The news was filled for days with Southern California fires, destroying crops as they sent families fleeing from the flames that were about to consume their homes in the former deserts of Los Angeles and San Diego. {sidebar id=18}
My mind was filled with the poetry and passion of author Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," her book on family farming and living off the land for a year in Virginia. The book is several months old, but as it turns out the timing was perfect, because it highlighted the many incongruities – or sheer insanity – of our policies on food supply, land use and water.
Southern California is a former desert, which required billions of dollars in subsidies to supply water for farming and homes.
Kingsolver and her husband, biology professor Stephen Hopp, and their two daughters left the baking desert of Tucson for the farm in Southern Appalachia because they recognized that deserts are not good places to encourage large-scale development. When most food has to be trucked in, a large portion of the retail price goes to transportation. It leaves the average family farmer making about 19 cents on the sales dollar, and preparing to sell their land to housing and golf course developers so they can retire from a losing business.
And that leaves us, the food buyers, depending on even more long-distance transportation of our food, often from countries where we have no idea what kind of health and safety measures are in effect, or whether the food is produced by slave labor.
As most reviewers have said, the book is soulful, lyrical, humorous and inspiring. The chapter on turkey sex is often cited for its humor.
The chapter on the Farmers Diner in a nearby Kentucky town is not, but to me it's the soul of the book. The diner buys and prepares only local food. That enables the local farmers to make a living, and gives local patrons the assurance of fresh, high quality meals. The diner is not political. It's a business, which happens to be doing well by doing good.
Please DO NOT tell me that this is a case of "stunt eating," or that Kingsolver's family is privileged in a way you are not because they had the farm to go to, and because they have a higher income than yours, and the energy to devote to growing, harvesting or slaughtering and preserving their own food. That's all true, but not relevant, because there are many things each of us can do to support local food producers and ensure that they can survive and our food is safe.
Tell the markets where you shop that you want them to add locally grown to their organic shelves.
Tell the restaurants where you eat that you want them to buy from local farmers and ranchers.
Find those local sources for yourself at http://www.lakecountyfarmersfinest.org/.
Support our currently scanty supply of local farm markets.
Talk to your neighbors about how you can help establish more local farm markets, where you can reach them by foot or bicycle.
Tell your city council, county supervisor and planning commissioner that you want them to adopt policies which will encourage farmers to stay here.
Take a close look at any housing development proposals. Make sure the government agencies and the developers have done the right studies on the availability of water. Residential development and golf courses use a lot of water. Lots more than well planned farm irrigation.
Find out about the Slow Food movement at www.slowfood.com and about the Farm to Fork efforts at http://www.clinton.senate.gov/issues/agriculture/index.cfm?topic=ftof.
Plant something edible, even if it's just a pot of winter greens in a sunny window. Share what you can't use.
Now that I've got that off my chest, let me tell you a little more about the book. The Kingsolver-Hopp family moved from Tucson's long-term drought because "We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles right up out of the ground." In Lake County, we already live there.
Each of them had a non-negotiable food they would not give up, like coffee and chocolate. That's fine. If each of us ate just one totally locally grown meal per week it would save the nation more than a million barrels of fuel a week. On average, our food travels 1,500 miles before it gets to our tables.
Daughter Lily, 9, took on the poultry flock, very successfully. Daughter Camille, 19, contributes the perspective of a teenager who is not brainwashed by fast food advertising with essays, recipes and tips for menu planning, and a number of valuable Internet links. Find recipes and more at www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/.
Everybody participated in the harvest – of both produce and animals. This is a family which fully understands meat does not originate in plastic trays at the supermarket, fresh berries and bananas are not year-round crops, and that some hours of preserving the harvest will save you some hours of winter trips to the market – and a lot of money.
Kingsolver's respect for farmers is paramount. She fairly rants about those who denigrate farms and farmers, and I couldn't agree more. Food and water are the intersection where all political persuasions meet – and drop their labels.
As always, Kingsolver's writing is engaging. She is the best-selling author of "The Poisonwood Bible" and "Bean Trees," among others.
E-mail Sophie Annan Jensen at
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