[BCFSN] Book Review | "Food for the City: A Future for the Metropolis" | Food Is Primal / Food Is Rational

[Pamela Zevit Adamah Consultants]

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 <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/pdUVu/~3/YjUVet7iDXc/book-review-food-for-city-future-for.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email> Book Review | "Food for the City: A Future for the Metropolis" | Food Is Primal / Food Is Rational 

Posted: 25 Jul 2016 03:33 AM PDT

 

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Food for the City: A Future for the Metropolis

Brigitte van der Sande, Ed., 

NAI Publishers | 2016 | 240 pp. | ISBN 978-90-5662-854-3

 

Can art and rationality work together? They coexist in  <http://www.stroom.nl/nl/publicaties/publicatie.php?p_id=5417667> Food for the City, a volume that employs eclecticism in the pursuit of a better understanding—both intellectual and emotional—of the food systems that provide us all with life, that connect us to our environment. Yet our current food system often does not nourish the planet or human beings, leading to depleted soil laden with chemicals, stressed ecosystems, and, at its worst, humans simultaneously obese and malnourished.

Unlike many books on the environment, Food for the City employs an eclectic approach, with chapters by artists, activists, and architects, as well as a farmer, a philosopher, and a chef, among others. Its striking array of art ranges from the glory of nature to the gore of meat processing.

            I will discuss the art first, to give readers a feel for the volume. In one photograph, piles of freshly caught fish, some streaked with blood, fill the frame, the waves of the eternal ocean beating steadily in the background. Elsewhere, the copious grains on which we all depend are captured in glorious color. Other photos showcase vast mounds of sacks filled with food and row upon row of boxes. With harvesting and production comes repetition, revealing the sources of our food in vast numbers, before it is shipped out and reaches our individual plates. Other pictures explore the waste side of our food system, from goats cavorting atop a mound of garbage to dumpster divers invading the copious space our society reserves for waste, squeezing out a bit of nourishment.

In one artistic exploration, a blood-drenched chef feeds human limbs into the meat processing line, while opposite it other chefs neatly line up processed cow parts. Curator Peter de Rooden, in his chapter, discusses performance art pieces “in which people are processed into pig feed” and asks what if, instead of growing taller, people shrunk in physical size, returning to our pre-industrial roots. This fits into the volume’s concluding “Manifesto of Urban Cannibalism,” which declares that “[i]t was religion which managed to subjugate the stomach into the crypto-cannibalistic ritual of the Christian communion” and commands “Urban cannibals, eat the rich!” Art may be cryptic, but it also reaches deep within us—the birth of humanity among violence to other species, and to ourselves, the current propensity for incessant waste—to give some form to pre-rational impulses. These imaginative explorations aim to shock people into re-connecting with our food systems. As de Rooden puts it, “Art has the ability to undermine our preconceived notions and ossified images and to show alternatives.” This is the visual side of Food for the City.

            Or rather, one side of the visual side, for the pictures can also appeal to the rational. Copious graphs showcase the state of our global food system, which is changing at a dizzying pace.  These graphs highlight a dystopian science-fiction quality to the book, with our industrial food system rapidly changing due to genetically modified food while racing to keep up with a burgeoning population demanding ever more meat. A timeline dating back to 2050 BCE, when the Sumerians doled out barley rations, extends forward to 2050 CE, predicting 3D printer food and a Chinese eco-city self-sufficient in all its needs. Other innovations, such as laboratory-grown hamburgers, seem as if they belong in a sci-fi future, although they have already been developed.

The whole system of feeding more people a more diverse diet than ever might face a sudden collapse due to soil impoverishment, drought, unpredictable weather, and vulnerability to disease, among other factors. Industrialist Stephan Tanda points out that “minerals and raw materials that are essential for maintaining agricultural productivity are becoming depleted at such a rate that some scientists now talk about Peak Phosphate as a threat to the food supply.” Rural Sociologist Johannes S.C. Wiskerke adds the need “to address the core issues within the dominant food system—climate change, water, biodiversity, energy, population growth, waste, land, soil, labour, dietary change.” The sustainability of our food systems may be threatened as never before.

            Or perhaps not. As the problems become bogglingly complex and sophisticated, so do our means of coping with them. A group of technologists predict that by 2050, “Major food-producing crops will be ‘semi-synthetic’” and that “crops, bioengineered animals exhibiting faster growth rates, improved yield on costly feed ingredients and providing healthier sources of meat protein will be readily available.” This prediction, however, seems to contradict the passion for “natural” food displayed elsewhere in the volume and in our ongoing social argument over genetically modified crops. The eclectic mix of voices in Food for the City leaves unresolved contradictions. It is certain, though, that using our burgeoning technology and knowledge prudently will take long-term political wisdom, the commodity that may be in the shortest supply.

            The solution advocated throughout much of the book is local. “One of the dominant myths of our times is that we need industrial agriculture to produce more food,” exclaims activist Vandana Shiva. She describes as a myth “that small farms are inefficient and have low productivity and therefore small farmers shall disappear.” How much to depend on small farms and on organic crops, and how harmful modern agriculture has been, are tricky issues. Shiva has been at the forefront of dismissing large-scale agriculture and genetically modified food. However, her credibility has been challenged, for instance in a  <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/seeds-of-doubt> recent New Yorker article. Central to the controversy has been the Green Revolution, which in the 1970s brought modern fertilizer and pesticides to developing nations. Shiva believes that these developments have destroyed India’s traditional way of life and brought many small farmers to suicide. Yet, following the Green Revolution, the famines that had led to mass starvation have faded. “More than one study has concluded that if India had stuck to its traditional farming methods millions would have starved,” points out the New Yorker. Still, the long-term sustainability of our current practices is extremely doubtful as the soil loses vitality and biodiversity suffers. It seems to me that the best of current technology will have to be melded with the best of traditional practices for a sustainable agriculture that feeds upwards of nine billion people. Much of this may be local, yet, given the scope of the issue, it seems likely that more sustainable forms of mass agriculture will also have to be developed.

            The majority of thinkers in Food for the City believes in the local—indeed, the title refers to reconnecting people in urban areas to sources of food. We are currently at “a tipping point in an ecological turn from large-scale food production to sustainable food systems,” argues philosopher Huub Dijsetbloem. De Rooden decries that city dwellers no longer even know the sources of their food, and mentions a 2010 study, “Food for the City,” showing “where, how, for whom, and especially in collaboration with which parties, food production in The Hague may be meaningful.” Urban architect Jorge Mario Jáuregui suggests that “technological progress is now enabling us to rediscover compatibilities and links between functions that have been driven out of cities and ones that have not—livestock and housing, vegetable gardens and restaurants, industry and leisure, and so on.” This suggests that the personal is political, that all of us consumers are making choices with profound social and moral impacts. Yet Dijsetbloem rejects, or at least moderates, the idea that when we eat we are “farming by proxy.” Rather, decisions are made simultaneously at a larger and local level in a complex interplay. Dijsetbloem relates food issues to climate change, which “cannot be solved either at the level of individual citizens or at the level of a collective global organization. It will require alliances between groups tackling similar problems and compromises in the face of competing issues.” Asking either centralized government or local action to resolve our food problems is simplistic—work and idea sharing are needed at all levels.

            Still the book’s consensus is to move back to the old—to diverse agriculture on small, local farms—albeit with new technology and a greater awareness of sustainability. Expanding on his experiences in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, Chef José Andrés imagines a world “of too many hungry people, with too few resources, competing for too little food.” Andrés sees much of the problem as residing in our international systems that keep people dependent on imports from factory farming in wealthy countries: “We cannot afford to use Haiti as a market for American food exports, to benefit wealthy American farmers.” Rather, local farmers need to grow their own food, spurred by business models that combine the traditional with new technologies and new ways of financing.

            As often as possible, these changes must occur while, and through, empowering women, who are commonly responsible for local farming and feeding their families. Gaynor Paradza expands on gender issues, explaining that women have long been expected to secure nourishment but often under conflict conditions. Therefore, “to secure the fragile rights and claims of women farmers, it is important that governments put in place mechanisms to monitor and protect women’s land rights.” Andrés explains that cook stoves, for instance, are harming women, burning dirty charcoal and consuming trees, which in Haiti means deforestation and ecosystem devastation. Clean cook stoves thus need to be provided, new technology delivered via new business models that empower local people. Andrés is ultimately optimistic: “in Haiti, amid what was still unbelievable suffering…I could imagine a time—well before 2050—when the brave people of this island could feed themselves with locally-grown food and cook their meals with clean energy.” The local must be combined with the newest technology and cutting-edge practices.

            Another crucial theme regarding our food systems is the excess consumption of meat and the move toward flexitarianism, vegetarianism, and veganism. However, Food for the City barely touches on the topic, largely relegating it to the art, which makes a powerful statement with pictures of bloody animals and humans. Yet the text fails to contextualize the moral, health, and environmental issues around meat. It comes closest in an interview with the Dutch farmer Annechien ten Have-Mellema, who “joins hands with former opponents such as animal protection groups and environmental NGO’s to improve the living conditions of the animals.” The pigs on her farm are well treated, given ample space, water and light, even toys. Every part of them is used: “Feet, tails and ears go to China to be eaten, while heart valves find their way into the hearts of people all over Europe. Glue, chinaware, insulin, sweets, cosmetics, soap, tooth paste, paint, candles, hair brushes and paint brushes all contain parts of the bones, organs, hide, hair, blood or lard of pigs.” Avoiding waste, using all parts of every item processed, are key in the move toward a circular, sustainable economy. Still, important questions remain regarding the moral and efficiency aspects of farming animals. Have-Mellema’s treatment of pigs provides one set of answers to profound questions regarding the human relationship to animals, an issue that I will explore in more detail in a future post.

 

 

 

 Ethan Goffman

 

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Ethan Goffman is Associate Editor of  <http://sspp.proquest.com/> Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. His publications have appeared in  <http://earthtalk.org/> Earthtalk,  <http://www.emagazine.com/author/egoffman/> E: The Environmental Magazine, Grist, and elsewhere. He is the author of Imagining Each Other: Blacks and Jews in Contemporary American Literature (State University of New York Press, 2000) and co-editor of The New York Public Intellectuals and Beyond (Purdue University Press, 2009) and Politics and the Intellectual: Conversations with Irving Howe (Purdue University Press, 2010). From 2009 to 2014, Ethan was Transit Chair of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Chapter of the Sierra Club and he currently serves as the organization's Bicycle Liaison.

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Pamela Zevit, RPBio 
Adamah Consultants 

Coquitlam BC Canada
604-939-0523 

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