natural law prophets

Anita Graf (agraf@agecon.uga.edu)
Tue, 13 Apr 1999 09:47:02 EST5EDT

> All our crop plants have been highly manipulated to produce products that we
> like to eat. And not only the cultivar, but the whole system. The whole
> agricultural system (incl. permaculture) is laced with human management
> through and through. It seems like the logical conclusion of your
> quietistic line of reasoning would be foraging in wild lands and nothing
> more.
>
> > I.e., letting consumer demand and markets (another form of exclusive
> > focus on profits) drive everything is a short-sighted strategy.
>
> I would venture that the driver is simply the desire for pineapple. I don't
> think the desire for nice fruit is a product of culture.
>
> > It seems to me that one of the lessons of organic production should
> > be to return consumers to some realism about where food comes from,
> > rather than trying to provide them with all the luxuries to which
> > they have become accustomed...
>
> So, "organic" production is going to deliver the natural law commandments?
> Are you going to be the prophet?
>
> > ...in the industrial food system.

Hi Dale,
I just wanted to say that although Misha and others may have taken
the pineapple example a little too far, I understood something
different from their argument that consumers should "know where [and
when] food comes from." By participating in agriculture, we cannot
do away with human intervention, but we can own up to some powerful
realities. Like tomatoes don't grow or bear in the winter. Zuccini
too belongs to the summer. Brassicas, however, belong to the cool
season (like winter in California). The only way to eat fresh
zuccini, tomatoes, and peppers in the winter is to grow them in
greenhouses and/or transport them over vast distances. Not only does
this produce not have the same nutritional/vitality value by the
time it gets to the consumer, but it involves huge costs to society
(pollution and use of non renuable fossil fuels) which I think most
would recognize are not accounted for in this economic system
(therefore the proper supply/demand signals necessary to guide
capitalism aren't accurate). It isn't just that consumers have
become "spoiled" (they have), but they have become completely
ignorant of the workings of agriculture and nature. Hardly anyone
lives on farms anymore or even has a home garden, and some people
probably think hamburger grows in styrofoam packets on hamburger
trees. I would just like to say that I think there is something
REALLY worthwhile in eating and living within the season of your
corner of the earth -- something that goes beyond economics or
Madison Ave., something that I don't even need to defend with
statistical models or citatations. Hmmph!

Anita Graf
313-F Conner Hall
Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-7509
(706) 542-1915 phone
(706) 542-0739 fax
agraf@agecon.uga.edu

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