The practice of designing and redesigning for sustainable community development, however, still lags far behind. We are just beginning to understand what makes some communities thrive while others struggle.

For a community to thrive in a complex environment, it must strike a delicate balance between planning proactively and remaining alert to emergent, unexpected changes. This dance of prediction and adaptation is a hallmark of the human response to the complex dynamic environments in which we live and work. The capacity of an individual or community to plan or initiate action is known as the exercise of agency.

Without agency, communities and indeed civilizations can be swept away by the challenge of change. As explored in the works of writers such as Joseph Tainter and Jared Diamond, societies who lose the ability to perceive emergent change and adapt are likely to fail.

Brian Walker describes resilience as the capacity of a system to undergo change and still retain its basic function and structure, an ability that is partly manifest through the proper functioning of agency. A lack of agency leads directly to a lack of resilience.

Agency through Food Choices
Food is the natural system that individuals and communities interact with most often and most viscerally. As such, agency over our food systems can be a powerful locus of community resilience.

Particularly in the industrialized world, food choices have largely passed out of individual or community control. One indicator of community agency is the presence of urban agriculture. At present, 15% of the world’s food needs are met through urban production, but for the most part, industrialized countries have been fully integrated into a global food system. [1]

Despite this fading of urban agriculture in developed nations, the potential is very large. For example, a pilot study in Vancouver, Canada estimated that 32% of the land area in a 3.4 acre residential city block was suitable for growing edible crops. [2]

The Cuban Experience
The experience of the city of Havana, Cuba demonstrates how effective urban agriculture can be at providing for local needs. The fall of the Soviet bloc was a massive emergent event that threatened the Cuban economy with ruin. Before the collapse of the Soviet block Cuba had regulations against many urban agricultural activities and there was a broad social taboo against growing one’s own food.

The fall of the Society Bloc led to a 75% decline in imports to Cuba, including a 50% drop in fertilizer imports. Fortunately, within the populace there was a remainder of knowledge on how to grow food locally; and in a surprising move the central government decided to give agency to the local populace to produce their own food for use and resale. Laws were relaxed and scientists helped develop intensive urban growing methods. The 5000 or so urban gardens of Havana now produce as much as 16kg of produce per square meter. [3]

The Cuban citizenry was successful at enacting agency over their food security in part because most of the urban dwellers retained knowledge of rural living, including knowledge of local crops. North Americans do not carry such knowledge to the same degree and face other barriers, including prohibitive bylaws; the difficulty of preparing the plot initially, animal and human predation; and difficult soil and microclimate conditions.

Urban Farming Entrepreneurship
The need to overcome these barriers has led to the rise of a new sort of entrepreneur; part landscaper, part farmer, part educator. Two such organizations are Your Backyard Farmer of Portland, Oregon in the U.S. and City Farm Boy of Vancouver, Canada. These small businesses provide the set-up and labour needed to create an urban garden plot, and then maintain the crop as it grows.

Both organizations are driven by broader values of food resilience; City Farm Boy was founded to promote urban agriculture, farming and gardening as a viable and environmentally positive way to enhance landscapes and lifestyles. The founder of City Farm Boy sells excess at a local farmer’s market; he is certainly the most “local” local food grower at the market! Your Backyard farmer tends similar plots, educates residents on how to tend their own plots, and also grows for local restaurants. Both organizations have found that their customers become more engaged and gain greater agency over their own food choices as time passes. Customers begin to take part in seed selection, learn how to tend and harvest crops, and learn how to prepare new foods.

Agency and Resilience
In Walker’s article “Resilience Thinking,” he discusses how sea otters function as a keystone species, determining the regime of the near-shore ecosystems that they inhabit. If we apply the idea of “keystone species” to communities, we might say that food security represents one such keystone. The loss of local food security locks individuals and communities into a system that is environmentally damaging, socially unsustainable and physically unhealthy.

One of the ways that natural systems thrive in the face of change is through redundancy; if one species falls there is often another niche species ready to take its place. Within communities, we need the same variety of niche ideas and technologies. The Cuban example shows how a niche, in this case urban growing, can flower in a time of crisis to support community survival.

The food system is emerging as a bellwether of environmental practice. Early adopters act as “advertisers” of the new and novel. They work with farmer/educators to build knowledge and agency. Perhaps this is a key to enhancing the ability of communities to adapt in the face of rapid, turbulent change. We anticipate and plan, understanding that there will always be an element of surprise over which we have no control. Local resilience can help us weather such storms.

Originally published by People and Place. P&P publisher Ecotrust believes that our fundamental challenge is a broader understanding of the intimate relationship between the human condition and the health of all living systems.
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[1] Katz, S. (2006) The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements. Vermont: Chelsea green Publishing.

[2] Levenston, M., J. Blecha, K. Schendel, & J. Houston. (2001). City farmer uses the latest aerial photos to find out how much food is grown in the city of Vancouver.

[3] Altieri, M. et al. (1999). The Greening of the “barrios”: Urban agriculture for food security in Cuba. Agriculture and Human Values 16: 131-140.

Being mostly-vegan is certainly not easy. It doesn’t make you popular at restaurants, family gatherings or with people who love steak. But with the proper planning, it’s doable. And it’s worth doing because you know you’re living a more socially responsible lifestyle.

Or so I thought. My guiltless self-affirmation was called into question one night when my roommate looked at my dinner, a soy-based veggie burger with soy cheese plus edamame and observed, “Wow, everything you’re eating is made from soy.” Something about this declaration made me take pause. I’d been hearing a lot about soy in a negative context. As someone who loves Silk Soy about as much as I love animals, I’d chosen to ignore it. But if my diet was so soy heavy, I considered that I wasn’t as eco-friendly (or as healthy) as I thought.

The first big question I had about soy was: does it really reduce carbon emissions? A big part of my choice to be vegan was the belief that I was drastically reducing my carbon footprint in doing so. Unfortunately, I found in some cases, the answer is no. In fact, in the Amazon, where deforestation causes about 20 percent of climate change, it is frequently soy that’s causing the problem.

Fortunately, Greenpeace took the lead in pushing for a soy moratorium in Brazil that disallowed the planting of soy on deforested land and it seems to be working. In 2008, CNN reported no deforested land was used to grow soy. This year’s reports are due in a few weeks, but even if the moratorium proves successful, it doesn’t let us off the hook from being conscientious about our soy consumption, and even reducing it.

Of course, vegetarians, or humans in general, aren’t directly consuming the majority of the soy. The BBC reported that around 80 percent of the crop feeds the animals we eat. So we still need to consume less meat to decrease carbon emissions (and our indirect soy consumption), but if we want to be effective in our crusade, we can’t replace that hamburger with a nice slab of tofu, either. If we’re eating soy, we’re responsible for some of the damage.

Sadly, even organic soy products may not be as green as we think. Now, it’s pretty much confirmed that Silk Soy is using beans from Brazil and China, despite the organic label. The Organic Consumers Organization is encouraging people to boycott Silk Soy (yes, my heart is breaking) because of the way workers in these countries are treated and because even with monitoring, these soy farms still threaten the environment.

Even in the U.S., soy is grown most often industrially as a monocrop — a single crop in a giant field — meaning that it requires plenty of pesticides to maintain.  Most of the soy grown on our shores and abroad is also genetically modified, something many argue was not properly tested before being okayed by the USDA. And it is not just vegans who are noshing on it; soy finds its way into most of the products on our supermarket’s shelves these days, in the form of vegetable oil or lecithin, which is used as an emulsifier.

Beyond the environmental implications, the health implications are daunting. While the majority of scientific studies tout soy’s ability to regulate hormones for women, others discuss a connection to breast cancer.  And as for men, soy is said to lower their sperm count in large quantities.  This is all encouraging news for moderation.

In short, there is indubitably a dark side to soy. Though I love the taste of soy products, if being more careful about its consumption is the greener thing to do, I’m committed to doing it. Fortunately, there are plenty of alternatives out there.

A Slate investigation comparing the carbon footprint of soy vs. cow milk reminds us that turning soybeans into milk actually expends quite a bit of energy, as does transporting and distributing it.  We should probably be drinking less of these pre-packaged alternatives to milk, and consider making our own.  That being said, there are also alternatives to consider for health reasons.  My personal favorite is almond milk. Blue Diamond makes several delicious varieties that are fortified with calcium and high in Vitamin E. Oat milk is higher in protein, and Pacific Natural Food’s brand is packed with calcium, iron and riboflavin.

As for the soy-based veggie burger, they may be ubiquitous, but personally, I find bean-based veggie burgers to be more flavorful and less artificial tasting.  You can also reinforce eating and growing locally by making your own veggie burgers. The Savvy Vegetarian has a great all-vegan recipe for black-bean veggie burgers. And if you eat eggs, check out 101 Cookbook’s Ultimate Veggie Burger Recipe using garbanzo beans.

Another oft-overlooked source of protein is in grains. I did some research on gluten-free grains and what I found is that almost all wheat-alternatives are protein-packed and vitamin-rich. Grains such quinoa, spelt and farro offer endless options for recipes, and for health. Each packs its own unique flavor and set of nutrients, and can carry a meal while preventing the vegetarian’s “pasta-again” ennui.

Of course, the best way to ensure you are getting a good quality product is to know your farmer.  Buying soy locally, and eating it in moderation (like they do in Asia, where soy-based food is most popular) and you will be greener and healthier to boot.

Photo: portenna

Is it possible for a fast food chain, beholden more so to its corporate number crunching than its customers’ waistlines and heart valves, to be socially responsible, or dare I say, sustainable?

My gut is telling me no.

Yesterday in the New York Times, the business section focused on the recent surge in profits occurring at McDonald’s, and found that behind the upswing was a change in strategy.  All white meat chicken nuggets, apple slices, lattes, wi-fi, flat screens and a host of other targeted, customer-enticements are reinventing the hamburger shack, all seemingly a result of the blistering criticism received in the last 10 years from books like Fast Food Nation and the film Super-Size Me.

But is what McDonald’s is doing helping or hurting our movement to change the food system?

On one hand, sustainable food fighters can rejoice in the fact that our criticism matters.  We will not be left unheard in the debate on food.

But we aren’t primarily the ones we’re fighting this revolution for — we can grow our own produce, join a CSA, avoid the drive-thru in favor of our own kitchen’s fare or better dining.  Its those on the fence — who could be swayed to avoid corporate-sponsored food with its unpronounceable, prepackaged and preservative-laden ingredients — These are the folks who could make the largest dent in the policies coming out of Washington.  Without their determined protesting for more sustainable food, and their willpower to resist McDonald’s and their ilk, our movement has no legs.

That is not to say our numbers aren’t increasing.  But this article proves that there is some level of pacification that occurs when a restaurant chain greenwashes itself.

My husband and I have gone at odds over the British chain Pret-a-Manger (McDonald’s owned 33% stake in the company until February 2008), which could arguably be a more virtuous chain restaurant — they prepare salads and sandwiches in house, using occasional organics, and serve in more environmentally conscious packaging.  He would go out of his way to go there for lunch and a slice of their carrot cake (there are a few restaurants here in New York), while I’d rather pack a sandwich — with handshake-assured lettuce and tomato, and local farmer cheese.

This is partly because I didn’t want to support McDonald’s bottom line indirectly, and partly because I am convinced that it is impossible to have a virtuous fast food, especially if fast food still insists on world domination.  It seems inherently contradictory to have a chain of restaurants from coast to coast (and beyond) that source locally, seek out sustainably raised meat (and don’t focus on a meat-centric menu), buy organic, compensate employees fairly, keep prices low, produce food quickly without the aid of a deep-fryer and maintain an already cola and MSG-addicted customer base.  Cheap food and fair wages might only be possible if there is a garden on the premises, but then, what to do with the variety of vegetables grown?  For me, thinking Big in the food system always means a degradation of quality.

Eating Liberally (and sometimes Civil Eats) blogger Kerry Trueman recently discussed a similar topic — Wal-mart’s effect on the organic food market.  The giant box store has of course brought organic into the hands of many who might not otherwise have access.  But she asked the Ethicurian‘s Elanor Starmer whether this is a good thing.  Starmer described how big organic, the only firms large enough to provide on the scale Wal-Mart sells, are known for cutting corners, and by proxy lowering standards.

This blogger fears that both corporations’ attempts to be virtuous will only serve to dilute the fervor of our movement.  Let’s be straight — McDonald’s all white meat chicken nuggets are still coming from Tyson, the largest chicken processor in the nation, where one can only speculate at the quality of life and death given to each chicken. (They process 25 billion pounds of chicken, beef and pork annually).  And its not like those lattes are being made with fairly traded beans either.  And yet Wal-Mart and McDonald’s are the only two companies whose shares rose in 2008 amid what is shaping up to be a second go-around of the Great Depression.

To be truly sustainable, we need to think beyond the Ponzi schemes McDonalds and Wal-Mart are force-feeding us today, to setting up real virtuous roots for a conscious food future.  This means more farmers, more shaking the hand that feeds you, and better food. (Aaron French gives some great suggestions in his post today, too). We must not forget what we are fighting for: good soil, and the future of our species.

Photo: lalajean_g

The array of information available to us about our food is rapidly expanding, and even for a food professional like myself it can be hard to keep up. Our buying habits are increasingly complex and often riddled with contradiction. It’s natural to wonder, do I buy what is healthiest for me, or what is best for the planet?

The good news is that the choice between human or ecological health is an easy one. A growing body of research shows that they are one and the same – what is good for us is often also good for the earth.

A great example is the low carbon diet—an eating plan designed with global warming in mind. Our food system is responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions, so a diet that minimizes these emissions is much more earth friendly. Since a low carbon diet contains high amounts of fruits, vegetables, some fish, and low amounts of meats and dairy, it also mirrors the recommendations of many doctors and nutritionists for optimum health. It’s a win-win.

With seafood, the connection between physical and planetary health goes a step further. Some of the most sustainable types of fish are small anchovies and sardines, which grow in large numbers and currently have extremely robust populations. They are also some of the healthiest fish to eat with their high omega-3 fatty acid content and very low levels of mercury and other accumulated toxins. Choosing these types of fish protects endangered species from overfishing and keeps heavy metal pollution out of our own bodies.

A third example relates to farming efficiency. Both in terms of harvest yield and energy used per acre, medium sized farms tend to be the most efficient. These medium sized farms are predominately family owned, which keeps more money in local communities. They also generally grow a more diverse crop assemblage than their larger cousins, which increases the healthy local food options for consumers. As a secondary benefit, these medium farms tend to have more natural vegetation around their edges that provide habitat for native pollinators and wildlife. Again, health and ecology go hand in hand.

Urban gardening is also central to this issue. Studies have shown that people eat a more balanced diet and benefit from increased “secondary health benefits” from being around green plants. Urban food gardens, such as the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden in San Francisco, bring fresh vegetables directly to urban communities while serving as focal points for education. Urban gardens also help to recycle and purify the air, which is especially important in dense urban areas.

Finally, connecting these two issues has significant policy implications. We don’t have to make compromises in policy by deciding between advocating for human versus environmental health. A united front will allow a diverse collection of advocacy groups to work together for a safe, healthy food system that is equally good for us, our grandchildren, and the planet.