The future of food may well be really, really local. Or should I say close. How about calling it Wall to Table (as in hanging gardens), or maybe Cellar (a nicer thing to call a basement) to Table? Maybe even in a planter box right on our dining table. Chia Pets with a side of Russian Dressing, anyone?
I mean, how in heaven's name are we going to feed billions more people if we grow, raise and make food the way we’re doing it now? Can we really rely on underpaying emerging nations and subsidizing corporate farmers to sell bland ingredients to large companies making so-called food-like products that make us fat and sick? Can we continue to have all that money – in the middle, between the farmer and us – go to people (‘cause as we all know, corporations are people, too…) who are adding no real value, but taking a whole lot from both sides of the deal?
Many of these questions will be discussed Thursday, when food writer Mark Bittman hosts a discussion on the urban food supply at the New York Times Energy for Tomorrow conference.
What we know is that our current farming system is broken. We’re virtually sucking the nutrients out of tired earth, then attempting to replenish it with edited, synthetic ones, to grow subsidized mono crops that are leading us to the kind of collapse too horrifying to imagine. We’re cutting down rain forests, ignoring so much of the nutrient value growing right there, to raise trendy crops of magical single foods with no sense of the balance, no plan for the future.
Remember, the West was the new frontier, in part, because, as farmers used up the land in the middle of the country, they simply moved further on down the road. As they hit the Pacific Ocean, they soon had to start thinking about creative alternatives we -- and Chinese farmers 2000 years ago -- call sustainable. Even the great early 20th century adventure writer Jack London understood this enough to dig in and start employing smarter, more thoughtful methods. There’s still a park with his name on it in Sonoma County, Calif., where you can see terraced farmland and a humane and smart Pig Palace, where our porcine pals lived the good life before becoming ham, bacon and darn good sausage. But going back is only part of the equation. We need to revisit the kind of multipliable diversity studied by London and old plant wizard Luther Burbank and then employ every new technology we can muster in support of practical preservation and the circulation of precious earth and water into a system that is truly self-sustaining.
I suspect we may end up with a construct very much like the imagined world of futuristic storytelling that sees us in a bubble – sphere, in fact – where everything has to work together as a universe. Think the Jetsons, with heirloom tomatoes.
Make no mistake, unless we’re smacked by a major asteroid or runaway galaxy, the earth will probably go on spinning, and life in some form seems destined to be around for a good long time. The question is, will we be along for a longer well-fed ride, or will we become lunch for some smarter or at least more-focused feeder?
OK, this is full of gross oversimplifications, but I do have a few additional thoughts. Heirloom seeds that are productive, give delicious food and produce nutritious anything will continue to become more valuable and may in fact one day be used like money: edible currency, if you will. Simple systems that recycle and replenish, capture, clean and utilize from our natural surroundings – like good rainwater systems – may well be as common as vacuum cleaners. Rents may go up depending on how much sunlight and therefore feeding fuel hits our roof or window or panel, or planter box. Already, real estate values go up (even in Flint, Mich.) with proximity to farmers markets and community gardens – instead, or along with, access to golf courses and good schools.
With a mighty push, or against our will, we will need to come around again to the age-old knowledge that we simply must have food and water, fresh air and sunshine to survive and thrive, and that the appropriate amount of energy – pun intended – must go towards getting that right. And, in the end, it could mean something really good to eat.
So here’s where creative minds deserve to run free. What’s in your future lunch box and how does it get there?
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