Food Justice in the City

Bija swaraj, Chicago-style

SEED-SAVING AS SELF-DETERMINATION
AND RESISTANCE

Pancho McFarland | Chicago, IL | October 2, 2013

Gardeners at the Roseland Community Peace Garden have
committed to the principles of bija
swaraj, which is the principle of seed self-rule or seed democracy. They
are also committed to bija satyagraha
or non-cooperation with the powerful corporate seed machines and unjust laws
and legal structures that benefit transnational corporations at the expense of the
planet.  This summer at the Outdoor
CommUnity Classroom at the Peace Garden, gardeners discussed international
movements for food sovereignty and food autonomy, especially as detailed by
Vandana Shiva in her numerous works and how this related to the their
situations in the U.S. inner city.

Vandana Shiva

A
Commitment to Bija Swaraj

In the Peace Garden we discuss the seed, bija.  We examine the fact that seed is the source of life.  Access to the seed means the ability to
survive.  If one group or entity
controls bija, then they control our livelihoods.  CommUnity classes in the garden include an analysis of the
dominant capitalist food system. 
We develop a critique of the monopolization of seed, food and,
ultimately, life by corporate agribusiness through Trade-Related Intellectual
Property laws (TRIPs) and other legal and violent mechanisms.  In addition, we reflect on our work in
the garden, especially as it relates to seed, and its possibilities for
resistance to the capitalist food system

Gardeners, neighbors, students and children practice satyagraha; through growing their own
food from personally-  and
communally-saved seed they defy the authoritarian control of the corporate food
system. The Peace Garden has put to practice the ideal of bija satygraha and
bija swaraj by collecting seeds and exchanging with others concerned about our
food supply.  A local seed system
must be part of any revolutionary new society based on democracy, autonomy,
diversity and ecological principles.

Resistance
is futile; or so, they say

A university student-gardener commented about our
work in the garden. In a gentle manner he suggested that all the work we were
doing in the garden over the past five years and individual attempts to live
more ecologically were futile.  We
still live in a polluted environment where wealth is measured by the number of
things you possess, he argued.  You
can live as healthy as you can by riding your bike to the community garden but
the climate is still chaotic as everyone else drives their cars to the fast
food joints.

We discussed his concern at length with many feeling
similar frustrations regarding the seemingly insurmountable crises of food,
energy and climate as described by Shiva in her book, Soil Not Oil.  A more
optimistic point of view concluded that living healthy and ecologically has
numerous benefits that make our efforts well worth it.  Finally, we conclude that attempts to
live ecologically improve individual wellbeing but food justice requires
community.  It requires building
alternative ecological and democratic institutions and structures. Many of us
also felt that the negative sentiment was based on an over-generalization and
that every day more people are rejecting corporate fast food and opting for
local, slow, and deep foods.

Solutions to the climate, food and energy crises and
the crises of poverty and racism require s strategy of noncooperation with a
culture that degrades dignified work and the beings who do productive work.  A satyagraha aimed at the capitalist
definition of value redefines work and wealth.

Youth gardeners at Black Oaks Center

Saving
Seed:  CommUnity Wealth

The Black Oaks Center for Sustainable Renewable
Living in Pembroke, IL (some 40 miles from the Chicago metro area) builds
commUnity wealth through developing skills, disseminating knowledge and creating
networks of ecologically-minded individuals and groups.  The Black Oaks Center website explains:

Our vision is to create safe, healing
spaces founded on the principles of environmental stewardship and social
equality. A place where community can learn skills required to master
sustainability to lead a successful transition to a post carbon world. From
this, our communities, families, and children will be resilient. Hence, they
will be fully capable of being lifeboats thriving during an energy descent (www.blackoakscenter.org).

The Black Oaks Center is a crucial place in the
larger ecology and food movements in the US and globally.  The members are Black farmers whose
friends, families and communities have experienced the loss of the Black
agrarian tradition with its roots in African traditions and the racist
inequality of the global capitalist food system.  African Americans are much more likely to live in food
deserts than any other racial/ethnic group in the US.  Black farmers have lost a disproportionate amount of their
farmland and have had trouble getting their grievances adequately addressed by
federal and state governments.  In
addition, the founders of The Black Oaks Center recognize the limits and
inequalities of the current energy and food systems.  Like Shiva and others, they see a perfect storm of energy,
climate and food crises devastating Black and poor communities. 

As a result of violent processes leading to
urbanization and inner-city impoverishment, traditions of Black agrarian
culture are being lost at approximately the same rate as food security is
diminishing in Black Chicago.  Black
Oaks disrupts these processes through education and preparation in
resiliency.  In order for people to
survive the capitalist food, energy and climate crises they must be adaptable
and they must have community self-determination and the knowledge of our
ancestors’ food traditions.  
How we produce, distribute, consume and make decisions regarding food
must follow principles of self-sufficiency, localism, sustainability, democracy
and autonomy. 

Developing a local democratic food system is at the
heart of their resistance (satyagraha) to authoritarian corporate control of
life and the racism of the capitalist food system.  Black Oaks’ local food system is a set of alternative
institutions in the Ghandian tradition as well as the continuation of Black
freedom practices like those of maroons and the freedom schools of the Black
Panther Party.  Their contribution
to a local food system includes a farmer apprenticeship program, coalition work
with other gardeners and farmers in the region, and the dynamic market called,
The Healthy Food Hub, where local food artisans, farmers and gardeners sell
affordable, healthy food to inner-city residents who normally experience a lack
of food options. 

Black Oaks’ projects represent a few among many
strategies of opting out of the capitalist food system and opting for community
autonomy.  If corporate control of
life means that a few transnational corporations determine what the masses of
people eat, then resistance to it requires that we fight for localism,
self-determination and the development of institutions like Black Oaks’ Healthy
Food Hub and other community-controlled institutions.

The transition from a carbon-based, capitalist
economy to a sustainable democratic economy requires a shift in values.  In particular, our ideas of wealth must
be interrogated and changed to meet the needs of our communities.  In a recent communication to members
Black Oaks writes:

A radical
values reconstruction can occur when we appreciate ourselves as Human Capital
rather than Human Resources. One is richly and repeatedly invested in order to
reap continually abundant returns. The other is simply available to be
harvested and discarded at the end of its useful Life. We value the members,
stakeholders, volunteers, apprentices and team members of the Healthy food Hub.
We will always invest in the people whom have invested their time, currency,
ideas and energy with us. The legacy of this return to
community centered wealth metric is a reward to be reaped by our children long
into the future. (“On a Radical Values Reconstruction,” email from Black Oaks
Center to members of the Healthy Food Hub, September 3, 2013)

Against
measuring value by markets and currency, Black Oaks and many others in the
local, sustainable and food justice movements offer an alternative value system
rooted in people and community.  Being,
not things, becomes the focus of a ‘good life.’  Relationships are the measure of wealth correcting a century
or so of misplaced emphasis on anti-social, material wealth.  It is only through the development of
positive relationships with all our relations that we can combat the greed,
violence, oppression and inequality of capitalism and other forms of domination
that plague our world today.  We
require a transformative biocentric ethic exemplified in in lak ech (‘you are my other me’) and mitakuye oyasin (‘all my relations’)

The seed is at the heart of this struggle for a
transformative biocentrism that will lead us to self-determination and a locally-controlled,
democratic, ecological food system. 
In a living economy that supports biodiversity and extends rights of
right livelihood to all, wealth is redefined as the seed and the resources to
turn the seed into food and more seed. 
Black Oaks knows this and has provided opportunities for the development
of commUnity wealth through seed sharing and low cost seed and seedling
sales.  Four years ago a member of
the Green Lots Project purchased a flat of tomato seedlings from Black
Oaks.  The original 30 or so plants
of cherry, roma and yellow pear and other varieties have turned into thousands
of pounds of tomatoes feeding Roseland residents, Green Lots members and
neighbors and friends across the city. 
Since then we have not purchased a single tomato seed or seedling for
the Roseland Community Peace Garden as the lovingly tended soil in our once
trash-strewn lot saves our seed for us.

The local seed first saved and planted by the Black
Oaks Center, then purchased by the Green Lots Project has fed hundreds over the
past four years and will continue to do so.  This gift offered by 30 or so seeds has increased and
expanded commUnity wealth in food-impoverished communities in Chicago and
beyond.  From 30 seedlings has
sprouted thousands of plants.  Some
have remained on-site at the RCPG while others have been destroyed to make room
in our little plot.  Last year,
because we hated to destroy so many plants, we began a tradition of giving
tomato plants away.  Individuals
and community garden groups have come to the RCPG and transplanted our tomato
plants to new homes.  In the
process even more people were fed and learned some of the values taught by
bija.  In the process of sharing
tomatoes we shared parts of each other and practiced the sustainable values of
commUnity.  We found, like the
Black Oaks Center, “that people learn best by working in close proximity
with one another where accountability matters most deeply.”  We strengthen relationships and thus,
fortify ourselves in the face of neglect and attacks by the dominant capitalist
food system and its ethics of individualism and consumption.   This is the wealth provided by bija.