The Bland & The Beautiful : Redefining Abundance in Food Systems
Well, as someone born in the PNW I can assuredly say that summer has arrived, albeit fashionably late. Slamming through the door with a Starbucks in hand kinda late. We all know how hard this spring has been for every farmer as we all try to shimmy and adjust and somehow pull “Abundance” from a straw hat. I have heard directly from many veteran farmers that THIS is one of the hardest seasons they have experienced, and that they’re worried about the longevity of their farm in the coming years. Considering the context around lockdowns, worker shortages, and devastating wildfire seasons I think this is a conversation worth having. Abundance on a Farm, abundance in relationships, abundance in wealth; It’s what the human mind strives to create, and it’s relative to where we stand in this world. As we gather through the month of July, where do we find abundance in our lives? Is it a surplus that we can redirect and share?
Farming, to me, is equally about this concept of abundance and reconnecting my community with a diverse variety of foods that have slowly been stripped from our diets as commercially grown foods favor uniform, high yield varieties. Did you know that this is also the reason that we all begrudgingly eat the beautiful yet bland grocery store tomatoes? Scientists Post World War 2 who bred tomatoes for high yield, deeper color, disease resistance and firmness got exactly what they wanted, at a cost. They gave tomatoes that ship well across longer and longer distances, look nice, and taste like nothing. This reckless stewardship of that line of tomatoes has made them the sad, watery fruits that they are today - and defenseless in their genetically modified monolith to withstand the next solanacea pox. In contrast, heirloom seeds and native seeds that we and our fellow farmers grow are, in fact, becoming stronger with each generation and naturally adapting to our changing climates. Our bodies remember these varieties of foods, in one way or another, which is why the work we do at Good Rain Farm is so important to me.
Thinking about these bland watery tomatoes and abundance in the context of late Stage Capitalism, which comes out swinging with pure desperation it seems, and how it hits our most vulnerable communities the hardest. Good Rain provides scholarships to individuals who want access to farm fresh vegetables and have financial or physical barriers, largely through the support of our CSA members. We also offer above market-rate prices so that we can offer below market-rate prices - and this is just one of many ways that we can help uplift each other. It’s important to remember that our communities’ resilience itself creates abundance. It’s as much a feeling as it is a physical state of matter, which means abundance might not look like an overflowing grocery store shelf or an overstocked home pantry. This may be a scary concept to imagine for the modern human, with all of our expected conveniences. As U.S. Agriculture Secretary (2019) Sonny Perdue says himself, regarding farms specifically, “the big get bigger and the small go out”- and why might this happen? Perdue Farms and any corporation like it possess the liquid funds required to be opportunistic in the influxes of consumer demand in capitalism. And Americans are exhausted, including farmers, and lean on convenience foods as a direct result of those same capitalistic forces. If we invest in our local agricultural infrastructure (through CSAs, the food co-op, the farmer’s market, etc) we are putting the power back in the hands of the small farmer. Robust local farm systems are necessary to support happy, well adjusted plants. These make seasonal eating possible, and allow us to grow an abundance of both familiar and new foods that thrive in our changing climates. Instead of grocery stores, consider restaurants and cafes for a moment - How many year round menus exist, selling the same five vegetables in the same way as the other six restaurants on the block? Oftentimes restaurants have to rely on larger, monocrop producers for the consistency and sheer volume of product that they provide. These plants are often susceptible to disease, which means that farmers have to plant more acreage of one plant, and increase the level of herbicide and pesticides application. This is not abundance, nor is it supporting our ecosystems or the state of our food systems. What if instead of using Big Corporate Food Distribution, our restaurants could consistently engage with small farms to provide distinct and unique preparations of foods you don’t often see? This is where it loops back to us, the consumers. We have to be willing to shift our palettes and, more importantly, our expectations of what an abundance of food looks like.
Food equity advocacy in your community isn’t just supporting small farmers though - it includes policy changes around ethical foraging that will stop our government from targeting BIPOC Americans specifically, via fines and arrests. Foraging laws were made to isolate and punish Native Americans and Black Americans, pushing them further from the diverse foods intrinsic to their cultures. Not only does this isolate already vulnerable communities, but strips the natural seasonality from traditional ways of eating. Foraging relies heavily on weather and season, and by placing hoops for individuals to jump through or even overt barriers, we become even more reliant on a broken food system. These are laws that have been in place for longer than most of us have likely walked this earth, and unfortunately laws policing food have only become more insidious. (Alexis Nicole does a brilliant job illuminating this topic as @blackforager on tiktok ) Using the rhetoric of public safety, the federal government dictates that all donated foods must go to a third party before reaching the recipient. In actuality, this is to “limit legal liability” for the establishment were someone to get sick from donated food. This not only prevents direct donations from companies or restaurants to those in need, but also prevents home cooked meals from legally being donated. Compounding the food waste that we already see in our homes, grocery stores often have too much excess for the food banks to handle, resulting in dumpsters often containing food that is still good for human consumption. The fresh food that regional food banks do receive are often lower quality due to the time delay in transportation between facilities, and then finally to the end consumer. We’ve seen examples of food policing recently in Portland - February 16th, 2021. Not only did we experience more snow and ice storms than is typical for the season and COVID, but Oregon also recorded historical power outages. The Hollywood Fred Meyer lost power, and had to throw away all of the temperature controlled food in the store. Portland Police Officers stood guard in front of the dumpsters while local residents tried to get food to feed themselves and their families. Refrigerated foods must stay at or below 40* F, and frozen foods must stay at 0*F. I will let you form your own opinion as to whether this policing was necessary but you can see the snow still on the ground in the images.
Most of us naturally fear change and instability. The problem with this is that fear is used against us as a tool for controlling people who are too preoccupied to see what is happening. We can see this occurring around us daily. I find it hard to keep my focus on farming when the Supreme Court continues to spiral into an increasingly voracious spiral. All I can say is I love you, I see you, I’m gonna keep on growing food for you because that feels like all I have control of right now. Michelle and I, on the ground, often check in with each other due to the metaphorical hellstorm occurring outside of our little plot of land. “Is this it?” is one of the most common phrases I find myself thinking. But what is “it” and does that really stop me from helping my community? The obvious answer, as long as I can keep my head sound, is no! This is a feeling I’ve held since childhood, actually. The impending doom of late-stage capitalism has always felt like more of an inevitability than a possibility. There’s no time to take cover, honestly. We’re all in this together. Lateral violence is also something that I’m seeing a lot, as tensions rise. It’s easy to get mad at your neighbor because you feel like you can exert control over them and your immediate surroundings. This is the time to become curious - educate yourself about the veins of corruption running much, much deeper in the foundations of this country. Your neighbor may be annoying, but that doesn’t make them the source, and doesn’t mean that your problems will go away by lashing out at your peers. There is a certain amount of direct tolerance that makes democracy work in a community, and I hope modeling and exerting that tolerance is enough to help keep the wheels turning in the right direction. Here is my calling to you to take that Doom and make it Hope. Maybe not pure hope, not sickly sweet and blinding, but something that you can morph into fuel. Get angry. Feel your grief for this world in every step that you take. Make it mean something. You can cry for the birds and still put out a bird feeder and a bird bath. You can cry for the elder crossing the street alone at 5 am and still keep a lookout for him at that moment, and hold your own elders close. This world is full of pain right now, but has it really ever been any different? Not in a nihilistic way, moreso that Life is hard and it honestly used to be harder in some ways. You and I, however, are a testament to our ancestors' strength to withstand change and grief. They made it and so will we.
Farmer Domenika gave y’all some wonderful resources to help people fighting for reproductive health in our communities last week!
Due to the most recent actions by SCOTUS, and their plans for the future, it feels like the right thing to offer more opportunities to take action. SOGOREA TE LAND TRUST Donate to return indigenous land to indigenous people! Sogorea Te Land Trust is “an urban indigenous woman-led land trust based in the San Fransisco Bay Area” doing direct sovereignty work!
GOOD RAIN FARM SCHOLARSHIP FUND You are always welcome to help feed someone in your community!
CHUUSH FUND DONATION PAGE Direct support to Warm Springs to help restore access and water infrastructure.
OREGON LEGISLATIVE INFORMATIONWASHINGTON LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION Find info about your next voting cycle locally and let your reps and senators know how you want them to represent you.
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Be well!
Written by Farmer Dexter
