Tag Archives: consumption

No System is Immune: Structural Racism in the American Food System

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This past quarter I had the opportunity to work with a Washington organization fighting to empower the youth of the state to fight for bold, equitable, and science-based climate policies. Through my work with Our Climate, coupled with my politics of the world food system course, I became more educated about the concentrations of power in wealth that dominate and dictate the processes and practices of the world food system.

The richest fifth of the population control 90 percent of the world’s wealth and emit 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.[i] This block of people is mostly white. This fact does not exist without substantial consequences for the rest of the population. For example, 10 percent of white households experience hunger in the United States, Black households experience hunger at rates of 20-25 percent.[ii]

Source: https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf

Food insecurity, as we know can and does lead to inability to attend school or jobs, decreased health and health outcomes, disease, shortened life expectancy, and more. Systemic racism does not solely exist in our legal and governmental institutions. It shows up in the global food system, especially in the American food system. Systemic racism is not isolated to a few systems or institutions, food insecurity is not the only manifestation of systemic racism. Private agricultural land ownership is dominated by white people.[iii] Only 1.3 percent of farmers in America are Black.[iv] Black farmers receive less assistance from the government than white farmers.[v] The list goes on and on.

Source: https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DRnumber2_VF.pdf

Systems are inherently interconnected and organized to achieve a function. Yet, our national food system fails Black Americans. Change in systems is inevitable and we must leverage this inherent change to ensure that food systems serve Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color just the same as they serve white people. We must call upon our politicians and listen to Black activists to address these issues.

Lastly, I want to share some important resources, activists, educators, and organizers to turn to during this time.

END NOTES:

[i] Political Ecology of the World Food System Lecture, April 16, 2020

[ii] https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf

[iii] https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DRnumber2_VF.pdf

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

[v] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

– Sophie Stein

Alternative Milk, Our Earth, and Systems Theory

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I really valued what I took away from this course, as it presented new and challenging topics that I had never considered before. It also gave me the opportunity to conduct research on a topic I took a great interest in: the sustainability of alternative milk products. I was inspired by a previous blog post I wrote, about a climate change food calculator that calculates the ghg emissions, water usage, and land usage of 40 different foods.

With the massive changes in the dairy and alternative milk market, I decided to use this as a jumping point to look into three milk products: milk from dairy cows, almond milk, and oat milk. I researched and compared all three products with reference to water usage and GHG emissions. I was mostly interested in determining if alternative milks were actually more sustainable, and if so which was the most sustainable milk?

I looked closely at the sections about food systems and the effect of climate change. I determined that the ecological system and the food production system are incredibly intertwined and interdependent. The ecological and biological systems greatly affect how food is grown and produced, and the food production system has had very adverse effects on the environment.

My research only scratched the surface of sustainable food production practices, but it is a critical piece in the future of food production. This course gave me a deeper understanding of systems theory that allowed me to analyze a topic in a more meaningful way.

Works Cited:

Guibourg, C., & Briggs, H. (2019, August 09). Climate change food calculator: What’s your diet’s carbon footprint? Retrieved June 09, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714

Image:

Lucas, A. (2019, November 13). 5 charts that show how milk sales changed and made it tough for Dean Foods to avert bankruptcy. Retrieved June 09, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/13/5-charts-that-show-how-milk-sales-have-changed.html

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

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

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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

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.

Post-Contemplation Considerations of the Food System

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This post is a response to “What Contemplative Practices Have Taught Me about Problem Solving” by, Sydney

In “What Contemplative Practices Have Taught Me about Problem Solving,” Sydney reflects on feelings of restlessness, not knowing how to make a meaningful difference as a consumer in a food system that simultaneously benefits some (in particular, us) and negatively impacts others. I agree with Sydney, we must examine our own relationship to the existing system prior to effective systems analysis. We know, at this point in the course that a system is an interconnected set of aspects that is organized in a way that achieves a function or purpose. We are evidently a part of the world food system. However, I want to extend past this and begin to incorporate and deliberate options for  next steps following effective contemplation.

I offer a consideration of another article “How Consumers and Farmers Can Transform Food Systems” by Tania Strauss and Maria Elena Varas. This article discusses both a farmer in Vietnam who has little access to beneficial food systems information as well as a consumer, Meaghan, in the United States who navigates the food system with consistent flows of contrasting information from social media and mainstream news. Meaghan is an individual that resonates with most of us, when shopping we consider all of the information that has arrived with us through our education, our social media usage, and our familial teachings. Strauss and Varas argue that consumers should be at the heart of any solution that is considered to make the world food system more effective for everyone. We, as consumers, hold the power and ability to change demand and ensure that food systems operate in a more sustainable manner for producers and consumers. This would suggest that you and I are at the center of this “food systems crisis,” that it is up to us to reconfigure this system to work for us, as well as the people that produce our food.

This graphic places consumers at the center of the image, much like Authors Strauss and Varas do. (https://www.foodshedinvestors.com/faq/what-is-a-foodshed-ecosystem)

When we turn to the World Economic Forum’s Food Systems Initiative Report on the role of incentives to enable food systems to transform, there is only one suggestion for the general population to engage in, simply changing consumer behavior. The other three pathways for developing incentives to transform food systems are repurposing public investment and policies, business model innovation, and institutional investments. Therefore, I posit a question; to what extent is individual responsibility integral to the alteration of the food system to become more conducive to all actors involved? Furthermore, is the concept of individualism infiltrating the discussion on the improvement of the world food system in a prohibitive manner?

This is a graphic that captures the WEF’s food systems initiative on the role of incentives to enable food systems to transform recommendations of how to achieve food system aspirations. (https://weforum.ent.box.com/s/35vs54zp4mqfnlg17lb6yli5rsc9bg2x)

I do not mean to end this discussion with further questions, however, it feels inevitable to continue to prod at the questions at the hear of these issues, we must converse and engage with one another to develop the most effective practices and responses.

Finally, with consideration of the concept of individualism, I suggest the following articles in an effort to further contemplate our roles in this world food system.

Best,

Sophie Stein

 

 

Carbons Credits and Food Aid: Why Consumption Solutions Won’t Fix a Broken Production System

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A phenomenon that is currently sweeping through the ‘environmental’ movement, is the concept of carbon credits; paying a variety of different merchants for performing carbon offsets. The most recent of these carbon markets are farmers hoping to sell their ability to sequester carbon in the soil through no till agriculture techniques. This is the idea discussed in, “Is carbon farming a climate boon, or boondoggle?” an article reviewed by one of my classmates (Anuras). This Blog post is in response to their blog post expanding on their critique of the carbon credits movement in general.

 

Anuras brings up a good point when they say, “Further, affluent consumers are drawn to climate friendly solutions such as carbon sequestration but do they … simply commend themselves for doing a good deed.” This statement helped me realize the connections this style of response for carbon sequestration has to the response the U.S. has taken

Developed Economy, Max Gustafson

with surplus grain supplies. Rather than address the problem at its source, the policy and production level, the solution the current system comes up with is to expand the consumer market, taking an overproduction problem and selling the solution back to the public as a consumption problem. They tell us that if we just give enough food away in the form of foreign aid, re-capture just enough carbon, simply consume enough, then we won’t have to change the way we live.

However, like we discussed in class, the people most likely to be impacted by the coming climate change are not those doing most of the consumption or emissions, but those in developing countries, the very same group of people most damaged by the processes of dumping surplus crops as ‘food aid’. We can no longer rely on individualistic solutions like carbon credits that inherently rely on consumption, to solve systemic issues. Our ‘perpetual growth’ economy is being fueled at the detriment of developing nations and climate mitigation. To truly address these institutional issues beyond buying some ‘green’ or ‘fair trade’ products we must come together as active citizens instead of passive consumers. It is up to us: we can either voluntarily change the way we live now or let climate change choose for us at a deadly cost in the future.

 

 

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