable citizens, and the final straw of the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. These events are all connected and show the importance of considering all these factors when talking about racial justice. 

      I think that the food system is actually one of the worst offenders of racist actions. It started with the taking of Native Americans food, and using slave labor to tend to the fields. This doesn’t even stop when the 13th amendment is passed, because convicts can still be forced to work on fields because they’re considered “criminals.” While this practice isn’t used today, there are now migrant laborers who are paid the lowest wages possible. A final problem is the disparity in diet related diseases such as diabetes and obesity. This is primarily because of the lack of healthy resources available in food deserts and low income neighborhoods. To honestly change the food system for better the racism and disparity in resources needs to be addressed first. 

4 Not-So-Easy Ways to Dismantle Racism in the Food System

 

Turning Individual Action into Systemic Change

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During this course I had the opportunity to work with Citizens’ Climate Lobby on HR 763, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend act. CCL is a national, bipartisan, grassroots lobbying organization that supports volunteers through online trainings and connects them to groups in their area. We started social media campaigns on Facebook and Twitter and learned how to lobby.

HR 763 would put a price on carbon that would reduce US emissions by 40% in the first 12 years. Economists agree that this is the most effective and cost-efficient way to reduce emissions which is why it has drawn support from Republicans and Democrats. Additionally, the Act is revenue-neutral which means that the government doesn’t keep the tax collected. Instead, it gets sent back to low- and middle-income American taxpayers who will be most affected by the higher prices of a green economy.

Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. Effective, good for people, good for the economy, revenue neutral.

In working with CCL, I found that the politics of food and the politics of climate change are similar in many ways. People tend to be very opinionated on both sides, both issues are complex and affect everyone differently, and both require a combination of personal choices and systemic government change to be solved.

It is key that the Act is bipartisan because the only way that we can fight climate change is together. A resolution such as this is only the first of many legislation actions we will need to take, so it is important that everyone is behind it.

Systems theory shows us that everything is connected, and climate change is no different. A lifecycle analysis of any product shows the ecological impacts along the entire commodity chain. Ecological impacts are usually higher during the production/processing stages, so the externalities are often placed on low income communities. This is just one example of the Triple Inequality of climate change.

Scene of the Oncler's factory from the Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

Stories like the Lorax teach us that it’s okay to replace traditional citizenship duties with purposeful individual consumption, and it shifts the blame from producers to human nature (Maniates). When people are made aware of a dangerous product, they can make the individual choice not to buy it (Szasz). This protects them from the product but does nothing to address the problem for others. We need more than individual choices to combat climate change. HR 763 is one way of collective change, but people still have to make the individual choice to be politically active.

This is a picture from Environmental Lobby Day in Olympia, WA in 2019 that I went to with WashPIRG.

Advocacy & Systemic Thinking

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During this quarter, I had the opportunity to work with my group in aiding Slow Food Washington in raising awareness and support among the chapters in Washington for House Bill 2777 and Senate Bill 6463. If passed, the bills would regulate the use of micro-enterprise kitchens and permit the sale of food made in one’s home. This can provide a stream of income for those affected by the turbulent job market due to COVID-19, and empower individuals who are interested in starting a restaurant but lack the capital to do so. Through the experience, my group has learned about community mobilization and the importance of storytelling. We also learned about legislation advocacy strategies that aided in a similar bill in California gaining support and becoming law. My group specifically developed a Digital Media Strategy Toolkit that is able to be customized by the specific chapters. Through our project, we have been able to apply the theory to practice, and empower people through tangible acts of advocacy.

 

The front page of the 12 page document my group created for SlowFood Washington

This course has truly exemplified how important systemic thinking is, and is something that I will seek to bring into other subject areas. In the very beginning of the course, we discussed the pitfalls of Michael Pollen’s argument made from a privileged perspective, and the dangers of reductionism. To consider an issue by breaking it down and focusing on individual aspects is incredibly limiting. To fully digest connections and reveal the deeper “why” and historical context, it is critical to use systemic thinking. This time in history has been an unveiling to the injustices of our systems. For example, undocumented farm workers that are deemed essential are forgotten, as seen in the So Close to America documentary. The workers are the backbone of our food system yet are not given the protections needed.  In addition, this is a time of great unrest and pain and is an opportunity for significant systemic change, which can bring forward sustainable change that will benefit disenfranchised groups.