Sustainable food’s wokeness problem strikes again

badscienceshenanigans:

Ok guys so there’s this thing happening in sustainable agriculture that is problematic as fuck, and we can stop it.

I’m working with a group to gather signatures to ask USDA not to ban organic aquaponics and hydroponics from being certified organic.

This is super important for sustainable development. Why? So glad you asked. 

Urban, indoor agriculture is RIGHT ON THE VERGE of being economically feasible. That means sustainable jobs in cities. Urban farms like Growing Power, Green Collar Farms, and other woke businesses and nonprofits are already working the hell out of affordable urban food, training, and jobs. 

These farms rely on aquaponics and hydroponics because there’s not a lot of open dirt in the city, and what is there is often contaminated with lead and cadmium. You can’t grow food in that soil. 

Crucially, some of these urban farms still use organic techniques– organic nutrient sources, no pesticides, and using beneficial microflora to fight disease– right in the city, without soil. It’s genius. And those farming benevolently in cities depend on organic prices to make rent with their crops in the city. 

But because the sustainability movement in the US is driven in large part by white people, there’s a push right now to “protect organic integrity” by banning anything that isn’t grown in dirt. Apparently it isn’t enough for environmental injustice to mean the soil is contaminated; according to this push, we need to throw some more economic fallout on top of it. 

The motive for “protecting organic integrity” is cold hard cash, in case anybody was wondering. Details here, along with a lot of bollocks accusations about how existing organic rules are being broken by “foreigners” and therefore the solution is to make new rules to punish urban farming in the US. Honest to God. People with that kind of logical follow-through ability shouldn’t be making national policy. 

The worst part is I can’t get my colleagues in sustainable ag & food to give a shit. They’re ok with the science arguments against it but when I tell them about how it’s racially problematic they shut right the fuck down. The amount of silencing that’s going on with racial problems in sustainable food is horrifying. And yet this is a policy area that has huge implications for physical and economic health of communities of color. 

If you’re a US citizen over 13: Fight back against idiotic, money-grubbing racist food policy by signing here. 

Please signal boost!