Blog Response to Carolyn Steel

Blog Response to Carolyn Steel

Carolyn Steel’s big point in her Ted Talk is that cities need agriculture and current western societies are continually forcing the distance between the two to be further and further apart. Historically, it was impossible not to know where your food came from. It fostered not only the nutrition of communities, but also a connection to nature, and it was the center of the social sphere as well. That lasted until about the 1840’s when industrialism lead to increased urban development and the commodification of food through forming a much bigger, national system for producing and distributing it, starting with exporting meat out to the country and bringing it to urban areas after processing. The removal of food from the center of community life allowed cities to grow bigger than ever before – independent from their own food production.

Steel doesn’t seem to be specifically making an argument to relocalize food systems, but her points would support one. I would make the argument, in agreement with Steel’s points, that our society’s wellbeing is in need of food relocalization efforts and a decrease in constant development. Like Steel said, we already live (and always have lived) in a world shaped by food but we don’t turn that into the positive thing that it could be and in fact used to be in the not too distant past. Every person’s life is shaped by food each day, whether that is three healthy meals every day or the lack of it altogether, or something in between. It is one of the biggest indicators and influencers of our health, strength, happiness, intelligence, and overall wellbeing. Why isn’t it celebrated more than it is? Of course, food is celebrated in some ways and it remains a center piece of social interactions, but somehow our connection to food is seldom acknowledged. For example, what do people do on dates? Big holidays? Celebrations of graduations, birthdays, etc.? Eat together. And yet simultaneously fewer and fewer people know how to cook and process or eat food healthfully, even fewer know where their food comes from, and even fewer know how to grow their own.

I think this is problematic because it is unsustainable and unhealthy. Industrializing our food system has caused destruction to the environment, dismantled fundamental aspects of our social community, and caused us to be dependent on imported food and corporations, which are interested only in profit. Our collective mindset on food has become quantity over quality. Steel said that by making food “easier” industry has made it harder by making us dependent and clueless. Relocalizing food would change this in so many ways. It would support a local economy so small farmers and entrepreneurs could make a living without as much competition for cheap products from corporations. It would cause less environmental harm and possibly cause us to eat healthier because locally consumed food has less need for preservatives. It would reconnect people with each other through food and foster the type of social atmosphere where food becomes the center piece it used to be. This would also enable people to reconnect with nature.

I do acknowledge the many obstacles involved with relocalizing food. It would be a slow process and would involve converting much of the land our valley uses for commercial production into food production. It would require national food chains like Safeway and Albertson’s to accommodate local vendors rather than following protocol that the entire chain uses. Local food would also be more expensive, so some kind of subsidy would be necessary to make food affordable for everyone.

Obviously relocalizing food would be a huge, long process and I definitely need to do more research before I can form a legitimate argument. Perhaps complete relocalization isn’t even possible at this point in time. However, Carolyn Steel’s discussion about how cities need food is very convincing. The more we develop our urban areas, the further we become from our food.