Triggering passages:
“I concluded that we Westerners are truly ignorant…It is the distortions of these modes of thought and their predominance over everything else that have created an unsustainable situation” (Petrini 178 and 179).
“Women-centered agriculture is the basis of food security for rural communities. When the household and the community are food secure, female children are food secure. When the household and the community are food insecure, it is the female children who pay the highest price in term of malnutrition, because of gender discrimination…Only when food is in women’s hands will both food and women be secure” (Shiva 123 and 124).
News Media Context:
“Why Growing Food is The Single Most Impactful Thing You Can Do in a Corrupt Political System”
The simple act of growing our own food directly challenges the control matrix in many authentic ways, which I why some of the mot forward-thinking and strongest-willed people are picking up shovels and defiantly starting gardens. Realfarmacy.com/growing-food-rigged-system/
Discussion:
As I embark on yet another travel/work job, I find that we Westerners are incredibly ignorant of the world around us. We have exported and forced our culture on the world without learning about those we share an earth with. The same is true of food and how we grow food. Monoculture and the Green Revolution are two examples of Western civilization exporting farming knowledge. We force these countries that are viewed as “deficient”, either in nutrition or capital, to conform to Western methods of culture. Citing scientific superiority.
Women and girls are the first people to be left out and the last to be included. In all values created in patriarchy, women and the work of women is to be stamped out. Men must be the center, the identity, and the controlling factor. This is true of science, technology, farming, and business; all areas that directly affect agriculture and growing food. When we think of farming, we do not include those women who maintain gardens that feed their families, we only think of vast corn (substitute soy or wheat) fields ‘manned’ by ‘family’ farmers that use mechanized methods to produce large quantities of GMO foods. Women are the future of sustainability as we hold the knowledge of balance, peace, and respect.
As a woman who looks at America today, I see no place for us. I see hyper and toxic masculinity that reeks of the worst patriarchal morals. To grow my own food is a direct path of resistance. It is how we (women and all peoples) can reclaim our earth, feed our families, and empower ourselves. Our ignorance as westerners be damned, it is time for the people to garden; it is time for the women to claim our knowledge.
Works Citied
Petrini, Carlo. (2005). Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should BE Good, Clean, and Fair. Random House Incorporated.
Pietrowski, Alex. (June 2016). Why Growing Food is The Single Most Impactful Thing You Can Do in a Corrupt Political System. http://realfarmacy.com/growing-food-rigged-system/
Shiva, Vandana. (2016). Who Really Feeds the World: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology. Berkeley, CA. North Atlantic Books.