How Can You Help The Planet if You Can't Afford to Make Eco Friendly Choices?

A thoughtful student asked me an important question after I presented to her university class titled Thriving Food Systems. It is a question I have struggled with for decades. She wanted to know how can students afford to buy food from farmers that are authentically regenerative if the cost is prohibitive for them?

What needs to change to empower people and give access to healthy food for the young families who need it most? What needs to change is how we view ourselves. Unless that changes, nothing can progress. Once we all recognize ourselves as nature, we can protect the whole of it.

When you have lived with economic and food systems your whole life, it is hard to imagine yourself somewhere better. But we can learn better ways to feed ourselves by remembering that current food systems have only emerged recently, in a blink of geological time. Before, it was our tangible, tactile, and invisible connections with people and country that gave us breath, quenched our thirst and fed us.

Thanks to the dedicated work of Zach Bush and his collaborators, people are remembering and tapping into these roots once again. The Origin – Global Moment of Unity event on Saturday, October 17 has given me much hope that the paradigm shift required to restore the natural productivity of Earth and jumpstart her stalled water cycles is at hand. I am in gratitude to the global team who made this event happen!

In my book Sun Cheese: Lessons From Regenerative Farming, I explore if we can produce food AND allow the other species we evolved beside to have a fair share of the planet we have been blessed with? Working people need support too and this is why I include justice and equity themes in my book. This justice needs to extend to all the citizens of Earth that is our common home including non-human life as well

So how can you reimagine a food economy where you and your family can thirve? It requires remembering how our food growing ecosystems were once were so productive. To restore or regenerate agroecosystems or rewilding projects requires “knowing” in your soul the abundance God gifted to humanity in the first place. To this end, I shared with Ithaca College students why Palaeolithic ecosystems were so productive prior to human arrival.

https://youtu.be/pKqTf3NqX6c

The naturally fertile ecosystems of the past provide useful templates for thrivable farming systems today that can foster an abundant, greener, cooler planet in the future. I also gave a glimpse of the dire consequences that have resulted with the destruction of scores of megafaunal species – increased wildfire. In my book I go even further and explain how humans impacted global climate as early as 64,000 years ago as we, super-predators, spread around the planet.

These perceptive young students already know enough about regenerative organic agriculture to want to support it with their food choices, but we all know organic choices can often drain our pocketbook quickly. While nutrient dense grassfed meats and dairy provide more nutrition and we can be satisfied with smaller portions, thriftiness should not be the burden put on young families who want to give their children the best clean, nutritious food. It should be available to everyone and should be the norm.

Local food would be a more economical option if commodity grains destined for animal feedlots, ethanol, and processed food factories were not subsidized in the US. Instead, farmers who steward land and rebuild natural capital such as biodiversity and topsoil should be rewarded for making our country wealthier in such a tangible and useful way. Change needs to start with the Farm Bill that in recent decades has rewarded pesticide and herbicide suppliers, fossil fuel companies, multinational grain brokers, and processed food companies at the expense of consumers and farmers alike.

When I used to sell my farm products at the Greenmarket in New York City, I priced my meats and cheese higher than those in the big box stores because I needed to pay my employees fairly. Several customers asked about the higher price, wondering since my animals were grassfed, didn’t it cost less to raise them? One reason (besides a lack of economy of scale) my steaks cost more than those in the store was because my customers (and I) had already paid for part of the steak in the store when we paid our income taxes. This was because part of our tax remits went to pay for the Farm Bill programs costing over $140 billion annually that support farmers who grow commodities like conventional corn and soybean. If farmers get paid prices that are below the cost of production, Farm Bill crop insurance pays them to keep producing cheap grains. Producers of beef who operate feedlots can buy copious quantities of these artificially cheap grains to finish their beef, which arrives in stores near your already partially paid for. Grassfed meat producers don’t feed these grains and don’t benefit from these kinds of corn, soy, and cotton subsidies. The price they charge must cover the real cost.

Most of the Farm Bill budget provides funds for SNAP, to help poor people buy groceries. If this vast sum of money was directed to buying local grown food instead of so much processed food and beverages, there would be immediate health benefits for the people enrolled. This would also incentivise retailers to open green grocery stores in underserved areas. Many neighborhoods and towns in the US do not have a single grocery store so availability is an issue.

I applaud everyone who is willing to support the kind of ag that will bring us closer to a thrivable food system. But buying from a regenerative farmer is not enough. Please contact your senators and representatives and tell them you want to see farm programs that:

1 – Are written by citizens with a vision for a just food system and not agribusiness lobbyists

2 – Support farming that restores natural capital such as topsoil, biodiversity and fresh water.

3 – Helps farmers access fair markets and consumers access affordable food that is healthy.

4 – Help farmers operate profitably in a way that is not toxic to life and that does not pollute soil, air, and water

5 – Are fair and just to farmers, fishers, workers, and consumers

6 – Do not subsidizes soil and water damaging crops destined for ethanol

In addition, antitrust legislation needs to be enforced to break up the giant multinational agribusiness corporations that have a strangle hold on our lawmakers.

So, how can the struggling poor take part in the restoration of our planet? Presently they are denied choices. The truth is that restoration of Earth will not be possible without them. Imagine if all the trillions of dollars invested in arms manufacture to create guns and bombs (optimized with AI) to kill people instead went to create “ecostorative” jobs for the unemployed globally? Is it time to reimagine our food systems, economies, and investments to support the ecosystems that make up humanity’s life support system as we hurtle through deep dark space?

Let me know what you think of these ideas on my Instagram or Linkedin page where you will find a post about this blog. If you think this duscussion is worthwhile, please share on your social media. If you know a science or ag teacher who would like their students to learn about our collective human impact during megafaunal extinctions including desertification starting 65,000 years ago and increased wildfire in North America 11,000 years ago, please share this video with them.