LWL is pleased to host Ken Meter as a guest writer. Ken is one of the most experienced food system analysts in the US. His economic analyses of local food systems includes a 2014 survey of Mississippi's food and farming system. It was from Ken's work that we learned how our historically agricultural state imports 90% of its food supply. Thank you, Ken, for sharing your wisdom and so beautifully describing the heart of Living Well Locally - collaboration and trust - as you have experienced them in the building of community food webs.
By Ken Meter
I’m grateful for the folks at Living Well Locally who continue to remind us that, although the obstacles we face are global, many of the most effective solutions we create will involve very local actions — ones that transform the ways we live, eat, and work, allowing us to seize more power over our own lives.
I explored this theme in my book, Building Community Food Webs (Island Press, 2021). There I harvested the best experiences I have had while providing technical assistance to community foods efforts in 144 regions in 41 states over the past two decades.
The key insight I learned by writing the book is that each of the most successful efforts have been led, not by a single strong leader, but by a network of folks who built solid trust with each other, forging bonds of mutual respect, and coordinating with each other wholeheartedly. The best of these efforts learned how to grow closer even through conflict: raising differences openly and fairly, remaining open to the insights offered by those who disagree, and growing to a more unified understanding through honest mutual discussions.
Community food webs are those networks that we create to form food systems that actually accomplish our true needs, building health, wealth, connection, and capacity among community members. This requires pulling together over time to write our own menu of food choices, not simply take the options that were given us by global enterprise. The most effective food webs center their efforts around foods that can easily be grown in their local climate, and weave bonds of trust that connect farmers, food buyers, processors, and consumers into a unified effort.
Like spider webs, community food webs allow groups of small businesses and individual residents to construct a fabric of seemingly fragile connections that hold considerable strength when combined. Just as a network of mycelium underground allows plants and microorganisms to communicate with and feed each other, a community food web often works quietly below the surface to hold great impact.
One of my favorite stories from the book came from Hawai‘i, and it is a story that resonates closely with Mississippi’s history. Before Europeans settled on the Hawaiian Islands, traditional villages successfully fed a population nearly as large as that living on the Islands today. They farmed using simple hand tools. Over millennia, they pulled together to make sure that precious water resources were protected, digging irrigation ditches for crops and carving artificial lakes where fish could grow. Through rituals and storytelling, insights were passed down on how to nurture fragile ecosystems, and share nature’s bounty. They built strong social networks and made sure that everyone who lived on the Islands had fruitful work and enough food to eat. Historians have found that Hawaiians also enjoyed more free time than we do today.
In short, traditional food systems fed people more effectively, promoted better health, fostered culture with a deeper appreciation for nature, and created a more cultured and equitable society than the plantation system that was later imposed on the Islands. But the plantation economy itself collapsed after a little more than a century. During that time it inflicted horrific damage: ill health, economic and political inequality, and environmental devastation. The core of the plantation system was turning food into a commodity for export. Feeding one’s neighbors was overlooked. The lesson I drew from indigenous leaders is that food was never meant to be a commodity: it is a gift from our creators that is meant to be shared.
Mississippi has certainly suffered through some of the most visible devastations inflicted by our global economy, including plantations. Witness how the original theft of land from Native tribes enabled land to be allocated to White landowners. Then the plantations died, dislocating those who had toiled as slaves and leaving a heritage of depleted soil that was further disrupted by feral hogs. Yet despite these scars, several vibrant communities emerged. The one I have learned the most about was Mound Bayou. Here, former slaves won access to farms, and grew bountiful crops of sweet potatoes and fresh produce to sell through cooperatives. Tragically, even though these industrious folks had adopted the best technology of their era, they were often shut out by White buyers who resisted the efforts of Blacks to succeed. Nonetheless, a flame of self-determination flourished and still flickers today, 150 years later.*
Community food webs arise out of such collaborations, whether by Black sweet potato growers or by Hawaiians planting taro and tropical fruits, or indeed any group that stands up to manage their own affairs in a democratic manner. My book describes some of the more advanced networks I have met in Arizona, Colorado, Hawai‘i, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, and Ohio. It shows in lush detail how people in each locale pulled together to form potent collaborations. I hope it will be a resource for you as you carry on your own work in Living Well Locally.
Ken Meter is President of Crossroads Resource Center (Minneapolis) and author of Building Community Food Webs (Island Press, 2021). Find his work at http://www.crcworks.org.
*Editor’s note: Black cooperative farming on 500 acres was initially part of America’s first federally-qualified rural health effort in Mound Bayou, MS in the 1960’s. As an attempt to address both livelihood and food access, the farm represented early recognition of what is today called ‘social determinants’ of health. More on this in a future post.