The System We Envision: Good, Clean, Fair

It seems that some out there don't believe our food system is broken. Or even if they would admit it, they might not be able to envision a viable alternative.

There are others out there who see the only solution to our problems as a return to a world of "40 acres and a mule," eschewing technological advancements, economies of scale and modern efficiencies.

To cut through the static, we need to start with a clear understanding of what we would like our food system to look like. Kurt Michael Friese on the blog Civil Eats recently gave us just that with his own interpretation of the principals of the Slow Food movement. He writes:

The system we envision, as I said, is one that is:

1. Good – meaning that the food tastes good and is nutritious

2. Clean – meaning that producing the food has only beneficial and not negative effects on the environment in which it is produced, and that there is nothing in the food that isn’t food (and if it wasn’t food 100 years ago, it is not food now)

3. Fair – meaning that the people who produce the food should be justly compensated for their work.

When evaluating whether our current system is the one we want, we could judge it by these standards. Is the meat produced by the industrial system nutritious and delicious? Is the food we eat real food or is it, as Michael Pollan famously says, "edible food-like substances"? Are workers on big farms today given a fair wage?

These are not ridiculous or elitist questions. Who wants their children eating food that isn't good for them, or maybe isn't food at all, that was produced using a workforce being paid slave wages? As Friese says "This is not an effort to create some Utopian state ... It is a wholehearted effort to improve the lives of everyone who eats. We do not say: good food for us, we say good food for all!"

And while the 40-acres-and-a-mule set-up may allow for a good, clean and fair food system, dedicating all of our farmers to that system just isn't going to be effective at producing all the food we need.

So perhaps we need to add one more criteria to Friese's conception. We also want a system that will be sustainable, both environmentally and in business terms. We need a system that's not only good, clean and fair, but also one that can fill the need. It must also be successful.

Can we have it all?

Photo: Nicholas_T on Flickr