Food Safety/Security

As our nation's food systems have industrialized, both the health of our food and the sustainability of our production methods have declined at a rapid and alarming rate.

A cursory glance at the news provides nearly all the evidence that is needed to support this claim. Multi-acre lagoons of pig feces overflowing into water systems, massive recalls of tainted meat, eggs, and produce, the overwhelming reliance on foreign oil to transport our food long distances, and the continued desertification of our nation's once fertile cropland all point directly back to the misguided application of assembly line logic to the management of complex living systems.

Local agriculture that mimics natural ecosystems requires fewer artificial inputs - such as petroleum and pesticides - preserves and enhances the health of the land, and produces healthier and more flavorful food. Small to medium sized local farms provide a more accountable, transparent, and safe alternative to the industrial food system, and do so at a lower real cost as well.

Local and sustainable farms are a far better option for ensuring that we as a nation can continue to feed ourselves and aoid massive health disasters through the distribution of tainted and unsafe food.

Accountability
Local and sustainable farms provide greater accountability by developing direct ties between food producers and food consumers. In contrast to the current model, small farms that sell directly to consumers cannot hide behind a corporate office in another state or being one out of thousands of contracted producers of what eventually becomes a tainted hamburger patty or carton of eggs.  This puts an economic value on their reputation and removes the dangerous anonymity that has become prevalent in food production.

Diversity
Local and sustainable agriculture also provides a much safer and more secure food system by encouraging diversity on farms.  At a fundamental level, small and medium sized farms have an incentive to diversify their operations.  Among other pressures, the effort of directly marketing to consumers makes it economically advantageous to expand the variety of products a farmer offers.  Unlike a giant agribusiness brokerage, customers at the farmers’ market don’t want just russet potatoes.

This incentive to vary what is produced on the farm not only lowers the amount of pesticides, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals through the encouragement of complementary enterprises, beneficial crop/livestock rotations, and generally improved methods, but it also increases the natural health of the animals and crops by breaking the species-specific pathogen cycles.  If all you produce are leghorn eggs, it won’t take very long for your land, processing facilities, and animals to become a host for leghorn pathogens.

A food system based on farms with a diversity of crops and livestock is also far less likely to suffer a massive failure.  The millions of acres of genetically identical crops that have come to symbolize the industrial food system are a historically-proven recipe (think of the Irish Potato Famine) for disaster because they unnaturally concentrate varieties of crops and livestock and give pests and diseases the perfect conditions to multiply and cause wide-spread disaster.  Conversely, diverse farms are better able to sustain natural shocks, and therefore are a key component of a healthy and secure food system.

Security
In addition to the prevention of famines and food shortages caused by natural forces, local food systems also help protect again man-made shocks.  By shortening the distance that food must travel before it reaches your plate, lessening our reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and protecting the fertility of our country’s soil, we reduce our reliance on petroleum and other foreign-produced products and bolster our ability to continue to feed ourselves.  International trade is certainly not the villain, but our food system is currently in a state where even a moderate increase in the price of oil causes dramatic increases in food prices.  Small, local farms feeding local communities is a much more resilient system in the face of any kind of shock, whether natural or man-made.

Solving the Problem
If you’d like to help push our food system in the right direction, please support your local food community by buying from farmers in your area.   We at PLANT! strive everyday to help new and transitioning farmers learn and implement sustainable methods on their land.