Does Minnesota need bioregional food systems?

 We spent some time last evening in a Zoom meeting with folks interested in Minnesota's food system and the need for more healthy soils. If you read this blog at all regularly, you may have noticed we have major reservations about subsidizing farmers for the provision of ecosystem services. In large part that's because we're biased toward the "polluter pays principle," and because we've seen little public good provided by the existing agricultural subsidy system. We also acknowledge that what we currently have is an unmitigated failure at providing accessible, healthy, tasty, substantially local food for most of us.

As we frequently do when faced with an unsatisfactory situation, we've been poking around to see if we can find examples that we think offer better options. Today, we found what, at first glance, looks like a major step forward in addressing food and agriculture and related factors. The fact that it's regionally based and we have a long-standing bias toward regional systems as solutions doesn't  hurt. Please, if you're interested in Minnesota's ability to provide food sovereignty and security for its residents, take some time to scan through: 

Building Bioregional Food Systems Post-COVID 19: The Northeast Healthy Soil Network & the power of regional food system reform consortium work

It was written "By Josie Watson, originally published by 350 Vermont"

a different form of "farmers market"

Photo by J. Harrington

Minnesota, like New England, has many, perhaps all of the stakeholders needed to create "the emergence of local and regional, diversified, healthy food and farming systems, derived from fertile, carbon-rich soils," but they're not always functioning in a coordinated fashion toward a common goal. The linked report offers a roadmap to help get all of us on the same page. That's all, but we believe it's more than enough for today.

Our Real Work

Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

 

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