Before the weekend of November 4-6, I did not know that College Park was deemed a food desert. A college town that comprises mostly students, most people do not have access to grocery shopping within a mile radius, the definition of a food desert.
As an international student living in the area, I attest to the truth in this statement. Getting fresh food for me involves a Lyft or Uber to the groceries shop, something I cannot do every week because it is expensive. Other modes of transport to the 1.4 miles away mega farmers market are irregular and very inconvenient.
This however, represents a narrower view of the entire food justice issue. At Clagett Farm in Upper Marlboro, I learnt the model of Community Supported Agriculture. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation runs a not-for-profit farm, where food grown is shared among some members of the community who pay a fixed amount per season and those who put in some hours of labor and get a share of the crop.
The rest of the food, about 30,000lb of it, is given to the Capital Area Food Bank. Needless to say, the farm is organic, a practice in part tied to the conservation efforts of the Bay (preventing pesticides and other farm chemicals running off into the Chesapeake Bay).
The second farm, called Forest Garden, uses a different model. Land is not cultivated as usual, but rather, an ecosystem of forests, herbs, brushes, and animals is "let loose" to follow the natural growth. I learnt that maize and wheat, two of the three most widely consumed crops, are in fact, "disaster" crops. They are annual grasses that would grow only after a fire destroyed the land. Rice, the third one, can only grow after a flood had wreaked havoc on land. They are, in fact, not natural uses of the land. When land is left alone, they are overtaken by perennials such as fruit trees. This is no wonder they require heavy pesticide and fertilizer use to be productive.
These two experiences left me with more questions than answers, perhaps as they should have. How productive are these practices in feeding the world? How ready are we to adopt them, if we find that they are capable of feeding us? How will using these methods help improve food justice especially for vulnerable sections of the society? How does addressing food injustice work in the context of the overarching social injustice?
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| Forest Garden |
This however, represents a narrower view of the entire food justice issue. At Clagett Farm in Upper Marlboro, I learnt the model of Community Supported Agriculture. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation runs a not-for-profit farm, where food grown is shared among some members of the community who pay a fixed amount per season and those who put in some hours of labor and get a share of the crop.
The rest of the food, about 30,000lb of it, is given to the Capital Area Food Bank. Needless to say, the farm is organic, a practice in part tied to the conservation efforts of the Bay (preventing pesticides and other farm chemicals running off into the Chesapeake Bay).
The second farm, called Forest Garden, uses a different model. Land is not cultivated as usual, but rather, an ecosystem of forests, herbs, brushes, and animals is "let loose" to follow the natural growth. I learnt that maize and wheat, two of the three most widely consumed crops, are in fact, "disaster" crops. They are annual grasses that would grow only after a fire destroyed the land. Rice, the third one, can only grow after a flood had wreaked havoc on land. They are, in fact, not natural uses of the land. When land is left alone, they are overtaken by perennials such as fruit trees. This is no wonder they require heavy pesticide and fertilizer use to be productive.
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| Enjoying a ride before mulching the garlic |
These two experiences left me with more questions than answers, perhaps as they should have. How productive are these practices in feeding the world? How ready are we to adopt them, if we find that they are capable of feeding us? How will using these methods help improve food justice especially for vulnerable sections of the society? How does addressing food injustice work in the context of the overarching social injustice?
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