Locavore and Organic | Optimist vs. Skeptic

On October 2, 2009 I presented this speech at BOCO a Boulder event. http://boco.me/ of course I wasn’t able to take notes on what I said it but I think the following is the gist of what I said.

I have a passion for the tremendous impact we have on our health, Local economy and the environment when we make the simple action of purchasing food.

This morning I’ll focus on the Organic consumer and the Localvore.

Comparing local to organic is an inequitable comparison; both have positive factors, and I believe the best is both local and organic. Key factors for me in my food choices are healthy food, fresh food, environmentally positive, and local. Every individual must decide what issues are most important every time we choose to purchase an item to eat. Organic is a Certification process. Very similar processes exist worldwide in order to have an organic label.

The organic consumer is a skeptic. We don’t believe that the industrial food supply chain has our best interests at heart.

The attitude is "Prove undeniably it won’t hurt me or the earth or don‘t include it in my food!"

Organic is not how your grandma grew her food. This is a new science being defined and discovered by a new generation of producers. This is growing food without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, forced Genetically Modified organisms, induced hormones, and in many ways are defining the processes to handle animals such as free range and grass fed. Unfortunately there are many ways to produce organic foods that can still use very nasty pesticides and treat animals inhumanely but there is no other certification process that comes close to providing the peace of mind that Organic Certification does.

Choosing organic food drives the industrial food supply from the bottom up to be environmentally conscious.

Produce grown without live soil is lacking in much nutritional value. Conventional practices kill and strip the soil of life. The trained nutritionist may say it has the same nutritional value but the organic consumer knows there is a lot more to food than a simple list of nutritional ingredients. Trace minerals, nutrients and macro-biotics are as important for our well being as the list of vitamins and minerals nutrition likes to quantify. There is definitely a difference in taste in an organically grown item versus a product grown only with the fertilizers needed to make it look pretty. Organic consumers know that synthetic fertilizers can grow foods that are ready for mass marketing but are tasteless, lifeless and have less value and sustaining life. The poisons applied in conventional agriculture have never really been fairly quantified as to the damage and financial cost they cause to our environment and our health.

The organic consumer is a skeptic that has a hard time believing that any large corporation will do the right thing when it comes to producing healthy food over producing a profit.

Now a Localvore is an optimist that believes that the world will be better off if we share our values with our community and we believe the community can provide all the needs for a healthy diet. It is truly optimistic to believe that the local community can provide all our food. It is wonderful to think that if I buy it then someone will grow it. The romance of farming is a big draw to the localvore wanting to be in touch with the basic roots of production getting to know the farmer and the inter-relationship of the soil and life. To know your local producer is to understand their ethos and methods of production. To buy local is using the sun, soil, water and labor in the community to create the basis of what is true productivity. The localvore is taking action to reduce their carbon footprint by reducing the miles food has to travel. The Localvore often chooses food sustainably produced, often organic, often helping the farmer by joining in the cost of production by joining a farm in what is called Community Supported Agriculture.

The best choice of course is to buy locally produced organic product. This is not always easy. If you grow in your backyard do you how much lead is in the soil from the old paint from your house before you plant your garden in it? Do you know how to balance nature and avoid all the modern toxic chemistry? If you can buy local organic products you know you are avoiding the poisons of industrial agriculture and helping protect the local environment from those pollutants. You are helping stimulate food security for your community and maintaining the heritage of local agriculture and the knowledge of what foods can be grown in the regions soil and climate. You are creating food security for your community and helping develop the path to food Sovereignty.
Your highest priorities are a personal choice. Is it fair trade? Not ingesting poisons? Stimulating the local economy? Food security?

Is your priority Cost? – Which is the driving factor for 98% of food production. The other 2% of production is the ethics of food that I am talking about today.

If you choose Environment – as your priority then you produce the demand for organic production into the largest of industrial producers and your choice will change their priorities.

Is your priority Health? – Then look for Fresh raw non-processed organic food.

Care about Community? – It will be locally grown in season produce and you will be seeking out local food preservers and preservation methods.

All these personal choices work toward Food sovereignty- The concept that without having a heritage and community of agriculture a community cannot have its own identity, culture or be sustainable.

The fantastic opportunity here in Boulder County – Our unique community, is to support the local producer and change our governmental policies, beliefs and priorities to allow for the public support of our local food shed. We are losing our local farmland at an alarming rate. We allow it to be purchased for Open Space and Ranchettes. Our Sub-Rural subdivisions work against having farms close by. We must change the attitudes of our neighbors - to accept having a farm close by as a healthy choice. We need to change our land use codes to allow greenhouses and hoophouses so our farmers can fully extend their short seasons here in Colorado. We can ask that our supermarket label items completely. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what pesticides are included in your apple juice?

Here is action we can immediately take.
Boulder County is asking for an extension of taxation for the continued purchase of open space. There are 1000’s of acres of agricultural open space acres that we own that are laden with pesticides and herbicides planted with plants genetically modified to be toxic to insect life. What if we insist that the public land zoned for agricultural use be used for organic production. Let’s demand that the County have a program of policies and assistance to the new farmers that want to develop a sustainable lifestyle on that land that will help to create a community of agricultural economic development.

Let’s create the ability to use that land to lead the nation, the world, to develop a shared educational experience for farming with the new science of organic production. Let us work together to have the healthiest food and the most environmentally sound use of land right here where we live!

Here in Boulder County. We can do it!
Thank you.