Business As Usual

Business as Usual

Once humans started to farm on a mass scale this allowed for cities to be created. Cities are a major cause of the problems we as a species face on this planet. How can this be reconciled? Can cities change as well as farms? Can farms become less massive? Can cities produce their own food? Can city dwellers get more in touch with the real world and less with the concrete and manufactured world? Can they deal with not getting what they want when they want it? Can they learn to work for their food by helping to produce it, rather than working for money to buy it?

Maybe.

Certainly if forced. That has been shown. Another thing that has been shown: Once city dwellers start producing their own food, they don’t necessarily want to go back to their old way of being. So then why be that way at all? Why not fundamentally change the way our society is structured? A very few people would lose their status and wealth while a great many will be fed in perpetuity. This kind of trade off is worth the effort.

Most importantly however, there would be an awareness. An awareness that all people are connected to the soil, the water, the air and the planet as a whole. We have to adopt new ways of being, especially those who live in cities and dense communities. There needs to be an awareness of presence. An awareness of actions and interrelations.

An acknowledgment that there is no entitlement to the land and its resources.

These are things, sadly, that are not taught within industrial society. These things are actually reviled in favor of conformity and a continuation of what is often called “our way of life”. What is currently happening at the end of the first decade of the twenty first century is

business as usual.

One side of the political spectrum says, "I do not want to change my ways." The other says, "We are going to find alternate ways of maintaining our ways.". Neither is willing to truly change this society’s way of being within the world.

To maintain the kind of society we have is a great burden and responsibility. It is our obligation to minimize and or eliminate this weight upon the Earth. The question here is: "Where to begin?"

Trade Offs, Parts, Clear Cuts etc.

Clear Cuts, Strip Mining, Nuclear Power

Planting some pine trees won’t bring back a lush indigenous forest. Mining uranium to use it to boil water to turn a steam turbine and then deal with waste that will persist in geological time, longer than anyone can truly comprehend, is not sustainable. But yet these are the very things that are being touted to “save” our way of life. So we can power our homes. So we can run our machines. So we can play distracting games. So we can watch distracting entertainment. So we can type, as I type now, on a computer made in another country with components that are extremely toxic to make. So I can drive to work in a car that is more polluting to make than to drive. So that the infrastructure of our way of life, be it conventional, alternative, even rural farming, can be maintained.

Can it?

Parts

The parts that make up so called Green Technologies must come from somewhere. If the parts aren’t “Green” then how can the whole be called “Green”? The Lithium to make the batteries for Hybrid cars is not reusable the way lead is in traditional car batteries. It’s a one way street. If the majority of the worlds Lithium is located on land surrounded by indigenous populations, what will happen? Will the environment these populations depend on be destroyed and the populations displaced all for the sake of building something “Green”? What is green? It’s a color and simultaneously a marketing term to make people feel good about contributing to business as usual. Once Industrial society figures out how to be healthy it can figure out the conundrum of being

 “Green”.

Trade Offs

We can power our homes with solar cells. Solar cells which are extremely toxic and energy intensive to make. And, ultimately, will produce less energy in their life time use than it took to make them. But the trade off is that someone somewhere will not have to rely on a grid generated power source using coal, oil, radiation or natural gas. That investment is made at the manufacturing site so it does not have to be made in a private home or a local power plant. The energy is still used up. The pollution is still generated. It just all happens somewhere else. The Earth still bears the brunt.

We can figure out better trade offs. Working to improve the manufacturing process to be less energy sucking and less polluting is one way. Working on using other forms of electrical generating devices such as wind turbines, private or otherwise, is another. Or, the best possible option, changing our habits and using much less electricity. Or, using none at all. Or, somewhere in between. Either way, habits need to be changed.

Fuel will cost too much to import.

Food will become more important than fuel.

Fair Trade, Local, Organic

Fair Trade - Equitable Trade

Fair is a four letter word. It often leads to those who have, being able to get more than those who don’t, just because it’s fair. Everyone gets the same. So, if those who have more participate, they get the same as those who have less. Those who have more don’t need any more at all. Those who have less need to get more so there is a balanced amount of resource distribution. This will allow for everyone having enough. That’s equitable. But, those who have more are the first to scream that it is unfair to give their share to someone who has less than them. In this case, fairness maintains the current power structure and distributes more resources to those who have the power.

Fair Trade is a first step. It allows those who are involved with the production of goods to get a premium price, but those producers don’t have direct negotiating rights to determine that price. The premiums that their goods do get, are determined by the market. A program called Good Trade provides direct negotiating rights to the growers and producers involved. Those growers and producers determine how much the purchaser will pay for their goods and not the other way around. The growers and producers can then make sure they get what they need to continue producing, surviving and thriving. The growers and producers then start to control the market and not the other way around. That is equitable. That is true Fair Trade, when everyone gets what they need.

Local

Local is being spun as a marketing gimmick. Walmart advertised “Local” on its web sites. For Walmart, produce from anywhere in the U.S. is considered local. The U.S. is a very large land mass. What local means to many people is not food being trucked 1500 or more miles. Local is basically meaningless unless defined. We need to define local. Give it some guts. Give it standards. This definition cannot come from a corporate source making profit from what is local. It must come from the people directly involved in the locale. It’s the people who need to insist that before anything be sold to them as “Local”, this thing honor a set of standards that the people have designed themselves.

Organic

“Organic” used to be a philosophy and a movement. Now, philosophy has been thrown out the window and the focus is on law and financial economy. Multinational corporations have become or bought organic food producers, manufacturers, distributors and sellers. Profit takes precedence over the health of the planet and the needs of the people.

Corporations as organic food producers is probably the single most destructive thing that happened to the organic movement. An entity that focuses on profit cannot participate in a movement that focuses on the benefit of the planet and the creatures living on it. Just because the law says something is organic, does not mean it is "Organic".

Community, Land-Base, Sustainable Agriculture

Another late posting and I apologize for it. Here are a few tidbits of light thoughts before bed time.

Community

Community (My definition, combining the meaning and spirit of official ones.) -  A group of living organisms and the environment around them, interacting in a way that is mutually supporting and connects them all.

Land-base

Land-base - An area of land and water that supports a community, or several communities, of living organisms.

Sustainable Agriculture

Most people can understand the words of sustainable agriculture, but do they really understand what the term means?

How is sustainable defined in this case? If you can get it and keep getting it from your land-base, then it’s sustainable. If not, or if it runs out because you have depleted it or made it unusable, then it is not sustainable. This is how all creatures exist on the planet

except people.

Farming

Farming

One example of sustainable farming is an Indigenous tradition from the Oneida. It is called The Three sisters. The Three Sisters is an integrated agriculture system of growing corn, beans and squash together in a mutually supporting way. Industrial culture calls this method, intertillage.

Corn, beans and squash are grown together in the same mound. The corn provides a tall structure for the beans to grow on, the beans return and fix nitrogen into the soil for the corn, squash spreads out between the mounds to provide ground cover and limit weeds. These are complementary foods, meaning that when they are eaten together, or when two are eaten together, they work in unison to provide complete protein, minerals, amino acids and vitamins. The crop yield is more than enough to sustain large populations of humans. 

The traditional Oneida farm is called Tsyunhehkwa (Joon hey-kwa), meaning literally, “It provides life for us”.

Today, the Oneida food system has three parts - 

The Production Division - Shakoh^ta?slu.ni’he?, meaning, “He prepares the fields for them”.

The Processing division - Tsi?tkutekhuwa.y^he’, meaning, “Where they put the food away”.

And, the Distribution Division - Lutunhetsla?nikulale?, meaning, “They look after all living things”.

They look after all living things.

How many retail food outlets take this up as their mission? How about food distributors or wholesalers? What a different world it would be if this was the view of all entities associated with food production. 

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farms are a bridge between the sustainable and unsustainable. People in many cities seek out CSA farms. Most CSA farms need little marketing effort, as they find there is no lack of people wanting shares. But how do city customers view the  CSA entity as a food source? Are they simply buying a box of groceries, or are they seeing this as an alternative to a faulty system of food distribution? Or, somewhere in between?

Many CSA farms require that their members work on the farm itself. These workers help the farmers offset the enormous amounts of labor that it takes to run the farm and get the crops to harvest. The CSAs that have a working membership also have the highest retention rate of members. People get connected to the farm if they work there. They see where their food comes from first hand. They help grow and mature it. They help harvest and prepare it. They also help deliver it. They participate directly in their food source. They see the effort and love it takes to produce food for themselves and for other people.

In industrial society, and especially in cities, there is a profound disconnect from the source of people’s food. Food is purchased in stores and how it got to the store is almost never witnessed. Possibly, the delivery trucks are seen, and that is all. But, by working the land to produce their own food, people who live in cities regain the connections they have lost. They become part of the real world again.

Many CSA farms are attempting to be more sustainable. In the context of CSA farms, sustainability is choosing what works in their area. Besides trying to live in equilibrium with the land - taking from the land as much as the farm gives back to the land - farmers are using techniques adapted to their climates. Hoop houses, green houses, cover crops and crop rotation can help. But, in cold climates the green houses have to be heated above 32 degrees in order to produce food in the winter. To do this by burning fuel is counterproductive, expensive and not sustainable. Using passive heating techniques to offset or eliminate the use of fuel is a much more sound approach.

If done correctly, farming puts back into the soil potentially everything it takes. However, this is a very difficult goal to achieve. It requires careful planning and knowledge from the farmer. It requires a society willing to support the farmer’s efforts and to do without when conditions dictate it. Labor, knowledge, commitment, community and a love of the earth are what is needed for a more sustainable farming future.

Farming is very difficult. In today’s society many farmers purchase some form of labor saving input for their farm, like sprays, compost or machinery. The machines have to be built, parts have to be made, fuel to manufacture the machines has to be drilled for, transported, refined, transported again and finally used. Sprays and compost have to be manufactured, trucked to the stores so they can be bought, and so on.

A family farm or independent farm has a very difficult time making a living solely from farming. The farmers often have jobs outside of the farm in order to maintain a steady and consistent cash flow. Some farmers cannot make ends meet and quit, moving back into the cities. Those who continue cite the amount of labor and how hard it is to produce food for others. But they also cite how enjoyable farming is. They believe in the system of food production they are participating in. They are passionate. They are in touch with the Earth.

However, as farms get larger, the work load increases to the point where a farmer must use more machinery to farm, thus making the farm less and less sustainable. A large, fully mechanized corporate run farm cannot be sustained without vast amounts of infrastructure behind it, nor can a small family farm using machinery and goods that are factory made. The factories that manufacture all these things do not put back.

One model for an alternate farming structure is the Old Order Amish style of farming. In this style of farming, few machines are used. Transportation is not motorized. Agriculture is done by human and animal power. Fertilizing is done by composting and using the manure produced by animals. Yields are substantial enough to produce surplus. This surplus is sometimes sold or traded using a communally owned truck. Community structure is mutually supporting. Homes and out buildings are built by hand and by members of the community.

Resources are shared

not sold.

The future of local agriculture, and quite possibly all food distribution, is that farmers must ultimately unify in small, localized organizations to pool resources and to strengthen themselves as individual farmers. This can be extended to the surrounding populations who could pool with the farmers, sharing their labor and their resources in a mutual relationship and creating an interdependent community.

There was a time in human history when the entire surrounding population would come out and harvest the crops that they all planted together on land that they all shared. They all lived and worked in accordance with the seasons. Everyone grew their own food together for the whole community. The community worked together. Today, the seasons are heralded by retail merchandise changes. Only a few people are farmers. Most everyone else buys their food from a store. 

In this country all people can be fed with organic based agriculture, especially if people change their eating habits and expectations. But this takes labor and knowledge not machines, chemicals and manipulated genes. To do this there need to be more farmers, not necessarily more land under tillage. The corporate and mono-crop operations need to be broken up into smaller farms owned by more farmers. Less plants need to be grown to feed animals for slaughter or to provide ingredients for processed foods or to manufacture fuel. More plants need to be grown to be fed directly to people. The land needs to grow different plants and not all the same plant. There needs to be diversity. There needs to be companion growing, intertillage and the mindset of The Three Sisters. There needs to be a greater attachment of those who live in cities to their food supply.

There needs to be a greater awareness of the rhythms of the Earth.

There need to be more gardeners.

There need to be more gardens

everywhere.

“If we’re not sustainable or living a sustainable life the Earth will figure it out, and that will be OK.”

Erin Altemus

Develop Devolve Sustainable Development

Develop.

Devolve.

Devolution.

Development.

devolve - de=down, volvere=to roll, to pass to another, 

develop - de’=apart, voloper=to wrap, to make fuller, bigger, better, etc., to come into being or activity,

Land is in a state of high evolution. The topsoil is in itself like our skin. It is a living thing that serves a vital function. It teams with interrelating organisms that provide a fertile base from which other living organisms can grow or gather their food. Wetlands filter surface water so it can find its way back into the water systems to support life. Forests and prairies provide vital ecosystems that support more interrelating life. And yet, we say that land such as this is “sitting around doing nothing”. We say we need to develop it even though the land has reached the highest possible state of development. To develop land is to devolve it. To bury the land under homes, shopping malls, business districts is considered by our society to be useful. Now the land is making someone money. It is actually ruined. Even turning a prairie into a producing farm field is also a form of devolution. Ironically, farm land is considered worthy of development. It isn’t making enough money. It’s only feeding people.

As long as the development perspective is kept, we can be assured that our choices of what can be done with our land-base can certainly evolve to a much higher state.

Sustainable Development

There is no such thing. Sustainable development is a term used to market a way of thought. The way of thought which says that someone can continue to profit from the land at the expense of the land and the whole earth, forever.

Land cannot continually be strip mined and clear cut. Homes cannot continually be built. The economy cannot continue to grow. Land is finite. The environment is finite. The world is finite. To think that we can continue to take without putting back and to think that this situation will go on forever, is ludicrous.

We are full of human hubris. We are not special. We are an integral part of what is, no more or less than the tiniest life form. We don’t like to think this because if it is true, we would then have to be accountable for our actions.

Power

Power

Power needs to be shared. And, those in power seldom share it willingly. Those with resources seldom give them up unless forced. Which is how our society came to be - by taking resources by force, violence and deceit. Which is why our culture and society is faced with troubles now. It does not know how to give back as much as it takes. And, it is used to taking what is not given.

It gets what it wants when it wants it.

Our culture and our society is out of kilter. Like a wobbly potter’s wheel or an unbalanced tire of a car, our society is not centered. It has been wobbling severely for some time. This continued vibration causes problems. Eventually shaking something loose and jamming the system or critically breaking it.

There are symptoms of the wobble. Symptoms unique to industrialized cultures and societies with manipulated populations. Cancer, depression, schizophrenia and suicide being the worst. Restlessness, not being able to focus and dissatisfaction are the lower end of symptoms. These are things that come from our environment. An environment we as a culture and society are allowing to happen.

If our society and culture is damaging, then we need to change it. The problem for us is that the existing societally acceptable means of change are set up to not work. The true means of change are not going to be acceptable to the society that needs to change. The transition will be difficult. The only true and lasting way societies and cultures have ever changed is over long periods of time and with difficulty, coupled with a total collapse of the existing system of power. The key to lasting change that will actually benefit the planet is to not go back to a similar system of power.

Scope, Profit & Greed

Scope

Any city, with the right climate, in the vicinity of a farming population can do what Havana and Belo Horizonte did. But the problem comes with distance. With 2.8 million people, Chicago is about the same size. The climate is not tropical but will yield spring, summer, early fall crops and with the right equipment and plants, and some winter crops as well. Farmers would have to traverse Chicago’s suburban sprawl. In order to get to the central city it could take over three hours for some in bad traffic. Chicago has lost its direct access to food. The sprawl has eaten up those very farms that could have supported the city. That’s considered development.

However, much of the land in the suburbs could be made into communal or public gardens that could produce surplus. Large private lawns could be converted to garden space. But, when the suburbs were built the topsoil was stripped and sold to farms. The soil there now would be marginal at best and take years to build up to past levels of fertility. It would be smart to start the process of soil recovery sooner rather than later. Without a crisis it takes the will of the people to make things happen. With a crisis, the government mandates it.

Havana and Belo Horizonte are not typical. They are models for all the worlds urban centers as to what is possible. The situation in Cuba could become a reality for any industrialized country with a sudden cut off of fuel. It shows that if faced with a crisis, industrialized cities and farms can survive without the industry. People can make do with less. People will have less land to grow grass on and more gardens to cultivate. People will drive less and walk more. But, they are fed and they are healthier. Belo Horizonte shows that if the people want to, they can end their own food supply problems before there is a crisis. Belo also shows people that they have rights beyond what the ruling classes say they have. Belo’s model shows that no one should be allowed to take those rights away in order to make a profit.

Profit

Corporate sustainability is rooted in profit. From a corporate point of view to be sustainable is to survive as a corporation. And, the CEO is bound by law to take advantage of any situation that will increase profit for the investors and the share holders. If being green is profitable then the corporation will be green. They don’t become green because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes them money and gives them power and control. That is the same reason corporate behavior destroys the planet’s ecosystems:

For money, power and control.

Corporate profit is different than independently owned, small business profit. It is different than an independent farmer’s profit. Corporate profit is extra. After all expenses are paid, after payroll is met, After taxes have been paid, after donations to charities have been made, after the buildings have been taken care of, after money has been set aside for business improvements, what is left over is the profit. The extra. The more than necessary. This extra does not go to feed people who need it. It does not go to house people who need housing. It does not go to increase benefits or pay the workers more. It certainly does not go to permanently fix the damage to the environment done by the corporation. It goes into the pockets of the investors. And this amount of profit must stay the same or increase. Nothing may stand in the way of profit.

Nothing.

Greed

Everyone can get paid well and have benefits if a business is non-profit or not for profit. So why do we have for profit hospitals now? Why do we have for profit food businesses? Why do we have for profit anything when all can be provided if businesses were run as non or not for profits? Because the investors would not make money. And, it’s the investors who put up the money to start new businesses so they can make more money and control more businesses.

What if the money came from somewhere else?

In a highly evolved society, profit cannot even be a factor. Food needs to be made available to all people regardless, with no strings attached. All the food necessary to maintain a complete, healthy human being connected to the food and the Earth. Basic needs such as healthy whole food, clean and safe water, clean air, whole body healthcare and healing services, safe and healthy housing, education systems that nourish and develop the whole person, these things need to be available to all people. If profit is eliminated from the equation then the above becomes possible.

A non-profit hospital? A non-profit grocery store? Free water from municipalities? Non-profit housing? Free heat? People’s basic and fundamental needs should not be for profit. No one should be exploiting another human’s need to feel secure and safe and healthy. No one should be exploiting someone’s need to eat and feed their family. No one should stand in the way of someone being able to be educated to a point where they can reach their personal full potential. No one should be allowed to exploit and profit from the destruction of the Earth, its environment or ecosystem. No one. These exploitations in industrial society have lead us, as a planet, to a pivotal and critical time. These exploitations need to end

now.

Brazil

Apologies for the late posting.

The following chapter covers another example of urban successes dealing with food and sustainability of cities. Brazil has implemented nation policies to reallocate distribution of food so as to end hunger, giving impoverished city people access to quality, locally grown food at a price even they can afford. What started as a local undertaking in the city of Belo Horizonte, has become national policy. And this happened without a crisis. What would need to happen in the US to implement such policies here?

A change in our society. A change in our perception of how our society works. And most of all, a change within ourselves.

Brazil

Belo Horizonte, a city of 2.5 million people has ended hunger without a major crisis to spur its government into action. The government did it on its own.

In 1993, a new mayor, Patrus Ananias, declared food as a right of the citizenship. His administration went further and said that if you, the citizen, are too poor to buy food in the market you are no less a citizen and that they, the government officials, are still accountable to you. Where in our culture and country do public officials say these things or make such pronouncements and then actually act on them?

Belo’s population already participated directly in government by being part of a “participatory budgeting” process. By directly overseeing how the officials spent the city’s money, the involved populace was a check and balance that made the new food policies possible. Within the first six years Belo’s food-as-a-right policies were enacted, more than 31,000 people began participating in the budgeting process. A doubling from before the policies were enacted. People were interested.

Under the new policies, farmers gained choice spots within the city to sell their produce directly to the population. The farmers were not exploited by a for-profit system of food distribution.  The producers of the city’s food benefited directly from their labor.

The new city policies created ABC markets. ABC is a Portuguese acronym for “food at low prices”. The market owners could set up shop in the best spots in the city and sell produce at market prices, but they had to sell about twenty healthy items at only two thirds the going rate. Another thing the government had the market owners do to give back to the community from which they made their profits, was to drive produce trucks every weekend to poorer areas of the city which did not get the benefit of affordable markets.

The mayor’s policies also benefited the children in the schools. Federal money that was once used to buy corporate, processed food went to buy local, whole food for school lunches. The policies created extensive community and school gardens. The policies also created three large and several small restaurants called “Restaurante Popular” or, “People’s Restaurants”. They serve mostly locally grown food at around fifty cents per meal. Eighty five percent of the People’s Restaurant’s patrons are low income but no one has to prove they are poor to eat there. There are no strings attached. People have retained their dignity.

Another way that the government is working for the people is to have transparent pricing in the marketplace. In cooperation with a local university a price survey of forty five basic foods and household items is done at dozens of shops. This survey is posted online, at bus stops, on television, on radio shows and in newspapers. In this way the market is kept honest and people know where the cheapest prices are for the things they need most.

Belo Horizonte’s hunger ending initiatives cost the city two percent of its budget. The government in Belo fought to show that the state is not a terrible and incompetent administrator. They are showing that the state does not have to provide everything, only to facilitate. Now, the initiatives of the Patrus Ananias administration have evolved into a federal program that is helping to end hunger in Brazil as a whole. Given time, this may succeed.

In the U.S. watchdog groups uncover price fixing and manipulation. Watchdog groups uncover questionable food practices and ingredient use.  These watchdog groups are an outgrowth from a system that refuses to be held accountable to the general public it is supposed to serve. What if Belo Horizonte’s system was adopted for ingredient sourcing? For farm practices? What if mandatory labeling of GMO, GEO, irradiated, cloned, nano-modified or enhanced food and products existed? Corporations say changing their labels is too expensive. However, label changes are routine. A new look, a new ingredient added, a special run of a product during a holiday, are types of changes that occur throughout the year. Not being able to place some kind of a designation on their labels due to expense is a flimsy excuse at best, but an excuse that was considered good enough to stifle resistance. We need to not be so accepting of excuses.

To end hunger in our cities is easy. It takes the will of the governed as well as the government. It takes time. It takes knowledge and work. But it does not take as much money as people think. Relative to the cost of a military weapons system

it takes very little money

indeed.

Cuba

This next chapter is primarily sourced from my talks with Andy Gaertner, who visited Cuba while in the Peace Corps. The numerical statistics were gleaned from numerous sources. These numbers would vary widely from source to source. Based on the bias of the sources and the varying contexts from which they were presenting the numbers, I gave them a best guess. Connected to what Andy was saying in our talks I believe the numbers I present here are accurate.

Cuba

After the big Soviet pull out of 1989 and U.S. embargo, Cuba found itself not able to internally support the mechanized system of farming it had become dependent on. There was immediate shortage and hunger. There was no fuel to transport the food.  Nor was there fuel to refrigerate the food in order to store and transport it. Havana, the capital of Cuba, a city of 2 million people at the time, had no way to feed its populace.  

For three years the people of Havana had hardship. During this time they started to figure out their own problems. People concentrated on producing for themselves what they needed. The government set up a system of extension workers to help urban gardeners get the knowledge and supplies they needed. The government also made decisions that had to be followed. All vacant land was appropriated and made available for food production. Scientists were tasked to devise systems for urban agriculture that would maximize efficiency and yield. Within five years after the Soviet pull out the crisis had abated.

Currently, the population of Havana is roughly 2.2 million people. They are fed but they have less food than before. Their diet is limited to what is available at the time. There is less space to live as the land is necessary for food production. Thirty percent of Havana’s available land is under cultivation and is made up of two hundred gardens. These gardens produce seven crops a year and up to ninety percent of Havana’s fruits and vegetables, all from within the city’s borders. Sixty percent of Havana’s total food is produced inside the city. Forty percent, mostly animal products, comes from the countryside. Imagine a city the size of Houston, Texas (2.2 million), and a slightly larger Chicago (2.8 million), doing the same.

However, Cuba is a tropical country. In the upper Midwest, winters make the seven crops per year an improbable goal. Midwest farming can produce crops year round with the right techniques, technologies and plants that are adapted or indigenous to the area. But, the people would have to make a radical diet change. It would also take an intensive amount of infrastructure to make this kind of system happen, a sustainability problem in and of itself. Can this work here if it had to? Why can’t this process begin before a crisis does happen? Before the infrastructure to build the gardens is difficult to come by? Can the food system change now and not when it is forced to?

Of course. All that needs to happen is for the people to want it to and be willing to do the work.

In Havana, it was theorized that when the crisis of shortage abated, the people in the cities would become less interested in food production. The opposite happened. Interest grew. Since there were no for profit corporate systems controlling food production in Cuba, the people who worked the gardens got to experience the direct benefit of their labor. What this kind of agriculture did was to connect people to their food source - the land. They ate more fresh foods. And, coupled with the physical nature of gardening, walking more and riding bikes because there was no fuel, people became healthier. The use of plants for medicine grew as there weren’t as many pharmaceuticals available. Hospitals practiced less interventions. Currently, the infant mortality rate in Cuba is lower than the United States. All this with much less industry, importation and infrastructure.

Why can’t this be our reality?