New Directions for the Sustainable Agriculture Movement: A Conversation about Strategy

January 2005 and beyond...

Judith Redmond

Judith Redmond grew up and went to school in California. As a researcher for the California Institute for Rural Studies she analyzed the structure of five labor intensive crop industries in California and also researched the implementation of federal water policy in California’s large farming districts. This water policy research was critical in a successful lawsuit calling for proper implementation of federal water laws. Judith started farming at Full Belly in 1989, while still the Executive Director of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). Judith now works full-time at Full Belly, focusing on planting border strips of native hedgerows and management of the 600-member Community Supported Agriculture project. She is also the President of CAFF and still actively involved as a volunteer. She has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the Public Advisory Board of the U.C. Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education Program, treasurer of the Committee for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture, and member of the board of Sacramento River Partners. She was a Governor-appointed member of the Bay Delta Advisory Council from 1995 through 2000, chairing the Water Use Efficiency Work Group and serving on the Water Marketing Work Group. She is the author of several articles and papers.

Judith Redmond
Full Belly Farm, CAFF
Guinda, CA

Californians live in an agricultural cornucopia but the California sustainable agriculture movement hasn’t adequately engaged in many of the issues facing mainstream farmers.

Our movement is one of the most powerful of our time. As such, we have an exciting opportunity to address issues that affect people’s daily lives. It is our responsibility to rise to that opportunity with a disciplined, strategic and systemic analysis.

California is the most agriculturally productive state in the nation, with no other state coming close. (Ag receipts in 2002 were $27.8 billion.) Of the top 10 ag producing counties in California seven are in the San Joaquin Valley.
California’s large farms play a huge role in setting state and national policy around food and farming. The challenge that I am proposing is that our movement, if it was more actively engaged in addressing the issues of mainstream agriculture, could be a fitting counterweight to the powerful agricultural interests that are controlling the economics and politics of agriculture today.

As an example, I’m going to mention three issues. Perhaps the biggest issue that we need to better address is the economic depression in agriculture faced by family farmers and their communities in the San Joaquin Valley. I’m thinking of the people who grew up farming and whose families have been farming for generations. If you talk to them today, you will find them full of stories of the hard times they are facing. I think we need to have better answers for these farmers.

A second issue for us to become more engaged in can be summarized as “water”. There are enormous transformations, with implications for agricultural sustainability, that have been taking place in the San Joaquin Valley during the last decade largely as a result of changes in water policy and the build up of salinity. These issues may offer some very interesting challenges and opportunities for the sustainable agriculture movement.
Immigration is another example of an issue that is huge for agriculture but which sus ag advocates have not been able to get a hand-hold in.

So I challenge us to become more actively engaged in addressing the needs and concerns of mainstream agriculture.

The sustainable agriculture movement needs to have a better frame for understanding the issues of hunger and malnutrition, and needs to do a better job of addressing them.

More than 840 million of the world’s people are chronically hungry and not getting enough food to achieve full physical and mental development. Most of the world’s hungry and undernourished people live in rural communities, on plots of land so small that they are effectively landless.

Many people in urban areas also lack access to healthy food. Fast food and liquor stores dominate as full-service groceries take flight from the low-income inner cities. This lack of food access has health consequences: In October 2002, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued results from a 2000 survey, which found that nationwide, more than 15 percent of children ages 6 to 19 were overweight, predisposing them to many chronic diseases and other forms of malnutrition.

Addressing hunger and malnutrition should be one of our first priorities, but these problems seem to almost be institutionalized as part of the current system. Powerful global corporations say that the reason there is hunger is simply because the latest technologies like genetically modified food have not yet been adopted, On the other hand, we know that issues of equity and distribution play a primary role.

The sustainable agriculture movement actively supports the safety net provided by WIC, Food Stamps, school food programs and food banks. When asked about the high cost of organic food however, it is also important to respond with a more systemic analysis that builds from the premise that cheap food rides on cheap labor and environmental pollution. Anyone advocating that food must be cheaper would be perpetuating the existence of a vast population of people who simply are not paid enough for their work. The cheaper the food, the worse the conditions of the labor and the more public clean-up of environmental pollution will be required.

So the second challenge is: what can the sustainable agriculture movement do to better address issues of hunger and malnutrition? We need to be clear in our analysis and response to the statements from wholesalers and the press that organic food is “too expensive”.

Build a stronger policy voice.

Earlier I said that we’ve been sidelined on some of the issues that really matter to farmers. I mentioned water and immigration. I also think that we need to be more front and center on the federal farm bill, which should allocate funds to conservation and development of markets for local farmers. These funds should come from the commodity programs which federal legislators have been unable to reform for years. California could play a much stronger role on federal farm bill campaigns.

In order to win on these kinds of important issues, I have two observations:

First, while various elements of the sustainable agriculture movement have engaged in successful and strategic policy work over the last decade, we have not always been coordinated. While the grassroots and community-based nature of policy work are critical to its success, it is a big mistake to think that central coordination is not necessary.

Second, in order to have an impact on these issues, we need to build alliances and partnerships with non-profits, businesses, representatives from all sectors of the food system, the media, health, food security, and community development. The strength of these partnerships will depend upon how well we understand our common values and shared interests.
So, the first strategy I’m proposing is to build a stronger, more coordinated policy voice that includes as broad a set of constituencies as possible on a given issue.

Build the Community Based Food System

We have the capacity to model a system that supports family farmers, equitable markets, local processing plants, independently owned grocery stores and distribution networks -- in other words, the entire infrastructure that is needed for a more sustainable food system.

George Lakoff, a political analyst, says that we need to think in terms of strategic initiatives. A strategic initiative is a plan in which a change in one carefully chosen issue area has effects over many other issue areas.
Our efforts to build the community based food system are a strategic initiative and more specifically, I think that the Farm to School, Farm to Institution and Farm to Food Service efforts qualify. These programs have the potential to address several critical problems at once. They open up substantial new markets for small and mid-size farms; deal with food access and malnutrition issues; and help to build the distribution infrastructure that a community-based food system needs. Finally, as these programs grow, they will force us to explore business models that better allow for community control and community investment.

So, the second strategy that I’m suggesting is to build the community based food system in such a way that it works on the ground for family farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and also addresses hunger and malnutrition. I believe that the work started in this vein during the last few years has the potential to achieve these goals during the next ten.

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