Thought for Food

For quite some years, we’ve been purchasing shares in a community supported agriculture farm. Rarely have we shopped at a farmer’s market; sometimes at a roadside stand. We’ve bought quarter or half an animal for meat (beef and lamb) in bulk from local producers. Long ago we tried our hands at growing our own vegetables. That was a course in frustration involving poor soil, wildlife freeloaders, uncooperative weather, lack of training, plus excessive biting insects.

there’s more than one way to harvest sunshine

Photo by J. Harrington

Something like a dozen or so fruit trees have been sacrificed in our efforts to start a small orchard of apple and pear trees. At this time of year I deeply regret not having planted any crab apples for just their blossoming beauty. The fruit tree deaths appear attributable to sandy, excessively drained soil and the taste pocket gophers have for fruit tree roots.

The Better Half [BH] and I share two memberships in local food co-ops, if we are liberal in our use of the term local. The BH took out a membership in a central city co-op back in the days when one or both of us were working in one Twin City or another. After we moved to the exurbs and headed “downtown” less frequently, I took out a membership in a Greater Minnesota city co-op next to a favorite book store.

We annually make what we consider meaningful contributions to a regional food shelf. I usually shop for native harvested, Minnesota grown wild rice. For several years we traveled to rural areas in the state to buy, roast, and eat at Thanksgiving a heritage breed turkey. In the years when I was more active as a waterfowler, we occasionally enjoyed a roast Canada goose at Christmas. We consider ourselves fortunate to have been able to indulge our food and taste preferences and to limit our dependence on industrial scale agriculture.

All of the preceding is lead up to my pleasant surprise at finding in my email inbox this week several announcements from organizations I’ve been following for some time. Rhey are now emphasizing their focus on food as part of a response to reducing greenhouse gases. For example:

Welcome to Drawdown Food

Food is the forgotten frontier of climate action. While energy, transportation, and industry garner much of the attention, what we eat and how we grow is one of the biggest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. To equip those in the food systems sector with the tools and insights they need to reduce emissions, Project Drawdown is launching a major new initiative: Drawdown Food.

“Using available technologies and practices, we can meet every person’s food needs while also neutralizing the food system’s impact on climate,” says Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley, who is leading the initiative. “We just need to apply the right combinations of solutions in the right place at the right time.” Be sure to follow along – and invite those in your network to do the same – as we advance food-based solutions in the weeks and months to come. Learn more >>

and

🌸 Announcing the 2024–26 Rural Regenerator Fellowship

Calling rural artists in the Upper Midwest: Applications are now open for Springboard's 2024–26 Rural Regenerator Fellowship! We are excited to announce that this year’s Fellowship will focus on supporting artists whose work is connected to land, environment, and/or food systems.Rural artists who are using their creative practice to explore environmental justice, land and food sovereignty, agriculture, foodways, climate solutions, and/or sustainability are welcome to apply. We will select 12 fellows total. What the two-year Fellowship offers: Unrestricted $10,000 stipend to continue or expand rural artist's existing work. Opportunities for exchange and learning with other Rural Regenerator Fellows across the Upper Midwest. A supportive platform to build solidarity across rural geographies. This year’s new effort to amplify and support the urgent work of environmental stewardship aims to bring a new level of focus to the Fellowship in order to collectively contribute to long term change and support existing movements. Applications are open now through June 24, 2024. Interested in applying? Join our virtual info session on Friday, May 31 to learn more about the application and the fellowship.

Learn more and apply

I’m encouraged by the concurrent serendipity evidenced above because for years I’ve experienced how challenging, and expensive, it can be to eat healthy while limiting one’s climate (and related) footprint. If we really want to see widespread systems change, we need to make it much easier for families and individuals to do the right thing. Maybe we’re finally headed in that direction.

The Farmer

By W.D. Ehrhart

Each day I go into the fields to see what is growing

and what remains to be done.

It is always the same thing: nothing

is growing, everything needs to be done.

Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray

till my bones ache and hands rub

blood-raw with honest labor—

all that grows is the slow

intransigent intensity of need.

I have sown my seed on soil

guaranteed by poverty to fail.

But I don’t complain—except

to passersby who ask me why

I work such barren earth.

They would not understand me

if I stooped to lift a rock

and hold it like a child, or laughed,

or told them it is their poverty

I labor to relieve. For them,

I complain. A farmer of dreams

knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams

knows what it means to be patient.

Each day I go into the fields.

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