It’s time to start thinking about eating closer to home.
Eco-gastronomy is new concept that’s slowly making its way into the minds and kitchens of people who are proactive about sustainability. Eating produce grown thousands of miles away, picked green and gassed into ripeness makes less and less sense, economically or nutritionally. Eco-gastronomy favours food grown in an environmentally responsible way, delivered with minimal petrol use, in a manner that does not exploit the farmers. This is increasingly available to us here in Bali. In fact, much of what we consume is being grown within a 50 mile radius, if we choose to shop selectively.
I recently returned from a visit to Canada with its huge grocery stores. I keep forgetting what food shopping in North America is like; hundreds of thousands of items, most of them processed, most of them unnecessary, created to make profits for giant multinational companies. This obscene abundance of food is built on cheap oil, which pays for the fertilizer, pesticides, packaging and transportation (agriculture in the US accounts for 17% of the energy budget). And oil is no longer cheap.
Books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Hundred Mile Diet and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle give some fascinating and horrifying insights into agribusiness. The contemporary food chain is long, ugly and very profitable for those at the top. And when that food chain gets stretched too thin by rising fuel prices, it will start to break. Sooner or later, that’s going to mean fewer choices on the grocery store shelves. Maybe not much choice at all. A surprising number of people are in denial about this.
Each food item in North America travels between 1,500 and 3,000 miles from farm to plate, including direct transportation, processing, packaging, warehousing and refrigeration. The energy calories consumed by production, processing and shipping far outweigh the energy calories we receive in the food. The farmer gets about 15 cents of each food dollar in North America; the balance goes to processors, marketers and transportation. In 1900, nearly 40% of the US population farmed, now the figure is a dangerously low 1%. Similar numbers are reflected in developed countries which were once able to feed themselves, and the number of farmers continues to drop in developing countries as well.
In Vancouver, I bought produce that came from all over North and South America. In Ubud, I buy my veggies from Gede at the Farmer’s Market. I’ve been to his farm, I know he’s committed to chemical-free growing and uses his own pure spring water for irrigation. This food is as clean and fresh as it gets. An increasing number of farmers in Bali offer this quality of food; the more we buy, the greater will be the motivation to expand sustainable agriculture.
Urban areas cover 2% of the earth’s surface yet consume 75% of its resources. People living in cities are limited to food that’s sold in shops. We’re lucky to be living in a semi-rural area where we can make ethical food choices. We should be making them more often. It’s estimated that if everyone in North America ate just one meal a week of local organically raised meat or produce, national oil consumption would be reduced by 1.1 million barrels a week. No one has crunched the numbers for Indonesia, but we can certainly make a similar impact here.
‘Eating local’ offers many advantages. The food itself is fresher, tastier and more nutritious. Farmers are growing a wide variety of crops for the market here, promoting biodiversity. Pollution is reduced because the food doesn’t travel further than 50 miles. There’s a reduction in solid waste, because the food comes virtually unpackaged until it ends up in your cloth marketing bag. It supports the local economy by putting money into local pockets. And it’s sustainable; it makes no sense at all to import food from other countries or even Java if it can be grown here.
Food is and always has been a moral arena. The cost of food touches everyone in the world, lightly or heavily. The World Bank estimates that the price of food has doubled over the past three years. That’s an annoyance for folk lucky enough to live in rich countries where less than 15% of their income goes to food. But for most of the world’s population, 50% to 100% of the money they make is spent on feeding their families. Escalating food costs are a disaster.
How did this happen, in a world that produces enough food for all? Greed, politics, distribution… but mostly greed. Agribusiness, monocropping and international food conglomerates dominate the market. Trade restrictions, increased demand from changing diets in Asia, high fuel prices, speculation on food crops, poor weather, depleted fresh water sources and the rising use of biofuels that rely on food staples like corn and soybeans (I’ll address this insane idea another time) all contribute to what could become a path to global famine. Food aid, especially in the US, is especially political. By American law, 75% of food aid must be grown, packed and shipped from the US. This ‘tied aid’ may delay shipments for up to six months and increase the cost of the food by 50%, while directing 65 cents of each aid dollar to distributors. Think about that next time the US is the first to offer food aid to poor countries in trouble. It’s business as usual, disguised as compassion.
The UN’s top food advisor blames 20 years of wrong-headed policies by world powers for the food crisis, stating that it was unforgivable of the international community to fail to anticipate the situation. He points out that the World Bank and IMF gravely underestimated the need to invest in agriculture, and accused the IMF of forcing indebted developing countries to invest in export cash crops at the expense of food self-sufficiency.
The world’s farms already produce enough food for everyone. About 800 million people are chronically undernourished because of lack of opportunity, not because of a dearth of food. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has declared that current food production is enough to sustain the population of the world projected to live in 2030 without adding GMO crops (about which I will be ranting presently).
We have an opportunity to exercise ethical food choices. Here in Bali, increasing numbers of restaurants are catering to a clientele that demands chemical-free fare, and many top chefs seek out local ingredients. A Slow Food Convivium will be launched this year. Bali beef is grass-fed and chemical-free (limit consumption of local pork and chicken unless you know who raised the animals) and there is a growing range of excellent jams, chutneys, herb teas, organic tofu, wonderful indigenous rice and other foods.
Of course, it’s not realistic to try and eat exclusively from a 50-mile footprint unless we’re prepared to give up our own foods completely (or start a dairy herd). But let’s be more aware of what we buy and where it came from, every time we shop for food.
Some of Bali’s chemical-free fruit and vegetables producers:
Big Tree Farms (Bali-wide, farm@bigtreebali.com)
Bali Rungu (Ubud area, balirungu@yahoo.com)
Trisna (Ubud area, trisna@idepfoundation.org)
Komang Kardiasa (Sideman/Gianyar area)
tel 085 238 163 160)
Ubud Farmers Market Saturdays 9:30 to 2 at Pizza Bagus in Pengosekan
Seminyak Farmers Market Fridays 9 to 2 at Fashion Point from September 5
Please let me know of any others so I can compile a complete listing
