Dear friends,

Food is basic.

Lester Brown — founder of both the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, author of over 50 books on environmental issues, recipient of 26 honorary degrees and a MacArthur Fellowship, and (according to the Washington Post) “one of the world's most influential thinkers” — has just published a cogent article on the rapidly emerging global food crisis in Foreign Policy magazine.  He clearly outlines the problem and where attention and resources must be put to ameliorate it.

I knew such a crisis was emerging.  I hadn't realized it was emerging so rapidly.

I offer Brown's article here with no further commentary beyond this:  His essay — like most other insightful, data-filled articles of its type — omits the key fact that the political and economic systems that generate such situations are not built to respond to them in a truly life-affirming way.  “Issues” and “crises” are symptoms of those dysfunctional systems.  If social critics and activists spent half the attention and resources on actually transforming those systems that we expend on “issues” and “crises”, we would soon see those “issues” and “crises” being replaced by “solutions” and “creative initiatives”.  This is a supreme example of the kind of thing that a wiser democracy — if we had one — would start to address immediately, if it hadn't already done so decades ago.

While many of us work to transform our political and economic systems, we need also to consider what to do in the meantime as these issues and crises continue to grow.  So I also offer below two delightful articles on something that we can all do to ameliorate the impact of the food crisis on our own lives and communities.  The articles describe not only the functionality of urban gardening but also its enjoyment — and its spread in the face of rising food prices.  Significantly, such gardening is a key element in one of the more co-intelligent initiatives I've seen in recent years, the Transition Towns movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns.

Food for thought… and action… and bellies.

Coheartedly,
Tom

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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/10/the_great_food_crisis_of_2011

The Great Food Crisis Of 2011
By Lester Brown

Continue reading “2011 Food Crisis, Urban Gardening, Social Systems”