Farmbrarian

Fukuoka tells us greening the desert is the only way we’ll achieve sustainable agriculture.

Most of you are probably familiar with The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming, which was Masanobu Fukuoka’s 1978 international best seller on natural farming.

Now he gives us Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security. An intriguing and ambitious name, to be sure.

As the title implies, his premise is that we’ll need to ultimately cultivate food in the world’s vast deserts in order to achieve food security. This theory was honed over decades of international travel following his first book.

My favorite thing about this book? It proposes an actual solution, rather than simply discussing (or worse – complaining about) the problem. Whether it is truly the only long-term solution, I can’t say, but I’m glad to have a proposal. If we continue to approach the problem of unsustainable agriculture in this way we might actually get somewhere.

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How did the implementation of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) displace 1.3 million Mexicans from their land and simultaneously decrease industrial wages in Mexico by 10%? Why is “food aid” of commodity surplus foods given by the US and other wealthy nations to poorer nations ultimately detrimental to those it is purported to help? How have genetically modified Roundup Ready crops from Monsanto lead to a dramatic increase in suicides among India’s poor farmers? Raj Patel investigates these questions, and many more, in his 2008 book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.

Anyone who keeps up with Farmbrarian book reviews is probably plenty cynical about the food system. Many of us, however, probably have trouble articulating exactly what is wrong, either locally or globally, and we can’t exactly articulate how to improve the situation. We can point out that most people don’t know where their food comes from and that we eat too much processed food. These accusations are certainly true, and as a result, many of us are choosing to shake the hand of a farmer, or to eat less processed food. Both of these changes are helpful, but it takes authors like Patel, Michael Pollan or Vandana Shiva to think bigger. Patel points out, for example, that “organic” food is perfectly aligned with large-scale, monoculture farming that can still line the pockets of Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (although it may cut Monsanto out of the loop). The point is that changes like this will have very little impact on obesity and global food security. It is quite clear that we are producing plenty of food to feed the world, yet the distribution system is such that as many as a billion people don’t have enough. Furthermore many people have diet-related chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. At its core, this book seeks to understand how such a huge proportion of the world can have problems related to nourishment when we have developed the ability to grow anything and ship it anywhere.

Ironically, the capitalist system that provided the ingenuity necessary to create such a powerful and diverse food system is also largely responsible for the considerable flaws in the system. It is likely that families in Rwanda would rather grow food for their communities instead of growing just coffee, which must be traded for nourishment. We might feel proud to buy such coffee with a “Fair Trade” label on it, thinking we have helped provide a good life to these Rwandan farmers, but don’t believe for one moment that this is a system put in place or preferred by the people working on a farm or in a processing plant. Having the ability to choose between farming coffee and farming vegetables and meat requires that you own the land. Corporate farm ownership and contract farming are disruptive to food sovereignty, an idea presented by Via Campesina, an “International Peasant Movement,” which essentially states that people, communities and countries should be able to decide for themselves what food to produce and eat. That this idea even has to exist is a sad reminder of how corporations, countries and “free trade” have truly dominated and enslaved many of the world’s poor.

Readers gain from the book, above all, a global perspective on the broken food system. Though it is rather long and verbose, it never felt like a chore to read. In the end Patel offers readers a broad outline for changes that includes ten items like supporting local business, living wages for all and “eating agroecologically,” which sum up the book nicely and provide important actionable items for anyone involved in the food system (hint: that definitely includes you).

You might also like: Stolen Harvest by Vandana Shiva

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The monumental shift in agriculture from local food economies to food supplies driven by gross domestic product and corporate profit gave rise to the modern food movement. Many now understand the frightening implications for our own health and that of and our communities. Mostly, the topic is contemplated with a strictly western perspective, even though it is lesser developed countries who have suffered the most; a pattern that isn’t likely to change. One such country is India, and it was Indian author and environmentalist Vandana Shiva who provided new insight on the issue in her 2000 book Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply.

India has traditionally been an agrarian culture. One in which farming is a common occupation, which is a far cry from the current American economy which aims to distance people from farming as much as possible. This lifestyle has obvious effects on Indian culture. For example, in India, the cow is considered sacred “because it is at the heart of the sustainability of an agrarian civilization.” (75) Furthermore, scattered across India are Chakki Wallas (local flour mills), which produce almost all the flour consumed. In fact, less than one percent of their flour is actually a brand name. (87)

Shiva explains the many ways companies like Monsanto (specifically accused) and organizations like the WTO (World Trade Organization) have deeply hurt India on a local community level. As an example she details Monsanto’s promotion of the Bollgard cotton seed, which is genetically engineered to defend itself against bollworm. While Monsanto’s marketing in India reported a 50% increase in yield, another evaluation found essentially the same yields as traditional seeds. (100) In addition, of course, farmers are legally prohibited from reusing seeds from Monsanto’s Bollgard cotton plant, despite the fact that seed-saving is as old as agriculture itself.

This book has certainly done its part to promote organic, sustainable farming, or what Indians call ahimsic krishi, which means “non-violent agriculture.” (119) Stolen Harvest delivers, in a small and readable package, an important, yet under-represented perspective on the current food system. I can only hope the world begins to hear the stories of this and other similarly vandalized cultures.