Reclaiming our food systems
Growing the world we want
Welcome to Raw Milk Mama, a newsletter about food freedom, our food systems, and how to create local food security in our communities. Sign up here for weekly posts, or keep reading...
In 2002, when my first child was born, I suddenly became more interested in food–not just the nutrition of food, but how it was produced and how it got to us.
When my oldest child showed signs of severe food allergies, I dug deeper. I learned as much as I could about nutrition. But I didn’t stop there. I learned about how our food was produced, what the laws were that went into the production and processing and what that all meant to ordinary, everyday people like you and me.
The more I learned, the more concerned I became. Sure, I was concerned for my family’s nutrition, but I was also concerned on a deeper level.
Our entire food system was corrupt beyond imagining.
At first, I couldn’t understand why it would be this way, and why ordinary Americans would stand for it.
So I learned more.
I began to see the tentacles of greed and control insidious in our system. This wasn’t just touching and affecting one thing. This was definitely a system problem.
Today, 20 years later, it is even worse.
Many good people are working hard to overcome some of the challenges that past generations have–intentionally or unintentionally–created in our food system.
But we are seeing an increasing number of vulnerabilities:
Severe, unpredictable weather
Inflation and price failures
Crises in our supply chains
Government failures
Corporate oligopolies rampant with corruption
Thinking about this is enough to send anyone into an isolating, homesteading frenzy.
But I don’t think that creating isolated pockets of independent homesteaders is going to solve our system-level challenges.
After all, we are ALL interdependent beings.
We rely on and give inputs to our ecosystems–both the natural ones and the human ones.
Therefore, any true transformation must come from a system level.
I also don’t believe that we are going to create change through a fear-based approach.
I believe in the power of visioning what our future world will look like, together.
For me, that vision includes local food in every community–not JUST gardens, but secure ways for people to acquire their meats, dairy and eggs. And ways that community members can participate in the production of their food.
The vision I see for the future of food security in America means nutrients are cycled through and back into our soil giving us vibrant topsoil to grow our food.
It means that we make the contributions that inspire us the most as we enter an era of abundance.
I believe that many of our social ills can and will be solved in the garden and around our communal tables and campfires as we build a foundation of personal health and freedoms. We must be able to feed ourselves within small communities and THRIVE on what we produce.
I believe that reclaiming our food systems is a cause worthy of our time and energy.
As we travel this path, we will be called into a whole new way of thinking.
This is about a radical, new approach to food production in our country. It is about taking individual responsibility for what we have access to and the impact we are having on this earth–both negative and positive.
And so, I invite you to come along with me on this road less traveled.
Let’s reclaim our food systems for us.
About Raw Milk Mama: I believe in the freedom to feed our families how we see fit. I also see the direction that our country is going--no one wants to live in a world where food scarcity is a constant reality. It's time to take back our food systems so they serve us, not monopolistic corporations.
Very much agree that hiding out in rural agricultural pockets is not the answer. And those may get attacked, eventually. Remember the 'poisoned garden' incident recently? I've reached the age where 'bugging out' is a poor option, not at all realistic. So I have embraced instead a 'shelter in place' orientation. It's taken time but I now have two pastured meat options, fairly local to me, access to raw milk and related products, and membership in a CSA where the farmer definitely 'gets it' and uses only organic methods. His soil looks so rich. A decade of organic amendments definitely shows. I also managed to inspire a neighbor to get into back yard gardening. He has tackled it with great enthusiasm and is seeing good results. Yes, things must change on a systems level if they are ever to get better. Sort of a mass 'un-adoption' of failing food systems and their systematic poisoning. Our fragile society is groaning under the weight of a bloated, corrupt, inverse pyramid. The only answer is to unsubscribe and build redundant parallel structures. I am still a ways off from completely breaking off my relationship with supermarkets, so I make do with just working on reducing that percentage... some progress... Systems level change is indeed what's needed.
One of the greatest challenges to overcome food system centralization is to shift individual and cultural priorities. For example, here in Oregon, the culture has valued getting high under the guise of wholistic medicine over food security. Massive resources were shifted from food production to growing marijuana in a modern day gold rush. Eventually, the hangover set in and now fields and greenhouses lay fallow. Bargains can be had on farming equipment as these huge grow operations liquidate. Opportunities abound for the enterprising to take up agriculture. After the buzz wears off, perhaps people will see and think more clearly.