This is far from a sustainable method of living. Such large-scale distribution of food uses up a lot of oil, both in terms of the gasoline required for trucking and the plastics used in most processed/packaged foods.
In addition, this system has several serious flaws. The “just-in-time” method of inventory management used by most stores means large scale disruptions of the food supply to one’s local area is possible should any disaster occur, as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the recent earthquakes and tsunami in Japan have demonstrated. And, longer term, rising oil prices (and the likelihood of continued increase in prices over the long term as the days of cheap fuel are probably over for good, absent highly short-term gluts of supply) mean inflation in the cost of food in the current distribution system is a given even before factoring in Ben Bernanke’s inflationary monetary policies.
And I haven’t begun to calculate the ancillary costs of damage to the environment in general and arable land in particular from centralized distribution practices of moving mass-produced food across long distances. Shortages of food due to droughts, the ongoing loss of arable land, and new crop diseases thanks to genetic modification of crops certainly won’t help to keep food prices low.
In other words, the cost of the current food production and distribution system will at some point become prohibitive, assuming the unsustainable practices of big agribusiness even produce enough food over the long term for the current distribution system to function.
TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY
Given the above scenario, as well as my goal of abandoning the dollar, I decided that there is no better time than the present to look for and/or start building alternative systems of sustainable food production and distribution. I also look at taking steps toward sustainable living as an effective anti-poverty measure, as food, after housing, tends to be one of the most costly budgetary items in household finances in the US.
Taking on the project of sustainable living has certainly involved a making a number of significant changes in how I live my life, but perhaps not quite as many as one might think. I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and since then have lived entirely in big cities. A lot of writing about sustainable living focuses on farm life. But I have no desire to simply follow the plans of others. I love cities and have no desire to give them up, and I do not believe that I have to buy a farm and move out to a rural location to live a sustainable life. Instead, I try to focus on what I have to work with and seek creative solutions when faced with a problem of urban dwelling. Everyone has different needs, circumstances, resources, etc. I am working with what I have got.
So, while for some moving to a more rural location might be what works for them, I moved from one big city to another, on the same continent, but from west to east, and to another country. One big part of my goal to abandon the dollar was leaving the US, but that is certainly not a necessity, nor does simply moving to another country with a different currency solve the problem. Every currency in the world is tied in some way to the dollar. So when I speak of abandoning the dollar, I don’t just mean US dollars, I mean all currencies.
Living in a large city and having to pay rent on a flat, I am not yet able to fully abandon the dollar. I think of it as a process. But one of the easiest changes I can make in my life, I have found, is to makes changes regarding how I produce and acquire the food that I eat. Thus far, my partner and I have taken the following steps:
* Get involved in a nearby community garden
* Start growing food in the backyard
* Bartering food with friends and neighbors who also grow their own food* Avoid purchasing packaged food as much as possible
* When purchasing food, buy local
I want to talk in detail about each of these options, but this post is already getting long, so I will address them in new posts in the near future.
But for now, suffice it to say that when fruits and vegetables don’t have to travel thousands of miles before we can buy it at the store, they are very fresh, taste better, provide greater nutritional value, and also last longer before going bad (leading to less waste). Such approaches are also helping us to foster local economies and provide us with significantly better quality of food.
In addition, these simple steps allow us reduce our dependency on the dollar, all the while keeping us well fed on a significantly smaller budget than we had while living unsustainably in the US. When we do go to the store, local, organic foods are largely priced less than conventional foods shipped from far away, and buying bulk goods (stored in jars we bring from home) reduces dollar costs and use of plastic as well. Of course, eating food from the backyard or community garden costs very little in dollar terms, with only minor increases in labor.
All of this has also enormously reduced our trash output. With less packaged food due to gardening and bulk purchases, we have noticed a significant reduction in both our trash and recycling. I'd love to get to the point where we produce zero trash and recycling, either reusing or composting (which can go right bank into the gardens) all of our waste, but this is a process and we aren't there yet.
Just a few years ago I never would have even considered spending a significant amount of time thinking about or putting into practice steps towards sustainable living. This is one bonus in our lives that has come from the decline of the US economy. My partner and I never considered trying to do without the dollar before, and felt trapped in almost manic, fearful, career-focused lives. Our first step was determining that we actually didn't want to live our lives around work; we wanted work to supplement our lives.
By focusing on meeting our basic needs rather than an endless black hole of consumerism and wealth accumulation, we began radically changing the way we live day to day. My partner has even changed "careers" and now works in local, organic food distribution, which has obviously become one of our greater interests. Until we can abandon the dollar all together, at least we are working to support local economies and food networks. As well, after rent and other basic necessities, we are looking for every opportunity to convert dollars in to goods that help us toward living a renewable and sustainable lifestyle. For example, rather than saving toward a new iPad (which I know I would love), I prefer instead to save for solar panels.
Sustainable living doesn't have to require moving to the countryside, nor does it have to involve some sort of anti-technology fantasy of living like long-dead ancestors. It is about living within our means with the resources in our immediate vicinity: finanancially, energy efficiently, in a way that helps rather than hurts those around us, and without endless damage to the earth itself. Sustainable living literally feeds us, the 99% percent, and, in our eschewing of the dollar as we meet our basic needs, we starve the rich of the very same dollars they endlessly desire to accumulate from our former patterns of consumption.
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