We received this thoughtful letter from an Edible Portland reader and wanted to share it with you. We love receiving letters to the editor. If you have thoughts to share, don’t hesitate to write us.
We invite your contributions to this discussion.
Dear Editor:
The article about the standoff between fishermen and wave energy developers in the latest issue of Edible Portland got me thinking about ways in which grassroots community organizing can protect people from powerful outside interests who, facing no effective organized opposition, might try—as in the case of the offshore energy developers—to steamroll their projects through regardless of the effects on the local community. I also started to think of the broader challenges to our health and well-being, ranging from food security, to environmental pollution, to industrial contaminants in our food.
There remain huge hazards and obstacles to achieving the healthy and ecological future most of us long to see. To take a concrete example, consider even such a mundane area as cooking oils and fats. Here in Oregon, we are still behind the curve in eliminating dangerous hydrogenated cooking fats from our food supply, whereas our neighbor to the south has already officially banned them. I know for a fact from talking to some vendors at our beloved farmers markets that these dangerous poisons lurk even there. This kind of situation is totally unacceptable, yet we won’t succeed in overcoming it without a lot of thoughtful organizing of the kind that Edible Portland admirably documents in its pages.
In the future, I would like to see interested community groups, such as vendors and patrons of our local farmers markets, come together to consider forming Codes of Ethical Conduct that all concerned parties would be encouraged and pressured to strive to adhere to. Such Codes of Ethical Conduct would seek to ensure that our food products are produced in as ecologically sound and socially just a fashion as possible, with a view towards protecting the health and welfare of all, including workers, consumers, and the natural environment.
Perhaps some analog to “Fair Trade” certification, but applied domestically, may evolve from this effort. In the meantime, it seems we are stuck with much more limited and piecemeal efforts, such as the campaigns to ban trans fats I’ve mentioned, which surprisingly seems to have totally bypassed our own state. I think this demonstrates the value of taking a broader view of these challenges, which such hypothetical “Codes of Conduct” could be one approach towards.
I believe that a massive groundswell is finally forming, both in our region and in this country as a whole, demanding a shift in business as usual. The movement for what some call “SOLE” foods (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) will be one of the keys to this shift.
I would really love to see a serious dialogue begun around this question of how to attack this broader problem, because piecemeal campaigns too often leave us in a defensive and reactive posture, whereas the movement we need for the future must be bold, visionary, and take the initiative.
Guy Berliner
