[Sustainability is not just an action; it’s a mind-set; working
with the earth as a steward; prioritizing both ingredients and labor.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

ON SUSTAINABILITY AS A PRACTICE, A CONSCIOUSNESS SHIFT.  
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Alicia Kennedy
August 24, 2020
From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
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_ Sustainability is not just an action; it’s a mind-set; working
with the earth as a steward; prioritizing both ingredients and labor.
_

,

 

This was originally my introduction to the FoodLab Detroit panel Earth
Is Power: Redefining Eco-Friendly Practices. Devita Davison invited me
to ground the conversation in a piece that could provide context and
take us “36,000 feet in the air” before we got into practical
nitty-gritty. Here’s that attempt—to be buoyant, to be hopeful for
a new world.

Did you ever think you’d hear about a farmers’ market speakeasy?
That’s what the government in Puerto Rico has forced upon local
agriculture and those who wish to support it. While the supermarkets
and malls are open, the weekly outdoor market in Old San Juan, where I
live, has had to resort to pre-orders via email that are then picked
up in a small alleyway. Other farms, too, have been selling their
wares via WhatsApp and making deliveries, with local residents passing
around the intel on where to get the most gorgeous eggplants that
week.

Without the support of the government, through both subsidies and
infrastructure, we are forced to buy local produce as though it is
contraband, as though it is illegal. It feels clandestine, which is
fun for a little while. But all I want is to roam the market, mask on
and hands sanitized, and pick precisely what it is I will cook that
week. I want to buy some flowers on a whim. I can only hope to have
those Saturdays restored, one day. For now, I send my order via
WhatsApp, sight unseen. Even more than usual, it is an act of
resistance to eat local produce in a place where nearly 90 percent of
what is consumed is imported as an effect of continued colonization.

There’s a beauty in how rapidly people came together to keep farmers
and small food producers able to sell their wares, though, and it’s
heartening to see how many were not willing to sacrifice their ongoing
commitment to local agriculture just because the government was
actively acting against it. It reminds me of how, in New York, Claire
Sprouse, owner of restaurant and bar Hunky Dory, serves a
yogurt-whey-based eau-de-milk made by Matchbook Distilling on Long
Island. The eau-de-milk, which is also made with grapefruit, uses up
whey from a local goat-milk farm that would otherwise go down the
drain. Sprouse told PUNCH, “It’s totally weird and
sustainably-minded, just like me.” To be a bit weird, to be
sustainably-minded: It means taking the long road. It means seeking
out what supports balance between the earth, humanity, and animal
life.

I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories—farmers’ market
speakeasies, booze made from waste— which seem small yet, I’m
convinced, are anything but. We’re trained to understand local
impact as not enough impact. Common, mainstream sense over the last
few decades has made sure that scale is the most important concern,
not sustainability. Something that isn’t grown or produced to feed
the whole world is of little worth, or only of peculiar concern—a
human interest story. Well, we are humans, and it’s quite clear that
the earth has not been able to withstand our obsession with scaling
industries ever upwards.

What is sustainability, though? According to the dictionary, it is
“avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to
maintain an ecological balance.” The connotation in late capitalism
becomes a bit murkier, because people still want to sell things that
don’t necessarily prioritize “ecological balance,” only the
appearance of such. This is why popular conversations on
sustainability have mainly centered on individual actions: Are you
taking your coffee to go in disposable cups? Are your groceries packed
in plastic? Was that bell pepper in your salad shipped across an
ocean? That’s why it can seem like the best thing to do is go to the
farmers’ market, go to the restaurants advertising their
“farm-to-table'' ethos. Sustainability, in the popular
understanding, is something best left up to someone else while you
make what have been deemed “smart” choices around what to buy to
perform ecofriendliness. Doing things like ordering from small
farmers, or eating and drinking at Hunky Dory.

As I’ve been mulling over the idea that “earth is power” and how
to be eco-friendly beyond simple consumer choices, these two recent
examples from my homes of Puerto Rico and New York have rung out in my
head. The end of both of these scenarios is a consumer exchange, but
before they get to that end, they are pieces of local systems that are
actively engaged with each other. People who support local agriculture
are already in contact with farmers and can thus step in when the
earth shows its power in literal ways, as we see with tropical storms
and hurricanes and global warming, and when the government does not
function in the interests of the land or the people. For Matchbook
Distilling, making all of its alcohol using New York State grain
spirits and being in touch with their local ecosystem of not just
farms, but restaurant owners, allows them to see spaces for use where
others might see waste. To be focused locally and to be, as Sprouse
puts it, “sustainably-minded” requires a bit more work, a bit more
foresight, but it yields opportunity and it yields deliciousness. It
seeks balance.

What’s important to think about when considering these examples of
creativity by local farmers and Matchbook Distilling is that even a
person who works outside of food is part of a food system. Perhaps
it’s a radical one, where all food is grown and consumed for
subsistence at a collective or a commune; perhaps it’s a pretty
common one in the United States, where the supermarket and takeout
reign. Whichever kind of food system one is a part of, it’s
important to consider: What does it look like to be a sustainable
participant in that system? How can I become part of the system in a
bigger way, whether by growing my own windowsill herbs or engaging in
mutual aid with those who live around me? Perhaps there are local food
sovereignty efforts that could use my hands, my dollars, or both. We
must be asking ourselves: How can I learn more, where can I do more,
and who needs my support?

What the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed without a doubt is that
sustainability includes individual actions, but it means much more is
demanded of us to participate in collective actions that seek
balance—that allow life to be sustained. Not every individual action
is individualistic in its intentions and effects. It means investment
in local food systems with an eye toward sovereignty. It means
properly paid restaurant staff at the farm-to-table restaurant and
every restaurant, café, and market—or else they should not exist.
It means safety, living wages, and the right to organize for
farmworkers and those processing meat, whether at small or industrial
levels. It means breaking up industrial food production, full stop. It
means systems are in place making sure everyone is fed on a daily
basis, and systems are in place to respond to emergency, whether that
is a literal storm that wipes out a crop or a global pandemic that
leaves most workers vulnerable, with a government that won’t step in
to help. It means reparations and the restoration of land to those to
whom it has historically belonged, to those who have historically
worked it and retained the knowledge of how to work with earth’s
power, not against it.

Because I think that’s what sustainability really is: Working with
the earth as a steward, not in reaction to the devastation it has
proven it can create. It’s about recognizing our culpability in
damaging systems and envisioning how we can change, individually and
collectively; about prioritizing both ingredients and labor.
Sustainability is not just an action; it’s a mind-set. How will you
use your consciousness today?

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