by Arleen Macpherson
Published in September 1998
Their enthusiasm for the land, the seeds, the planting, weeding and harvesting, as well as for the early morning sunrises and late evening sunsets out in the open space is infectious.
You should see our garden! In less than three months an abandoned field of weeds in the countryside has been transformed into an acre of lush growing vegetables. Already we, at St. John’s Kitchen, are eating our own chemical-free potatoes, onions, cabbage, squash, green beans, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and herbs. We have also blanched and frozen several pails of green beans for the coming Winter. And there is lots more to come! There are plans to pickle beets, dry and store Romano beans, and freeze all the vegetables that we can. Fresh, living produce will be added to the daily meal at St. John’s Kitchen and some will be shared with those who want to take it home.
How delightful it is to hear Joan, Rob, Cheryl, and Gretchen talk about cultivating and preparing tile land donated to us by the Schlaschlinger family in Petersburg. Their enthusiasm for the land, the seeds, the planting, the weeding, and the harvesting, as well as for the early morning sunrises and late evening sunsets out in the open space is infectious. Already two people have said: “This is the best Summer I’ve ever had!”
Many people have had a hand in the garden. The openness of the leadership team and the simplicity of the work required to maintain a garden make it possible for any interested person to participate. Rides between the city and the country are easily arranged between those without vehicles and those with. It is awesome to experience the camaraderie, the conversations, the fun, the friendship, and the support that develop between a variety of people when they participate in a common task with a common goal. They are in nature doing what comes nature-ly! And the work of the gardeners is completed by volunteers at the kitchen who clean and prepare the harvest. The garden has easily evolved into the St. John’s Kitchen Garden Community.
Meaning of a Local Garden
We do not expect that this garden will fill all the food needs of St. John’s Kitchen. As a matter of fact, there has always been more than enough food available from other sources to prepare the meal which feeds over 200 of us each day. Initially, our interest in having a garden stemmed from a desire to add healthy, living foods to our menu. Many of us are growing more aware and more anxious about the pesticides and chemicals that are added to modern foods. We must eat to live but we question whether eating a balanced diet comprised of supermarket foods contributes to our health or whether it might, on the contrary, be damaging to our health?
Who Controls the Food
It is hard to ignore (nor do we want to) the growing number of books and articles which tell a grim story of the whole food production and distribution system which most of us rely on. Kathleen O’Hara lives in Ottawa and writes for the Issues Network. Her observations and research led her to the conclusion that “grocery stores abound, but many of us suffer from malnutrition.” She discovered that much of our food is grown in “dead” soil which has few nutrients and is further compromised by chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Many foods have antibiotics and hormones added to them and others are genetically altered. (K-W Record, May 29, 1998).
A few very large transnational corporations control all aspects and sources of food production throughout the world. Brewster and Cathleen Kneen, B.C. farmers and activists well-known to The Working Centre, publish a monthly newsletter called The Ram’s Horn. They keep a very close eye on agriculture and agribusiness. In a recent address to Canadian dietitians, Brewster said:
It appears that the major transnational corporations involved in drugs, agrotoxins, biotechnology, and now seeds, are bent on taking direct control over what we eat. They are taking whole foods down the same road as they have taken the seeds themselves – to monoculture, uniformity and dependency – for the sake, not of nutrition, but of industrial production and corporate control and profit.
The Ram’s Horn, No. 160, June 1998
I remember being taught in my high school classes in a small agricultural community that the healthiest and most productive farms were those that rotated diverse crops, saved seeds for future plantings, did companion planting, and allowed each section of the land to rest periodically. Sounds very different from the monoculture, uniformity, and dependency on pesticides practised by agribusiness!
I remember, also, my grandparents’ large vegetable garden which flourished for over forty years behind the Hotel and General Store which were their life’s work. The harvest from that one garden, along with a few cows, pigs, and chickens sustained a large family and a few employees, and graced the dining tables of the hotel guests. Of course, there was always plenty of work for everyone ‘never mind your age’.
Many Uses For Food
Food is used in so many ways, some very good, and some very, very bad. John Robbins, author of May All Be Fed: Diet For a New World, says:
“There are few places where the spiritual, political, personal, and ecological dimensions of our lives meet as fully as they do when we sit down to eat our breakfasts, lunches and dinners.”
A profit-making industrial system of food production has emerged since World War II which serves up food not only lacking in nutritional value, but even more dangerous, at ever rising prices. For example, Canada, once self-sufficient in tomatoes now depends almost entirely on a very few American-based transnational corporations for all tomato products. We can grow tomatoes but their quality, processing, and distribution is totally controlled by others. I wonder, is a tomato still a tomato, when it has been grown in chemically fertilized land or in a lab, protected by pesticides, picked when it’s still green, ripened by spraying with ethylene gas, and processed with lye? The same question can be asked about all other fruits and vegetables. No food seems very safe or nutritious.
Food has become an important commodity in the foreign policy goals of the United States. In an effort to make other countries more and more dependent on American markets, individual farmers and small land owners all over the world have been squeezed off their land. Control of almost all means of production and processing concentrated in the hands of a few powerful corporations reduces choices for all other people. Even our food banks and soup kitchens rely on their products which are often donated when they do not satisfy quality control regulations, have been damaged, exceed expiry dates, or have lost their labels. By donating these goods companies are able to avoid dumping fees at the landfill site thus making business even more profitable.
Another Food System
This is only a cursory view of the modern food system. The implications for the land, the ecosystem, and for human life are so far-reaching as to be very frightening.
The St. John’s Kitchen Garden is only one of twenty such gardens started up in our region alone in the last few years. Thankfully, it is a growing trend. These gardens allow us to distance ourselves, at least a little, from the predominant, very destructive system. But there is good reason to believe that all countries could become food self-sufficient if given control over their own land. David Korten (When Corporations Rule the World, Kumarien Press, Inc., 1995, p.13), states:
It is within our means to reclaim the power that we have yielded to the institutions of money and re-create societies that nurture cultural and biological diversity – thus opening vast new opportunities for social, intellectual, and spiritual advancement beyond our present imagination. Millions of people the world over are already acting to reclaim this power and to rebuild their communities and heal the earth.
