allthingsfoodsystems

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Final Thoughts

As every internet user hopefully knows, it is incredibly important to evaluate the information you read online for biases, and to make sure that the website or blog you’re reading is backing up their claims with reliable sources. In doing research for this blog, I learned that there are many, many blogs out there that are full of empirical statements that have more to do with the author’s personal stance than with actual fact. In an effort to push an agenda, regardless of what it is, websites will exaggerate claims, cherry pick the information that they give you and leave out the rest of the context, and even make things up. As must be clear by now, I have let my anti-capitalist and pro-environmental harmony opinions color the topics that I chose and the way that I talked about them, but I encourage readers to look at the other side of things and decide where they stand for themselves. I’ve included some links to articles with opposing stances to my own at the end of this post, if anyone is curious to read them.  

An especially common theme that I noticed in blogs similar to my own is the use of apocalyptic rhetoric that makes you feel like the world is doomed, as well as very real efforts to make people feel bad about their part in environmental degradation, maybe with the goal of guilting them into change. Personally, I am of the opinion that we as individuals should always be striving to do better, but that it cannot be entirely effective unless it is matched by global governmental efforts  to stop large polluting corporations and create a society in which everyone can afford to be green. I want to be incredibly clear that engendering feelings of doom and guilt in any readers of this blog is not at all my goal. As someone who has been riddled with environmental anxiety pretty much since I learned about the state of our planet, I don’t think that it is a particularly helpful feeling. I hope that this blog, though it discusses some of the uglier truths that come with mass food production, helps any readers feel a little bit better about the disaster that is climate change. As cheesy as it may sound, at the very least what you can take away from this is that there are people who are working with each other and the environment to make real change one step at a time. Even if it's through something as small as a blog for a college class. 

New York Times Op-Ed in support of industrial farms: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/why-industrial-farms-are-good-for-the-environment.html

Argumentative Essay from Foreign Policy magazine: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/18/big-agriculture-is-best/

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Propagation

So far we’ve discussed a lot about food production on the larger scale of farms, something most people are pretty separated from in their day to day life. So, let's move on to discuss a topic that is more applicable to the average person. 

Anyone who has forgotten potatoes or onions in their kitchen for too long has most likely come across the little buds that begin to sprout from them if given enough time. Reactions to this natural reproductive process range from disgust and immediately throwing away the produce to shrugging it off, cutting off the buds, and continuing on with your recipe. Another option though, one that I have been trying out myself to test its efficacy, is propagation! Propagation is defined as the breeding of specimens of a plant or animal by natural processes from the parent stock. In other words, you can take your sprouting potatoes and onions and turn them into whole new vegetable-bearing plants. Of course this doesn’t only apply to food, you can also do this with houseplants, but for the purposes of this blog we’re going to focus on the forgotten produce in the depths of your kitchen. 

The first aforementioned sign that you have an opportunity to propagate some veggies is seeing little green sprouts growing from them. In my case, an onion that I had used half of and then left in the fridge for too long began to grow two quite large sprouts from its center, as the rest of the onion slowly browned. Especially if you’re storing your produce in a cool, dry place, you don’t need to act too quickly on planting them. The sprouts will continue to grow and can stay good for a few weeks in these conditions. In the meantime, you can make sure you have good soil for your plant – I went to my local hardware store and bought a bag of all purpose fruit and vegetable soil – and a spot with the right type and amount of sunlight. Onions need twelve-ish hours of direct sunlight per day, so they are living on my fire escape (don’t tell my landlord). In the case of potatoes, the next steps are to cut them up and plant them if they're larger than a golf ball, or, if they're pretty small just plant them, give them lots of love and water, and pray. In the case of onions, the next step is to delicately peel the layers of onion away from the sprouts at its center, carefully cut the sprouts apart, and put them in some water for at least a week to give the roots time to grow before you plant them. Much to my roommate’s chagrin, I commandeered one of our drinking glasses and let my onion sprouts live there for about ten days while their tiny white roots got bigger.

Once the roots feel firmly established, transfer them into your pot, give them lots of love and water, and pray (this part is crucial). Personally, I talk to my onions most days, peppering supportive comments in between asking them what they want from me, but that’s an optional step. 

All this may seem like a lot of effort and stress for potentially no outcome, which could, at least in be part, be true. But! Once you get the hang of propagating plants, you can save money by not needing to buy as much produce and you can save food from going into landfills. Food waste makes up roughly 24% of the solid municipal waste in landfills; as it decomposes it causes roughly 58% of methane emissions from them.

Above all, you get to feel a sense of accomplishment and a deeper connection to the Earth, two things that are endlessly valuable in a world that seems to do its best to beat you down and make you forget that, at the end of the day, we’re all just little creatures who can truly benefit from getting our hands dirty. 

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Interview with local farmer, Violet Reed

Pictured above: Violet, Executive Director, and MEVO's Founder, Eric.

**This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

So how would you define local farming? Like, what do you consider to be local? How wide of a range can you get while still considering it to be local? Especially on a global scale.

Yeah, that's a good question. Local, what would it be? I mean, I guess it depends on what's local to you. I read this book, called the 100 mile diet about this couple, in Vancouver Canada, who committed to eating only within 100 miles of their house - even salt, spices, oils, greens, etc - and that was super tough for them. They had a really hard time finding everything they needed. And even then, that was casting a wide net of 100 Miles; for them that was still within the local definition. I think for me, local would be like 50 miles or less, or even within state. I think at this point, if it's coming from within your state or the Tri-state area, it's still local because our food system is so globalized that it's very easy to get most of your food, at least fruits and vegetables, from places like Mexico or California.

What would you say the role of local farms are in their respective communities? 

As far as the role of agriculture, and small scale farms in communities - even any farm as long as it's not factory farming or using exploited labor -  I think it is acting as a community meeting space, as well as a space for cultural development because it's encouraging people to come together and get outside. Whether it's going to pick up their CSA share, being involved in a you-pick, or volunteering and being able to interface with a farmer and those who are also coming to the farm. 

I mean, back in the day, you always heard about all these celebrations around the harvest that were combining group work projects, like you know, helping one farm pick all the apples and then all the farmers would go to the other farm and help cut hay or maybe they'd go to another farm and help raise a barn, which sounds romantic now, but that was just a way of life. So combining like a harvest celebration with like, you know, a potluck, but then also getting work done on a communal level. That's what we're missing culturally as a nation, and that is what, slowly, small farms are starting to cultivate.

Right now, small farms are also in trend. It's very vogue to have small farms, it's very vogue to be a farmer right now. And then eventually it will become the norm again, hopefully. So yeah, it's kind of long winded. But those are my thoughts.

A lot of local farming movements and global warming advocates in general are calling for an expansion of smaller scale, localized farming, in some capacity or another to replace industrial large scale monocultures. How feasible do you think that kind of transition really is, at least in America?

I think it could be so feasible if there were some relinquishment of bureaucratic policies, zoning laws and permits for towns. Also if towns, or counties, or even states really take a hard look at themselves and say, hey, we have this abandoned land, we have this open plot, instead of putting a business here or rebuilding that strip mall that we tore down, what if we helped to subsidize the costs of starting up a farm. You see this a little bit more often in cities like Detroit, and increasingly Newark, where they have open lot programs where the city will rent out, or give for basically no money, a plot for a group to farm on. Every town has land, an acre here or there, where people can grow and farm. One of the farmers we learned from was Curtis Stone, he brands himself as an urban farmer. In his heyday, he was farming four different people's backyards, I think it only totaled a quarter of an acre, and he was making a lot of money and educating a lot of farmers, which was really cool. So also flipping the narrative with a widespread education campaign that you don't need a ton of land, at least for vegetable cultivation, to grow a lot of food in small spaces. 

Recently, I've been met with this question of responsibility in terms of the potentially negative social and economic impacts of this kind of transition to local farming, that would be incurred on the people in other countries whose livelihoods currently depend on supplying us with this food. What are your thoughts on that? 

Ah, I actually don't think they would lose that much work, because industrial farms would still be industrial farms. If anything I think what the small farms would do would be to give more sovereignty and flexibility back to the food system. In that same vein it would push our food system to provide more equitable and fair opportunities for those workers who are working at commercial farms, the US farming system would feel the pressure of divestment from commercial industrial farms, because people are taking back their food sovereignty and creating small farms. Part of the reason now that people are starting to balk against commercial farms is we're realizing that they're not great for animals, if they're in animal agriculture, and really not good for our land. And now more people, I think, are starting to realize that they're really not good for a lot of the migrant workers who come over. In this capitalist world, when there's enough pressure put on a system, it's going to change in order not to lose money. So, hopefully, through the pressure of divesting from the corporate industrial food system, these workers would actually get more rights. And also, small scale farms, can they feed the nation? Maybe if each town had like, 10 small diversified farms, but I don't think anytime soon these workers would have an issue. 

As you mentioned earlier, farming has recently come into trend, which brings to light issues of access and privilege. What are your thoughts on that? 

I guess just like in general, it is romanticized. So, when people are interested in getting into local farming it's important not to put the blinders on of, oh, I'm gonna be like floating around  in my carhartt overalls, and I'm gonna be in sync with the Earth, and it's gonna be so much more idyllic than my current lifestyle. Yes, there are benefits and yes, you'll probably enjoy it more. But it's definitely going to be 20 times harder than your current job - depending on how stressful your current job is - and it's really going to require a level of mental flexibility that you've maybe never had to employ. You have to become everything, a little bit of electrician, a little bit of a plumber, a little bit of a construction worker, because there's never enough money for a farmer to be able to hire all the different people and contractors we need for problem solving. And all of a sudden you're an accountant now, and you're supposed to be a math whiz, because you're creating this crazy crop plan. You also need to have really good people skills, because you're gonna have to rely on your community to help you out with a lot of things. 

In terms of privilege, it’s important to keep in mind that for a lot of people, farming is a reality that they want to get out of. I hear about a lot of second and third generation immigrants whose parents were farmers who moved here because they were looking for a better, more economically stable life. And their parents are like, why would you ever farm? We were trying to get you out of this situation. So just realizing, going back to your discussion of migrant workers,  do those migrant workers really want to farm? I'm sure some do, and some are in good situations. But overall, it's probably a situation that they're trying to get out of. I think especially for white people, it's easier to have the financial backing and the privilege to even be able to start a farm. Also thinking about discrimination in terms of the results of a white person versus someone with a bipoc background going into a town and asking to farm one of their lots. So, yeah, right now it's a privilege not a right in part because it is in vogue. It used to be that most of America was farming, or they had a victory garden; that was the norm, but it's not the norm anymore so now it's a trend and it's cool.

What do you suggest for young people who struggle with environmental anxiety and feel pretty powerless to do anything about it, who don't even know where to start. Where should we start? 

I mean, I think if you're interested in agriculture, I do feel that farming at its best is not only a charitable act, but an act of ecological restoration and working with the environment. A farm, when done right, is more ecologically diverse and productive than just a fallow field. If you steward native plants around the edges, create ecological buffer zones with native plants, and then have your annual vegetable cultivation that's low till focusing on carbon sequestration. It could be great. So finding a local farm, seeing if you can help out.* At the very minimum voting with your dollar. Also, starting at local-level government, most towns have a local green team; they're dying for young people to join and it really can make a difference because maybe you are the one pushing for a community garden or a small scale community farm, things like that.

*If you’re interested in contributing, MEVO - a short distance outside of the city - has weekly volunteer events and programs that anyone is welcome to join! 

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Local Farming

So far we’ve predominantly discussed large-scale farms, but an increasingly important aspect of our food system that we must dedicate some time to is small-scale, community-based farms. Small farms – which are defined by the USDA as those with a gross yearly income of 250,000 dollars or less –  make up around 91 percent of farms in America, though they only account for roughly 15 percent of the market value of agricultural production. Regardless of their comparatively small contribution to the country’s market value agricultural production, small farms are incredibly important to the communities that they support. Outside of the most obvious function that they serve in meeting some of their community’s food needs, small farms make all sorts of other useful contributions to society and to the earth! For instance, all small farms create and cultivate green space, usually while supporting native flora and fauna; many farms also act as spaces for community collaboration through volunteer days, and educational programs that teach non-farmers where their food comes from and why it's important to value their food, as well as other environmental topics like herbalism, composting, etc. 

Of particular note, is a movement in small farming in which the local government of cities like Newark and Detroit gives abandoned plots of land to local farmers, basically for free, who then cultivate the land. These farmers usually involve fellow community members and organizations that help them to grow and distribute their produce, most of which is sold at low prices and some of which is usually donated to various people and organizations in need. Not only do these plots contribute to their communities in these ways, but they also help to improve neighborhoods that have fallen to drug-related crime in their abandonment and consequent dilapidation.

This movement, along with lots of other interesting information about local farming was discussed in an interview I conducted with the executive director of MEVO Fresh Roots Farm, a grassroots, non-profit, organic, youth-led, low-till, sustainable farm in Mahwah, NJ. The executive director, Violet Reed, is a liberal arts graduate from Seton Hall University who has been working at MEVO for the past seven years. Her job entails a wide range of tasks, from organizing funds and making community connections, to creating the farm’s various educational programs, as well as acting as the farms accountant, helping out in the fields, and even acting as a mechanic from time to time when the tractor breaks down. She very kindly gave me some of her time to talk about what the term local really means, the role of small farms in communities, how feasible shifting to this kind of local agriculture really is, and the privilege inherent in these kinds of costly endeavors. The interview takes place in the following post.

^^One of MEVO's locations.

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Apricot Lane Farms - The Biggest Little Farm

So far, we’ve talked a lot about the things that we’re doing wrong in our farming practices, and we’ve also looked into different academic research about diversified farming systems that aims to give farmers the basis to implement more sustainable and ethical methods of food production. While that’s all well and good in theory, the age-old question remains, can diversified farming systems be implemented in a way that is both sustainable and economical? In order to answer this question, I looked into different farms that are applying these practices in various ways, and found one quite hopeful example: Apricot Lane Farms. 

Founded in 2011 by Molly and John Chester, the 234 acre farm is located in the countryside of Moorpark, California. The couple, originally a chef and documentary filmmaker, respectively, had always dreamed of starting a self-sustaining, diversified farm and were prompted to do so when they got evicted from their tiny San Francisco apartment because of their noisy dog. With the help of investors and their mentor, a leader in the biodynamic viticulture movement, Alan York, the couple bought a neglected, foreclosed farm and turned it into a veritable ecosystem of its own. Over the course of a decade, they employed regenerative farming methods, with an overwhelming emphasis on diversity, to revitalize the farm’s soil – which had turned to rock-hard dirt – and create a near-utopian way of life. Today, not only do they ethically raise a multitude of farm animals and grow over 200 varieties of fruits and vegetables, but they have also restored wildlife habitats on the land that house all sorts of different native plant and animal species. 

As can be seen in their documentary, The Biggest Little Farm, the couple went through many trials and tribulations to get to where they are today, and continue to find creative and natural solutions to the endless new problems that pop up. The rather simplistic motto with which they conquer all is diversity, diversity, diversity. The logic behind it is equally straightforward: striving for diversity, and in doing so getting as close as possible to a balance between the needs of the farm and that of the wildlife, will create a self-perpetuating and self-regulating system; the kind that the Earth has been naturally fostering for millions of years. Though we’ve discussed some of these methods in the previous post, this farm provides more concrete examples of the biomimicry that the scholarly work about diversified farming systems disseminates. For instance, when faced with the common problem of infestation that most farmers treat with pesticides, both organic and non-organic, Molly and John instead turn to the various animals on their farm that can feast on the little buggers. Thus, in order to deal with a snail infestation that was decimating important cover crops and citrus trees, they simply brought in the ducks from the pond to munch on this delicacy. This was beneficial for a multitude of reasons; the ducks ate 90,000 snails in just one season which took care of the infestation while acting as feed for them, and as the ducks pooped the snails back out into the fields they created a natural fertilizer to enrich the soil, allowing for even better produce from the citrus trees! 

Apricot Lane Farms is at the forefront of sustainable farming, and is a wonderful example of how to do things right and also make enough money to enjoy life. I highly recommend their documentary for anyone who's interested in this sort of thing, or for anyone who just wants to see cute farm animals and feel hopeful about our future!

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Diversified Farming Systems

Now that we’ve discussed various aspects of industrial agriculture at length and are feeling thoroughly hopeless about the state of the planet, it’s time to talk about solutions. First, it is important to note that, especially in terms of food production, there is no one-size-fits-all-solution because different parts of the world and their unique ecosystems require different treatments. However, there are many scaleable frameworks, which can be adjusted to fit different needs, that set a solid standard for sustainable agriculture. The framework we will be discussing in this post is Diversified Farming Systems, otherwise known as DFS. 

Diversified Farming Systems aim to create a more secure, socially just, and sustainable global food system. They are defined as “farming practices and landscapes that intentionally include functional biodiversity at multiple spatial and/or temporal scales in order to maintain ecosystem services that provide critical inputs to agriculture, such as soil fertility, pest and disease control, water use efficiency, and pollination.” DFS systems work on many scales, which are generally categorized in three sections that build upon each other: the plot (within-field), the field, and the landscape.

At the smallest plot-based scale either multiple genetic varieties of one crop or multiple different crops are grown together as polycultures, rather than monocultures, which are rotated seasonally to improve soil health and promote biodiversity.

At the whole field level crops are still planted in polycultures, but things like non-crop plantings, livestock, and cover-cropping, are added into the crop rotation. At the landscape scale, these practices are incorporated into the larger natural environment to create a semi-natural community of plants and animals. The ultimate goal of these heterogeneous landscapes is to support agrobiodiversity, which basically means that the different components within the system interact with and nourish each other, supplying critical ecosystem services like pollination, pest suppression, nutrient cycling, water filtration, etc. The diversified farming system, when it’s done right, emphasizes and relies on the interconnectedness of all living and nonliving systems in a way that requires very little from farmers in terms of preventative maintenance. 

The mindset of the interconnectedness of ecosystems in DFS reflects philosopher Nancy Frasier’s commentary on the interconnectedness of social and environmental problems and solutions in her essay, Climates of Capital. In essence, Fraser argues that the crisis of ecology is also one of economy, society, politics, and public health. Therefore, environmental and non-environmental problems alike cannot be truly solved until the connections among them are addressed. Though this observation can feel overwhelming because it means that we cannot truly solve any of our problems until we solve them all, the way I see it, Frasier’s framing of the world as a sort of ecosystem in which all things are connected in some way or another suggests that there is a solution to all of our problems and that many of these problems actually have the same solution. Maybe, if we can take a hint from the Earth and begin to capitalize (pun intended) on the interconnectedness of all things at the scale of agriculture, we can begin to solve our social problems as well. 

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Industrialized Agriculture - Crop Production Pt. 2

Almost every aspect of industrialized farming lends itself to environmental degradation or global warming in some way or another, but there are some key aspects that have been previously mentioned that must be examined further in order to truly understand the cost of this system. First, monocultures. The development of global food trade paired with the consolidation of food production in America has led to farms that produce incredibly large amounts of just a few crops, usually corn, soy, oats. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land are planted with just one crop – hence the monoculture – year after year. Given that certain kinds of plants require certain kinds of nutrients, repeatedly planting the same crop in the same soil doesn’t allow the soil to replenish these nutrients, and instead depletes the soil entirely, turning it to dirt. As the soil loses its nutrients, industrial farmers try to make up for the loss with the ever-increasing use of fertilizers. These fertilizers are frequently applied in too great a volume, and without very much precision, which leads to runoff into waterways that cause dead zones. Repeatedly planting the same crop in one area also acts as a sort of invitation for pests that favor that crop, as they learn where it will consistently be planted. Since pests reduce crop yield they must be dealt with, and so synthetic chemical pesticides, and GMOs, are introduced into the system. 

Crops are genetically modified to be resistant to pesticides so that they can be sprayed with chemicals without it affecting their yield, but, with time pests also become resistant to the chemicals. Once the pesticides are no longer effective against the stronger pests, even stronger pesticides are introduced to the system and more genetic modifications are made to the plants, and the cycle continues. This cycle is damaging to the environment, and to us, in many ways. Synthetic chemical pesticides can cause illness – cancer, brain and nervous system damage, infertility, etc. – to the farmers who have to spray them and to the people who eventually consume the crops that they are sprayed on; not to mention that they are toxic to many plants and animals – like birds, fish, and beneficial insects – that come into contact with them in the fields and through runoff. Ultimately, all of these farming methods are so quickly depleting and destroying the environment that our soil and water systems are unable to replenish themselves. The complete and utter disregard for this incredibly important boundary of regeneration, and for the overall health of the environment is emblematic of a much larger ethical problem: the capitalistic consumer mindset that devalues the environment and its inhabitants. 

Nancy Fraser, an American philosopher, critical theorist, feminist, and author discusses the capitalist and neoliberal mindset as it relates to climate politics in her essay, Climates of Capital, A Trans-Environmental Eco-Socialism. Fraser begins with an in-depth discussion of Capitalism as it relates to the environment, the economy, and to people. She proposes that our capitalist society constructs nature as a realm of stuff separate from us that lacks inherent value and can only be made valuable by its usefulness to our economy, more specifically to the production of capital. As if this were not enough of a problem in and of itself, “capital commands accumulation without end. The effect is to incentivize owners bent on maximizing profits to commandeer nature’s gift as cheaply as possible, while also absolving them of any obligation to replenish what they take and repair what they damage” (100). Fraser argues that this unsustainable and unethical mindset must be scorned in order for human beings to move in the direction of healing ourselves, our systems, and our environment. It becomes harder and harder to disagree with her and turn a blind eye to the way we are treating our planet when we look at industrial agriculture, which so unabashedly maims the earth.   

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Industrialized Agriculture - Crop Production Pt. 1

The second industrial revolution, spanning from roughly 1870 to 1914, and subsequent advancements in science and technology changed the face of agriculture in America. Discoveries about the roles of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus in plant growth led to the invention of artificial fertilizer; developments in the use of antibiotics in livestock production facilitated the creation of concentrated animal feeding operations; the ability to genetically modify organisms (GMO) was discovered and applied to food production; the advancement of transportation technologies allowed for, and encouraged global food trade and the consequent monopolization and specialization of food production. Scientific and technological innovations, like those aforementioned, slowly but surely led to the abomination that is now the dominant agricultural system in America: industrial agriculture.  

Industrial agriculture encompasses not just the production of crops, but also of animals and animal products - which we have already discussed in a previous post. It is defined as the “large-scale, intensive production of crops and animals, often involving chemical fertilizers on crops or the routine, harmful use of antibiotics in animals.” Industrial agriculture also commonly involves monocultures, and the heavy use of pesticides and GMOs. Over the past few decades, the farming system has been consolidated, weeding out small farms that produce a variety of crops and livestock and replacing them with large farms whose practices and outputs are determined by multinational corporations. These corporations, which are ruled and rule by a profit-is-god mindset, pressure farmers to use practices that deplete the environment, abuse animals, and contribute to various forms of pollution. 

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The Fishing Industry

For the most part, the focal point of this blog is land-based food production and so the preceding and subsequent posts have, and will continue to focus on various aspects of that topic. However, it is also important to learn a bit about our water-based food production processes. Over three billion people worldwide rely on fish and other seafood products in their diets to provide as much as twenty percent of their protein and vital nutrients (omega-3 fatty acids, iron, and vitamin B-12), and, consequently, ten to twelve percent of the global population relies on the fishing industry for their livelihoods. In fact, fish and seafood products are actually some of the most globally traded items, amounting to a total international export value of 164 billion dollars (USD). Since the industry is so large, it should come as no surprise that it is also deeply flawed and destructive to fish populations and to their habitats. Not only do global wild-capture fisheries remove a higher volume of wild animals from their habitats than any other global sector, but the lack of proper management surrounding rampant use of environmentally unethical fishing practices actually leads to a net loss of roughly 80 billion dollars that could be generated if global fisheries were managed more sustainably. Before we get too far into the sustainability of it all, or lack thereof, let's get into the basics of fisheries: what are they and how do they work? 

Fisheries are broadly defined as “the occupation, industry, or season for catching fish. It can also refer to the area of ocean where fish are caught, or the business of catching the fish.” Fisheries can be commercial, recreational, or subsistence based. There are many methods of catching fish, all of which – except for using explosives to kill fish – can be done in sustainable ways. Most fishing methods involve nets of some kind, they include: demersal/bottom trawling, gillnet fishing, purse seine fishing, dredge fishing, and pelagic trawling. Other methods that do not use nets include long line fishing, pole and line fishing, and pot and trap fishing. Bottom trawling involves towing cone-shaped nets that are dragged along seabeds in order to catch large quantities of marine life – whitefish, flatfish, and various types of shrimp and squid – that live on or near them. Gillnet fishing includes using a wall-like net, connected to buoys, with holes in it through which fish swim and get trapped. The size of the holes in the nets vary according to the target species. Purse seine fishing uses a large drawstring-purse-like net that sinches at the top to catch schools of fish in the open ocean. It can involve the use of FADs (fish aggregating devices) that are meant to attract fish to a certain spot. Dredge fishing is similar to bottom trawling, but the net is more triangular and tends to have a metal bar in front of it to dislodge shellfish – though methods for dislodging shellfish and the types of nets used vary. Pelagic trawling uses similar nets and towing methods to bottom trawling, but it targets fish in mid and surface waters using acoustic technologies. Long line fishing employs the use of long lines, which trail behind boats, with bait hooks that are attached to nets at intervals in order to catch fish at various depth levels, depending on the target species. Pole and line fishing, a method that most people are familiar with, uses fishing poles to catch one fish at a time by spraying water from the back of the boat and putting small bait fish in the water in order to induce a feeding frenzy in larger species – usually tuna. Finally, pot and trap fishing entails using domed traps, with bait inside and cone shaped entrance tunnels that do not allow animals to exit once they’ve entered, that line the ocean floor to catch crustaceans. 

The various  environmental issues that tend to accompany different fishing methods are overfishing – fishing at a rate that exceeds that by which marine species naturally reproduce, bycatch – the unintentional capture of non-target species, and habitat degradation. Most of these issues are actually quite manageable with increased supervision, updated technology, and more careful site choice. For instance, bottom trawling and dredging are known for destroying important habitats and producing a lot of bycatch in the process. The simple fix for this is choosing the correct areas of the ocean floor to dredge; habitats that contain fragile, long-lived, and/or slow growing species – like coral reefs – should not be dredged because they will not be able to bounce back from the disruption, however those that are more resilient because of frequent exposure to natural disturbances – like shallow, sandy or muddy sea beds – are much better spots. Bycatch that is caught in the fishing process can be significantly reduced by simply modifying gear to be more selective and only catch the intended marine species. Any sort of improvement, technological or otherwise, can only truly be accomplished with careful monitoring by independent sources that are concerned with the wellbeing of our oceans, rather than profit that may be lost in the short-term.

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Industrialized Agriculture - Factory Farming 

Most people don’t think twice when they go to the grocery store to pick up the various goods they need for the week. Modern society has normalized having every type of meat, dairy, and produce within reach at all times. So, as we fill our carts with eggs and bacon for breakfast and chicken for dinner, we’re not thinking about the processes that allow us to have this kind of abundant access; we take it for granted. The fact that most of us either actively avoid thinking about or remain blissfully ignorant towards, is that most of the meat, dairy, and eggs products in America are produced in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), otherwise known as factory farms. CAFOs are defined as facilities that house and feed large numbers of animals – usually cows, chickens, pigs, goats, and sheep – in confined spaces for at least 45 continuous days in a 12 month period. Across the US both the number of animals kept in factory farms and the sizes of the farms themselves have increased considerably in the last fifty some-odd years. According to the EPA, a large factory farm typically keeps at least 1,000 beef cows, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 pigs, or 82,000 egg-laying hens; though dairies with more than 2,000 cows and swine operations with more than 5,000 pigs are very common. In this monstrous system the well-being of the animals we eat and of the environment we live in is egregiously disregarded in favor of the efficient extraction of profit. 

The livestock that are raised in factory farms face deeply inhumane treatment in every aspect of their short, miserable lives. Most people have a vague picture in their minds of the cramped lives that factory farmed animals lead, but the reality is worse than one can imagine. Animals small enough to be kept in cages – ie chickens and pigs – live in them, often in windowless corridors, for most, if not all of their lives. These cages are generally either barely bigger than the animal’s body or they are full of multiple animals. Livestock that is too large to be kept in a cage – ie cows – is usually kept in over-crowded pens; if the pens are outdoors, they are usually so crowded that there is nary a blade of grass for them to eat, they are all dirt, and if they’re kept indoors the floor is usually made of concrete, which is bad for their hooves.

These kinds of tightly-packed living conditions lend themselves to a host of problems. Most notably, they drive sanitation issues which lead to the quick spreading of disease, as well as causing extreme stress in the animals that leads to aggressive behaviors towards themselves and each other. In order to make up for these kinds of problems, farmers use band aid solutions that tend to come with their own array of issues. For instance, in order to prevent the rampant spread of disease, farmers put antibiotic and antibacterial agents in the animal’s feed, regardless of whether or not they are sick. As anyone who has been on antibiotics knows, it’s not great for you to take them for too long because you quickly build up a resistance to them, and because they tend to have negative side effects on your body. In the case of farm animals, the potential resistance to antibiotics is a serious issue because, eventually, it could lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria that could wipe out not only our farm animals, but also us. In terms of the stress-caused aggression that takes hold of farm animals in these conditions, frequently harmful bodily modifications like dehorning and beak-cutting are employed to prevent the animals from hurting themselves and each other. While the ethics of these kinds of mutilating practices are debated, with some saying that they don’t hurt the animals and that they are necessary in these kinds of conditions, in my opinion the logic doesn’t seem to hold up. Not only are these procedures regularly done incorrectly, causing various problems in the animals, it is also impossible to say that they don't cause lasting pain. Not to mention that the justification of harmful practices as a necessity because of conditions that we create begs the question, why on earth are we creating conditions that require these kinds of practices? Overall, factory farms treat animals as if they have no inherent value outside of what they can provide for us, as if they have no soul, as if they don’t deserve respect. 

English enlightenment philosopher, Alexander Pope, would argue that the factory farming system’s treatment of animals is cruel and gluttonous. In an excerpt from his collection of essays, An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires, Pope asserts that, given the human race’s inherent comparative superiority and strength over other creatures, we are all the more accountable for how we exact our dominion over them. The weaker, inferior position of other creatures makes them and the quality of their lives our responsibility. Not to mention that we owe them a great deal of gratitude for their role as our food. Pope would ask who we think we are to deny these creatures the common enjoyment of life. And we would not have a good answer for him. 

[allthingsfoodsystems]

Intro

This blog discusses various aspects of food systems in America, with a focus on horticultural farms. As an environmental studies major who has dabbled in farming, trail building, and other green endeavors, I firmly believe that everyone can benefit from more education on and interaction with our food systems. I think that everyone can take something from this, even if it's just enjoying some of the prettier pictures.