Aquaponics is Fun

Source: soscuisine.com

This post was sparked up by the viewing of the movie "Eating Alabama". The screening was organized by the neighborhoods CSA (community supported Agriculture), and free of charge and was followed by a short discussion between the public, a person from justfood.org and another from the organizing committee.  It got me thinking.





Also, the search for this picture using the keywords "eat" and "local" did not give one image showing a non-white person on the side of the customer, but this argument is outside of what I want to discuss here.

Eating Alabama is a documentary about a couple who moved back to their native Alabama. Their goal is to recreate a "simpler way of life", where theyd eat only local food. Turns out that in order to gather groceries, they drive around 800 miles all over the state. The movie is a patchwork of stories from their grand parents (in particular Andrews grand parents), organization of food production and distribution at the time and, how difficult it is in todays world to find local food. They also visit a few small veggie farms where they find part of their sustenance. The film was part of the official selection of quite a few film festivals.
Here is my problem: Who the hell can afford to drive 800 miles to buy a few pounds of beans and wheat and buy all (or even part) of fresh meats and veggies at the veggie farm? I know - or rather suppose- that the intention of the filmakers was to convey how ridiculously difficult it is to find local food. I also assume that they want to expose how the structure of the globalized  agribusiness (and the lobby) makes it very difficult for local farming to be a successful business without targeting people with money. But what novel take on the situation does the film make ?
Food Inc., Fresh, Food Matters, The Future of Food, The Real Dirt Farmer etc. are some of the many documentaries approaching the same issues. Presenting the effect of corporate agriculture pressure on local farming, how some food can be transported across the globe-several times by these corporation, or how heavy subsidies and trade agreement bend the market to be unfavorable for small businesses. I was hoping that Eating Alabama would bring something new to the table, in particular discussing how to make that local food available to people how just dont make enough to have the freedom of choosing between spending more money on healthier food or on their kids college fund...
As I mentioned earlier the free screening was followed by a time of discussion. The first part of the discussion was directly about the movie, and the experiences of the person from Just food. the second part was questions from the audience. The questions were also directly linked to the movie, and none brought up the real problem, how do we change things - for all - for the ones like me who have 0$ on their saving accounts, and still struggle to pay the bills. By the end we actually where able to ask that specific question, "What about people who do not earn much money, but still want to eat local food ?" Weve learned that the CSA offers discount on their half year shares, which is great, but the thing is, you got to pay upfront. Even after the discount, it is still several hundreds of dollars to put upfront, and that is not possible for us or many other people. While my personal future will most likely put me sooner than later in the position where I may have the money to enable me to make choices, that is not necessarily the case of most people. So, how to bring local, healthy, low carbon impact food to the masses ?

Will Allen Growing Power Founder

We were lucky enough to engage into a conversation with the gentleman from justfood. Justfood is an association that promote sustainable food project and promote community garden and farms, farmers markets, farm-to-pantry programs to low income communities. They also are trying to promote teaching gardening in schools. There are a few similar programs that had been successful. For Instance, Growing Power, in Milwaukee was created by Will Allen, and has brought urban farming to under-served communities in Milwaukee, and is now expanding to Chicago. Growing Power provides accessible food, teaches and employ the local teen. And this is where things can be done. By supporting the organization of community farms that use community volunteer while teaching them gardening/farming skills, they can provide produce at accessible price, especially that no transportation or distributors are necessary. Given time, the Growing Power experience shows that employment can also be created out of such initiatives. Further, the development of localized farming as non profit organization is not lessened by the need to enrich investors. Instead, profits can be used for reasonable expansion and job creation. Additionally, food that was not harvested 1000s of miles away are more nutritious, since they have ripened on the plant, and will be eaten soon after that.