Peru and Potatoes
Dec. 1st, 2007 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterThe first chapter of The Gift of Good Land documents a trip that Berry took to Peru to learn about agriculture there. It's chock-full of so many ideas that already I need to pause for consideration. Let's first consider the potato:
In the US, we eat primarily four different types of potatoes, and they are large things. Subsistence farmers in Peru are believed to be growing around 2,000 different types of potatoes which aren't nearly as large but which are much more dense than what we consume. This brings up the matter of food quantity versus quality, which Berry says is connected to the fundamental difference between subsistence or small-scale farming and commercial farming. Clearly the goal for agribusiness is to maximize yield, not quality. Thus we consume large, poor-quality potatoes.
Now, agricultural knowledge:
The Peruvian farmers that Berry visits don't attend universities or take fancy courses in how to grow things. In many cases, they may not even be consciously aware of the sophistication of their methods--if a field is cultivated in such a way to minimize soil runoff, it is simplest to return to that field and cultivate it in the same direction as previously, whether or not one realizes this method minimizes soil runoff. One need not know why to know how--this much is clear even from the leafcutter ants.
Differences in economy:
Indeed, subsistence farming, especially in areas with such harsh conditions as the Peruvian mountains where these farmers work, is a laborious lifestyle. Developers judge this lifestyle, which has persisted in this region for thousands of years, to be inferior to participation in a cash economy. The switch to cash drives a switch to maximizing short-term production at the expense of long-term topsoil loss: Berry states that in the US four bushels of topsoil are lost for every bushel of corn that is produced. From this perspective, isn't "development" one of the most exploitative things that has happened worldwide? The parts of Peru that are still subsistence-farmed probably contained such poor-quality soil in the first place that the "problem" seems intractable to developers, and yet people have persisted in those mountainous areas for thousands of years.
After a single chapter, it's already clear why Berry has been so influential on pretty much every single agricultural/food writer whose work I've read so far (Pollan, Kingsolver, Moore Lappe; in this chapter he meets up with Nabhan; not so sure about Nestle, though). But then in the second chapter, which I've just begun, he begins with a brief criticism of academic efforts to solve food problems (he argues they cannot be solved in windowless rooms under artificial lighting, but must be solved outside on the ground under open skies), which is sharp but reasonable--personally, I'm fed up with economists whose ideas float in the ether.
The question remains, though--what next? Certainly there's a growing trend towards less mass-produced junk food among some circles of society (visible in the expansion of farmer's markets and CSAs and the like). There's also a growing trend towards the celebration of foods deliciously diverse (witness the explosion of heirloom tomatoes at the supermarket). But what of other factors, like the burial of massive amounts of trash in overflowing landfills? I forsee a time when humanity will want to mine those resources just as we mine for other irreplaceable metals and minerals. Our trash does not disappear--it is the transformed ashes of our ancestors and the ashes of our lives.
Having been born in the US and not on a subsistence farm in Peru, my life is inextricably bound up in so many historic decisions. I refuse to live out my life as a convict of this history, paralyzed by guilt (I disagree with you there, No Impact Man--I would not call myself a guilty liberal). But I also refuse to live it by maintaining a status quo that I perceive as wrong. The nature of my celebration must relate to the people and lifestyles that surround me, but must be sung in a different key.
I read onward.
In the US, we eat primarily four different types of potatoes, and they are large things. Subsistence farmers in Peru are believed to be growing around 2,000 different types of potatoes which aren't nearly as large but which are much more dense than what we consume. This brings up the matter of food quantity versus quality, which Berry says is connected to the fundamental difference between subsistence or small-scale farming and commercial farming. Clearly the goal for agribusiness is to maximize yield, not quality. Thus we consume large, poor-quality potatoes.
Now, agricultural knowledge:
The Peruvian farmers that Berry visits don't attend universities or take fancy courses in how to grow things. In many cases, they may not even be consciously aware of the sophistication of their methods--if a field is cultivated in such a way to minimize soil runoff, it is simplest to return to that field and cultivate it in the same direction as previously, whether or not one realizes this method minimizes soil runoff. One need not know why to know how--this much is clear even from the leafcutter ants.
Differences in economy:
Indeed, subsistence farming, especially in areas with such harsh conditions as the Peruvian mountains where these farmers work, is a laborious lifestyle. Developers judge this lifestyle, which has persisted in this region for thousands of years, to be inferior to participation in a cash economy. The switch to cash drives a switch to maximizing short-term production at the expense of long-term topsoil loss: Berry states that in the US four bushels of topsoil are lost for every bushel of corn that is produced. From this perspective, isn't "development" one of the most exploitative things that has happened worldwide? The parts of Peru that are still subsistence-farmed probably contained such poor-quality soil in the first place that the "problem" seems intractable to developers, and yet people have persisted in those mountainous areas for thousands of years.
After a single chapter, it's already clear why Berry has been so influential on pretty much every single agricultural/food writer whose work I've read so far (Pollan, Kingsolver, Moore Lappe; in this chapter he meets up with Nabhan; not so sure about Nestle, though). But then in the second chapter, which I've just begun, he begins with a brief criticism of academic efforts to solve food problems (he argues they cannot be solved in windowless rooms under artificial lighting, but must be solved outside on the ground under open skies), which is sharp but reasonable--personally, I'm fed up with economists whose ideas float in the ether.
The question remains, though--what next? Certainly there's a growing trend towards less mass-produced junk food among some circles of society (visible in the expansion of farmer's markets and CSAs and the like). There's also a growing trend towards the celebration of foods deliciously diverse (witness the explosion of heirloom tomatoes at the supermarket). But what of other factors, like the burial of massive amounts of trash in overflowing landfills? I forsee a time when humanity will want to mine those resources just as we mine for other irreplaceable metals and minerals. Our trash does not disappear--it is the transformed ashes of our ancestors and the ashes of our lives.
Having been born in the US and not on a subsistence farm in Peru, my life is inextricably bound up in so many historic decisions. I refuse to live out my life as a convict of this history, paralyzed by guilt (I disagree with you there, No Impact Man--I would not call myself a guilty liberal). But I also refuse to live it by maintaining a status quo that I perceive as wrong. The nature of my celebration must relate to the people and lifestyles that surround me, but must be sung in a different key.
I read onward.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-02 01:46 am (UTC)It's refreshing to see someone study Peru and bring back all the good things about their culture and then take the next step - reasonable adaptation of those things to our country's agricultural business.
My Peruvian coworker friend Gloria always opposed the globalization and trade affecting her native Puerto Rico because it caused people to forget how to eat for their health, how to make things rather than buy them, and how to pass on wisdom from generations rather than get international mass media. Within two generations, her grandmother complained that Walmart and the Gap had caused her grandchildren to know nothing of natural remedies, which foods to eat if you get sick, how to eat well when you are poor. They came in the 50s and gave every kid peanut butter and powdered milk to help fatten them up. They are doing the same thing with "NuttyFluf" in Africa for malnourished babies. It's horrible to think of America trying to solve the world's developing nation's food problems with airlifted care packages of American manufactured vitamin-fortified food. Imagine what the people in Africa could do with tools, agricultural education, water.
You should go to Peru. Their potatos are awesome!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-02 02:04 am (UTC)It's refreshing to see someone study Peru and bring back all the good things about their culture and then take the next step - reasonable adaptation of those things to our country's agricultural business.
My Peruvian coworker friend Gloria always opposed the globalization and trade affecting her native Puerto Rico because it caused people to forget how to eat for their health, how to make things rather than buy them, and how to pass on wisdom from generations rather than get international mass media. Within two generations, her grandmother complained that Walmart and the Gap had caused her grandchildren to know nothing of natural remedies, which foods to eat if you get sick, how to eat well when you are poor. They came in the 50s and gave every kid peanut butter and powdered milk to help fatten them up. They are doing the same thing with "NuttyFluf" in Africa for malnourished babies. It's horrible to think of America trying to solve the world's developing nation's food problems with airlifted care packages of American manufactured vitamin-fortified food. Imagine what the people in Africa could do with tools, agricultural education, water.
You should go to Peru. Their potatos are awesome!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-02 05:45 am (UTC)I wonder if that tourist had ever done much gardening of her own--that might change her perspective on terrace-building. Berry actually also noted that in some areas the furrows run at an angle to the slope or actually run downhill, with the flow of water, so that water isn't trapped and doesn't cause undue damage. And I must agree that Berry does an impressively sensitive job of conveying his experiences--I'm guessing that's why so many other authors rely on his perspective. Have you ever read any of his books?
I have also been browsing through World Changing, a catalogue on global topics of importance (food, shelter, environment, etc), and in particular I recently read through a section on types of knowledge. It's sad that much indigenous knowledge is being lost to globalization, but on the other hand it's experiencing a resurgence among at least some indigenous groups (among many native American nations, for example--Nabhan writes about some of that in the Southwest). And at the same time, we do have many other types of knowledge to work with than humans have had in the past--the kind of global awareness required to understand global climate change, for example, is mind-boggling at times. The real irony is that it takes an incredible amount of time and effort for Western scientists to learn the same lessons that many indigenous people have known intuitively for a very long time.
I do hope to have a chance to travel through South America at some point--conveniently, there are a lot of leafcutter ants in that part of the world.