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Where Are The Conservatives in Local Foods?
July 10th, 2009 10 CommentsThis blog post comes to us from our friend Zachary Adam Cohen at Farm To Table: The Emerging American Meal.
Where are the Conservatives in the Local, Sustainable Movement?
Let’s think about the word conservative for a second. True conservatives are interested in “conserving” things right? The caricature of conservatives is that they try to preserve abstract things like traditional culture, the sanctity of the family, morality, and community but are really only interested in moralizing. But where are the conservatives who want to conserve the environment? Where are the church groups unwilling to participate in a system where factory farming of livestock is a reality? Where are the conservatives who want to preserve traditional agriculture, the kind of small scale, local and family based agriculture that Thomas Jefferson dreamed would be the future of the nation? Talk about an Originalist!
As a political conservative who favors limited-government, the authentic over the mass produced, the local over the federal, and small business over corporate, the sustainable food movement seems a perfect fit for me. And yet when I look out over the various constellations that make up the movement, I don’t see very many conservatives.
It may be that many of us, accustomed to decades of caricature and derision, simply choose to keep our heads down and soldier on. But as the movement progresses it will be important for advocates of all political stripes to be transparent about their agendas. Transparency is never a bad thing. I also believe that advocates of a local, sustainable food system should be more welcoming and accepting of conservatives that hold the same goals, even if they have different reasons for doing so. It’s not that current stakeholders in local foods activism have excluded conservatives, I do not think they have. But what they also have not done is made it a priority to reach out to community members from across the aisle.
Crunchy Cons
I recently read Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture, by the journalist Rod Dreher. Dreher found that the U.S. food system was a target rich environment for him to criticize using his conservative credentials. His criticisms, while well known to local foods advocates, are enlightening for conservatives.
Conservatives value small businesses over corporations because they keep people empowered. The local and sustainable food movement elevates small farmers, artisans and restaurateurs, almost to a heroic level. Just look at how Alice Waters and Joel Salatin are regarded.
Dreher writes,
“The traditional conservative will want to take a stand for the mom-and-pop cheese maker over the pasteurized processed food disgorged by the factory and sold cheaply.”
Dreher also recognizes and exposes how big business has purposely manipulated the free market to make it less free and competitive, by shutting out the small producers:
“I started looking into how the government regulates the meat industry. It was shocking to see how agribusiness has gamed the system to keep small meat producers marginalized. Our regulatory system is designed to favor industrialized meat production, with its factory farms, its cattle jacked up with antibiotics and growth hormones, and its chickens in cages filled with their own feces. As a conservative, I am angry about this, not only on behalf of the small businesspeople slapped around by the deep-pocketed agribusiness behemoths, but because of how industrialized agriculture has made a traditional agrarian way of life difficult, if not impossible….
To participate in a system and a way of thinking in which the act of eating is merely a commercial transaction is to sell out our spiritual and cultural patrimony. I understand the free-market reasons why Americans do this. But I don’t understand why it is called conservative.”
Dreher nails this important point home by talking with economist Edward Hudgins. “Hudgins told me that it’s often the case that big companies willingly absorb the cost of extra regulation because those rules “have the effect of killing off the competition.””
Is Slow Food Conservative?
Rod is fortunate to discover Slow Food and immediately finds parallels between Slow Food and conservative impulses.
“As the Slow Food movement grew beyond the bounds of Italy, its proponents realized that they could never succeed by trying to stop McDonald’s and its ilk. Rather, they had to show people why the Slow attitude toward life—esteeming tradition, celebrating the particularity in the face of mass culture, and taking time to enjoy life—is more sensible, more fun, more human.”
Dreher further establishes Slow Food’s conservative credentials by recalling Russell Kirk’s Six Canons of Conservative Thought, the second of which is “affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life.” Dreher notices how well Kirk’s principle fits in with one of Slow Food’s primary missions, to educate, save and esteem plant and animal variety with the Ark of Taste.
It’s truly notable when Italian Marxists and American Conservatives mirror each others thinking. Politics really does make strange bedfellows.
For decades now, conservatism has been in bed with big business Republican and Democratic interests. This marriage of convenience has proven itself hopelessly corrupt. As the conservative movement reconnects with its principles, something that liberals and democrats should desire, we can expect to see more conservatives opting out of these political arrangements and shifting their gaze in our direction.
It behooves the local sustainable movement to encourage political conservatives to remove themselves from under the yoke of a dominant food culture that disrespects their core beliefs and traditions. When problems in our society become so blatant that factions who normally would have nothing to do with each other begin to cooperate in order to find solutions, we know we are at a turning point. Let’s grow the movement from all sides.
Tags: conservatives crunchy cons farm to table rod dreher sustainable food zachary adam cohen
10 Responses to “Where Are The Conservatives in Local Foods?”
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Thanks guy for picking this one up!
Awesome. I;ve just messaged my facebook group so hopefully there will be some good traffic, and the response has been so overwhelming that I will have to beging thinking about follow up posts.Z
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Brilliant post! We’re rallying the troops. It’s time for Christians and Conservatives to stand with the sustainable food movement.
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Brett Henderson July 10th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Great perceptive understanding of true concervitism. Conseritisim is neither republican or democrat & and in our present political structure concervitives appear to be represented by none. I as a concervitive will continue to support the values of small Ag and indipendent farmers. Too many seem enamoured by the directions and instruction of mega-corporations who are controling our food supply. If you don’t have food indipendence, you can’t have freedom.
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Brett
I agree that no political party has a strangehold on conservatism. Of course, one will find more true conservatives within the ranks of Republicans, but many conservatives are NOT ok with the behavior of the republican party. That being said, there are many libertarians and democrats who have conservative sympathies.
I agree also with you that food independence is truly important and one of the hardest forms of freedom there is to achieve. When we look at how influential a few major corporations are in American food we realize very quickly how much choice has been taken away from us, replaced with a veneer of choice. We think we can have almost everything, but in effect, we have almost nothing.
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What a breath of fresh air this is! I am a conservative, and a big supporter of local, sustainable produce and artisans. In fact, I’ve based my catering business model around it! We need to continue to educate the people around us, to help them understand the benefits of buying local. Most of America falsely assumes that the lettuce and milk they buy in their supermarket came from a beautiful farm with rolling green hills and “happy cows” who frolick in the sun. If they only knew! I feel hopeful that we will see a day where the masses know what we know, but that means we have to be the voice.
I don’t understand why the local, sustainable movement has become such a partisan issue. Forget the politics, let’s just work together to protect our local farmers and keep locally grown food on our tables.
Thanks Zach, for a great piece!
Robin
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These are some great points. Our leaders, both conservative and liberal, have failed us by consistently siding with corporate lobbyists (and corporte $$) instead of focusing on what is best for the citizens of this country. We should all join together to change this broken part of our government. After all, buying local, natural food and products benefits everyone – no matter what political views we hold.
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Elaine July 15th, 2009 at 10:43 am
I am also very happy to see this conversation. I am a conservative/libertarian who believes in limited government. The farm bill is monstrosity of regulation and is a major cause of our health care crisis. It drove me crazy to hear Repulicans criticizing Obama for eating arugula. I can think of nothing better for him to be eating. Should he be eating Cheetos like the rest of America? We should all be eating arugula. It is wrong to associate real food with snobbery. The average American should be outraged that they are practically forced by our farm subsidies to consume cheap processed foods. The farm subsidies must stop and meanwhile, Americans must take some responsiblity for what has happened. Those of us who can truly afford it (and if we’re honest with ourselves many us of of can) must stop buying processed packaged foods. The movement has already starting. Farmer’s markets are growing rapidly. Most grocery stores sell organics. Walmart now sells organics. (I realize that “big organic” can be a controversial issue – but its a step in the right direction). Corporations have all the power ONLY if we continue to buy their products. We don’t need a soda tax, we need simple supply and demand. I believe that we are on our way….
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Dreher mentions how agribusiness has gamed the system in meat production, but in collusion with the USDA and lobbying groups like the Organic Trade Association, “big organic” has gamed the organic label. There may be a conservative faction in the slow food movement but as Jeffrey Toobin pointed out in the New Yorker (May 25, 2009) the real power in the conservative movement will always side with established power over the individual, and this is the face of conservatism that the sustainable foods movement will have to deal with.
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I’m a Christian and a conservative. My meat comes from Morris Grassfed Beef, veggies from Live Earth Farm CSA, Eggs from Jim Dunlop at TLC Ranch, Coffee from Fair Trade Barefoot Coffee Roasters and my milk is approved by the Cornucopia Institute. I tend to my own veggie garden at the local community garden, work in high tech, grow herbs in our backyard, and turn the compost pile all before an evening of family time, which consists of worship and devotions around the Bible and episodes of “So You Think You Can Dance.”
I know other Christians that are interested in similar things, though not doing everything that I’m doing. But I do see more of us getting interested in it. I’ve built up my habits over years, and spent a lot of time learning and now it’s really paying off because it all kinda just seems like normal living and I love it. And now I can also share my experience with my friends and encourage them to do the same.
P.S. My compost pile is at 150 degrees right now.
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I’m a limited government conservative and an advocate of small business and sustainable, local food. We do exist out here! I was happy to read your article and know that I am not alone. Actually I am looking for an internship next summer for my graduate studies.
Do you or does anyone else have any suggestions?
Thank you–
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