Checking back in with East bay urban farming on social media
I had imagined sharing designs or visualizations of what functional integrated agriculture might look like. When I was looking for pictures to share, what I found was a lot of high-rises with plants.
I was thinking more about regional integration of orchards, field crops and intensive production along with grazing outside the city and micro neighborhood farms spread throughout residential urban spaces. Possibly this is my own fantasy, but I have seen local gardens work well as spaces for community gathering and cooperation. So, it seemed natural to me that although intensive agricultural production may be required outside of cities some crops could be grown as a hyper local community effort.
I also imagined farming and farm labor as a profession. If we are to create a model of agriculture that does not include economic and environmental exploitation the entire industry must be reimagined. Organic and non-carbon intensive farming requires a great deal more labor. It also requires knowledge and expertise. If farming became a cooperative project in which the difficult and at times tedious work of harvesting, planting and maintenance was shared in a community effort or compensated in a way that respected the physical sacrifice of farm laborers their place in society would become much different.
The legacy of slavery still hangs thick in the agricultural world. Farmworkers in the US have been systematically excluded from labor protections that other trades and professions enjoyed. Migrant labor has historically been used in a throw-away manner to maintain a low market value for farm labor in the US. The Bracero program of the 40’s and 50’s provided an influx of cheap labor from countries in which people were fleeing even heavier systems of exploitation by US agribusiness. Today’s low wages for farmworkers are directly descendent from programs of economic exploitation and ultimately from slavery.
A just vision of agricultural labor would include proper compensation for the intense physical endurance, high skill level and experience required for efficient farm work. We must completely discard such racist, classist concepts of “unskilled labor” for this is certainly not the case. Farm work involves a great deal of skill and knowledge and physical ability, qualities that should be rewarded with compensation that can support a family, provide healthy food and medical care, and offer comfortable retirement at an age related to the physical intensity of the work.
Farmworkers should also have the social freedom to grow and change as their interests dictate. There is something very human about developing expertise over a period of time, becoming a repository of knowledge and passing that lifetime of experience and knowledge on to younger generations. The industrial model involves farm owners who usurp most of the profits and farm laborers who’s lives are at the whim of the “unskilled” labor market. A model of cooperative farming could offer farmworkers opportunities to progress through management, design, engineering, development, production and educational aspects of agriculture.
Rather than drawing on solely educated elites to build, design, and innovate in agriculture we could create pathways for advancement that do not induce a throw-away laborer culture. This is especially important for labor jobs with an intense physical impact. Since everybody eats the physical toil of difficult labor should be shared or compensated in a way that offers social mobility toward advanced positions as the body matures and it becomes no longer able endure intense physical stress.
The physical cost of farm labor can also be minimized and may even offer health benefits if workers are allowed breaks for stretching and body health. Conservation of movement and healthy movements of the body in intensive labor situations have been enshrined in dance practices and yoga for thousands of years. This knowledge as well as knowledge of pests and companion planting and irrigation techniques are a beautiful lineage of learned skills that we throw away when we disrespect the loving and caring work that farmworkers do to provide society with daily nutrition.
A farming profession would include strong unions and political power and a pricing structure that reflects labor and environmental values. A society that values health, and good food would hold all those who participate in the production of that food in high regard. That society would also hold that the land and the water and ecosystems that are essential to the production of that food are indeed sacred. The Industry of farming then becomes a profession that offers a life-long expansion of knowledge.
Expert farmers must learn about how to minimize water use, identify signs of disease in crops and how to mitigate those diseases without toxic pesticides or environmental damage. They must learn how to integrate farmland in residential areas as well as how to integrate food production with forests, wetlands and the natural ecosystems that sustain life on this planet. In a sustainable world healthy food production that allows for biodiversity would replace the manufacturing of luxury products and frivolous technological curiosities.
Yes, of course, there is incredibly valuable role for technology in any sustainable future, but it must be clear that we are facing a choice. The technology of lifegiving ecosystems is complex and profound. We are reaching a point in which our over-production and insatiable desire for products is causing harm to the life-giving ecological systems of this planet. We must make a choice between a healthy and equitable society and a society that has choked itself with trash, pollution and war. Green products have a limited ability to assuage our environmental problems. We must deal with rampant consumerism and this requires a cultural shift that values health, community equality and justice over the temporary gratification of consumerism.
In general, a low-carbon society would be much more focused on producing food with out major biodiversity impacts and pollution. This would require much more of our labor force to be devoted to sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management. Basically, we can choose to feed, educate and care for the human population, but we will not all be able to live the carbon intensive western consumer lifestyle. If we continue on the economic growth model that business and consumerism prescribes our life-giving ecosystems will be devastated and resource wars will continue to grow more and more severe. A shift to necessary technologies employed in ecosystem integrated agriculture can offer healthier more just lifestyle for humans and Earth.
