So Why Not Garden?

Interest in gardening in the South East is growing. Participants in last week’s Urban Organic Gardening Workshop in Steinbach shared information and ideas on a wide range of topics related to gardening. These included raised beds, vertical gardening, composting, inter-planting, companion planting, crop rotation and many more. Lots of enthusiasm there!

Yet it seems that many in our region find reasons enough not to grow their own food, a habit that their parents and grandparents took for granted. What are those reasons and how can we keep them from becoming excuses?

Food is still relatively cheap in the grocery stores. Yes, this is true, but food prices are rising quickly. As the price of fuel and fertilizers continue to climb, which they undoubtedly will, so will the price of food, especially food imported from afar. The rich will still likely be able to buy what they want, but others will find it increasingly difficult to acquire the food they need. Getting a head start on growing your own food is a smart move.

I am too busy to garden. How true it is that our modern lives are too busy. But we really do have some control over how busy we make our lives and what priorities we choose. There is something about gardening that forces you to slow down, savor the beauty and bounty of nature and discover an amazingly generous and delightful community together with other gardeners.

My yard is not big enough for a garden. I am troubled by the fact that most of the housing developments in our area assume that people will not garden and so do not allow for more than a few square feet of yard space. This is a travesty in a land where we still have a lot of elbow room. But even in a small yard, you can raise an amazing amount of food in a small raised bed. Or you can find space in one of our community gardens where you will be warmly welcomed. 

It is just too much work. Right, gardening takes physical exercise – and that is just what the doctor ordered. Our modern aversion to regular exercise lies at the root of many of our physical ills. So some of us run around town, cycle across the country, pump iron at the gym, etc., but can’t imagine doing some purposeful work like digging in a garden. Many have mostly forgotten the joy of actually “feeling” their muscles once in a while!

I don’t know how. I have met many people who say they just haven’t got a clue about gardening because they have never seen it done. But it’s never too late to learn, and there are still plenty of teachers around. Check with older family members or friends - they still know how. You could contact members of the South Eastman Transition Initiative or the Steinbach and Area Garden Club who are ready to help you transition toward growing some of your own food.

No excuses left! And it’s not too late to get started this spring..

Jack Heppner

Loosening Corporate Grip

In an article, “The Corporation As Psychopath,” Michael Jessen states, “Our economic system will eventually change. As currently structured, the system is unsustainable for both people and the planet.

Believe it or not, there was a time when corporations did not exist. Now “…they determine what we wear, where we work, what we read, what we listen to, what we watch, and what we do.” Many corporations are larger and more powerful than most countries. One result is political apathy in western democracies because people sense that their governments are mostly incapable of loosening the corporate grip on society.

In law, a corporation is defined as a “person” and, according to Noam Chomsky, “…its legally defined mandate is to pursue its self-interest regardless of who or what suffers as a result of its actions.”

In his ground-breaking book, “The Corporation: the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power,” Joel Bakan asks the question what kind of a “person” a corporation might be. Using standard checklists for personality types and mental disorders, he concludes the corporation is a psychopathic personality.

“A Corporation has a callous unconcern for the feelings of others, an incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, a reckless disregard for the safety of others, a pattern of deceitfulness, an incapacity to experience guilt and a failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviour.”

Such psychopaths are normally locked up to protect the public. But in the corporate world they are allowed to dictate to the rest of us how we should live. Sad that many are willing to march to the beat of a psychopath’s drum.

Fortunately there is a push back beginning to happen. Within the corporate world there is a lot of window dressing going on right now to appease our new consciousness about social and environmental sustainability. A lot of money is being spent on “cleaning up the corporate image.” A case in point: change the traditional designation of “tar sands” to “oil sands.” And, hey, Walmart is going “Green!” But there is reason to be skeptical. The bottom line is still what share-holders care about, not much else.

Here and there corporations have gone through a conversion of sorts and have in fact incorporated social and environmental sustainability into their mandate. For example, Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world’s largest carpet manufacturing company, is determined to “give back to the planet instead of taking from it.” Such corporations will survive into the future. Psychopaths will eventually be “locked up.”

Meanwhile there are a lot of things we as individuals can do to loosen the corporate grip on our lives.

1. Resist the temptation to buy needless goods and services psychopaths thrust at us.
2. Avoid doing business with multi-national corporations as much as possible.
3. Buy needed goods and services from local people and businesses you know personally.
4. Reduce your need to accumulate ever-more stuff, especially stuff from a distance.
5. Recycle, share and cooperate.
6. Petition lawmakers to limit the powers of corporations.

Jack Heppner

The Importance of Home Gardening

Recently a class of bright-eyed Grade 2 students met me at the community garden.  They came to check out the plot they will be seeding this spring.  They eagerly surveyed the freshly dug dirt and had visions of perfect orange globes on trailing pumpkin vines filling their plot and reaching beyond. 

This early gardening experience comes at a crucial time for these children.  They will come into contact with a local source for their food supply.  In their future the skill of growing their own food will likely become ever more essential.  As we see the gas prices rise there will be increases in the cost of production and in the long distance hauling of the fresh foods that we demand year round.  We can be sure food prices will spiral up.  Growing more food ourselves can substantially contribute to decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels. 

The new life skills of these young gardeners will contribute to their healthy life-style.  Experience has shown that children involved in gardening increase their vegetable consumption.  It’s a “Vitamin- D Sport” in this outdoor classroom.  Food production knowledge can be shared among gardeners of all ages.  They are joining a social network where they are contributing to a healthy community and a healthy planet.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Agency announced last week that the world food price index reached an all-time high in February.  An estimated 44 million people have been pushed into poverty since last June because of rising food prices.  With the continuing effects of climate change there is an expected decline in the global output of agricultural products resulting in food shortages and increased food prices.  In 2007 and 2008 similar shortages led to food riots in a number of countries in the developing world.  This of course needs to be addressed on a global scale.  But we can begin now with awareness and some action -- grow some of our own food. 

Do you remember picking and eating that vine-ripened heirloom tomato in your garden last summer?  Wow – the flavour was great!  No insecticides, chemical or toxins!  Just a real tomato grown in sunshine in soil enriched with composted organic matter.  When you grow your own food you can eat with healthy confidence!  We need to take a stand against the petroleum-based agriculture that big business forces on us with the resulting environmental and health consequences.

More people are experiencing the delight of the “seed to table” experience as they dig up part of their back (or front!) yards.  Others reserve a plot in a community garden or join a community supported agriculture program.  If you have garden space that you don’t use why not make it available to someone?  Need help with gardening chores or problems?  Gardeners are always ready to help.

Local experienced gardeners will be sharing their best practices at an “in garden” organic gardening workshop.  Join us on Thursday May 26,  7pm at 69 Westdale in Steinbach. Check our web site for more information.

Ernie Klassen

When Enough is Enough

If, as a society, we hope to transition towards a sustainable future we will need to insert the concept of “enough” into our economic equation.

It is quite understandable that as our numbers increase we might need to increase goods and services in order to get by. Recently my son and his wife gave birth to twins, which means that their household now is consuming more than it did before. And in situations where people are experiencing abject poverty – not having access to basic human needs - it will of course be necessary to ramp up consumption in order to live in a sustainable manner.

But it is a troubling fact that large segments of our population are presently gobbling up more goods and services than our planet can afford to deliver. And the problem is compounded by the fact that masses of poor people around the world aspire to a lifestyle equivalent to ours. Where might such resources come from?

A case in point is the growing need for fossil fuels that the world demands. Indeed, if the whole world would be using fossil fuels at the rate we do in North America, it would take four or five planets our size to even approach any degree of sustainability. But in such a case our pollution problems would also increase exponentially and take us beyond a tipping point.

The problem is that our economic system apparently requires growth in order to survive, let alone thrive. If our gross national product (GNP) is not growing year over year, we are told that we are headed for trouble. If it would not be so sad, it would have been funny to hear President Bush tell Americans to buy more stuff to get out of a recession, when that recession had been brought on by the fact that people had already outspent themselves.

In his book, A High Price for Abundant Living, economist Henry Rempel states,

“The capitalist system is like a massive eighteen-wheel truck barreling through history. It has an excessively powerful motor driven by the sum of all human selfishness. It has no brakes. The steering mechanism is clearly faulty. As a passenger on this truck, are you inclined to ask where we are going? Are you worried about arriving there safely?”

Taking this problem into the context of our personal lives, it is imperative that we at least begin asking the question of when enough is enough. How big does my house really need to be? How much stuff do I need to fill it? How much energy can I consume without jeopardizing the welfare of my fellow pilgrims? Hard questions, to be sure, but questions we need to ask.

Looking for a way forward, Rempel states, “To change our mad pursuit of ‘progress,’ we will require a new driver for our economic system, a driver that will use the gifts of nature in such a way that nonrenewable resources are conserved and the environment is sustained.”

Jack Heppner

Urban Chemicals and Risk

We all love a weed free lawn, and we all know how to get it: we purchase the appropriate chemical and apply it to our lawn ourselves, or we contract a lawn care professional to take care of the problem. When we do that, do we give any thought to the possible harmful effect of that chemical to our health, our children’s health or our neighbor’s health? Let’s face it; most of us have not given this question a moment’s thought. However, those of us who watched the documentary movie, A Chemical Reaction last week found ourselves thinking about that very question.

No one should be surprised that many studies have been carried out around this very question, and no one should be surprised that the studies are not consistent. If this question interests you, the Manitoba Eco-network has some excellent links. (You could also go to the chemical company web site and check out their studies.) The dilemma is clear: a conscientious parent will know that there is a possibility that using chemical lawn care products on the lawn her children play on will increase their risk of contracting certain cancers or neurological disorders. Not every one is equally susceptible, but the risk is there for everyone. On the other hand, a weed free lawn is appealing. Is the risk, particularly to our children, worth it?

We also heard from Lorne Peters and David Dawson, two local beekeepers. They spoke of the threat pest control chemicals pose to bees. Any beekeeper will wait four days after spraying Malathion before he puts bees into a clover, canola or sunflower field. These insect specialists (which is what beekeepers are), found it unthinkable that spraying for nuisance mosquitoes will affect only mosquitoes. Spraying with Malathion will affect not only mosquitoes, but also bees, dragonflies and butterflies. And what effect will that have on the birds that normally feed on these insects?

The use of malathion for the control of nuisance mosquitoes raises questions of human health as well. It is known that Malathion is a neurological insecticide. Studies done in Winnipeg, the only major city in Canada with an ongoing Malathion nuisance-adult-mosquito-control program, have found the risk acceptable. Obviously, this is a value judgment. It is clear, of course that we humans have a greater tolerance for these neurological chemicals than insects do. We have all seen flies in a death spin as a result of insecticide exposure, and we, the watcher, who were exposed to the same chemical, were fine. But how confident can we be that repeated exposure to this neurological chemical does not have a cumulative effect? And how confident can we be that the studies done have taken into account the cumulative effect?

Many of the things we do involve risk. When we use chemicals for cosmetic reasons or in order to reduce nuisance insects, we need to be clear on the risks involved, particularly for our children.

Eric Rempel