Do we have a right to know?

I was listening to NPR on my way home from the Market yesterday, and I was struck by the words of a writer named Ellen Ruppel Shell. She's got a book out titled Cheap: The high cost of discount culture, and at first I thought she was talking about food. Turns out, she could have been.

Yet she was talking about consumer goods, mostly. Clothes, furniture, shoes--stuff like that. But before I actually found out the subject matter, she said some things to Neal Conan that sounded like the things I've often said about food.

Like we don't know where it's coming from. Or who made it. Or how it was made. Or when it was made. And whether or not it's safe.

So it gave me pause, and made me think broadly about our society and its seemingly complacent attitude about all things bought and sold. And I got to thinking maybe we ought to care a little more about having access to the answers regarding the where, by whom, the when, and the safety question.

Then the cycnic in me led me to thinking about why commerce is the way it is, and I concluded the reason we're complacent is because that's exactly what corporations want from us; they want us to buy things, not ask questions.

Still, I have to believe most people would opt for the choice of knowing versus not knowing. I mean it's not a giant leap to think we'd rather know about who is growing the food we eat, and where it's grown, and how it's grown, and if it's fresh, and finally, if it's actually safe for us to eat.

And all of this thinking made me think even more abstractly: Do we have a right to know these things? And if we do have such a right, then why are we not exercising it?

It's an interesting question, yet moot. For unless the the question relates to country of origin labeling (COOL), we don't have such a right. And if one looks at the number of years it took between the enactment of COOL as the law of the land, and it's implementation, it becomes clear that BIG FOOD has BIG POWER in these poorly united States. Moreover COOL's widespread abuses and its lack of enforcement shows just how dull what few teeth it has are. Too dull to bite an abuser, for sure.

And so it seems to me at least, that until we start caring enough to ask the questions and insist on the answers, we'll stay in the dark about the things we buy. Sure, we'll trot out an occasional Trojan Horse or two like COOL, and we'll talk about all the recalls and all the sugary, fatty, and salty foods we eat, and we'll complain about hard, juice less peaches, and tasteless Peruvian asparagus, and we might even visit farmers' markets for a couple of months out of the year.

But will we ever come to grips with the truth that we're pretty much all eating the same foods sold to us by the same handful of corporations whom pay their slotting fees for shelf space, exploit poor laborers in developing countries, print a "sell by" date as if it were an indication of quality, and charge us three or four times what they paid?

I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath....

At the end of the day, I'll keep preaching, mostly to the choir it seems, and keep sourcing local foods and processing them for later consumption. At least I'll be making a small dent in the armor of BIG FOOD. And at least I'll know most of the answers about what I'm eating and feeding my family. How 'bout you?

Every season is different

No two growing seasons are alike, at least not here in S.W. Michigan. 2009 however, is really different. Today it's 59 degrees as I write this, and the wind is out of the North at 8 MPH, and there's a damp mist in the air.

Weather rules. No matter how skilled the grower, Mother Nature is the final arbiter, and sooner or later, growers learn to accept this fact and not let it bother them...too much.

Ditto for the produce buyer who understands Berrien County, Michigan's promise and its uncertainties. The promise, while ever present, can be broken without notice, without reason, and without prejudice. Still, they come from far and wide because when the promise is not broken, some of the world's best fruit may be procured here in abundance.

So far this season though, the fruit has been mediocre. Too much rain, an early heat wave, and now, unseasonably cool weather is putting the breaks on fruit development.

Yet with our gritty soils and inevitable stretches of dry weather, we'll have some outstanding fruit during 2009; we always have, and so long as growers continue to plant fruit here, we always will.