by Jane Goodall
Joe’s business ethics exactly match those endorsed by JGI, which is why, in 2008, we decided to partner with Theo Chocolate to introduce “Cacao Practices.” This is a program that gives cacao farmers the support they need to grow excellent-quality cacao beans while also protecting the native wildlife and other natural resources of tropical rain forests. It includes small-scale local farmers, but also larger producers, and NGOs from the cacao-producing regions around the world. At the time of writing, Theo is paying the farmers the top price for their cacao beans.
Cacao Dangers and a Buffer Zone for Chimpanzees
Joe’s most recent venture is in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where cacao is grown in the area that borders on the oldest nature reserve in Africa, Virunga National Park. The cacao trees provide a buffer zone for the home of the last mountain gorillas and a small population of chimpanzees.
The first time Joe tasted the roasted cacao beans from the DRC, he was astounded by how delicious they were—“they naturally taste like brownies,” he told me. But until recently, it’d been hard to source organic cacao from the DRC, since the region had been unstable and travel had been too dangerous.
Once things improved, Joe was able to travel through the cacao-growing area of the eastern part of the DRC, teaching farmers sustainable growing practices that are improving their crop production and quality. Joe also talks about child-labor issues to ensure there will be no exploitation of this sort. The project is moving quickly; some farmers have actually been able to triple their income; and it seems that cacao will be taking off as an export crop in eastern Congo. Already the first two containers, one from each of the areas where Theo is working, have arrived in Seattle.
Harvesting cacao pods in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the cacao makes especially delectable chocolate. Cacao growing is considered a “safe” investment in this war-torn country because marauding militia passing through the area don’t steal the pods—which are inedible until sent to a cacao roaster for processing. (CREDIT: EASTERN CONGO INITIATIVE)
Fortunately, Joe told me, cacao is a “safe” farming investment, because if a farm is attacked and pillaged by marauding rebels, they won’t take the cacao pods. There is no use for them, because they are inedible unless they are processed and then sent to a cacao roaster, and rebels won’t want to be burdened with all that work. So it is a highly favored crop for farmers who are seeking security for their income and families, which is important in this volatile area of Africa.
Can We Feed the World Ethically?
Coffee and tea and chocolate have been important in my life, and I am deeply grateful to the leaves of Camellia and to the beans of Coffea and Theobroma cacao. And I find the changes that are beginning to impact the coffee, tea, and cacao industries inspiring. But we could (though I wouldn’t like to!) live without them all. We must now ask whether similar sustainable farming methods can help to solve world hunger.
When the proponents of industrial and biotech agriculture are confronted with facts about the damaged land and the huge threats to human health, they invariably counter by telling us that large-scale industrial farming, especially with genetically modified crops, is the only way to produce enough food for our growing populations. And this mind-set can result in some extraordinary reasoning—or lack of it. For example, the British government finally agreed to ban a certain pesticide when it was proved, beyond reasonable doubt, that it could cause cancer. Yet I heard a farmer, interviewed by the BBC, say that while he accepted that the product could cause cancer, it was important to use it in order to grow enough food to feed people.
Is it true? Must we continue to produce food that makes people sick in order to feed the world?
I recently read an article from the Atlantic Monthly by journalist Barry Estabrook. He was determined to find out whether it was true that we could only feed the world using our current industrial model for farming—the claim that has justified so much chemical poisoning and the zealous proliferation of GMOs. He found numerous studies, including one conducted by that most conservative of bodies, the UN, that concluded that shifting our agriculture model to small-scale, sustainable farming is the only way we can successfully feed the world in the future.
He pointed out that the British Soil Association has conducted an exhaustive review of all the scientific literature—ninety-eight papers—published between 1999 and 2007 that addressed the question of whether or not organic agriculture could feed the world. And every one of these papers concluded that organic farming has the potential to feed the world’s population.
Organic and Beyond
However, organic farming, on its own, does not go far enough in giving us a viable alternative to the industrial food system that has caused so much harm. A better approach is to think in terms of “agroecology,” a term that’s been around for a while, but more and more is being seen as the future of agriculture. Agroecology recognizes that it’s important to protect soil, water, and biodiversity, but that we must also protect the economic vitality of local communities while making sure everyone has access to healthy food.
This was the approach that JGI took when developing our TACARE program—it was obvious that the health of the ecosystem, such as protecting the watershed and reforesting eroded slopes, was of key importance. It was also seen as vital to the long-term success of farming in the area to address the needs of the very poor rural community (through microcredit opportunities, empowerment of women, education of girls, family planning, and the establishment of cooperatives and markets for goods). In a March 2011 report, Agroecology and the Right to Food, the United Nations found that, within ten years of introducing agroecology into an area, food production could be doubled, climate change mitigated, and rural poverty alleviated.
Yet still the powers that support and benefit from industrial agriculture continue to insist that their method is the only way to combat world hunger. Perhaps the time has come when we should demand that the advocates of agribusiness prove to us that their model can feed a population of 9 billion human beings. They will find it difficult, since after seventy-five years of their reckless experimenting they have so far failed. As I write this sentence, 870 million of the world’s current 7.1 billion people are still seriously undernourished. And the Union of Concerned Scientists in the United States reported that genetic engineering has not contributed to yield increase in any crop. Certainly not in the long run.
Thus it is encouraging to find that more and more businesses are not only doing things in an environmentally and socially responsible way, they are making it pay. And even though organically grown food is not the answer to all our agricultural problems, it remains a valuable investment in our own personal health, the health of the planet—and thus the health of future generations.
Unfortunately, organically produced foods are often more expensive, but I find that if you pay more, you value the food more and waste less—and in the long run there will be a saving on doctor’s bills. And unless GMOs are labeled, buying organic produce is one of the only ways to make a stand against the industry that creates them. The votes cast by shoppers in the developed countries will ultimately affect the practices of agriculture in the developing countries.
It is wonderful to hear of the growing popularity of sustainable, small-scale local agriculture. And it is inspiring to think of the number of family farmers who are holding out against agribusiness, surviving because of the support of their communities, the growing desire for organic food, and the growth of programs such as the Slow Food movement. Moreover, farmers’ markets are flourishing and are becoming, among other things, gathering places for those who care about their food and the health of the planet, places where they can exchange views and support one another.
In the past few decades more and more US consumers are buying seasonal, locally grown products directly from farmers through community-sponsored agriculture (CSA) programs. The concept is simple: consumers pay the farmer
in advance for a weekly share of his products—a box of seasonal vegetables and sometimes fruits, herbs, and cut flowers too. This is hugely beneficial to farmers who are trying to help communities to fight back against the agribusiness giants and take back some control over the quality and availability of their food. The government does not track CSAs, but LocalHarvest, an Internet-based resource of local sustainable farms, has four thousand listed in its database. They say that in many places the demand for CSAs is greater than the supply, and this is encouraging more farmers to join in.
Of course, one of the best ways of ensuring that you are eating food free from harmful chemicals and GM plants is to grow your own.
Chapter 16
Growing Our Own Food
A proud Roots & Shoots member from the Tung Koon School in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong. This organic vegetable garden is situated in the middle of an inner-city school, surrounded by high-rise buildings and concrete. The Roots & Shoots leader told me that “before being involved with this garden, many of the students would not have gotten their hands dirty in the soil or even seen caterpillars and worms.” (CREDIT: CHOW KAI-LEUNG)
I grew up reading about the vegetable garden of Beatrix Potter’s crusty old gardener, Mr. McGregor, sworn enemy of Peter Rabbit, who, with his siblings, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, was always crawling under the fence to steal carrots and lettuces—even though his poor father had been caught and cooked in a pie. Once, Peter almost met the same fate when he unexpectedly met the old man around the cucumber frame.
In England in the old days all the big country houses not only grew flowers in rich profusion but also had extensive walled vegetable gardens. I remember going to stay for a weekend in one such place and being amazed at the wealth of beans and peas, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers and marrows, and peach trees with their tortured, crucified branches spread out along the walls. There was a strong smell of horse manure mixed, interestingly, with that of mint and thyme and rosemary from the herb garden that was hiding away in a sheltered corner. Of course there had to be a number of gardeners to care for gardens of that sort. During World War II all the younger gardeners went off to fight for their country, and the older ones were on air-raid duty, so the flower gardens became invaded by weeds.
Only the vegetable gardens were saved—and often expanded, overflowing into some of the neglected flowerbeds. The reason for this is that everyone in England who had a garden was asked to help the war effort by creating a “Victory Garden,” growing vegetables instead of flowers. This type of gardening not only was indirectly aiding the war effort but was considered a morale booster, as people on the home front felt they were making a contribution—“Dig for Victory.”
Victory Gardens were also encouraged in the United States, Canada, Ireland—and Germany. Of course we wanted to do our bit, and my grandmother Danny planted runner beans and rows of lettuce and spinach, and we also had some gooseberry and raspberry bushes—but, as I have said, the soil in our garden was no good for most vegetables.
After the war Danny carried on with the garden. It was too much work for them alone, and an old gardener came on the weekends to help, mainly because he was devoted to Danny. The runner beans continued to thrive, but most of the vegetables were still unhappy when planted there. Judy’s daughter, Pip, tried to grow turnips last year, and they were not much bigger than radishes when she finally released them from the inhospitable earth!
At The Birches most vegetables are not happy growing in the sandy soil, made acid by pine needles and rhododendrons. Pip, my sister Judy’s daughter, tried to grow turnips one year—and this was as big as they would grow. (CREDIT: JANE GOODALL)
A Kitchen-Garden Revolution
Many gardening experts believe that producing one’s own food is the fastest-growing trend in American home gardening. In one recent survey representing at least a million US households, people with gardens were asked to indicate which kind of gardening they were most interested in. Growing food was top for those questioned, with Earth-friendly gardening coming second. Next came native plants, and then organic gardening. I suspect that gardeners in Europe would also put food gardening high in their priorities. Growing vegetables among the flowers has always been part of European cottage gardening.
I also learned that about one million new food gardens were planted in 2010 in the United States. That seems a lot until we learn that, in 1943, when the Victory Garden movement was peaking in popularity, twenty million gardens were planted in the United States. And this was when the US population was less than half what it is today.
Clearly the trend is growing, and more and more communities, especially in urban neighborhoods, are transforming land into viable food gardens. This rather rapidly increasing desire to reconnect with the earth, throughout at least parts of the developed world, has something to do, I suspect, with the fact that more and more people are realizing the extent to which so many of the vegetables and fruits we buy in grocery stores and supermarkets are contaminated by chemicals.
Only by growing our own food can we be certain it is pesticide- and GMO-free. It may not only be cheaper than buying from the grocery store, it may also save on doctor’s bills in the future. And it tastes better, too!
There is another advantage: just as we grew food during my childhood to help the war against the evil of the Nazis, by growing our own food today we are fighting another kind of evil. We are beginning to stand up against the corporate/industrial agriculture giants that control so much of how our food is grown and distributed. It is a form of activism—doing our bit, along with the small family farms and organic farmers, to create an alternative to a system that is poisoning the world.
The New Urban Landscape—Food Gardens
Across the globe, from Russia to Argentina, from Cuba and Haiti to Tanzania, in almost every city, people are growing food. In some cases it is for pure pleasure, the joy of being connected to the land, of picking and eating a sun-ripened tomato, cooking your own runner beans. At other times it is for economic reasons. Or it may be because you are in need of spiritual healing. Urban food gardens are like the daisies that push through cracks in the sidewalk. They show the way of the future for cities where concrete mixes with compost and nourishing plants are as integral to the landscape as skyscrapers and parking lots.
And as more and more people move from the countryside to urban areas, so there is a greater need for real farming in the city, and the practice grows. In some cities you have to wait for two years or more to get a vacancy for a space in an allotment. The Urban Agriculture Network, founded by Jac Smit, collects information on what is going on, but there are many websites out there describing the various projects, large and small, on disused plots, roofs, balconies, and terraces.
There are organizations helping refugees, unemployed inner-city youth, and bankrupt farmers who have been forced to move into the cities, to start growing some of their own food. As small projects grow, surplus food is sold in farmers’ markets, and the food security of an area is increased. Gradually, too, the need for trucking food in from faraway sources will decrease.
Members of the Lehae Youth Roots & Shoots group working on their “Food Garden” at the Lehae Primary School close to Soweto in South Africa. I was really impressed when I visited this project, now a six-hundred-square-meter plot providing vegetables for the school and needy families. The gardeners are (left to right) Sphiwe Genge, Steven Mabasa, and Lebo Mantsho. They told me their group planned to introduce home gardens into the community, and within the past couple of years they have created fifty small (twenty-by-thirteen foot) plots for the neediest of families, crèches (child care centers), and the goggos (grannies). (CREDIT: © THE JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE–SOUTH AFRICA / BY JULIET PRICE)
Of all these hundreds I have only been able to visit just a few—in the United Kingdom, America, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tanzania, and South Africa. I have met people who told me about wonderful projects, or read accounts that grabbed my attention. It is from
that list that I have chosen the following ones to share.
“Urban knights” is a new term to describe the people behind this exciting horticultural force in the world’s cities. These commoner knights are helping to create food gardens in all sorts of places—from city rooftops to alleyways and balconies and tiny backyards. Susan McCoy, of the US-based trend-spotting Garden Media Group, describes them as “the ‘urban grit’ influence to protect the earth’s resources.”
After reading about the wartime Victory Gardens, Taja Sevelle was inspired to start the Michigan-based project Urban Farming. She told a reporter it began in 2005 with “three gardens and a pamphlet.” Eight years later her organization has facilitated the planting of over sixty thousand community gardens around the world. The goal is to create an abundance of food, especially for people in struggling communities, by planting, supporting, and encouraging gardens on all available unused land and space—including on a rooftop in the Bronx and helping a school in Los Angeles create an “edible wall.” Sevelle hopes her project will create a “paradigm shift” and enable people of all economic means to have access to healthy food.
I have a most innovative and imaginative friend, Gary Zeller, who embodies the spirit of an urban knight. Every time I meet him, he has some new invention to show me, and always it is something that will help us reuse, reduce waste, and live in greater harmony with nature. One of his latest, and most delightful, is the “Garden Up” tower. “It’s perfect,” he told me, “for the urban gardeners who sometimes only have a window seat or balcony to work with.” He has received requests for information about these vertical gardens from Jordan and many other countries where people are desperate for pesticide-free, locally grown produce that uses very little water.