Texas at the Table

Texas at the Table was a gathering of local, state and national leaders to coordinate efforts to end hunger in Texas by 2015. Lots of people in suits (me NOT included) gathered at Baylor University to launch a Food Policy Roundtable that will tackle this issue. This gathering was organized by the Texas Hunger Initiative and included Todd Staples Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, Max Finberg Director of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships USDA and Julie Paradis Administrator for Food and Nutrition Services (to name the big wigs). There were also plenty of little wigs there today. Many folks I know from Waco and other non-profits working on sustainable food and hunger issues.

Here are some statistics I found most enlightening:

• Texas is now the 2nd hungriest state in United States (according to most recent USDA report 2009)
• 50% of people in the SNAP program (formerly food stamps) work full time
• Only 50% of eligible people participate in the SNAP program in Texas
• $4 billion in benefits goes untouched in Texas alone
• 70% of USDA budget is allocated to Assistance programs

I’ll start with the positives and then get cranky.

It was awesome to see so many people from so many diverse organizations, agencies, churches and faiths (one Muslim representative from Houston) gathered together for a common goal. All of the politicians said the right things and we all applauded at the appropriate moments. Clapping for cliches does not make change, but it does rally the troops and inspire people. Jeremy Everett of the Texas Hunger Initiative did a great job of putting a human face on hunger and clearly pointing out that the resources are already available and allocated to do the job. Camille Miller from Texas Health Institute did a good job asking us to put a face on hunger and pointing out where some of the gaps are in our knowledge and network.

Waco’s Mayor Dupuy recently visited Saudi Arabia and found that they had a food reclamation program that curbed food waste in their country. Why can’t we do that in the United States? We have a great mayor in Waco!

Baylor, as always, does it up fancy. They pulled out the good china for this event and touted a menu all from local Texas farmers. Unfortunately these local farmers remained anonymous and I cannot corroborate what local meant in this particular meal. Texas is a big state and if everything in Texas counts as local we might as well stick with California produce. I requested the vegetarian entree and almost shrieked when I saw the ASPARAGUS on my plate… in November… in Texas! This was wrong on so many levels, particularly considering the event’s claim to support local farmers. It was also disconcerting to see the coffee labeled “free trade” when they clearly meant “fair trade.” I applaud Baylor’s steps to start efforts to compost and reclaim food waste on campus, but there is clearly a long way to go for them to grasp the full concept and implications of sustainability.

This highlights the need to be on our toes to spot the difference between appearance and reality. Even well-meaning people using terms like “local” and “sustainable” need to be held accountable and educated about the reality.

As I said, Todd Staples said all the right things. There was one question I wanted to ask him. He touted the agricultural products of Texas. We’re #1 in cattle, of course, and cotton and mohair. The problem is we can’t eat cotton and mohair. We also know what kind of beef our corn-fed cattle are producing and it’s part of the problem. What is the Texas Department of Agriculture doing to encourage more fruit and vegetable production from small diversified farms in the state? If you’re reading this Commissioner Staples, just reply in the comments.

The breakout session on local food access was very good. I asked a question about better connections between Texas Agrilife and folks who are trying to do urban/community gardening, but don’t have any gardening or agriculture skills. This is a barrier for a lot of people and the A&M extension system could be a great resource for those people to get the help, knowledge and training they need. Unfortunately the system is not set up or able to do that the way it is currently. The emphasis is different in each county. Agents, particularly in urban counties are more likely trained in turf grass and landscaping. They need to also help the urban and community gardening people.

Finally, John Garland had the best quote about food deserts.

In the Rio Grande Valley people have to drive 20 miles to get to a grocery store. They drive through miles of land producing food to get to that grocery store.

I’m excited about the possibilities, but there is a lot of work and a long road ahead of us just to accomplish something that should already be happening. Let’s get busy.

photo from Boggy Creek Farm Austin, TX.

Life is But a Stream

I can’t help trying to find puns for the titles of posts. I apologize.

We are back from Houston where I helped the Texas Hunger Initiative with a workshop at the BGCT’s Stream event. Here’s the back of my head in the photo at the left talking to a fellow Truett grad after the workshop.

What was most fun about the trip was getting to bring my family along and seeing Houston with them. We hung out for an afternoon at the Discovery Green across from the convention center. They have an awesome exhibit of 50 globes with different themes related to global warming. Tuesday we went to Hermann Park for a couple hours and enjoyed the playgrounds and a really nice urban park. We were too exhausted to visit the Japanese garden at the end of our walk.

I was already antsy driving in to the nation’s 4th largest city, but the green spaces made it all better for me. Urban centers are not going away any time soon. So, it seems crucial that we spend a good amount of energy greening them up.

The Original Sin of Agriculture: Population Control Revisited

In the initial series I summarized the argument in Ishmael by saying

The expansion of agriculture to feed the population serves to enlarge the population necessitating the continued expansion of agriculture to feed an ever-growing population. The result of the ongoing “progression” and evolution of agriculture has not actually resulted in fewer people going hungry.

The Story of B goes further in exploring some of the implications of this idea. He uses the analogy of mice in a cage. If you feed the mice a certain amount of food they will reproduce and grow in population size as long as the amount of food is able to sustain the number of mice. If you then increase the amount of food the population will continue to increase. If you stop increasing the food the population will level off and remain basically static. If you incrementally decrease the ration of food the population will decrease. When that idea is translated to human beings it sounds very unnerving, callous and disturbing.

The productivists argue that agricultural production has continued to increase and keep pace with world population. There is no real conversation about the relationship or correlation between production and population. We know that the world hunger problem is not a production problem, but a distribution problem. The world now produces enough food for every human being on the planet to have 3,500 calories per day, which is more than the recommended amount. So, why do we continue to push for higher production and greater yield to solve the population problem? Are we in fact fueling the population crisis by continually increasing our production?

Some will question how this can be true when population growth is correlated to other factors like income or education. The character B’s response in the book is over and over again to ask what people are made of if they are not made of food. If the population continues to increase, then the larger population must sustain itself somehow and the only way that is possible is by eating something. That certainly doesn’t mean the larger population is eating well, but they are eating enough to survive.

Whether production increases or decreases, distribution is the real problem. Either way inequality will continue as long as food is not distributed equitably. The underlying question concerning population growth is whether we can actually deal with the problem if we are continuing to fuel it by producing more and more food. When I mention the possibility of decreasing production as a way of dealing with the population problem, it sounds like I’m recommending starving the marginal brown people of the world. As the system currently stands that would certainly be the case if we simply decreased production overall. A decrease in production would have to go hand in hand with an overhaul of how our food system functions. This is a long term problem that requires long term thinking and solutions.

The planet we live on has a limit to the amount of life it can sustain. Like an elevator or bridge that is only built to handle a certain weight, the earth has certain limits built into the ecosystems. We can push those boundaries with technology and science, but eventually they will break. For many in the world they have already broken, and they suffer the consequences of our over extension of the planet’s resources.

We don’t like to think that we are responsible or in control of other people dying. The truth is we already are responsible for that. Our (American) culture has an uneasy and unnatural relationship with death. Death is a natural part of life. Decreasing food production (in concert with reorganizing our food system) may in fact be the most ethical and just choice given the trajectory of human society. This would, of course, be a long gradual process in which the reduction of food production and slowing of population growth would happen naturally over many decades, if not centuries.

Please share your thoughts and objections. I know this probably sounds scary and crazy to some, but a lot of it makes sense to me. I would appreciate thinking it through more thoroughly with your help.

This is the continuation of a series exploring basic assumptions about agriculture, history and our relationship to creation: The Original Sin of Agriculture Part I, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Breakout Session on Food Policy Councils

Marla Camp of Edible Austin talked about forming a Sustainable Food Policy Board in Austin. There was a lot of helpful thoughts and ideas, things to keep in mind. The thing that continues to bother me about this conversation is the lack of inclusion of what someone in the session called “disadvantaged consumers.” There are members of the Food Policy Board from Edible Austin, The Sustainable Food Center and others that claim to represent “disadvantaged consumers” on the board. However, they themselves are not disadvantaged and from what I can tell are not people of color.

Marla mentioned that the communities of need are often not communities of interest in her experience. I can imagine that is certainly true, but not a good reason not to pursue better diversity and inclusion of the people that policies affect directly and deal with hunger daily. This gap seems to me one of the biggest barriers in making food and sustainability more than an issue of the privileged elites.

Any ideas? How do we educate those most disadvantaged by our food system to advocate for themselves and see this as an important issue in their community?

Synergistic Motivational Speaking at USDA Listening Session

Well, I survived my first listening session with the USDA today. Some may understand the headline from my tweets from the session. For those who missed it the word synergy was used way too often and in too many forms: synergy, synergism, synergistic. Unfortunately no one used the form a friend of mine invented on facebook… synergistic-expialidocious. Brilliant.

To top it all off a man who did NOT make it into the NBA who works for/is a motivational speaking group came down the aisle wearing a santa hat and carrying a smiley-faced basketball. He proceeded to treat all of us to what kids in gyms across America can barely sit still for… a motivational speaker.

I found many things interesting after listening to 20 people from a wide variety of organizations speak. The most interesting fact of all to me was that farmers were not represented at all. By all appearances farmers are not interested in ending childhood hunger or obesity (this was the main thrust of the session). I know this is not in fact the case. Real farmers were probably to busy doing real farming. So where were the groups that represent farmers? So, in my comments I pointed this out and shared some of my thoughts about the Farm Bill and what we do at World Hunger Relief. Here’s the highlight reel:

• Jeremy Everett of the Texas Hunger Initiative (and WHRI alum) gave a good big picture overview of their vision for bringing together existing federal, state and local resources and people to help them communicate, coordinate and organize their efforts for maximum impact. Basically the resources are already there to end hunger. We just need to get organized. Good thinking!
• A representative from Dairy Max a part of the National Dairy Council went on at length about the virtues of flavored milk in school cafeterias. Best moment of the day was when another lady said that there was as much sugar in a bottle of flavored milk as a soda.
• Best moment #2 was when someone from Texas Food Bank Network walked up with a grocery bag from the HEB down the street. He pulled out an organic apple and said this cost $1.75. Then he pulled out a bag of cheese puffs and said he paid $1.50. If I have $2 in my pocket and hungry kids in the back seat, which one am I going to buy?
• At least two people really wanted USDA to mount expensive media campaigns to deal with obesity. That is not a solution and does not work.
• One speaker suggested creating or at least discussing the possibility of a national school lunch menu. Interesting idea.

It was a good experience to see how something like this works. Though I am skeptical of government and bureaucracies ability to do good and make change, I also recognize that governments and bureaucracies consist of people who do not have hearts of stone. Listening sessions and town halls is what we need more of, not less. There should be room for disagreement over flavored milk (and other things) without resorting to hateful mischaracterizations and threatening speech. We’ve reached a fever pitch in our political discourse and I’m not sure what will bring us back to reality. I’m happy to report that at least one government listening session in these times was respectful. What it accomplishes has yet to be seen.