kbentley
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- Name: kbentley
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the question
There are so many good thoughts here, and so much work to be done. I've read the Oil Drum thread on your article as well, Tom, and through both of these streams, something that strikes me is how folks have handled the initial question: Can sustainable farming feed the world? I think by examining the question, y'all will see it is unintentionally distorted:
- What does it mean to feed the world? Is the world a massive consumer farm to be nourished? This is the agribusiness model that has devastated communities in this country, and is presented by Monsanto to justify GM foods. The world has never been fed. Slaves, prisoners, consumers with capitol, and livestock have been fed. Communities and individuals feed themselves through production and trade. The folks, and particularly children, dying of starvation across the globe as we speak, are, as Francis Moore Lappe and others have pointed out, dying not because the world lacks food, but because their world does. Policies, politics, and old-fashioned greed are the arbiters of these deaths, the gates controlling food distribution. The question of how to get food directly to starving people, and help them restore their lives and their communities is, I think, what we need to ask. For the rest of it, lets make working models of what it means to restore a community to something resembling sustainable.
- Who would ask such a question? I've no intent to criticize the Canadian journalist who asked. Certainly, anyone that cared at all for the welfare of others might well ponder this. What if we try looking at it this way: Can <your solution goes here> feed the world? I'm looking at how surely a pervasive culture occupies a language. There is an imperial we, an empire, coursing through the question that most of us are so accustomed to that we miss it. The position required to ask such a question is one of wealth and authority. It implies a culture that embodies one or all of these perceptions: it has an ethical responsibility to feed the world, it already feeds the world, or it controls (or intends to control) the capacity to do so. For the reasons stated above and more, despite the advertising, it is a myth that anyone feeds the world or ever has. However, agribusiness does certainly, and obviously, intend to control the capacity to do so. An ethical responsibility that can survive the arrogant myth, political capture, and capitalist control, is a worthy impetus indeed. Let's assume that we have such a thing in our possession, unscathed. How shall we implement this effectively? Now there's a question.
- What does it mean to feed the world? Is the world a massive consumer farm to be nourished? This is the agribusiness model that has devastated communities in this country, and is presented by Monsanto to justify GM foods. The world has never been fed. Slaves, prisoners, consumers with capitol, and livestock have been fed. Communities and individuals feed themselves through production and trade. The folks, and particularly children, dying of starvation across the globe as we speak, are, as Francis Moore Lappe and others have pointed out, dying not because the world lacks food, but because their world does. Policies, politics, and old-fashioned greed are the arbiters of these deaths, the gates controlling food distribution. The question of how to get food directly to starving people, and help them restore their lives and their communities is, I think, what we need to ask. For the rest of it, lets make working models of what it means to restore a community to something resembling sustainable.