Challenge for the Greens:
Be a Catalyst For A Decentralized Food System

by Ben Kjelshus

Our food system faces a precarious future. Not only are we facing
an intense global fight over who controls the system of growing,
processing and distributing food, we are experiencing the end of the
cheap fossil fuel era. There's a battle between primarily
transnational food and agriculture corporations and we the eaters,
small scale food growers, processors, and marketers. Basic
concerns are: will the food system be controlled by a centralized
corporate structure or through a decentralized framework? Who will
be determining the kinds of food we eat or even the availability of
food?

Control by transnational corporations over the food system follows
the now familiar pattern of the economic globalization. In that
process, food products are shipped from one part of the world to
another displacing locally produced food. In so doing corporations
make unconscionable profits while family farms and rural
communities are devastated. Food consumers in regional areas
become increasingly vulnerable and less self-reliant. The food dollar
is siphoned out of local communities and into the coffers of giant
corporations. We find ourselves in a situation we did not choose.

The Peaking Of Oil and the Food Struggle
This struggle is compounded by the realization that we face the
peaking of global oil production. This means that much of the
remainder of the world's oil will be much more difficult and more
costly to extract and will be of poorer quality. As there is increasing
global demand for oil, we'll be facing in a few years the classic
situation where demand far exceeds supply. Since the U.S. food
system, including agriculture, is heavily dependent on petroleum we
can expect turbulent and troubling times ahead for the supply of
food we all need in order to live day by day. Considering that we are
fundamentally dependent on food, and considering that the average
molecule of food today travels over 1300 miles from source to plate,
the matter of food system sustainability takes on crisis proportions.

The Food/Oil Crisis Also Presents Opportunities

Nevertheless, this looming crisis also presents extensive
opportunities in the struggle to restore a decentralized food system
and to move toward a sufficient level of regional self-sufficiency.
When (and if!) we realize the full dimensions of this issue of control
of the food system, when we realize how vulnerable we are under
our present food system, and when we realize that as eaters we are
closely involved with agriculture, then we will recognize a number of
opportunities available for us. We will then be in a position to take
action on them.
Not many decades ago we had a decentralized food system that
was controlled by farmers, consumers, small businesses and
communities. It will be we the eaters, we the public, who will
basically determine the extent to which we achieve a substantial
level of self-reliance over the food system. We cannot rely on the
various levels of government nor the present economic
establishment to aid in this.

No Easy Task! Yet Doable!

No easy task to be sure, but a task that is doable, practical and
essential. There are already a number of innovative and creative
projects falling into place.
There has been a continued growth of farmers' markets and
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) -- projects wherein a
partnership is created, involving subscription contracts between
local food producers and consumers. There have also been an
increasing number of creative projects that go further: linking
individual and group food producers with local entities such as
restaurants, schools, coop grocery stores, locally owned grocery
stores, hospitals, and health food stores.

The Food Circle and the Green Movement

The Green movement has played a noteworthy role in the
development of one of these innovative endeavors -- the creation
and application of the food circle concept.
Two visionary Greens, Nancy Lee Bentley and David Yarrow,
organized what was called the Closing the Food Circle Conference
in 1984 at Ithaca, NY. The conference presented a holistic, systemic
approach to the food system recognizing the interconnectedness of
the various sectors that make up the food system. Here was the
influence of Green principles in the formulation of an innovative
model in addressing the food system control issue-- the creation of
the Food Circle model.

Several years later, at the national Green gathering in Minneapolis,
MN, in 1992, those assembled approved a proposal to adopt the
Food Circle concept as an element of the Green Action Plan to build
locally integrated food economies based on sustainable food
systems and technologies. Unfortunately, on the national level no
follow up action was taken.

The Kansas City Food Circle

However, the Greens of Greater Kansas City became interested in
the Food Circle concept and created the Kansas City Food Circle in
1994. To my knowledge this was the first application of the Food
Circle concept in the United States. Its larger vision is to be a force
in restoring and deepening a decentralized food system. Its goal is
three fold: 1) Educate the public about the environmental and health
dangers of industrial scale petrochemical dependent agriculture; 2)
Dramatically increase the demand for regionally grown organic and
natural foods; 3) Help small organic family farmers who demonstrate
a deep commitment to sustainable agriculture, to stay on the land.
This writer has been involved in the Kansas City Food Circle from its
beginning. Our growth has been continual and steady. We have
been instrumental in starting several farmers' markets and CSAs.
Our 2005 directory lists 43 local organic and natural food producers;
it also lists 49 restaurants where FC farmers supply locally produced
foods. For seven years we have held farmers exhibitions. These
exhibitions enable growers to display and sell early spring produce
and pass out their cards and brochures. These successful expos
have also featured chef demonstrations and workshops with such
topics as Fast Food Kills and Impacts of Industrial Agriculture. In
response to a shortage of food producers, the University of
Missouri, the University of Kansas, the Kansas City Food Circle, the
Kansas Rural Center, and local farmers have launched the
"Growing Growers" program which trains farmers in local food
production.

Looking Beyond Kansas City

The influence of the Food Circle model extends beyond greater
Kansas City. There are now several Food Circles in Missouri as well
as in other states. Mary Hendrickson, associate professor of rural
sociology, University of Missouri, based her PhD dissertation on the
Kansas City Food Circle. She was instrumental in founding the
Missouri Food Circle Networking Project. This project promotes
state-wide the goals of the Food Circle model. While president of
the National Community Food Security Coalition, Ms Hendrickson
introduced the Food Circle concept to that organization. The
systems approach in dealing with the food system issue is an
integral part of the Food Circle model. It, the systems approach, has
in recent years entered the dialogue among activists and academics
on the national level in dealing with alternatives in addressing the
food system issue. The need to connect the many sectors involved
in the food system -- eaters, growers, processers, nutritionists,
restaurateurs, coops and locally owned grocery stores, and
community organizations -- becomes a vital factor in restoring and
deepening decentralized control of the food system.

The Challenge for the Greens

The Green movement has played a vital role in introducing the
holistic, systems approach and the Food Circle model in the
struggle over control of the food system. The challenge for the
Greens is to continue and build upon its insightful, creative
contribution. This challenge becomes crucial as we face the end of
the cheap fossil fuel era. Indeed, we must become the catalyst in
the struggle to reclaim control of the food system.
This is a daunting challenge to be sure, but it has its delightful,
healing, and satisfying side as well. By eating fresh, delicious,
nutritious, regionally produced and processed food, we can
appreciate our participation in the struggle to counter corporate
control and to achieve much greater self-reliance with our food
supplies. By being reminded that as eaters we are involved in
agriculture, we participate in overcoming the separation that giant
corporations have been successful in placing between consumers
and growers. We can appreciate going to farmers' markets,
participating in CSAs, and having backyard gardens. We can get to
know the growers of the food we eat. Some of us may want to
become extensive growers, and some of us may want to return to
the land and become farmers.

Organizational Work Is Essential

Of course organizational work is essential in taking on the challenge
to restore a food system without corporate control, but elements of
this work can be satisfying and rewarding. Here's one suggestion:
local Green groups start local/regional Food Circles -- perhaps
working with other groups: such as vegetarian, animal rights,
organic gardening, agricultural, Slow Food, and social justice
organizations. (For information on how to start a Food Circle,
contact me at: bkjelshus@sbcglobal.net.) Realizing the looming
turmoil we face, Food Circles, in addition to starting farmers'
markets and CSAs, are in a position to promote such programs as
urban farming, community gardening, edible landscaping, food
buying clubs, and producer and consumer cooperatives. Food
Circles will be in a position to promote low-energy agrarian
communities patterned after such projects as Agraria which is being
developed by Community Services of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Check
out: http://www.communitysolution.org/agraria.html.
There's a larger organizational challenge for the Greens. It's the
challenge to be a player in the crucial need to develop an
organizational framework for a decentralized food system.
James Howard Kunstler deals with the effects of oil depletion in his
article, "Globalization is an Anomaly and Its Time is Running Out",
which appeared in The Guardian August 4 ,2005: "Today's transient
global economic relations are a product of very special transient
circumstances, namely relative world peace and absolutely reliable
supplies of cheap energy. Subtract either of these elements from
the equation and you will see globalization evaporate so quickly it
will suck the air out of your lungs. It is significant that none of the
cheerleaders for globalization takes this equation into account. In
fact, the American power elite is sleepwalking into a crisis so severe
that the blowback may put both major political parties out of
business."

The Need to Think in Terms of Fundamental Change

It is in this context the Greens are challenged to be a player in
developing regional/state/multi-state food councils as means to set
up an organizational framework for development of a decentralized
food system. It's taking on the food system issue and doing so
realizing that it has political implications.

As a first step I propose that one or more of the following
organizations set up a national conference to deal with this
significant issue. They are the Green Network, previously named
the Green Politics Network (a group that played a significant role in
the formation of the Association of State Green Parties), the Green
Institute (the Green’s think tank in Washington, D.C.), and the
Green Horizon Foundation, the publisher of GHQ. There may well
be other interested organizations as well. They can bring to the
table leaders from the various sectors that need to be involved in
the development of a decentralized food system. In this crucial
undertaking the Greens can provide their contribution of pressing for
a holistic, systemic approach.

The Greens have already made a significant contribution in dealing
with the food system issue. With our values, our growing political
clout, and our international dimension, we are in a unique position to
play an important role in the development of a decentralized,
sustainable food system, one that is regionally, democratically
controlled.

Resources:
C.J.Campbell, The Coming Oil Crisis (Multi-Science Publishing
Co.LTS,Essex, England, 1997)
James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency, Surviving the
Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
(Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2005)
www.global-vision.org/wssd/campbell.html
________________________
Ben Kjelshus is the founder of the Kansas City Food Circle, a
founding member of the Greens of Greater Kansas City, the Green
Politics Network (now the Green Network), and the Progressive
Party of Missouri. He is a retired city planner and a former Unitarian
Universalist minister. He and his wife Carol are the parents of three
children. They have six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.