May / June 2002 - Couplings

Columns

Follow the food�
by Kelly Mason and Sarah Gray Steiner


Mother/daughter team searches for answers to the world�s food problems

Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lapp� wrote Diet for a Small Planet , a pivotal book highlighting misconceptions about world hunger and the flawed strategies designed to overcome it. During her research for Diet , Frances discovered that, despite an exponentially growing world population, not only was there more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but also that the solutions offered by the experts - more chemicals, bigger farms, more technology - might actually make the food crisis worse. In 1987, Frances� research and activism concerning world food and democracy earned her the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, considered the alternative Nobel Prize, for her "vision and work healing our planet and uplifting humanity."

Three decades after writing Diet and 11 other books, Frances was sitting in a neighborhood bar in Manhattan with her two adult children, Anna and Anthony, escaping from the rain and trying to determine what her next project would be.

Diet for a Small Planet celebrated its 30th birthday in 2001, but the Lapp�s saw that not only were the issues taken up in the first book still with us today but, from the perspective of Diet , most have worsened. In addition, the 21st century and its technological advancements have raised an entirely new set of questions, particularly regarding the use of genetically engineered or modified foods.

Frances remembers that, to her kids that day in the pub, the solution was obvious - write another book, a follow-up to Diet . "Out of nowhere, it seemed, an adventure began to take shape," she says in the prologue of her new book, Hope�s Edge, co-authored by daughter Anna. Anna, a 28-year-old world traveler, developed a passion for understanding world issues at age three after accompanying her mother on a research trip to Guatemala. With a master�s degree from Columbia University�s International and Public Affairs, Anna was eager to provide her generation�s insight and perspective for Hope�s Edge.

"There was such a dearth of information and real people�s stories," says Anna during a recent Nervy Girl! interview. "It was confusing how to make sense of the world; I felt helpless and despondent about the state of the world."

"As mother and daughter, we had different experiences than if we�d just been researchers," says Anna. "In people�s homes, we were seen as a family coming to learn about their family, so people trusted us more, opened up to us, and told us very personal things; they could tell we were not there to exploit their story, but to share it."

In India they found many children with stunted growth from malnutrition living in the same city where they saw mountains of grain rotting away, waiting to be exported. But, in addition to the starving families and repressive governments, the Lapp�s also saw people and communities striving for change. They found a thread of hope coursing through an otherwise dismal account of what the human race is doing to its environment and itself.

The Lapp�s met Kenyan women who were experiencing a severe drought, yet had come together to plant trees and food crops, taking an active role in improving their situation. In Brazil, they visited a city where the government had agreed in 1993 that adequate food was a right of every member of the human family. There, local farmers supply hospitals, schools, and public markets with freshly grown fruits, grains, and vegetables. In addition to this, farmers are moving toward traditional, organic growing methods that spare the environment and ensure that the soil is viable for the next generation. In other parts of Brazil, former migrant workers stake claims to their own farmland and, as Frances relates, after working so hard to get it, they aren�t about to take a chance of jeopardizing it by using dangerous herbicides and pesticides.

"In all of these places, as different as they appear, we discovered people who are not accepting corporate global capitalism as it is, but are evolving it so that growing and eating good food�and economic life itself�is again embedded in life-affirming values and community," Frances writes in Hope�s Edge.

At the same time, however, Anna and Frances project a sense of urgency�a sense of more work to be done.

Both Lapp� women are advocates of vegetarianism, in support of how many resources are wasted on growing livestock compared with feeding people directly with grains and water. Only a fraction of the nutrients in the raw products fed to livestock are returned to us in meat. Processed food is also a no-no.

But most of all, the question of genetically engineered (GE) foods looms large. Frances relates that most people, when asked, don�t believe they have ever eaten genetically engineered foods, which can include fruits, vegetables�such as soybeans, corn, and tomatoes�and dairy products (according to the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Food, cows are often treated with rBGH, a genetically engineered growth hormone).

At this time, there are no laws in the United States requiring genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such. In short, if it�s not certified organic, there�s no way of knowing how it was produced. Currently, we don�t know what hazardous effects these substances might have on our health, but some organizations, like NW RAGE (Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering), a grassroots group working to educate people about GE foods, say GE foods are linked to diseases from allergies to cancer. Unfortunately, science hasn�t yet been able to prove one way or the other.

According to the Lapp�s, the solution is clear - small local farms using environmentally friendly growing methods and growing organic foods. If we follow the food, it will lead us to ourselves. Our choices of what we eat can and will have an effect on the world�s food problems.

"I used to think being hopeful sounded cheesy, but after this project, I kind of �came out of the closet,� so to speak, as a hopeful person," says Anna. "It�s not about being a �Polyanna.� What choice do we have but to be hopeful?" NG

Visit www.dietforasmallplanet.com for more information about Hope�s Edge and other books and global community efforts by the Lapp�s.

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