Over five years ago I attended my first Eco-Farm Conference and I’ve been dying to come back ever since. Finally, I’ve had the opportunity to return. Today it started — The 28th Annual — and I intend to live-blog my way through it (even though no one is reading).
For the record, I flew in late last night with colleague, John Masiunas, so we could participate in the pre-conference farm tours. 150 of us visited four organic farms in the Watsonville, CA area. The “extraordinarily” cold weather (in the 30s, golly!) failed to dampen people’s spirits. And it didn’t rain. More on the tours later.
Tonight was the opening plenary session, featuring Eric Schlosser, author of the best-selling expose on the American food system — Fast Food Nation. I have to admit to wondering about this choice. Though powerfully impacting, FFN was written several years ago and Mr. Schlosser has since moved on to other issues. Still, he’s a big name in my book so I was interested to hear what he had to say about the topic of his keynote address as it was listed in the program — “Sustainability.”
Eric is almost as effective a speaker as he is a writer. The first half of his presentation was basically a review of FFN. McDonald’s and the philosophical mindset that produced it is evil incarnate, having wrecked all manner of harm and destruction on the world. They did this by promoting ignorance (about food), worshiping science, adopting technology without thought to its consequences, ruthlessly pursuing efficiency and treating people and animals like cogs in a machine rather than the sentient beings they are. It was good. It rekindled the flame that set my blood boiling when I read the book. But what about sustainability? According to Eric, the FF mentality is the opposite of sustainability. FF is the mentality of death. And sustainability?…that would be us. The 1,600+ attendees of Eco-Farm Conference and the food awareness movement that we represent. Knowledge is power, and the FFN controls the knowledge. What we have on our side is truth, and a system based on life, respect, holistic health, and a viable alternative to the culture of death that has swept the world. It was a good way to start this thing, the proper mix of righteous indignation, hope and encouragement.
Eric’s concluding comments were a somewhat strange departure from the otherwise pat organic message, but one I was glad to hear. He told us about where he had been last week. In Florida, he joined the fight with migrant ag workers fighting against large tomato growers for higher wages and humane working conditions. He made an attempt to join the organic cause to the cause of these workers. Though strongly supportive of organic, he said he’d rather not have an organic tomato if it comes from a system that exploits its workers like those in Florida. The message was clear — people are more important than any system of food production. Organic needs to be more than just eco-friendly. It needs to worker-friendly and livestock-friendly.
Good start.
3 Comments
January 24, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Hey, loved the pictures and report. Good job! Looking forward to the next one.
January 26, 2008 at 12:24 am
Hi
Just read your last two reports. Very informative and interesting. One more day, right?
February 20, 2008 at 8:28 pm
[...] This is one of the largest organic meetings in the country and always a good time. As I did at the Eco-Farm Conference, I’ll be live-blogging the event. So stay [...]