The Taste of Freedom
A talk given by Tane Datta on March 26, 2011, at the first Localvore Dinner at the Keauhou Beach Resort, sponsored by the Kona County Farm Bureau.
Freedom
There just may be a connection between the thousands of people in almost every Middle Eastern country willing to die for freedom and self-determination, and the localvore movement in Hawai’i and other parts of the country.
The obvious connection is that our demand for oil has greatly contributed to the strength of oil tyrants of all political ideologies. The production and transportation of food create a significant portion of our oil demand. Our food system accounts for over 15% of our total energy use. To put this in perspective, on the mainland each person uses the energy equivalent of 400 gal of gasoline a year for the food they eat. It has got to be much more to get food to Hawai’i.
I think there are other equally important connections. There may be a universal human desire to lead a meaningful life, to create our own destinies and to be connected with each other.
Let’s look at our food system as breakfasts, lunches and dinners that people like you and I eat, and that people like you and I might provide.
The Food System as Meals
Our entire food system can be summed up as meals. Every meal we eat determines our personal health and sets into motion a tiny trickle of money. If we plant a garden, the money flows into our own gardens and yards and directly affects our personal environment. Our plantings create what we see when we wake up in the morning, what we smell when we walk out of our houses, and our depth of engagement with our natural surroundings.
The money can also flow to those friends and neighbors who are engaged in producing more meals than they can eat. We might find these meals next door or at a roadside stand.
If we find our dinners at a farmer’s market or through a CSA, our trickle of money becomes a small stream that brings health and care to the farms and gardens in our immediate region.
If we get our lunches from the local section of our natural food stores or grocery stores or off the menus of the better quality restaurants, our trickle of money becomes a flood that washes away the stench of industrial agriculture while bringing nourishment to local farms and gardens and the people who care for them. In essence, by eating a locally grown food you become one of the caretakers of the land around you.
Now any individual is unlikely to grow everything on their breakfast plate. A person does not need to care for a whole cow just to consume a glass of milk every morning; nor grow a field of corn to make a breakfast cereal. However, if you look at the food value of what your garden can grow and take enough responsibility to see that it is consumed, you may be surprised. If you take a little care of a banana plant, it can easily produce over 100 lbs of bananas a year. That could be seen as 50 or more meals. The avocado tree in your yard may produce over 300# a year. That could be seen as 150 meals. Go ahead eat two pounds of avocado and tell me how hungry you are. A small 10’ by 10’ garden bed may produce at least 1 meal a day.
Every one of those meals you produce has a positive carbon footprint that reduces the need for energy and war. And it is produced by a worker (you) who might feel empowered and healthier by just being in your own garden.
If all of us grew just 4 meals per week the entire industrial food system would shrink by almost 20%. If we grow no food but consume 10 local meals a week, the entire industrial food system would shrink by 50%. That would take some of the wind out of oil dictators’ sails, reduce the amount of slavery-like conditions which many large scale agricultural workers live in, and improve local health.
Relationship to the Land and Local Culture
But these are really just the side effects of gardening and small scale farming. The main effect is on you, the grower, and the land you put your care, attention and time into.
As a grower you make countless decisions that affect you and the life of the land. You choose crops, fertilizing techniques, pest controls and harvest methods. You choose the scale you operate on, the number of people you work with, and the type of relationships they have with each other and with the land you and they are caring for. You choose who to grow for and why you are growing in the first place. All these decisions, though intensely personal, set the basic relationship between the land and the people you are connecting the land with. This is a small, highly controllable way that your garden or small farm or large farm becomes a building block for society, economy and culture.
Some folks came to Maui and saw the possibility of pineapple from sea to mountaintop. Their purpose in growing pineapple is reflected in over 100 years of plantation culture, importation of successive waves of people from countries in desperate economic conditions, and almost complete degradation of land and water resources. Along with similar consequences from sugar plantations for a century-and-a-half, these activities created much of the current culture of our islands.
Those structures have run their course and are on the decline. New structures and uses of land are being developed now. Some land uses, such as tourism and related condo/resort housing have been going on for over 30 years. Some crops, like biofuels, may remodel the plantation culture with increased mechanization and local market focus. The more important changes, however, are the successful moves toward diversified agriculture. In its simplest form, that means more crops going to more markets. The research & development for that change is now taking place in our gardens and small farms. The university, government and larger business structures are just beginning to show interest.
Small Growers and School Gardens
The role of the small grower is important for the land care methods that are modeled, for the relationships, friendships and culture created, and for the sheer number of plants that are being tried. Developing sugar and pineapple growing techniques shook the island culture. Developing the diversified crop base has even greater potential. Why?
The underlying difference is the purpose for growing the plants and the intention of the growers. The power of this should not be underestimated. There is a tremendous amount of creativity and resourcefulness coming from this group of small growers, and the results are already showing. The island-grown food being served at restaurants, the ever increasing number of farmer’s markets, the support for new stores such as Whole Foods while also keeping local stores like Island Naturals thriving, the acceptance and promotion of local foods at stores like Foodland and KTA (Mountain Apple), all show the depth of support that exists for local food production. Small growers are also creating new channels that are more directly connected to the farm. Community Supported Agriculture groups are growing. Farmers in Kona saw a large increase in value when they began to label and distribute their own products. Many of them harness the internet or participate in farmers markets to create new ways of reaching customers. But even this can be seen as just the tip of the potential iceberg.
Some educators and small growers are working on developing school gardens, which are becoming widely accepted especially by the children. They are also working on getting quality local foods into the school lunch programs. School lunches account for a larger than may be realized amount of food consumption in the state. I have heard of estimates higher than 25%. If food can be grown for the schools it can also be grown for the hospitals, prisons, government institutions and the military. The institutional support of local agriculture can help create long term economic and social stability. The tax dollars spent on school lunches, if redirected to the local growers, could probably create enough local economy to end the disgrace of Furlough Fridays.
Growing for Flavor
There are many reasons to eat locally. Among them are keeping our dollars at home, preserving crop diversity, lowering pesticide use, and preserving rural vistas. One of my favorite reasons is flavor.
Each crop has a peak moment of flavor. The closer that moment is to your palate, the better the flavor. Crops picked to be eaten hundreds of miles and days away won’t have the flavor of a crop picked to be eaten within 24 hours or less. That is the primary flavor difference between local and jet-lagged food.
But the primary intention of many of our diversified growers is to grow freedom and independence. It is to stabilize the local food supply, improve our environment, improve our health, connect our minds, bodies and spirits into a happy and free community. A free community has control of its food, energy, health and time. Diversified growers are the roots of a community; they are the connection between the land and the people. Small gardeners are like the little rootlets exploring new, fertile areas and strengthening the base.
Gardeners, sharing food with their friends and family give rise to small farmers, who in turn, create the markets for larger scale organic operations. Customers who are making their preference for local food known to grocery stores and restaurants, and who are supporting farmer’s markets, are with simple actions creating community and a freer world.
To me, it is important that the good agricultural lands -- which are finally becoming available for new crops -- be used with the following priorities: first, to feed the people of the islands; second, to feed the animals that make up the dairies and ranches; third, to provide our energy sources; and fourth (once those are accomplished), to use as export crops.
Everything is Connected
The ethical and ecological reasons for sustainability, which include reducing water pollution, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and not poisoning our wildlife and ourselves, are much discussed in the mass media. The specter of an oil slicked gulf and Manhattan underwater visualize the fears of global warming. Books such as the bestseller The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, have deeply explored the connection between what we choose to eat and the world that is shaped by those choices. In detail, he points out how the nutritional imbalances of Omega-3’s to Omega-6’s are related to the Farm Bill and to eating packaged foods (organic or not) with ingredients you can’t pronounce. The health implications of those imbalances are well demonstrated. The solution to these problems can be found in your gardens and the plates you fill with the food you grow.
I hope I have shown you that personal organic gardening strengthens the base of commercial organic farming; that local food contributes to personal, economic and social health; and that food distribution systems are created by what you put in your mouth. When the human desire for food, energy and shelter are fulfilled by connecting our needs to strengthening and caring for nature, then the foundation for independence and freedom is grown.
Freedom allows you to breath deeply, and allows aloha (the breath of life) to enter deep inside you. . . . and that, plus new flavors, is worth visiting your farmer’s market for.
Tane Datta grows certified organic crops on a 7.5 acre farm in Honaunau, Hawai’i. He is on the crop advisory council for the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) and is a commissioner for the Mayor’s Agricultural Committee on Hawai’i Island. He is an environmentalist dedicated to ecological community development. Tane and his wife, Maureen, run Adaptations Inc., a 100% local foods distributor. Adaptations Inc. distributes island-grown produce to over 60 hotels, restaurants, and health food stores on all the islands, and also through a CSA called Fresh Feasts on Hawai’i Island. Adaptations buys produce from over 100 local farms. Adaptations, Inc. can be reached at 808-328-9044, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.