The Power of Choice

Events like the pandemic of COVID-19 shake up our everyday routines.  What was second nature (like going to the grocery store to shop from a list of favorite brands and products) is now a minefield for potential disease spread.  This time of re-evaluation is a chance to not only reassess what offers the least risk for the spread of the deadly Corona Virus but also a chance to learn and weigh the other benefits and risks from different foods and food systems, from the soil up.  Now is the time to make real changes in our choices—changes that will shape the world we create in the aftermath of COVID-19.

 

We’ve been fed the lie that the industrialized food system is necessary not only to “feed the world” but to make food cheap and therefore accessible.  But when the system is rigged so that a burger and fries is cheaper than fresh veggies, you know that something is up.  That something has a pretty dark underbelly.

 

Multi-drug Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) comes from Confinement Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), where animals crowded together are fed antibiotics regularly to marginally increase growth of the animals.  This medical disaster has been created because of a desire to chase just a little more profit.  SARS CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19) also comes from an animal host, kept in a confinement at a live animal market.  The health care costs to humanity from this disease are staggering and will continue to ring out for quite some time.  The mismanagement of livestock and animals is the number one reason for the new micro-organisms responsible for pandemics.  You can read more on this at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7095142/

 

The truth is that our current economic system does not adequately reflect the true cost to our environment, communities, and families in its pricing system.  Industrialized agribusiness farms for commodity, trying to make the most volume of product while spending the least amount of money, even if this product is toxic and nutrient deficient.  Look for people who are, instead, farming for community.

 

Farming for community (while income is essential to keeping the lights on and the bills paid) has a very different focus from agribusiness.  Community-focused farming is often family-sized, membership-driven (CSA programs, for instance), and locally focused.  It’s a new take on the old way of food production.  It’s seasonal, iterative, and even sometimes quirky.  But because it is at the human level, in the community, both transparency and accountability are exponentially greater to anything found in a typical supermarket.

 

Here’s another way to look at the situation.  American grocery stores generally stock about three days of fresh food, following the principle of “just enough, just in time.”  When the system breaks down (panic buying, distribution disruption, labor shortages like we’ve seen with COVID-19), the shelves go bare.  When we rely on a system that trucks food across the country and from all over the world, we become very vulnerable to disruptions in this system.  Alternately, having a healthy local foods network offers resilience.

 

How to Make a Difference and Take Back Your Power of Choice

 

You literally are voting with your fork and your dollar for the future you wish to see in our food system.  The ag-conglomerates only pay attention to money, and if they see that the people do not wish to buy their products, they will either change or fold.  On the other hand, small-scale, local food producers with their hearts and hands in the practice of sustainable agriculture will blossom, thrive, and spring up in even the most unlikely places as their work and offerings find renewed value.  By value, we mean more than just armchair praise—we mean loyalty from buyers.  We all have to eat to live, which means every one of us is a food purchaser.

 

As a culture, we’ve become comfortable with anonymity.  We hide behind it, thinking it offers safety and ease.  What we forget, in the process, is that we’ve let go of the impact we create as individuals when we choose to build relationships around aspects of our life that matter deeply.  What you choose to eat matters.  Choose to eat for health, vitality, and to feed your immune system.  Resist eating methods that only placate distress or feed addiction (processed foods know exactly which buttons to push here); there are many other coping potentials available to you.

 

When you take your food sourcing choices seriously, you are investing in your health and the health of your family.  You are investing in the future of food production in our country and world.  You are investing in the futures of the ever-hopeful, resourceful, and dedicated people who have chosen the path of small-scale, biodynamic farming practices.  We choose this path out of love—love of the land and its plants and animals, and love of our fellow human beings.  Bring that love into your life right now through the simple but profound act of choice.

 

You choose already, every day.  Take this time to re-evaluate your routines and step into the future you wish to see.  It’s not too late.  See you down on the farm sometime.

 

You can read the full-length version of this article at

https://www.northstarhomestead.com/NSHF/nshf-covid-19-response/the-power-of-choice/

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