Does the world really need chocolate bars infused with extra caffeine?
That was the question posed by Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System.
“We are being transformed into people who find ridiculous food palatable,” said, Patel, a speaker at the National Farmers Union annual convention Nov. 20 in Saskatoon.
“There are ingredients being added your grandparents wouldn’t have recognized.”
Patel said consumers need to recognize how they are manipulated by the food system, from the grocery stores that steer consumers past shelves of unneeded products to reach common items like milk, to the host of new components marketed as beneficial energy boosters in diets.
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“We are being transformed into people who do that with the shrug of a shoulder and an exchange of a dollar,” Patel said.
To counter those trends, he encouraged groups like the NFU and individuals to explore farm-to-table initiatives, citing community supported agriculture and weekly boxed deliveries of fresh produce and food policy councils involving consumers and farmers as examples.
School boards can push for enlightened practices that replace snack and pop vending machines with fresh, whole foods and create edible gardens on school grounds as learning projects.
Patel said farmers of all sizes are at the mercy of large-scale plants, processors and buyers in marketing their goods. Consumers believe that buying fairly traded goods that give producers better returns is the answer, but he disagrees.
“We can’t solve this simply by shopping,” he said. “We need political change.”
Taking greater control locally and implementing community initiatives and pilot projects can help explore different ways to produce and market foods.
“Social change begins at the regional level.”
Patel said food has become a greater political priority in the last four years, so the timing is right for change.
People need to assess the real costs of producing food and the health, social and environmental impact of large-scale agriculture.
“The only reason large farms are imaginable is that we’re not paying for the full price of using them,” he said, citing their use of water and fuel.
The impetus to force a change to smaller, more diverse farms could be climate change.
