FOOD!!

I am many things; for the purposes of this blog post, I will focus on two that are of significant importance in relation to food: I am an environmentalist and I am a college student (i.e. poor). Over the last few years, I have learned about and studied the various inefficiencies and problems with the food industry around the world. Confined animal feeding operations, pesticides, transportation, genetic modification, poor farming practices and the diet of the American people are just a few of the many problems. From my perspective, I see eating locally as the solution to this and many other environmental problems. Thinking locally eliminates the need for transportation over long distances and keeps money in the local economy to support neighbors and friends. In addition, organic foods, fresh foods, and seasonal foods are also important because they cut back on transportation costs and excessive inputs and genetic modifications necessary to grow plants out of season. In addition, I recognize a need to cut back on meat consumption. As Coffn points out, it takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a gallon of beef in addition to a number of other resources and cattle produce 20% of world methane emissions (a powerful greenhouse gas). Ultimately, the food we eat and our food demands create a great deal of environmental problems.The solution, as proposed by Michael Allen Fox is vegetarianism, and the avoidance of meat. This would ultimately avoid the environmental harms of meat production mentioned above as well as many other associated problems. However, this would only work if most or all of the world adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. While this would help, we would all need to become locavores (people who eat food raised within 100 miles of where they live), as well,in order to create a more sustainable food system. While a world of vegetarian locavores is unlikely, it is theoretically possible. This leads me to my next problem.

That problem is money. The food system today as well as the ideal one we have set up above, has the fundamental problem of being expensive. People who are hungry or are on a limited budget are looking to get the calories they need and to get them as cheaply as possible. Ultimately, cheap food comes down to mass production, wide distribution, rapid and cheap production (i.e. with chemical inputs and genetic modification),  and heavily processed. Good wholesome food and food that is raised in ideal conditions and environmentally friendly ways is ultimately too expensive for people who are just trying to get the calories they need to survive.  Even local foods cannot compete with the mass produced items you get at large grocery stores. Being a college student with limited funds, I am unable to afford the food that would be the most healthy and most environmentally friendly. In order to fix this problem and supply the world with good, sustainable food, the good foods and the environmentally sustainable foods need to be able to compete in the marketplace with the unhealthy, unsustainable alternatives. How this is to be accomplished is another story. However, this is, in my opinion, the primary factor that needs to be addressed to create a sustainable food system around the globe.