We literally hold the future global food supply in hand, both communally and individually, and there are exciting alternatives ahead. Our choices, ideals, and actions will shape the future. The food we buy, the stores we frequent, the farmers who grow our food and the organizations and government leaders we support will dictate our future quality of life. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, we must work to educate our friends and families and and begin down the road to a sustainable tomorrrow.

Population
The world's poplation will more than double in the next 25 years. This dramatic increase will impact the global food supply in ways not yet entirely understood. The biggest increases in population will occur in the Third World and developing nations, due primarily to lack of family planning education and religious conviction, which makes it easy for us here in the United States to focus blame there for overpopulation and over consumption. However, we would do better to turn out gaze homeward. In fact, we Americans have about 40 times the impact on the food supply as those in developing countries. Paul Hawken reports that "the 50 million people who will be added to the U.S. population over the next forty yrears will have the same global impact in terms of resource consumption as 2 billion people in India..." Those figures speaks volumes about the unchecked abundance we enjoy in the United States. They also reflect a high level of dispassionate irresponsibility amoung our citizenship.

What We Can Do

Agriculture
The importance of supporting community farmers is paramount because they keep local economies strong and help conserve fossil fuels. It is not enough, however, to seek out area farmers without considering their agricultural methods. If a local farmer is using large amounts of herbicides and pesticides, is monocropping on a large scale, or is wasting prescious soil and water you would do better to seek out a producer in a neighboring state who uses sound farming practices. Do not, however mistake innovation and technological advance for poor farming practices. In fact, efficiency and technology are not necessarily contrary to sustainability.

An excellent way to become directly involved in local farming is to support CSAs. The money you invest at the beginning of the season will go directly to meet the costs of running the farm. In addition, if you are interested, most CSAs will give you a discounted rate in exchange for part time labor. Every week during the harvest period shareholders receive a box of fresh, organic vegetables and/or fruits. CSAs keep money in the community and save on fossil fuel use, but they also help us to understand seasonality and teach us the difficulties and rewards of farming sustainably in ways that cannot be accomplished by other means. When a particular crop is ravaged by bad weather and another produces far beyond expectation, shareholders understand how it happened because they were part of the process. The real joy of farming this way is in the incredible flavors your food will have because the farmer is not limited to products that ship well, or can withstand modern processing or packaging techniques.

Support and Demand Diversity
We absolutely must support diversity in all of our food supplies, not only for the preservation of flavor and food memories, but for for long-term food security. There are many ways to do this. Supporting local farms, shopping at farmers markets, buying and planting your own heirloom seeds, and making a conscious effort to purchase animal products from sources that use more obscure breeds than commercial agribusinesss farms do. Part of your commitment to biodiversity has to be a willingness to spend more money on the food you buy.

Redirect Corporate Dollars
It is naive to think that all of the world's food can be grown on small, local farms, so we have to find ways to include agribusiness in our sustainable future. A recent report by PR Newswire is evidence that that at least some large agribusiness companies believe that sustainability and profitability go hand in hand. Amway Corporation, made famous by it's line of consumer direct cleaning products has acquired a majority interest in Trout Lake Farm, the largest organic herb farm in the United States. The farm will provide Amway with organic, high-quality herbs for use in it's food suppliments. Such a keen interest by a corporation in an organic farm confirms the belief that consumer demand dictates marketplace cycles.

Influence Allocation of Governmental Dollars
We should begin by learning to work with the government to control the power of agribusiness and direct their research in ways that encourage sustainability. Subsidies whose primary beneficiaries today are large corporations are contrary to the spirit in which they were originally conceived. Farm supports ought to be directed away from businesses, like corporate hog factory farms, or even smaller conventional farms, that have a negative environmental impact and given specifically to those that display marked interest in preserving the environment. Rather than encouraging corporate farming to continue unchecked, this type of farm support would give corporate farmers an incentive to make moves towards sustainability.

Keep an Open Mind
It is easy to be swept into a vortex of singular thinking that does not allow unique or innovative approaches to enhance or expand the current ideology, so it is extremely important that each one of us remains open to all possibilities. Even biotechnology must be seen as a potential source of sustainable food for the future. The Rockefeller Foundation, a private philanthropic organization, for example, aims to "increase crop yields of small-holder farmers in developing countries profitable and without degrading natural resources," and in 1984, the Foundation began the International Rice Biotechnology Program focusing on Asia. It is an integrated set of research, training, technology transfer, and capacity-building activities that will benefit low-income rice producers and consumers in developing countries. By the year 2005, the Foundation's hope is to increase rice production in Asia by 20 percent through the use of biotechnology without damaging the environment or reducing farm incomes. The biotech industry may hold the key to some types of sustainable food production, providing we work to guarantee the long-term future safety of our food supplies.

Fisheries
We must work to ensure the sustainable viability of our seafood supplies through support of aquaculture research and technological advance. A good example is in recent research that has shown catfish, long a stalwart of Louisiana cookery, to be a species particularly suited to farm raising. It is native to the southeast, making the potential for species pollution relatively small, and what makes them particularly attractive, as a farmed fish is that they are at the bottom of the food chain. Largely herbivorous, catfish require only about three percent fishmeal to thrive. Shellfish, most notably mollusks, have also been shown to be well suited for aquaculture because they are natural water filters. Mollusks feed by filtering small particles of plankton and algae from the water. They grow all around the country in basin estuaries and actually clean water rather than pollute it. They do produce a feces-like by-product, but their overall effect on the environment is much more positive than negative.

Polyculture, long practiced in China and Japan, is aquaculture at its best. As Becky Goldburg explains, polyculture is the farming of many species of plants and animals together in one system "in order to make optimum use of the water and nutrients and to minimize farm wastes. Aquaculture systems that produce hydroponic vegetables with fish appear to be increasingly common in the United States. These systems grow crop plants with aquatic manure, suspending the roots of crops in aquaculture effluent. These crop plants remove large quantities of nutrients from effluent in order to nourish their growth, thus cleaning the effluent. Sale of these vegetable crops then generates income for aquaculturists. The Inslee Farm, Inc. of Oklahoma, for example, grows chives in greehouses using the effluent from ponds in which a variety of different fish species are raised, including tilapia, catfish, and grass carp." Some polyculturists have catfish growing on the bottom of the tanks, finfish in the next layer above, mollusks on ropes growing vertically and the hydroponic vegetables on the uppermost layer. Polyculture can also be part of a terrestrial agriculture system in which the nutrient pollution (waste water bi-product of aquaculture) is fed to poultry and used as fertilizer on fields.

We also need to support research and technological advance for wild fish harvesting. At an Oldways Symposium on sustainable food supplies, better methods of fish farming were discussed. "Of all the sea's possibilities for man's future, the greatest may be its promise of a significant increase in the world's food supply. Square mile for the square mile, the sea is estimated to be potentially more productive than the land. Yet at present the oceans supply only 1 or 2 percent of man's food. ...For the the future world population man will have to start large-scale farming of the sea as he has for so many thousands of years farmed the land. If such scientific techniques are perfected and extended, aquaculture--farming of the sea--may one day provide the world with a constant supply of the protein so desperately needed by burgeoning populations...." It was reported at the Symposium that one test showed that a one-acre shellfish farm can yield around 15,000 pounds of protein, a figure that could never be repeated in land-based farming.

Conservation limits will have to be implemented and enforced on a global scale, and preservation efforts must be undertaken before a species, like Pacifiic salmon, is so over fished that it is placed on the Endangered Species List. The fishes' numbers, in some cases, are a mere tenth of what they were just a century ago. If loggers, sport and commercial fishermen, grocery store owners, and restauranteurs had only taken steps to preserve the species earlier, their livelihoods might not be in jeopardy today. It is also imperative that consumers embrace businesses that support environmentally safe harvesting and production practices, and discontinue support of those that do not. Consumer boycotts have been effective tools in changing fishing practices in the past. The most well known was a tuna boycott brought about by public sentiment against unnecessary dolphin losses due to irreponsible fishing practices. Ultimately, if you care about preserving our fisheries it is your responsibility to buy seafood that was raised, and/or caught sustainably. Before you buy fish, ask where it came from. If it was farm raised, do some research on the company that brought the fish to market before handing them your hard-earned dollars. Demand that policy makers support scientific recommendations on fisheries management, and whenever possible,eat local fish, support local fishermen, and try new menu items to promote biodiversity. Even what seems like the smallest effort will make a difference.

So What If We Ate Less Meat
Reducing our consumption of animal protein is not only healthier for our bodies, but it is also better for the Earth. In Vital Signs 1998: The Environmental Trends that are Shaping Our Future, Lester Brown explains that "Perhaps the single most important distinguishing feature of dietary changes over the last half-century has been the growing appetite for animanl protein. It is hunger for protein that spurred an increase in the world fish catch of nearly fivefold, boosting it from 19 million tons in 1950 to 93 million tons today... Worldwide, the production of beef and mutton, like that of fish, depends heavily on a natural system--rangeland. And, like oceanic fisheries, rangelands are being pushed to the limits of their carrying capacity and beyond. Once rangelands are fully exploited and substantial growth in beef production can come only from feedlots, then the competition with pork and poultry for grain intensifies."

Cattle and other livestock consume 90 percent of the soy and 70 percent of the grain grown in the United States. That soy and grain could be used to feed starving populations around the world, 40 to 60 million of whom die annually. The time has come to return to more traditional diets in which meat is not the focal point of the meal, but simply a garnish--a treat and special accompaniment to a meal--not the meal itself. We must create meals with a focus on grains, legumes, and a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Demand Local
Food in the United States travels an average of 1,300 miles prior to consumption. The farther our food supplies travel from their points of origin, the more they deteriorate, resulting in products with compromised nutritive value and flavor. Supporting farmers' markets, CSAs, and demanding local products at your supermarket are a few of the ways we can all cut down on over-use of fossil fuels and increase the nutritive value of our food.

In the past decade we have seen the number of CSAs in America increase to over 1,000 nationwide. They serve a total of over 100,000 households and vary in size from plots that sustain ten families, to full-fledged farm with as many as 700 members. You might be surprised to find that there is one right in your neighborhood.

Chef's and Restaurants
One of the challenges of all food service operations is controlling food cost. In many restaurants this often tips the scales toward buying industrially produced products rather than local, regional, or organic food. Many chefs are working to change their purchasing habits and maintain their costs. One of the most common solutions is to pass the costs along to the consumer, but this will not work without dedicated effort on the part of the restauranteur to educate his clientele. Highlighting local and regional ingredients on the menu and educating the waitstaff about what you do will help educate the consumer at the point of sale.

Children and Education
One of the most importand parts of sustainability is the next generation. To move sustainability forward, children must be well educated about their choices for the future. In a rush to teach our kids to navigate the information superhighway, we a forgetting to teach them about the system of life that surrounds and supports them. Early exposure to caring for the Earth will enable children to better nourish themselves and others. School gardens are a necessary part of their education. They provide a living learning environment and teach kids basic math, agriculture, horticulture, and cooking skills. We are seeing a resurgence in school gardens across the country, however, their numbers are nowhere near those of a century ago when there were 80,000 school gardens in the United Sates. It is my hope that we will again see school gardens in every town in America. In fact, this is not an unattainable goal.

San Antonio, Texas is a prime example of how a city can take simple and dramatic steps toward creating school gardens. In 1990 the San Antonio Independent School District partnered with the Bexar County Master Gardeners Programs ans committed to establish eight new gardens every fall in inner city schools. Five years later over 20,000 students were actively participating in the program and over 300 volunteers were contributing more than 21,000 hours of community service annually. At the time of this writing nearly 200 San Antonio Schools have created a gardening program with the help of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service at Texas A&M.

In Vermont, a group of school garden advocates is working on reviving the teaching garden. Together they have authored a book titled Digging Deeper, the aim of which "is to cultivate the budding movement for practical, place-based education by providing a new generation of teachers, community workers, children, and parents with the fundamental tools to frow their own food safely and reliably. Together with thousands of communities around North America and the world, we see this as a crucial step toward genuine sustainability locally and human-scaled cooperation globally." The book is a real how-to guide to setting up school gardens. From a set of criteria to use in determining how to set up the garden to diagrams of actual gardens and recipes, this book is a wonderful resource, and can make starting a school garden an easy and rewarding endeavor.

Institutions of higher educaton are doing their part as well. Vern Grubinger, instructor at the University of Vermont, and I recently spent some time together, and he described some of the educational opportunities that exist at the college. Though the University of Vermont is not a culinary school, its foundation as a land-grant university gives it strong agricultural roots. Vern told me that more and more universities are introducing sustainable agriculture, or ecological design, programs as well as agro-ecosystem centers and student farms. Both ecological design and agro-ecosystem work in concert with the land as opposed to redesigning the land to fit farming. UVM's internship program is on the cutting-edge of agricultural education in sustainabilty models. It sends students to all corners of the state to participate in every type of agriculture, including dairying, produce farming, animal husbandry, and specialties like cider and cheese-making. Grubinger said, "One thing we are trying to do is connect students with real agriculture, we have a sustainable agriculture internship program which is a four-credit experience on a farm. Our internshops require a learning contract, and they require some academic rigor, so the student is a co-learner with the farmer and actually studies some aspect of the farm system related to sustainability, which means profitable, stewardship of resources, and connection to the community." One internship project helped farmers study the feasibility of converting from conventional to organic dairying. Another ran a study examining the feasibility of chickens as pest controls in a flower garden. Yet another helped a local cider producer develop a marketing plan. These internship programs not only supplement the students' educations, but it also assists the farmers who may not have the resources to conduct their own research. UVM ahso sponsors the Land Link Vermont program, which works to connect young farmers with experienced agriculturalists who are seeking to transfer their land and experience to farmers who will be able to carry the torch into the future. This is particularly important because there is a shortage of young farmers in America. Vern explained that the school has built a "...database, in a sophiticated way so that both sides list the attributes they are interested in. For instance, do I need bottom land or pasture land, do I want to be near a population center for retail or not, and then we give them the best matches...It costs a lot of money to buy a farm in Vermont these days, so we are looking for opportunities where there is, either a lease with option to buy, or a partnership, or employee with a potential to buy in later. The exciting piece of this is, if you could plan ahead before you retire from farming for about ten years and find somebody, and actually work with them for five or ten years, you have not just transferred the land and the buildings, but all of your knowledge about the enterprise."

In 1999 the first school dedicated solely to the marriage of sustainable agriculture and sustainable cuisine had its true beginnings with a founder's dinner at L'Etoile. The School of Organic Farming and Cooking at Taliesin will be housed on Frank Lloyd Wright's estate, Taliesin. Wright was known for his "organic architechture", and the 600 acre estate includes almost 200 acres historically utilized as farmland. The school will be a training ground for chefs and farmers schooled in the theory and practice of organic agriculture, foraging, and sustainable culinary practices. The goals of the school will be to convert the present conventional agricultural practices of the estate to organic/sustainable ones and to create a culinary school environment that places growers and culinary students together to learn and apply the knowledge of growing, harvesting and cooking seasonal ingredients. This type of alternative culinary institution is one that we must look to as a way to teach the next generation of culinarians.

Of course, schools and colleges are not the only organizations that provide valuable culinary education. Other groups we should support include Chefs Collaborative, The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Seed Savers Exchange, Native Seed Search, The Chef and the Child Foundation, Oldways, SOS, Mothers & Others for a Livable Planet, and the Fresh Network, as well as corporations who make it a priority to keep consumers informed. Stonyfield Farms, Ben and Jerry's and the Organic Cow are a few national companies that come to mind, but do your own research into local producers. Support them, and tell your friends and colleagues why.

Vote Because You Can Make a Difference
When we shop for food we cast a vote for the future of our planet. When we buy processed foods we vote for agribusiness. Fresh local food racks one up for your neighnorhood farmer. Eating at McDonalds supports agribusiness. Dining at restaurants like Chez Panisse and L'Etoile Keeps your money local. In early 1999 our voting potentially made a difference with the proposed organic standards regulations. The Associated Press reported that even though the new rules have not yet been resubmitted, a number of issues are being resolved, such as prohibiting the label "organic" for any food that is irradiated, genetically engineered or treated with antibiotics. Additionally, the rules will also allow regional organic certification offices to certify meat as organic, something that the national government has yet to do.

* Always buy local whenever possible and buy from a source as close to the source as possible.

* Support farmers' markets and farm stands.

* Join a CSA or work with a local farmer who will supply your restaurant with produce of your choosing.

* Next time you are in your supermarket, ask to talk to the produce manager. Tell the manager of your concern about pesticides, and say you would prefer to buy local regional produce and certified organic food if possible.

* Try new to you regional products.

* Plant a garden and help set-up a school garden.

* Ask your grocers and suppliers on what types of farms the meat and poultry they sell is raised. If they do not know, ask them to find out.

* Support grocers and butchers who get their supplies from farmers who do not use factory-farming techniques.

* Cook seasonally, do not buy out of season produce.

* Read labels, find out what is in the food you are eating.

* Educate yourself, understand the issues and let your legislators know how your feel and what rules and regulations are important to you.

Each of us, every day, makes a difference--good and bad--simply through the act of eating. Looking at the big picture can seem overwhelming, and that is why we hope the information here at The Joe Baum Forum on the Future has provided you with the knowledge you will need to begin to make informed choices about the food you eat. Begin taking stock of your pantry and work toward making changes as soon as possible so that we might have a food supply that is sustainable for generations to come. "A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."

Source: The Joe Baum Forum on the Future
The Chefs Collaborative National Forum 2000