what it takes to feed you
27 december 2006 :: john
I recently took a part-time job at an organic farm near where we live. I wanted to get more connected with where food comes from by doing some hands-on work related to food grown organically. I help pack boxes which customers buy on a sort of subscription basis: they get a box of that week's organic produce..tomatoes, mangoes, onions, apples, potatoes..etc. Whatever's available...a very tasty, attractive, and nourishing mix.
The job I do is physical: I put stuff into boxes. There's some lifting involved..up to 100 lbs at a crack. Lots of repetition. I work with a crew of good souls...hard-working folks who are there for basically the same reasons I am. We feel we're doing something good, and we all get a decent amount of free produce as part of our compensation package. I say "compensation package" in mockery of those who receive incomprehensible amounts of money for plundering.
Anyway...my job is nothing compared to that of the Harvest Crew. Those are the folks who spend their days in the fields tending, and picking the stuff I pack and which you and I eventually eat.
Seems like a pretty simple thing. "Tending and picking." Let's take a look at what's involved...
Unlike the gardens you may have had, this farm covers hundreds of acres, which are required to grow produce in commercially-significant amounts (ie, for profit). A squadron of people is necessary to harvest that produce efficiently and with as much care given to the tender plants we hope to eat as possible. (again, profit: an attractive product, minimal overhead and waste).
That involves stooping for hours at a time, and pulling, plucking and cutting free the vegetables being harvested. Not something the post-industrial spine can withstand for any length of time.
More than likely, you are not involved with agriculture. In fact, few people in "advanced" countries are. We've externalized and abstracted the growing of food into something that more resembles iPod manufacture than the loving cultivation of food which nourishes our bodies.
Growing and picking food is something done by "somebody else." Specifically, the somebody elses tend to be (...wait for it) Mexicans and South Americans.
The growing and picking of food is seen as being something done by those with no options, no skills..no brains. Face it...we love our fantasy non-phsyical techno-world, and tricking ourselves into thinking that we are the skin on the cream of humanity. You don't work with your nose in the stratosphere, and you just aren't fully realized as a human being.
In the near future, it is quite possible that many of us will be faced with the puzzle of where our food is going to come from. I don't mean that your favorite upscale food theme park will be closed. I mean that the production of food itself will change from the factory model which it is now into something else.
Something which will put you into far more intimate contact with the food you hope to eat than you ever imagined. Something involving a lot of stooping and lifting..lots of repetition. Something that will get your fingernails REALLY dirty.
And, something you will consider yourself lucky to be able to do.
A lot of us are going to realize that, if you don't get your hands dirty and make the earth produce food which people can eat, you just aren't fully realized as a human being.
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