But What About Filipe?

Filipe is a 12 year old boy who lives in a small village in Chile. He has 3 older brothers and 1 younger sister. Both of his parents and his two oldest brothers work at a local blueberry farm. The money they earn is pooled together to support the entire family, including his grandparents and a widowed aunt who is unable to work due to her debilitating arthritis.

Chile is one of the top 3 exporters of blueberries and will ship over 6 million pounds of the increasingly popular, antioxidant-rich berries this year - primarily to the US and the UK. In Chile, the blueberry season runs from late October through April, although they are working on ways to grow them year round as they have proven to be a financial boon to Chile's growing economy.

Blueberries are one of the only fruits my son will eat. I need them in January. If I stopped buying them, if we all stopped buying them, just because they are not in season and are shipped from far away, what will happen to Filipe and his family?

As I stood in the super market this morning, confused and nearly paralyzed with responsibility, I realized that, even though I made up the story of Filipe (yes I did, I'm sorry), there most certainly are “Filipe’s” in the world, and what might truly be the impact of my staunch refusal to buy imported produce? Maybe not much. But what if everyone did?

Would it really be a perfect world if everyone ate local, organic and sustainable?  There are real people like Filipe and his family who would have to find other work, if they could. The developing nations that are finally finding success through the food export industry would certainly suffer some huge setbacks. Here in North America, the smaller, sustainable local farmers and ranchers that we love so well, would be hard pressed to keep up with the burgeoning demand for all things "local and natural”, wouldn't they? Would they then need to industrialize their operations to mass production levels? We could also, quite possibly, be accused of protectionism. As if we aren't already.

If everyone demands local, wholesome, and natural foods, there will need to be sweeping changes to the food industry and huge advances in sustainable farming practices.

The good news? There are. They are happening as we speak. The study of sustainable agriculture farming practices is a growing science. The impact of industrialized food production is well known. Contrary to popular belief, industrialized food is not cheaper than sustainable and organic. Not when you account for the high cost to the environment and health care.

Even Monsanto’s CEO Robert Shapiro is quoted as saying: "The commercial industrial technologies that are used in agriculture today to feed the world... are not inherently sustainable," Monsanto, in case you don't already know, is the controversial multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation known for their herbicides, pesticides, bovine growth hormone and genetically modified seeds, along with their strong arm tactics, heavy lobbying, and their litigation history. They're sued a lot. Primarily for "damaging the health" of their own employees and people living near a Monsanto site. They’ve been named by the EPA as being “the potentially responsible party” for 56 large contamination sites.

Another notable quote came from Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. Referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, he explained the company's regulatory philosophy to Michael Pollan in 1998: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job."

Monsanto has genetically modified their seeds, which they sell to farmers, to be impervious to Monsanto's #1 herbicide "Round Up", which they sell to the same farmers. Round up would kill a normal plant, but not Monsanto crops! The majority of crops (most notably corn) grown in the US are now Monsanto crops. It's what's for dinner.

By the way - if you haven't seen Food Inc., I highly recommend it. There is a lot more on Monsanto in that film.

Until I have more answers to my questions than questions themselves, I certainly won’t say that I’m helping to save the world with my food choices. What I will say for certain is that I am trying to be a responsible consumer while feeding myself and my family the healthiest foods I am able to procure. I’m fortunate enough to have a health foods store, a fine foods store, a Trader Joe’s, a Safeway, a meat market, and a Farmer’s Market all within a 3 mile radius and I’m going to take advantage of it.

But I might also buy blueberries from Chile now and then.