Tag Archives: commodity chain

Sharing systems thinking in our ongoing advocacy

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As our world grieves in the aftermath of the horrific murder of George Floyd, I have become extremely grateful for the knowledge about systematic racism my education at UW has afforded me. My greatest takeaway from this class was learning to think systematically about the world food system, which allowed me to realize how everything from climate change to land grabs to severe income inequality in the food distribution chain levies a disproportionate impact on people of color in their struggle to access affordable and healthy food. Through course content such as Lester R. Brown’s “Full Planet Empty Plates” we have learned that there is an abundance of food in America, yet the reason so many of our citizens go hungry is because of a lack of income, and ultimately, a lack of privilege in our capitalist system leading to the harshest impacts of food insecurity to be felt by POC and BIPOC communities.

Systematic impact of the Pandemic on our food system.

                         

Examples of the disproportionate impact felt by communities of color.

 

Much of my undergraduate education has been focused on race relations in the America, and I was able to incorporate this knowledge into my group work with Our Climate this quarter. We were given the opportunity to meet with Representative Tina Orwall, who has been a champion for racial equity throughout her career. We were able to advocate for bold, equitable climate change policy with a focus on the disparate impact of climate change on poor people of color. Representative Orwall was extremely receptive to our goals and told us that we had taught her new things about racism in the ecological system. From this, I became cognizant of my power of advocacy and sharing information, as Representative Orwall was able to get us in contact with other relevant politicians and added that she would further research and incorporate our findings into her agenda. Now as we are in the midst of a widespread Black Lives Matter movement, I find myself again as an advocate, and I have similarly been able to share useful information about the systematic racism in the world food system as part of the widespread sharing of resources against racism we are seeing. Just as we have achieved recent policy changes by educating our fellow advocates and putting pressure on our politicians, we are slowly dismantling systematic racism, and I am confident that if we can keep pressure on, we can one day create a just and equitable ecological system for all.

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.

There is always more you can do.

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I chose to respond to Aaron Baker’s post “Is your Hunger Natural or Affluent?” (link: https://sites.uw.edu/pols385/2020/05/04/is-your-hunger-natural-or-affluent/). The question posed in his title is something I have been grappling with since I shifted to a plant-based diet due to unethical practices in the meat and dairy industry. I thought his response was very insightful, and I especially appreciated his statement “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.” His thoughts made me consider how I drastically redefined my diet by only considering plant-based options as permissible for my self-preservation, despite there being ample other food options surrounding me. Thus, it seems as if I have redefined my “self” that I wish to preserve. My goal is not to simply keep myself alive, rather it is to maintain optimal nutrition, ethical consumption, and great taste.

Veganism News and Political Cartoons

From this, I drew a connection to “The Color of Food” (https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1372505/files/63044076/download?wrap=1) article we read in class, which described the “good food movement” amongst privileged middle-class individuals who prefer to consume organic food. The article goes on to describe those economically excluded from this movement, who rely on food supplied through the enormous food production chain that exploits people of color and “often forces workers to live in conditions that are close to poverty.” So, when I search for vegan meals, my hunger isn’t natural, it is affluent. Recognizing how much of the world struggles with food sovereignty allows me to stave off complacency as in my fight for change in the food system. I recognize a vegan diet isn’t enough, and that holistic change that provides everyone equal access to good food as I do today is my ultimate goal.

Food Sovereignty - SourceWatch

A Response: The Time to get to Know What’s in My Cup

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A response to: “The time to get to know what’s in my cup” by grahamms

As a fellow coffee drinker, @grahamms’ reflection resonated with me. Not only do I regularly consume large amounts of coffee but it’s also my way of connecting with friends and family. Interestingly enough, the thing that connects me to people is the one thing I’ve never considered myself connected to. What I mean by this is that I never give it a second thought. Coffee makes me feel good, therefore, I drink it. And that is that. @grahamms brought up an interesting point in his post- the introduction of coffee pods. We no longer see the coffee we’re drinking! We’re consuming a product that hugely impacts our environment and we don’t even see it anymore.

I like contemplative practices because they allow us to open up a dialogue with ourselves and others. It puts us in a space where we can question the process of things and the role we play in it. That is why when @grahamms voiced my own feeling of impotence as he mentioned his lack of control over the issues of coffee trade; it led me to wonder- what can we do? Would decreasing or completely stopping our consumption of coffee help alleviate this environmental problem? 

I thought back to Richard Robbins’s essay on the consumption of beef and sugar from a few weeks back. Although Robbins considers reduction, he notes that there are a couple of inconveniences tied to it; not only would the size of the reduction have to be extremely large to see real change, but it would also cause severe economic disruptions. He concludes that it’d be difficult to change our consumption behavior because it’s such a central and necessary part of our culture. 

Although this didn’t leave me with any concrete answers, it did get me to think about the problem and all of the interdependent systems involved. And that is what contemplative practices are all about.

From Harvest to Consumption: A Bittersweet Tale

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I recently spent some time in Cape Town, South Africa. There I had two professors, a husband and wife, both from the area. I quickly noticed that they did not have conventional wedding bands. Rather, they had outlines of wedding bands tattooed on their fingers. Toward the end of the academic quarter I discovered why this was. The mining history in South Africa is a horribly devastating one; black South Africans had been forced into mining jobs, paid little to nothing, and lived in treacherous conditions. The legacy of the mining industry impacts individuals and families to this day. So, my professors abstained from the traditional gold or diamond bands in protest and demonstrated their loving connection with tattooed wedding bands instead.

Two men eating their rations in a shanty town created for miners to live in for most of the year (https://showme.co.za/facts-about-south-africa/history-of-south-africa/the-history-of-south-africa/)

Although this anecdote might seem random or even irrelevant, it is what came up in my mind when engaging with the chocolate contemplative practice. Why? The bitter sweetness of the chocolate, both in taste and through its commodity chain is shared with the wedding band. Both are a sort of celebration, a dessert and a union of love. Both have seen, and still see terrible injustices and human rights abuses in their commodity chains. Both require an immense amount of water and fossil fuels. In both cases, the harvesters and primary suppliers, the “beginning” of these global commodity chains, often never have the opportunity to see the final result of their grueling work—chocolate or wedding bands. Just as the food we consume embodies water, so does our consumption of other goods.

A child rakes cocoa beans on a drying rack, demonstrating the child labor frequently used in chocolate’s commodity chain (https://www.ethical.org.au/get-informed/issues/animal-testing/young-boy-rakes-cocoa-beans-on-a-drying-rack/)

This contemplative practice prodded me to think about our own responsibility in the commodity chain. Should we model ourselves after my professors? Should I stop my father from consuming his ritual post-dinner chocolate bar each night? The contemplative practice did not lead me to a final and perfect answer, but it did allow me to consider one family’s response to the injustices of a different commodity chain, offering me insight into what I believe is the right thing to do. Ultimately, this is the starting point. This is the headspace from which we can begin to consider how to alter our personal behavior to support what is right for the environment and for other human beings.

– Sophie Stein

Far-away treats

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Studying the complexities of the world food system from my home is humbling at times. How am I connected to it and how can I, an individual, make a difference in the grand scheme of things? The contemplative practices from this class have both amplified this feeling of smallness and helped me gain insight to my reactions to the things I am learning. One practice, on contemplating chocolate, particularly stuck with me. Prior to the practice, two videos were assigned; one documenting child labor on cacao farms on the Ivory Coast, and another on cocoa farmers tasting chocolate for the first time.

I find previewing content like this to be insightful and to provide context that is larger than myself. I admired the hard work of these farmers, and how they were so grateful to be tasting the product from the cacao beans they so tirelessly produce. For a second, I felt so greedy that I can have all the chocolate I desire, yet the people who produce this taken-for-granted treat are mostly unaware of it, and are totally fine without it. I am reminded of the entrenched inequities in our food systems, global hunger, and the fight for food sovereignty as I think of the commodity chain of this chocolate I eat.

It makes me wonder what I truly need in my life, and what American capitalist society tells me I need. I certainly do not need chocolate, or many other products that begin in different hemispheres from me. Yet, I still continue to buy such foods, like chocolate, oranges, coffee, and many more delights that are the result of exploited labor. But in reality, I do not believe me changing my consumption habits makes much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, yet I can try. I wonder, however, why am I so privileged to be the beneficiary of the commodities of the world food system?

Map of global chocolate production and consumption. The top consumers live so far away from the treats they enjoy!

 

Cacao fruit with harvest tool.

Image sources:

https://medium.com/@jerrytoth/whats-wrong-with-cacao-farming-d33ec4a949b2

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-euHLRk7EPJ4/UQgwseW_v4I/AAAAAAAAB1c/ejkQArr_hgY/s1600/chocolate.jpg