Bob Ewing - Have you ever been hungry? Of course, you have, most of us have experienced temporary hunger for one reason or another. However, the hunger only lasted until you got home or to a place were a meal could be bought.Take a minute to imagine that hunger feeling lasting for 24 hours with no relief in sight.
Go one step further, you go to bed hungry and wake up the next morning after a fitful night to the possibility of another day with nothing to eat. How long would you go on without sustenance before doing something, anything to satisfy that hunger?
Food is a driving force and we cannot live long without it. How we grow food, process it, sell, market and consume it will help define our society. We live in a consumer, capitalist system and food is treated like any other product. If you can afford it, you buy it, if you cannot you go hungry, or are forced to rely on the services such as food banks and other food programs, that are designed to help ease the pain of being hungry.
If we want to move away from the consumer, capitalist model we can begin to do so by changing the food system. A first step is simple enough, grow some of you own food and make a move towards independence. The more food you can grow, the freer you can become. This sounds great, but the reality is much more complex. Growing food requires a space to grow that food in, and whether the space be shared, such as a community garden, or your own yard, unless you own that land free and clear, you are still in a dependent position.
Over the next few weeks we will explore how through structures such as, time banking, community land trusts and urban agriculture, we can change from a consumer based society to a consumer-producer one.
As a side note, I just finished reading Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. I was inspired to do so over the weekend while in Fredericton. On a trip to the mall near our hotel, I asked why there were so many young people lined up and was told about the movie, The Hunger Games.
When we got home, I borrowed a copy of the book from a friend’s daughter (I am far from the demographic for this novel) and was impressed by the writing and the storyline. In short, the author understands what it means to control people and societies.
