Who does? Dan and I traveled down to Washington D.C. this past weekend to be part of Forward on Climate, the biggest climate rally in U.S. history. We joined over 40,000 people on the Mall near the Washington Monument, and then marched to the White House to make sure that our message was heard. Our message was serious, but we had a great time conveying it.
Dan & Addie Rose
The Sierra Club, 350.org, and 160+ other organizations sponsored theevent, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip-Hop Caucus emceed the show. We heard from author and activist Bill McKibben, tribal leaders from British Columbia, Alberta, and Oklahoma, and even a member of the 1% (a billionaire investor) who came out to let us know that he saw the Keystone XL pipeline as a very bad investment. All spoke out strongly against the pipeline that is proposed for transporting oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the Gulf Coast for refining and exporting. The quantity of oil estimated to be locked up in the tar sands is equal to all the oil that humanity has ever yet used – and if burned would raise the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere from an already dangerous 400 ppm to a frightening 600 ppm.
“You are the antibodies kicking in as the planet starts to fight its fever,” Bill McKibben told the crowd as we gathered on the Mall. Many people referenced Dr. Martin Luther King’s visit to the Mall 50 years ago and the crowds of people who came to fight for human equality. The difference, Rev. Yearwood noted, is that now “we are fighting for existence.” Indeed, climate change is already picking up steam – as recent extreme weather events keep reminding us – and the stakes are high. The opportunity to convince President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline is an opportunity to impede the burning of that dirty Alberta oil – and to give us time to get on track reducing our energy consumption and switching to renewables. Dr. King’s famous words ring true today: “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”
Climate change is a big deal to us at Real Pickles. Our work here is to strive to create a business that is sustainable and energy efficient, one that helps to build a strong and healthy community. Many of the principles on which we base our decisions are principles that also define the climate movement. Climate change is also central to the work I do outside of Real Pickles: managing communications and outreach for the Northeast Climate Science Center (NE CSC) based at UMass Amherst. The center is a federal-academic partnership that works to provide tools to natural resource managers as they plan for a future of changing climate. My two workplaces – Real Pickles and the NE CSC – span a broad spectrum between big picture and community scale action. In both, I think about the issues surrounding climate change on a daily basis and hope that our government will take action to prevent the worst, even as many citizens prepare for it. For these reasons, I was thrilled to join the 40,000+ protesters in Washington on Sunday.
The march begins
“Hey Obama! We don’t want no climate drama!” – chant from the crowd
We felt very inspired by the attendance and the vibe at the rally. People traveled from all over the country to participate and show their support for a low-carbon future. Together, we shouted and we shook our fists. We danced to the drum line and the brass band. And we danced extra hard to keep warm – did I mention that it was a crisp 25 degrees with a brisk wind?
There were signs declaring that “fossil fuels are SO last century” and stickers against hydrofracking (“No fracking way!”). The tribal leaders spoke of the incredible pollution risk posed by the Keystone XL pipeline: “Oil always spills. It is not a question of if, but a question of when.” And there were numerous chants in favor of solar and wind power, with Dan and I occasionally adding in a good word for conservation as priority #1.
Turnout for the event far exceeded expectations, and we left feeling particularly proud of the Western Mass contingent: we heard that 5 or 6 full buses traveled to the rally from the Pioneer Valley, yeah! We took a bus down from Greenfield and were serenaded in the parking lot by activists unable to join us – with songs like CSN’s “Long Time Comin'” – before we boarded the bus and set on our way. Amidst the enormous crowd, we didn’t run into many Western Mass folks but did see our neighbor Alden, owner of the People’s Pint, toward the end of the rally. We were hoping he would have 2 pints of his Farmer Brown and a couple of pulled pork sandwiches to offer us, but alas – we’ll have to wait until we get back to Greenfield.
We’re including a few photos from our trip – we hope that you enjoy!
Addie tells Obama that she “don’t want no climate drama”.Dr. King’s words ring true today, “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”
The polar bears show up to the rally to advocate for their future existence.
A brilliant policy solution that could make a profound difference. (Carbon Tax Center is a good clearinghouse for info on a revenue-neutral carbon fee.)
The Occupy movement lives on!
It’s time, indeed…Gotta put the brakes on.The final word.
Big corporations are a central part of modern American life: We buy an overwhelming proportion of our goods and services from them, we absorb their advertisements nearly everywhere we go, we invest our retirement savings in them, and we depend on the latest twists and turns in their average stock values to tell us whether our lives are headed in the right direction. These institutions have brought us many material wonders, to be sure. But what, we might ask, is their collective impact on our pursuit of loftier goals? Does the dominance of big corporations in our society, for example, make it harder to achieve sustainability, social justice, or true democracy? Might it be that such institutions actually put these kinds of social achievements fundamentally out of reach? If so, what can be done?
In the aftermath of two recent federal court decisions – both, as it happens, ultimately threatening to impact a western Massachusetts food business like Real Pickles – I think these are questions worth exploring.
Cukes, Not Nukes
A couple weeks ago, many of us on the Real Pickles staff traveled to nearby Brattleboro, VT, to protest the continued operation of our neighbor, the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. With our “Cukes Not Nukes!” protest signs, we joined over 1,000 people in marching to the local headquarters of its absentee owner, New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation, where 130 people were then arrested in a non-violent civil disobedience action.
There have long been plenty of good reasons to shut down VT Yankee. The question of how to responsibly manage its waste seems hopelessly unanswerable, given the million-year duration of its radioactivity. And, a major failure at the reactor could make a sizable portion of New England uninhabitable for thousands of years. While such a prospect was real even when VT Yankee first went on-line in 1972, it has become ever more possible as the reactor has grown older and experienced a longer and longer list of mishaps.
In recent months, however, another reason to protest has come to the fore. And, that is the extreme level of corporate power revealed in the decision-making process about VT Yankee’s future, as well as a corresponding failure of democracy. VT Yankee’s original 40-year operating license expired on March 21 (the day before the march). But, unfortunately, rather than now heading toward decommissioning, VT Yankee continues to operate. Last year, in the midst of an unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted a 20-year license extension, a lucrative prize which Entergy worked for years to obtain.
How could the NRC make such a decision? After all, VT Yankee is the very same reactor model as those that failed at Fukushima. Serious problems continue to plague VT Yankee, and the consequences of a major accident there would be profound. It is difficult to view the result as anything other than the undue influence of a powerful energy corporation faced with the opportunity for massive financial gain. Perhaps, a “corporate mind-set” was at play, as well – a phenomenon which leads people to have outsized faith in corporations to bring about positive societal outcomes. I view the corporate mind-set as a consequence of big corporations’ pervasive influence in society.
In January of this year, even more serious questions about democracy were raised when a federal court invalidated the state of Vermont’s decision to deny Entergy permission to continue operating the plant beyond March 21. The NRC had given its permission, but Entergy had previously signed a contract with Vermont agreeing it also would need the state’s go-ahead to keep the reactor going. After a long public debate during which it was firmly established that the clear majority of citizens wanted VT Yankee shut down, Vermont’s legislature sided with the citizenry. But, Entergy sued. It hired a team of superstar lawyers, spent millions of dollars, and – in a wildly off-base court decision – won. Vermont has appealed the decision. For now, however, corporate power has won. And the inhabitants of New England remain at risk.
Real Food, Not Frankenfood
Another recent court victory for a big corporation raises many of the same questions as the Vermont Yankee story. It also hits particularly close to home for an organic food business like ours. This case involves Monsanto, the world’s biggest marketer of genetically engineered seeds.
Nuclear power is a very risky business, though its risks are fairly well understood. With genetic engineering, the risks are similarly great. Yet, it’s hard to even predict all that could go wrong. The problem is this: our understanding of living organisms is insufficient to warrant messing around with their basic genetic structure in this way. Living organisms are highly complex. To think that inserting a fish gene into a tomato will not produce a long list of unforeseen effects is naive and dangerous. Will new carcinogens or allergens be created? Will the plants cross-breed with wild plants and then undermine the health of our ecosystems in some unexpected way? It turns out that such things are already beginning to happen. To fully understand the impacts of genetic engineering could take decades, by which time it will be far too late to rein in this technology.
It is a serious problem that the federal government has essentially decided that any and all genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe and require no testing, raising the question again about the influence of corporate power on our government. The most recent win for the biotech companies is just as troubling. Last year, a coalition of organic farmers, seed companies, and advocacy organizations decided to challenge Monsanto for its aggressive actions against farmers whose crops have been contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs. The contamination happens when GMO pollen gets carried by wind or insects onto other farms, and then cross-pollinates with non-GMO crops. Farmers who have never purchased genetically modified seed suddenly find GMO crops growing in their fields.
GMO contamination threatens the existence of organic agriculture – and poses huge threats to all agriculture. One would expect farmers to have legal recourse against the biotech companies. After all, these corporations are clearly guilty of “genetic trespass”, robbing farmers of the organic or non-GMO status of their crops. In actuality, Monsanto has, for years now, been harassing and successfully suing farmers for patent infringement whenever their GMOs are found in those farmers’ fields. It has made no difference that the farmers neither planted Monsanto’s seeds nor wanted them in their fields in the first place.
In response, the group of farmers, seed companies, and non-profits filed a lawsuit against Monsanto, preemptively seeking protection from patent infringement should the farmers represented ever find their crops contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs. Monsanto hired a team of top lawyers and fought back hard. In February, the judge threw out the case, ridiculing the plaintiffs for a “transparent effort to create controversy where none exists.” The case is now being appealed. One is again left to wonder about the prospects for a society where corporate influence is so pervasive.
People Power
Is there another path? Is an economy dominated by big corporations the only way?
My opinion is that it’s time to dig out that old classic, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973), and consider the advice of E.F. Schumacher: “Today, we suffer from an almost universal idolatry of giantism. It is therefore necessary to insist on the virtues of smallness.” Forty years later, “bigger is better” remains the conventional wisdom. Yet the evidence tells us that bigger is not always better. Increasingly, the idolatry of giantism brings us to a place in which profit-driven corporate influence wins the day, regardless of what ordinary people want or need. If we instead want a society run by the people, many changes are needed. Among the most essential is a shift from an economy dominated by big corporations to one oriented around small businesses (especially those with democratic structures, like cooperatives).
In a corporate-dominated economy, corporations hold the power. In an economy predominantly made up of small businesses (even if big businesses still exist), it is possible for people to determine the direction of their lives, and of society. We are no longer battling the excessive influence of big business on government decision-making processes, nor the pervasive “corporate mind-set”, nor the effects of all that slick advertising. What happens when businesses misbehave, acting against societal interests? Small businesses can be held responsible for their actions; in a corporate economy, the big corporations always seem to evade true accountability. Small businesses are less likely to misbehave in the first place. Only a huge absentee corporation – headquartered 1,500 miles away and beholden to the financial interests of investors on Wall Street – could possibly fight so hard to keep Vermont Yankee running.
To move to a small business economy, we will need entrepreneurs starting up new small businesses – and keeping them small. Customers supporting these businesses with their purchases. Millions moving their money out of the big banks and into community banks. Investors shifting their money from Wall Street to local and regional enterprises. Masses of people pushing for political change thru protest movements like Occupy Wall Street. In other words, we must choose to make use of the people power we do have, however limited it may be. We will then see that we have what it takes to build a green, socially-just, and democratic society.
Here in western Massachusetts, we are fortunate to be part of a community brimming with exciting efforts to build a new and better food system. Farms of all kinds are starting up or heading in new directions: offering winter CSA shares, doing on-farm cheese or yogurt production, growing grains and selling them to local bakeries. Non-farm businesses are using more local ingredients in their restaurants or using them to produce value-added foods like salsas, meads, and (in our case) fermented pickles. New retail markets are forming for local/regional foods, such as winter farmers’ markets and a new food co-op. Non-profits are doing tremendously valuable work, as well, whether encouraging people to “Be A Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown” or running an incubator kitchen for start-up food businesses.
To someone like myself who sees enormous social value in transitioning to a regionally-based, organic food system, these developments are very encouraging. And, of course, such activity can be found in many other communities around the country (and beyond), not just in western Massachusetts.
In my view, this is an approach to social change that can produce substantial progress. Small farm and food businesses create the building blocks for the new food system. People generate increased market demand by choosing to buy their products. Non-profit organizations help in all sorts of ways. The momentum starts to build as more people come to be exposed to the benefits of a regional, organic food model–as more people get to taste the really good food it puts out, as they see the farms in their communities beginning to thrive. And in time, people can even come to perceive a new food system taking hold (at least at the margins), and imagine the possibility that the corporate, industrial food system could truly be replaced.
But, while this work on a local/regional scale to start building the replacement for the current food system is hugely important (I would not have started a pickle business if I thought otherwise), I don’t see a true transformation of the food system happening by this avenue alone. We also need something like…well, the Occupy movement.
The Cheap Food System
A key challenge in trying to change the food system is that our political-economic system offers enormous advantages to the purveyors of industrial food. The result is that the big food corporations can sell their products for extremely low prices. With healthy, regionally-produced, organic food made to look expensive in comparison, it becomes difficult to compete. Those who see the benefits–and have the ability to pay–will buy regional, organic food. But, as long as we have a cheap food system, local efforts to change things will only be able to convince so many people to switch to the good stuff.
Of course, cheap food is not actually cheap. It’s just that a portion of its cost is being paid for at someplace other than the supermarket checkout. Our taxes, for example, fund the billions of dollars in subsidies–mostly going to the largest farms–for commodity crops like corn and soybeans, whose by-products can then serve as cheap ingredients for processed foods. Our ever-increasing health insurance premiums pay the bills for the diabetes and obesity epidemics caused by high-fructose corn syrup and other refined sweeteners.
Other costs are being substantially passed off to future generations. The current-day farm practices which are causing our agricultural soils to erode away ten times faster than they can be regenerated will mean less farmland from which our grandchildren will be able to feed themselves. And, the burning of fossil fuels to transport our food thousands of miles from farm to plate will result in an outsized burden for our descendants as the effects of climate change further unfold.
These are the kinds of “externalized costs”, as economists call them, which constitute the unfair advantage of corporate, industrial food. (Regional, organic food has such costs, too, but to a far smaller degree.) Until eliminated, this advantage will continue to stymie efforts to fundamentally change the food system. And yet, those working on a local/regional scale–as opposed to a national scale–are not going to be able to change this equation. This is where we need the Occupy movement.
There are, of course, the more everyday tools for effecting national political change–lobbying, petition drives, electoral campaigns. And, use of such tools has yielded some progress, as illustrated by programs in the Farm Bill promoting local food and conservation (as limited as they may be). But, as I see it (and I’m clearly not alone), not enough progress has been made. The problems of our food system are serious and urgent, and the ever-increasing influence of money in politics makes the prospect for serious change by everyday means very slim. Our food system needs a non-violent, direct protest movement that views our society’s challenges in a systemic way and demands serious change. The kind of change that would mean an end to the excessive advantage and influence held by corporations in our food system–and in our society as a whole. Our food system needs the Occupy movement.
Food as a Right, Not a Privilege
There is a second reason why our food system needs the Occupy movement. If we are to finally succeed in stripping the big corporations of their unfair advantage–the ability to pass off to society the social and ecological costs of their activities–then most of us are going to find our food costs increase. Having learned just how expensive “cheap” industrial food really is, we will have substantially switched to healthy, organic, regionally-produced food. The price on that delicious tomato from the organic farm down the road will finally beat out the price on that pale, sad excuse for a vegetable (or fruit, to be precise) flown in from who-knows-where. But the local, organic tomato will still cost more than the industrial version used to cost.
For many people–I would venture to suggest the clear majority of Americans–this will be a manageable adjustment. It will require a re-alignment of expectations about the percentage of household income spent on food: perhaps Americans will end up devoting closer to 24% of income on food as we did in the 1920s, up from the 9% we currently spend. Many millions of Americans, however, will be able to handle this–especially when one considers all of the societal costs which will have been avoided (societal costs, of course, eventually translating into individual costs like taxes and insurance premiums).
Still, a substantial number of Americans will not be able to afford higher food prices. Many of them cannot afford food even at current prices. Thus, what is already an imperative will become even more critical: that access to food be made a right, rather than a mere privilege. Every person deserves to be able to afford to eat healthy, nutritious food, and we as a society need to figure out how to make that an assured reality. This is not something that those involved in local efforts to change the food system can do much about. Communities can develop good food pantry networks or organize fundraisers for low income shoppers at farmers’ markets, but they’re in a poor position to institutionalize food as a right.
The Occupy movement, however, can help get us there. Just as with corporate advantage, this is not a challenge that is likely to be overcome by everyday petitioning and lobbying efforts. Establishing access to healthy food as a right will come only as part of a bigger societal shift. And, such a shift is precisely what the protesters at Occupy Wall Street have been talking about from the beginning. As stated in their Principles of Solidarity: “We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers great possibility of equality.” This is about moving toward a society in which it is not just the 1% that are guaranteed to eat. 100% are guaranteed to eat.
If, then, we are to build a truly new food system, I suggest this: Let us be engaged, wherever we are able, in that much-needed work of creating a better structure from the ground up–buying local/regional, starting or supporting small farms and food businesses, developing community gardens, joining support organizations. And in our broader-scale efforts, may we not give up on the standard citizen tools of the political process (letters, petitions, etc.). But at this moment, let us also give serious consideration to how we can best support and participate in the Occupy movement and help to chart its future direction.
After all, we are the 99%. It’s our movement, too, regardless of whether or not we have yet joined a single street protest. This is a moment with great potential to effect serious social change and move us toward becoming a more equitable and sustainable society. May we make the most of it.
As I noted last time, on the subject of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Real Pickles: We are doing essentially the same work, even if employing different approaches to making change in the world, and from mostly different locales. But, some actual connections are being made these days between the two efforts. A couple weeks back, we shipped two gallons of sauerkraut as food donation to the protesters in NYC as a show of support. And, recently some staff members from Real Pickles have made opportunities to drop in on the protests. Joe Mirkin, Real Pickles’ stellar facility manager and co-production manager, joined in on the events in NYC for a weekend and came back with some thoughts to share. Here are some excerpts from an interview I did with him:
DR: What prompted you to travel down to NYC to join in with OWS?
JM: After several weeks of reading news reports, it seemed the protests were gaining steam. What at first seemed like a flash in the pan quickly turned into the genesis of a popular uprising. Hey, who doesn’t want to be part of a popular uprising? So I got restless, grabbed a couple friends, some sleeping bags, and drove down to OWS. I also have friends in NYC who had participated in the OWS protests in the weeks prior to my visit. They all said the same thing, “You gotta get down here and see it for yourself!” Which is now what I tell everybody who is interested in the goings on of OWS: Go see it for yourself!
DR: When you arrived, did you find what you were expecting? How did things match your expectations? What surprised you?
JM: Heading down there, I figured I’d find just a bunch of young people having meetings and sleeping in the park. What I encountered was deeply surprising and, for the most part, encouraging and inspiring. Volunteer cleaning crews roaming the park 24/7 collecting trash and recyclables; a composting/gray water operation for recycling food scraps; a makeshift kitchen serving thousands of decent meals every day; an extraordinarily well-stocked, well-organized People’s Library fully staffed with friendly and competent librarians offering free reading material on all matter of subjects; people of all ages and various social classes; successfully facilitated General Assembly meetings with hundreds or thousands of participants; spontaneous classes and workshops organized and attended by interested people; clothing and bedding donations arriving by the carload, all sorted by volunteers and given away for free to anyone in need.
One of the things I did expect to find was a very significant amount of police present, and that was certainly the reality. The NYPD has these surveillance towers which can raise and lower from the ground to a height of almost 30′. The only other times I’ve seen anything like them were at Obama’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., and overlooking Beale St in Memphis, TN. The police apparently prepare for the worst when it comes to large gatherings of peaceful people, whether it be in protest, in celebration, or to hear blues music and eat barbecue.
DR: How do you see OWS fitting into the work for social change that needs to happen?
JM: Having untold numbers of people marching and demonstrating in the streets everyday allows for a whole slew of other social change to take place. The primary benefit I can see is that the protests allow all the groups that were already engaged in making change to expand their imaginations on what kind of progress is possible. They can demand more in their lists of goals, they can intensify and amplify their tactics for winning change, and they can build relationships and coalitions with other groups that may not have previously had specific overlapping issues. You’ve seen all sorts of labor unions come out in support of OWS, and now you’re seeing OWS link up with other movements for change around the city. The same dynamic is playing out at Occupy protests all over the country. I don’t think the camping out part alone is going to bring down corporate greed and all its associated ills, but it does seem to be a catalyst for a more networked and energized movement for justice.
DR: What’s your assessment of the “message” coming out of OWS? What do you think of the criticism that the movement doesn’t have a clear, coherent message?
JM: The moment people at OWS begin pushing a single demand is the moment a lot of people will decide to stop participating. The real strength of the protest – the actual power that makes the city and the banks so bloody nervous – is the broad base of support OWS has. Any action taken to weed out some issues in favor of others will only weaken this power, and so it is best to avoid any such thing, in my estimation. That certainly does not preclude OWS from issuing messages about the protest, which they have done. Nor should it keep individuals from teaching and talking to others about those issues close to them, which some people do. Keeping the message as broad as the 99% of people in this country is no easy task, least of all because of the pressure from media to present clear, concise demands. But it’s well worth the effort if OWS is to maintain the strength it has gained.
DR: After posting my blog entry, “Occupy Wall Street and Organic Pickles”, we heard from a couple Real Pickles customers who were frustrated over our support for OWS. They cited several reasons for opposing the protests. One was that the protests were “disruptive”. Any thoughts about that, having participated in them?
JM: My response to that criticism is: Ask the millions of people losing their housing due to mortgage lending practices if they consider the protesters “disruptive”. Ask any farmer who’s been taken to court by Monsanto for intellectual property theft if they think OWS is “disruptive”. Ask any teacher or firefighter in Wisconsin if the word they would use to describe OWS protesters is “disruptive”. It goes on and on. Hard to imagine that a single protest in New York City can be even remotely close to being as disruptive as modern-day global neoliberal capitalism.
DR: Another criticism we heard was that direct action (i.e.-street demonstrations) is not the way to go about changing the world. Instead, it is best to follow Gandhi’s precept to “be the change you want to see in the world” and focus on, say, making organic pickles from locally-grown vegetables or buying locally-grown food. What are your thoughts about the relative importance of these different approaches to making social change?
JM: Changing the systems of food production and consumption in this country is of obvious importance to creating a better world. Sometimes in order to achieve your goal you need a diversity of tactics. Say you want to purchase food that was produced by workers who are paid fair wages. It may be as easy as going to a different store or market and maybe spending a little bit more money. But, sometimes one may have to do as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers down in Florida has done, and head out to the streets to demand that corporate grocery chains pay fair prices for hand-picked produce!
In lower Manhattan and in cities and towns across the country, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand change. We are the 99%, they are saying, here to put an end to the societal injustices perpetuated by the 1%. Those occupying Wall Street and elsewhere are speaking out against the concentration of corporate power and its negative impact on people and ecosystems, including problems ranging from joblessness and lack of access to health care to loss of biodiversity and accelerating climate change.
Meanwhile, in western Massachusetts, a small crew is hard at work inside a solar-powered food processing facility, peeling and shredding cabbages freshly harvested from an organic farm ten miles away. The cabbage will ferment for several months, and then be sold as raw sauerkraut to stores around the Northeast.
Occupying the streets. Making organic pickles. Any connection here? I would say so.
At first glance, what happens here at Real Pickles appears to be merely ordinary business activity. Just a small enterprise trying to yield a reasonable profit by producing food for people. An observer not so familiar with the workings of contemporary America might be tempted to think it normal, as well, that we source our vegetables from a small organic farm down the road, generate our own power, sell our pickles in raw and fermented form, and only distribute within our own region. But of course, in 2011 here in the United States, there is nothing ordinary at all about such practices. Nor is it typical these days for people to be eating food produced by a small business.
While the representatives of the 99% are seeking to occupy Wall Street, we should probably be thinking of the 1% as the real occupiers. Climate activist Bill McKibben, in a recent address to the demonstrators in NYC, noted: “Wall Street has been occupying the atmosphere. That’s why we can never do anything about global warming. Exxon gets in the way. Goldman Sachs gets in the way.” Indeed, Wall Street has long been occupying many realms of our lives. And our food system is a prime example.
Local food production and distribution by small businesses certainly used to be the norm. But these days, our food system is primarily national and international in scale. It is dominated by huge corporations with massive influence over what we eat and how it is grown, processed, distributed, and sold. These companies have spent significant sums of money to convince us that there is nothing wrong with this picture. Monsanto’s public relations message is that we need them if we are to “feed the world”. Kraft Foods assures us that they’re there for us, “fighting hunger and encouraging healthy lifestyles”.
Increasingly, however, people are starting to see through the slick PR campaigns. They are starting to see connections between the corporate control of our food system and a wide variety of societal problems – the diabetes and obesity epidemics, the huge “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, and ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions, just to name a few. Indeed, I think the evidence is robust and convincing enough to say quite clearly: A global, corporate-dominated food system has profoundly negative consequences for people and ecosystems. We are, without a doubt, in need of a new food system.
Here, then, lies the connection between Occupy Wall Street and a business such as Real Pickles. Among the Wall Street protesters, some are more radical than others in their demands for change. But there appears, by and large, to be a unified determination to alter the balance of power in our society away from the corporate elite and in favor of the 99%, and thereby begin to remedy a long list of social and ecological problems.
At Real Pickles, we are doing essentially the same work. Having recognized that a corporate-dominated food system does not serve our society well, we have set about helping to build a new one. Real Pickles is small, people-centered, ecologically-conscious, and local/regional in scale; and puts out food that is authentic and nourishing. The aim is that this business will serve as a model as our new and better food system emerges. Just like those protesting on Wall Street, we also recognize that the problems stemming from corporate control extend far beyond the food system, and hope that our work has impact as part of a broader re-shaping of our society, as well.
Occupy Wall Street and Real Pickles represent different approaches to the same effort. Many approaches are needed, as there is much work to be done and no one simple path to an equitable and sustainable society. So, it is with excitement that we witness the latest social ferment on the streets. Here at Real Pickles we love fermentation! We fully support the Occupy Wall Street protests and are delighted to be engaged together in the work for a better world.
