But the point of the statement "people don't know where their food comes
from" is, it seems to me, alienation from the production process. Of course
this IS true across the economy -- I know I'm often amazed to learn how
various products are made. I think it's great that in agriculture, we're
trying to counteract that alienation, bridge the production-consumption gap.
It should be an economy-wide movement, but agriculture's a great place to
start since we incorporate food into our bodies, and "food" is at root,
living, growing beings. So alienation from the source of our food is also
alienation from nature, in a more immediate, visceral sense perhaps than our
alienation from other products. It's a highly charged metaphor, and I'm
glad that it is! Obviously organic agriculture, CSAs and the like rely on
and are aimed in part at getting food consumers to think about where their
food comes from, to reconnect with the production process. I think that's a
good thing!
Elizabeth
>Date: Fri, 8 Sep 95 15:09:45 EDT
>From: WLockeretz@infonet.tufts.edu
>Subject: Where food does (and doesn't) come from
>To: SANET-MG@amani.ces.ncsu.edu
>X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
>
>Thanks to all of you (over 20) who responded to my request for examples
>of people's ignorance of where food comes from. Several of you asked for
>a summary, so here it is:
>
>Most responses concerned children, typically 6 years or younger, who didn't
>connect meat with the farm animals they know, or vegetables with plants.
>(Reminds me of Ogden Nash's encomium to the anonymous hero who first
>revealed the artichoke as food.) This isn't too surprising -- children that
>young probably have equally quaint ideas about where the plate came from
>that they were eating off, or the chair they were sitting on, or the paper
>the food had been wrapped in. Maybe the main difference is that makers of
>plates, chairs and paper don't get so exercised over what kids don't know.
>
>The responses about adults mostly were about their not knowing what kind of
>plant, or what part of the plant, they ate as vegetables. Two people
>who are allergic to wheat mentioned that some of their friends didn't
>realize that this rules out pasta and white bread. However, since cooking
>and processing deactivates some allergies, I'm not sure that this mean their
>friends didn't realize that pasta and white bread are made from wheat --
>"allergic to wheat" might well be interpreted as something less than
>"allergic to ANYTHING made from wheat." Also, white bread is a special
>case, because of the unfortunate designation "wheat bread" that sandwich
>shops sometimes use for whole wheat bread.
>
>My query concerned people's serious lack of understanding of where food comes
>from, e.g., not knowing that (most of) it starts out as plants or animals
>on farms. In summary, I would call the results underwhelming.
>
>Which leads me to another possible area of ignorance: misinformation on the
>part of people who, like us, have more than average interest in agriculture.
>I have a small amount of evidence -- I won't say from where, because it
>strikes a little too close to home! -- that some people have a seriously
>exaggerated view of what they consider undesirable features of modern U.S.
>agriculture, not realizing, for example, that the number of corporate farms
>is tiny compared with the number of family farms, or that only a small
>fraction of cropland (roughly 1/5) is treated with insecticides. Perhaps
>it's
>because more publicity always seems to be given to problems than to the
>predominant situation (for example, when do you hear about the great number
>of households consisting of a married couple and their children?) or because
>people who are critical of something may unconsciously attach greater weight
>to things that reinforce that criticism. Whatever the reason, if my
>(admittedly poorly substantiated) impression is correct, then instead of
>wringing our hands too much about how little the public knows about food,
>maybe we should be more concerned with setting our own house in order.
>
>William Lockeretz
>School of Nutrition Science and Policy
>Tufts University
>
>
===============================
Elizabeth Ann R. Bird, Ph.D.
Executive Director,
Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and
Research and Technology Policy Project Leader,
Center for Rural Affairs
3609 Busse St.
Madison, WI 53714
608-249-5796
FAX 608-265-3020
Internet: csare@macc.wisc.edu