IYG:
What: Localize it! Why Supporting Local Food Production Matters
When: 2-4 p.m. Saturday
Where: Athens Community Center, 701 E. State St.
At least 25 residents gathered at the Athens Community Center Wednesday to discuss corporate control of the food system and how it is “too big to fail.”
The workshop, “What’s in a Name? Corporate Control of the Food System and Why it Matters,” is the second of a three-part free public educational series titled “Community Food Matters!”
The series began with the first workshop, “Being Fair: Why Food Justice Matters,” on Saturday. The events are sponsored by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of the Athens Friends Meeting (Quakers).
Last night’s attendees heard a presentation by Lisa Trocchia-Ba???ts, second year graduate studentat Green Mountain College in Vermont studying sustainable food systems and co-chair of the Athens Food Policy Council.
“The food system is like a huge onion with all of these layers that can be peeled off of it,” Trocchia-Ba???ts said. Then she asked the audience if they knew about food systems and if they wanted to learn more. Everyone in the room raised their hand.
Trocchia-Ba???ts gave a short history of food in the U.S. and explained how the relationship between businesses and farmers has changed drastically since the industrial revolution.
“When small firms became profitable, they started to branch out and acquire other companies within the same venue that they were in,” she said. “This concentrates power in the hands of a few people.”
She also explained that the seed industry is in danger because the biggest owners of seed companies are pharmaceutical companies that are creating genetically engineered seeds, like Monsanto.
“It’s reducing biodiversity,” she said. “So if the reason (we have genetic engineering) is because the seeds produce efficiently, then all of a sudden we’re only growing a couple different varieties of corn, and that’s really dangerous. Talk about a bio terrorist threat.”
Many people have tried to sue Monsanto, but no one has come close to winning, said Tom Redfern, sustainable agriculture coordinator for Rural Action.
“What Monsanto is doing is making it hard for others to come up with patents,” Redfern said. “Over the years, the powers that be have decided these are the things that make our food system secure.”
Our food system and the laws that govern it are an example of how public policy has been taken over by private interest, said John Howell, an Athens resident who attended the event.
“It is an example of how the power of money and lobbying on state and federal legislators can buy the system in opposition to public interest,” Howell said.
Trocchia-Ba???ts concluded her presentation by noting that whether we like it or not, our current food system is not viable to sustain us in the future with its heavy use of fossil fuels.
She added that change is coming, and that transition will be discussed at the final workshop of the series, “Localize it! Why Supporting Local Food Production Matters,” on Saturday, April 20 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Athens Community Center.
ls114509@ohiou.edu
