You are what you eat... You eat where you are. When it comes to the basic needs, there’s one that takes the cake. Literally. We can’t survive without food for longer than a couple days, and if you include water, it’s even less. Food is often our first real encounter with a culture different from our own, and what we first experience through our tastebuds we learn before we know how to talk, walk or write. |
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Every culture has turned a necessity into its own tradition of what is delicious– finding ways to eat the unfathomable, turn the spoiled into gold, make the scraps the main course. Artichokes. Cheese. Sausage. Natto. Tripe. Creativity thrives in necessity. |
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Since we transitioned to a mostly agrarian species, humans have been cultivating the land to produce what we need to sustain, and then increasingly what fills a marketplace with more and more bounty. Through agricultural advancements and global trade, much of humanity no longer spends the majority of the day just procuring what to eat. Yet most people have also lost touch with what it takes to grow food, and how to responsibly steward the earth. But how do we not deplete the earth in the process of feeding us– especially when many of our methods of farming waste the wealth of hundreds of years of soil health in one season? 40% of food is wasted either in the field, in production, at the place of sale or in the home– and yet...people are hungry. Food security is about being able to have access to food, both economically and making sure there is enough health in the ecosystem so it can sustain. Especially at a time where many of us are wondering how to save the restaurant industry so vital to many people's livelihoods, at the ground level, we first have to make sure we have enough food, now and into the future. |
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As Covid continues to affect the globe, we see more and more how precarious and interconnected the global economy is, and with it, food chain supplies and people’s access to it. And with overpopulation and climate change not going anywhere soon, things are only going to get more drastic. How will we grow enough food in the future for everyone without destroying everything? |
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This month we highlight the Land Institute. |
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In a time where more money is being spent on how to grow food on Mars than the effects of climate change on agriculture, it’s refreshing to find an organization like The Land Institute. A global agricultural research center located on the Smoky Hill River in Salina, Kansas, since 1976, The Land Institute has worked to transform grain agriculture globally from a system of extractive domination to one of generative care. The Land Institute operates as a global research hub, an in-the-field educational program, and a breeder of perennial grain and seed crops. Using two models from nature: perenniality and diversity as the key to regenerative agriculture, they work to develop an agricultural system that can restore soil, produce ample food, require less fossil fuels, conserve water, and mitigate and endure the impacts of climate change. |
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A peek into their philosophy: " Natural ecological systems are self-sustaining. For at least 10,000 years, humans have disrupted those systems and kept them in a continuous state of disruption in order to feed our populations and avoid famine. This, in a nutshell, is agriculture as we know it. Increasingly, the modern scale of those agricultural disruptions threatens to collapse the critical cultural and natural systems upon which we depend. The Land Institute believes that it doesn’t have to be this way. The Land Institute and our partners are not working to tweak the now predominant industrial, disruptive system of agriculture. We are working to displace it. We believe it is possible to provide staple foods without destroying or compromising the cultural and ecological systems upon which we depend, but only if we understand and work with the constraints and capacities of those natural systems." |
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The Land Institute's Programs The Land Institute is breeding new perennial grain and seed crops adapted to ecologically intensified polycultures that mimic natural systems. The Land Institute's five crop breeding programs include: Perennial Wheat, Perennial Sorghum, Kernza® Perennial Grain , Perennial Oilseeds, and Perennial Legumes. Additionally, The Land Institute's Ecological Intensification three research programs are working to transform agriculture from having a degenerative impact to a regenerative one. By using models of naturally occurring plant communities, Land Institute researchers believe that previously unattainable levels of ecological intensification are possible with perennial polycultures. A program to change the way we think about the world and our place in it, through educational and cultural projects with a perennial perspective. Ecosphere Studies asks: if the ecological future of agriculture is to be perennial and diverse, what is required of us in social terms? Interns gain valuable insight into the research programs of The Land Institute while assisting in the fields, seed processing facilities, and labs. With thousands of experimental plots and tens of thousands of experimental plants, interns conduct crucial fieldwork that includes hoeing, transplanting, and sampling alongside preeminent scientists working to develop Natural Systems Agriculture. |
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The Land Institute is working to feed the future
without compromising the future. We are proud to support them throughout 2020. If you are not already, sign up for the CSA now to help us support them and eleven other organizations, highlighting a different theme each month. Or donate directly to them. |
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Food is our way to taste the world. |
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While politics are polarizing, food has a way to make us all come together, even when its very history comes out of struggle. Many of us have spent this time cooking more. Making bread from scratch. Deciding we never want to make bread from scratch again. Eating too much or not enough. Getting fancy. Getting lazy. But in the last few months, is there anything you realize you had taken for granted? Sitting down for a meal at a restaurant. Having friends over for dinner. Not worrying your groceries were contagious. But maybe you also thanked the person at the grocery store differently. Maybe you've never been more grateful for farmer's markets. |
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Maybe this time will rejuvenate what we consider essential: to honor the people and land that remind us. We just know one thing's for sure: Food will be involved. |
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Thank YOU as always for your support. Please stay healthy and safe and continue to support those around you however you can. | | |
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