Assignment 4; A modified executive summary

Create a proposal for People's Food Cooperative, identifying...

1. A problem area related to a wider food politics or food industry context.

My group talked about various problems relating to food politics and the food industry. We came up with a few different fairly broad topics. I'll just refer to it as "Industrial Organic". Agribusiness, food miles, industrial ownership, and the sporadic root and branch system that has developed this system, are causing an uprising and confusion among the vast majority of our population, the consumers of the food, us, we who buy the food that is unpackaged in the department store, that is unboxed in the warehouse of that store, that is shipped in on a large truck from a larger warehouse, from a larger farm, which uses even more non-renewable resources, which puts us even farther in to the hole we are continuously digging.

2. What is the position of a food coop like People's in the expanding natural food industry and in local markets?

I believe that People's position can be found in their core values. Their commitment to community, their passion for healthy food and healthy people, and the idea of sharing and growing, supporting, and embracing the growth that they experience through the expansion of knowledge, education, redevelopment, and retracing the roots and original ideas and traditions behind healthy people, families, places, and more importantly, entrusting and catering towards the futures of themselves and those people that they can and will reach through this education.

This position allows them a warm, soft, healthy, and absolutely solid place within this strong web of community arms they have helped weave. Without that idea of community and group ownership People's coop may not have the strong root system that it has now--and will exponentially get stronger and thicker as more members join. The cooperative business has recently developed in to a more well known, appreciated, and visited establishment recently, and so with this new popularity, I'm sure it comes along with a sense of confidence and excitement within the members and staff. Without the support and continuous growth of sales and members, I suppose People's may have a different stance of what is happening with the rest of the world and the industrial organic food industry. However, with the strong feedback and increase in consumers within the cooperative, there most likely is a larger sense of hope, patience, and passion committed towards not allowing that kind of growth and education to slow or stop.

With this comes the want and need, and perhaps even obligation?? As members and experienced farmers, political activists, environmental experts, and perhaps even neighbors to allow any kind of possible room and opportunity for this growth to transform in to an open-ended business plan. People's should continue to develop and teach the ideas of community farming, purchasing from local farms, and "grow(ing) your own".

3. A research strategy for investigating the problem you have identified.

My Methodology: How would I study or research the epidemic of industrial and/or industrial organic farming? I would come full circle, and have to evaluate who those are that are experiencing both ends of the food cycles. For example, who is man #1 at the industrial side? At the very top of the economic and the demographic scale. Who "owns" these farms? Can we interview one person or even a handful who are at the very end of that side? Man #2 is going to be our local organic farmer, or perhaps even the consumer who wants to be completely self sustained, and is trying to get around all of the industry plugs.

For some people, man #1 may be the President of the United States, for some, it may be the CEO of McDonald's, or maybe it's Big Food in general. But it would be beneficial to identify why these two parties, man #1, and man #2 are not or can not level our or find a happy medium. I believe that this is really what is stopping our nation, and our planet from identifying with one another, or reversing our destructive patterns. We are in it for ourselves, and we do not identify, relate, or accept that there are others like us on the other side of our chain being directly hit with the repercussions.

b: What would I expect to find from my theories?
I would expect to find a very extentive disconnect between #1 and #2. I would expect there to be a loss of understanding and inability to meet on middle grounds between the two dynamics. I would hope to find that maybe there was a consensus or a national agreement we could find between those who support the industrial business strategy as well as the cooperative business strategy. And a consensus and support of the values of the cooperative over the industrial. I believe that there is an instinctual behavior and passion in all of us to adhere to and desire good, healthy food, that inherintly benefits all those who grow it, move it, make it, and eat it. There is a simple formula underneath the processing of food that goes back to tradition, family and community. Unfortunately it has just become overrun with greed and an economy that has evolved in to overproduction and extreme overconsumption. We all know it would take more than just two sides coming to an agreement in order to smoothly change the system over time. Within lets say a ten year plan, there would be the necessary personal changes and life choices within the consumer population. It is up to those who support and feed the industrial food systems to in just the same way boycott and cut off it's life source.

c: How would I present or communicat my findings? I suppose through studies, interviews, and large surveys among every type of consumer. I would also involve the industrial strategies and farming advice from countries that have succeeded in nation wide community food sources and cooperatives--countries that have gone back, or maybe even never left the traditions of growing your own. You would have to bring in the advice and personal testimonies of those up high in the corporate world and fast food industry, as well as those who have made their millions off of industrial farming. What would I have to do to make you change your ways of give up your income source in leau of something entirely different that may or may not bring in the money of your current situation? I would ask them, I would also ask them, do you have faith that we can turn it around? Are you willing to help? What would convince you to do so? Exactly, tell me exactly, what would convince you? And the list begins...

4. How will I, personally, focus my time and energy on this inquiry? I'm learning, I take every day one at a time, and I learn something new every day. I try and accept the things I cannot change, and learn from my mistakes (I don't really even like to use that word, they're all just choices, with different outcomes). However, I am changing the ways of my everyday life, daily. Baby steps, I will say again, I'm taking very small steps, in doses that I can swallow and follow without faltering, so as to not completely pressure myself in to a life that I'm not educated enough for. So, education first... I work in the garden, I'm working on the farm, I learn from others around me who are experienced and can teach me the tools I need to be my ultimate root system in the future. I am learning to grow and eat my own food. I would like eat nothing else but food that I have helped grow, or that I know was grown with the care I would put in my own food. I view my everyday choices and my life goals and plans with a new hesitation... "is this good for my community, will I be wasting excessively? Will I be wasting at all?" I'm going to leave my job, this is one of the areas that I'm baby stepping my way out of, I believe that I am supporting the industrial food industry by working at a restaurant that does not have values in serving good food. Instead, it is about the quantity of food they can push out, as fast as they can push it. Our meat selections are coming from who knows where, but according to my superiors, it's definitely not free range, and it's definitly not local. That's enough for me, I can't justify working there as easily as I used to. So, I have to choose the things that I can change, help grow, and be passionate about; and perhaps I just have to leave the things and the places that I can not change, besides cutting of my life source from it. I am, or will be, one less consumer and one less body working for the corporation.

5. How does my inquiry relate to the four University Studies Goals?
Critical Thinking, Human Experience, Ethics, and Communication.

First off, I have so much to work on. I thought I was a complete "Earth Muffin" before I started this course. Turns out, I'm far from it. I used to shop at whole foods daily, 70 percent of my housemate's and I's groceries were purchase from trader joes, and I still drive my car a few times a week. Among many other things. I am nowhere near as environmentally sound and clean as I had imagined, and the days of tooting my own horn have come to a screeching halt. But I will say that the critical thinking that went about through our readings, through our classes and within conversations and visits with the local farmers brought about so much internal investigation. I have done intense inventories in to my life, my body, and my choices therein.

I think this is where the Human Experience University Studies Goal comes in. I've realized that it is very difficult to pursuade or evaluate the choices of others around you without offending or invading their personal space. People take their paths around food and health as an emotional compartment not to be interrupted. To judge or expose those choices as anything other than acceptable creates tension in places that I don't yet feel comfortable with. Instead, I've turned my focus completely inwards to my own decisions, that is where I can do the best work.

My own Ethics, and my own values are those that I have assigned to my life and no one elses. Food is very much an ethical issue as it is a health issue. Even the family that raised me has developed alternative ethics and values around their food choices. Therefore, I have re-established in a way, a new set of ethics within my beliefs that I hadn't realized was there.

The Communication aspect of the Goals is essentially a gateway to education and sharing. Educating people like me on the larger aspects of the food industry, such as how the political side is run, and where the government can be held responsible, is essential to embracing the larger picture. You can always start at the bottom and work your way up, learning as you go, but it helps to get a basic rundown and clean overview of what is happening at the money hungry side of things. More or less, all aspects of this course has been a whirlwind of evaluations, and to present information from both sides of the spectrum might help connect that communication between the suits and the real or aspiring muffins.