Charlotte Francis meets some inspiring "real food" activists.

"Food shouldn't be marginalised by politics. It is the most important economic activity and everyone needs three meals a day," says Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC).

I met Helena at the recent “A Taste of Slow Food Festival” in Melbourne and was inspired by her passion for what she refers to as the "localisation of food". ISEC, a not-for-profit organisation based in the UK and the US, has been promoting local food initiatives in numerous countries for over 15 years, and organises conferences and workshops to highlight the need to shift from a global to a locally based food economy.

Many of us are becoming aware of the creeping globalisation and corporate control of our food supply. "Why is it," Helena asks, "that butter sourced from 1000km away costs less than butter produced at a local farm 1km away?" Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser's tale of GM contaminated canola crops and his legal battle with Monsanto over patent infringement is becoming well known (regular readers will have read about Percy in previous issues of NOVA). His experience is a sobering reminder of what can happen when farmers are forced to sign away the right to their own seeds, livelihood and production methods.

Against this background of corporate control and centralised "bigbucks" agribusiness, Helena offers a ray of hope and points out that there is a growing counter movement aimed at reinvigorating local communities. The growth in local food initiatives, school and community gardens and farmers' markets all demonstrate growing consumer awareness and concern about where our food is sourced and how it is produced.

Helena, who has been awarded the Right Livelihood Award – an alternative Nobel Prize – talks of the need to shorten the distance between the food producer and the consumer. She quotes facts and figures that make a mockery of the global food economy: the average American meal has travelled more than 1500 miles before it arrives on the dinner table. Meanwhile in the UK, scampi are sent to Thailand to be peeled and then back to the UK to be sold.

Education and awareness raising are the basis of all the programs run by ISEC. Helena equates education with activism and encourages a bottom up approach. As voters and consumers, we can all help by voicing our concerns about GM food, for example. "Don't feel disempowered," she says.

Listening to Helena talk about the concept of shortening the distance between farmer and consumer, I am struck by just how obvious it all seems, and yet it is no longer the norm in today's global culture. Shortening the distance between grower and consumer encourages farmers to diversify production which, in turn, improves the health and the welfare of the soil and wildlife. A healthier growing environment helps to increase productivity, reduce costs and boost profit margins. A win-win strategy that is simple and makes sense.

Helena was inspired to take action after witnessing the dramatic changes in Ladakh (Tibet) once so-called development and industrialised farming took hold in the 1970s. She realised then the localisation of food was vital for human wellbeing as it helped to create the necessary conditions for the "economics of happiness", by maintaining the fabric of a community. Development and industrialised production, by contrast, can undermine and challenge the traditional culture in developing nations.

"Television with its remote role models and glamorised images of life in the West serves to destroy cultural identity, community pride and individual self esteem," she says.

Helena's book “Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh” has now been translated into 30 languages. The central tenet of the book is that people in Ladakh were content with their simple lifestyle and self sustaining culture until development turned it all upside down. As farmers were forced to move to urban centres in search of jobs, unemployment rose, families began to scatter and ethnic groups came into conflict. What has happened in Tibet has been replicated in many developing nations around the world.

In India, the introduction of expensive mechanised farming has made many farmers redundant and created high levels of personal debt. As a result, the suicide rate among farmers has escalated. The environmental costs have been equally high: the accumulation of chemicals in the soil has eradicated the vital layer of topsoil. "Soil in India has become merely a means of keeping plants upright," says Barbara Burstyn, an investigative journalist from New Zealand. Barbara travelled to India with her husband, Canadian cinematographer Tom Burstyn, and biodynamic farmer Peter Proctor to produce an award-wining film “One Man, One Cow, One Planet”.

Speaking at "A Taste of Slow", Barbara presented a graphic demonstration of how modern chemical agriculture has waged war on the land. Forget PowerPoint: Barbara took a humble apple which she dissected into quarters. Once water, inhospitable land, housing and other factors are taken out of the equation, we are left with one quarter and only a quarter of this quarter remains as available land to feed the world, with the skin representing the only remaining topsoil. Food for thought, if you'll excuse the pun.

Driven by corporate and government interest, India has been at the forefront of GM experimentation. In GM areas, Barbara learnt that previously unknown illnesses and unexplained rashes are occurring, along with higher asthma rates among young children. Barbara explains that women are particularly exposed to GM organisms as they work the soil directly with their hands: "It is never like that in a laboratory situation," she adds. GM has also entered the food chain via animal feed: cottonseed using leftover GM cotton is fed to animals and so affects the entire food chain.

Keen to find out more, I telephone Barbara in New Zealand. She tells me that farmers in India are very clear that they are either chemical farmers or biodynamic and organic farmers. Travelling throughout India, she was encouraged that many of the farmers in rural areas had one message for the West: "Leave us alone: we don't want your food aid, your highways or your free trade." Moreover, young literate farmers in their twenties are conversant with GM and related issues and are returning to the land to grow their own food using regional varieties. As smallholders are being driven off the land in favour of large privatising landowners, these younger farmers are becoming increasingly militant in their fight for the right to continue to farm traditionally.

One village Barbara visited was "so strong in its sense of what organics does that I felt it a very positive and uplifting place to be." One of the problems, in her view, is that we have not only forgotten how to live sustainably, but we have forgotten that we have forgotten. But there is hope. She believes that there will come a time when agribusiness will collapse as it is essentially "anti human" and "anti growth." She explains that India used to rely on a well functioning ancient system of irrigation for its water supply. Thanks to the "Green Revolution" and the introduction of pumped-in water, many rivers have now dried up.

The solution, she believes, is to maintain a sufficient bank of knowledge about traditional human based systems, "so that we will be ready to forge ahead when everything else falls over".

And this is where the work and legacy of Peter Proctor come in. Travelling around New Zealand for many years on behalf of the Biodynamic Farming Association, Peter, now 80, gave up a comfortable retirement in New Zealand and, instead, started to travel regularly to India with his partner, Rachel, to promote the benefits of biodynamic farming. Using cow dung to enrich the soil is central to his teachings, a method which has clearly found resonance with many Indian farmers. As the old Indian saying goes, 'The Goddess of prosperity lies in cow dung.'

"What Peter has been doing is to divest his knowledge for the benefit of the next generation," explains Barbara.
As with Helena's work in Ladakh, it is the return to simple, local traditions that empower rural communities to break away from the corrosive influence of development and agribusiness. Films such as “One Man, One Cow, One Planet” are helping to encourage dialogue and understanding between developed and developing nations. Each side needs to understand, respect and observe the culture and traditions of the other.

ISEC organises reality tours for Ladakhi community leaders to come to the West to observe life in the developed world as it really is, rather than as portrayed in the media. Participating Ladakhis have commented that people in the West have lots of money but little time for community and for each other. ISEC's "Learning from Ladakh'" project enables Westerners to live and work with Ladakhi families and gain insight into their traditional culture and lifestyle. Participants usually return with a different idea of what constitutes happiness – the kind of happiness that money can't buy.

Global warming continues to loom large in our media with laudable initiatives such as Earth Hour taking place in many cities around the world, but the link between food production and global warming is seldom highlighted. Food production is a major contributor to global warming and we need to do more than just turn off the lights for an hour at 8pm. As individuals we can do a great deal to influence change by making our voices heard and exercising our choices wisely.

"I'm not underestimating the power of the individual – the small farmers in India. They want to be able to do it themselves. There's a groundswell of power there that you can't stop," says Peter Proctor.

We must take our lead and inspiration from campaigners and awareness raisers, like Helen and Barbara, and play our part in creating a groundswell of power – whether it's by lobbying supermarkets over food labelling, writing to MPs to question the introduction of GM, buying locally, growing our own produce, supporting farmers' markets, avoiding food laden with air miles or simply spreading some manure on our gardens.

There's no excuse for apathy or indifference and no room for wistful comments such as, "But what can I do?'" We can all do so much. It just takes a little awareness, effort and commitment. As Barbara says, "All you can do is more."

References:
“One Man, One Cow, One Planet”
can be ordered from www.cloudsouthfilms.co.nz
ISEC - www.isec.org.uk