Food Security: Access

I didn't really expect this to become a series... but sometimes topics choose you. ;-)

When I wrote about my thoughts on Food Security yesterday, both Voie de Vie and AC mentioned they thought I would be talking about access to food, not safety of food.  It's interesting how one word can mean different things.

In the US, we like to think we are a wealthy country and that everyone has access to what ever they want, as long as they work hard enough.

In some ways that's true and certainly we are a very wealthy country.  But in no way are all of us wealthy and in no way do all of us have access to what we want or even need... no matter how hard we work.

We have large groups of poor people, of extremely poor people and of homeless people.  Perhaps they aren't obviously sleeping on the streets or in slums as I saw when I visited India years ago.  But that reality does exist in the US... check out Skid Row in Los Angeles next time you're there... or visit one of the pueblos in New Mexico... or just walk around the student ghetto near your favorite university.  It's easy to see that poverty is a big problem in the US and with that, access to quality food.

As I see it, this food scarcity manifests in two ways... ability to pay for it and ability to find it.  Often times it's a combination of both.

There are what has become known as food deserts here in the US... as in, the food is just not available, whether or not one has the ability to pay for it.  I was under the impression that these were primarily in poor, urban areas.  But this searchable map prepared by the USDA shows a very different story.  The pink areas are considered Food Deserts.

Food Desert Map source: ers.usda.gov

I find the picture quite striking.  That's a lot of pink.  Which means there are huge areas of population that have no or limited access to quality food.

On a news program last night they said that the US throws away about 40% of the food it generates.  That's staggering especially since they also said that ~50 million Americans (~16%) have food scarcity issues.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do think that quantifying the problem is a good first step.

Food Security

Food Security is an idea I've just started to spend some time with.  Mostly because the idea is prevalent in some of the gardening blogs I read.

Professionally, I've always preferred the idea of being vertically integrated over significant outsourcing.  But I'm not sure if that came from my first professional job or if self-sustainment has just been an important idea for me for ages.

Anyway I find it interesting that this idea has been rolling around in my head recently since a new case of Mad Cow Disease was found in the US this month.

They're saying not to worry, the surveillance process is working... that the meat was not destined for human consumption.  Of course the video they show is of a cow falling all over itself and a kid suffering from eating tainted meat... So the words say don't worry, but the video says panic.

Last year there was a big issue with Listeria and Cantaloupe that was traced to a farm in my state and before that it was E-Coli and Spinach, Salmonella and Peanuts and then there's the whole pink slime thing... and so maybe the meat wasn't destined to become human food, but a rendering plant produces things like soap and ingredients for animal feed so maybe your dog could become infected.... and... well, it would be pretty easy to take this in a very alarmist direction.  So yeah, it's pretty difficult not to be concerned about the safety of our food supply.

Certainly the less distributed the source of the food, the more likely issues will cause a bigger problem with the population.  So I'm very happy that buying local and organic has been enjoying a resurgence lately.

I started buying organic foods when I was in college.  I learned as a kid that you are what you eat and I did not like the idea of eating pesticides.  When I learned about Farmer's Markets I started shopping there because it meant less transportation and pollution... and supporting local businesses is a good thing... and more plants mean more oxygen and less carbon dioxide.  Finally when I had my own house, I planted my first vegetable garden because I like to watch things grow and home-grown always tastes better than store-bought.

Now, a few years later we've acquired a freezer and I've learned about canning foods.  I still very much enjoy the process of growing plants but now my garden is much more about feeding us than it is just about something fun to do.

We're a long, long way from being fully self-sustaining.  And the idea becomes daunting when you start to think about the meat you raise and the food you need to support that.  So I am doing my best to trust that the government surveillance programs are working and that the food producers are making intelligent, long-term decisions while I continue to build my own farm.