Open Science Network in Ethnobiology

Below are two different reports on my my experiences with the CWEE Sustainability Assessment Program.

Some of the information is repetitive. The first is more about my personal experience and progress with the program, and the second is how the Cafeteria relates to the rest of the community and world. I look forward to doing more extensive research on this.

 

Sustainability Assessment: Cafeteria and Food at Cabrillo

Whitney Bell

Michelle Merrill & Karen Groppi

5/28/08

 

    I understand the goal of the Sustainability Assessment to be to develop a foundation in

order to understand the extent of Cabrillo’s energy and fossil fuel use in all it’s parts.

Spreading awareness about current environmental issues pertinent to Cabrillo is

another aspect I believe to be part of the Assessment. My role in this is to break the

Cafeteria into observable parts, and to calculate the food miles of the products it

serves. My research methods are mainly informal interviews with distributors and staff

members involved with the cafeteria. My materials were mainly my notebook and paper.

I used the internet to research, a phone to contact distributors, and my computer to log

time spent and responses to the work.

I looked at a sample of the most heavily ordered items that are currently sold in the Cafeteria, and calculated the distance they traveled from farm to plate, and from plate to landfill.

 

Watsonville Produce

 

Bananas           Ecuador                                   Shipped by truck in Banana Boxes to LA or 

Nectarines       Chile                                        Shipped by truck in bins to coolers to be

packaged either loose or in layers

Grapes             Chile                                        Grown in controlled atmosphere and     

                                                                        shipped by boat

Onions             Oregon, Idaho, Nevada         Stored up to a year in cold, dark

                                                                        environment with no oxygen

Potatoes          Same as Onions

Bell Peppers    Mexico                                    Soon to be Florida. Workers walk down

                                                                        rows with large backpacks like with

                                                                        artichokes, shipped by truck, depending on

                                                                        how bruised, price follows.

Cucumbers      Mexico                                    Same process as Bell Peppers

 

Focus Packaging is from Fresno and shipped using a common carrier. Santa Cruz Coffee

 is distributed out of Watsonville, but most of their different types of coffee are from

Latin America.

a. I became comfortable with the different tasks needed in order to run an event on campus. I also learned that the best resource for doing the type of research I was doing is the professionals and faculty members in the field. I developed note-taking skills, which are extremely important while interviewing people who are busy. While they are making time share what they know, it is a bad idea to sloppily take notes which may or may not be legible. The worst is needing to reconnect with the busy people and ask them to repeat what they already told you. I also learned that people in similar positions, like receptionists or people working at the food distribution points, can have opposite reactions to the same question. A lot of the information I was after is strictly guarded by many companies, so it was really hit or miss with the employees I spoke with.

b. I found that my weaknesses are allotting time in advance to get things done. I also don’t like to sit in from of computers, so much of the detailed calculations were put off until the last minute. I found that I could improve on staying level-headed while working with people I don’t like. The most effective tool available to me for working with others was the moodle site. I found it to be helpful in sharing what progress I was making, and finding out what others were doing.

c. The calculating of food miles was an opportunity to expand on my math skills. Working on the Earth Day event helped me work on my speaking skills, since many announcements and introductions were needed.

e. The calculating of food miles is more complicated than multiplying distance traveled by the mileage the common carriers get. “The agricultural and industrial practices that go into growing and harvesting food create 83%.” Julia Whitty. It would be good to visit each farm, or talk to people who work there, but this is clearly an enormous undertaking. From my research, it has become apparent that any food production that isn’t marketed as local, organic, etc. is extremely detrimental to the environment. I can’t calculate the actual miles, because I don’t know the exact practices. However, conventionally grown crops are generally produced in the same way: pesticides are used instead of beneficial insects or plants, heavy watering instead of intercropping depletes water resources while creating pesticide ridden run-off, the seeds are often genetically modified, which has it’s own slough of environmental and problems, heavy machinery is used more rigorously which rely on natural gas while creating a more dangerous working environment, and the “farmers” are generally out of touch with the earth and therefore, their crop. Not to mention with their customer.

Since the class is so new, I felt like I had a lot of freedom to get the hours I needed to get credit. I ended up doing extra things to promote sustainability on campus like Earth Week and speaking at the social justice conference, more than actually assessing the carbon footprint. Initially, Karen, my friend Erin and I were working on a plastic water bottle display and another with disposable coffee cups. After that was finished and strung across the library, I ended up helping Ryan Kaplan for the rest of the day, and the following two days. Ryan had set up pretty much every speaker and show, and it was perfect that I needed hours and was able to help with the event. There aren’t enough people working on these things in the way he is, so this gave me a great opportunity to help.

The water bottle display was 365 bottles strung across the front of the library, and was meant to show people how much waste they generate just by buying a bottle of water every day for a year. With the same message in mind, we collected 365 coffee cups and, with Justin Donofrio’s artistic sensibility, scattered the cups across the lawn. We borrowed a Nalgene and a reusable mug from Cabrillo’s bookstore to present alternatives. Throughout the day, we overheard people commenting on the displays, and it was exciting to hear people’s responses; the message was delivered. Along with the images we displayed statistics about water bottle recycling, tap water quality, exposed the myth that coffee cups can be recycled, and other information to try to discourage the use of disposable bottles and cups.

I started to realize how much more information is needed to actually calculate the carbon footprint of food systems than just the miles traveled. I found“A Weighted Average Source Distance (WASD) is used to calculate a single distance figure that combines information on the distances from production to point of sale and the amount of food  product transported” (Pirog). This will show how to determine how much of an impact an item has had in it’s transportation. One item isn’t responsible for the emissions of the entire trip; hundreds of the same item are sent at the same time. This is a complicated process, but it’s important to acknowledge all the factors. After that calculation, there are the emissions from the tractors, and the rest of production and cultivation.

Works Cited

Pirog, Rich. “Checking the Food Odometer.” <www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/

staff/files/food_travel072103.pdf> May 25, 2008

 

 

This is My final report for a Alan Lonnberg's Food and Culture Class

Those of us in the class who worked on food projects outside of the class could present to the class about what we had done. 

 

Whitney Bell

Final Paper

Allan Lonnberg

5/28/08

 

Cabrillo’s Sustainability Assessment and The World

 

 

In the spring semester of 2008, Karen Groppi and Michelle Merrell initiated a Sustainability Assessment on campus through the CWEE program. When I met with them for the first time, we brainstormed ideas about how to go about the assessment and what my involvement in it should be. I left the meeting elated because for the first time I felt like I had an opportunity to start working towards sustainability in an institution with the support of a program and professors. Not only that, but I had the freedom to explore which approaches I thought would have the greatest impact on our community. With their support, I felt like my options were limitless. My frustration with the injustices in the world can be summed up by part of the “Manifesto of the Americas” from the Food First website:

            We live in a dominant economic system that for centuries has engaged in the          unlimited exploitation of all ecosystems and their natural resources. This strategy        has generated economic growth and, for some countries, what has been called   “development,” and has privileged the consumption and well-being of a small        fraction of humanity. And, unfortunately, it has excluded the great majority of            humanity from access to minimum conditions for survival. (Manifesto)

 

This is the big picture, and illustrates the giant I intended to attack with my two units, Karen and Michelle. I want to do what I can to influence the world in a good way, and am often overwhelmed by the amount of injustice in the world. There is so much exploitation of, and disrespect towards, the natural world, and thus, to humans, by the corporations and government in North America. This current economic (and food) system is so institutionalized and established that it was easy to feel disabled by it. But the sustainability assessment sounded like it would be the perfect tool to start chipping away at the unjust monstrosity that is ailing our world. I believe that the food system is germane to the health of the world, so I chose to assess Cabrillo’s cafeteria as a start.        

In the first Climate Initiative Task Force meeting, we all seemed to have a difficult time defining sustainability and how to go about assessing something we could hardly define. After much discussion, debate, and research, I found a definition that I agree with: sustainability is the elimination of ugliness— both ecological and human. While the focus in group discussions has been mainly on the “carbon footprint” of the college, I believe that the human aspect of sustainability, which is the maintenance of health and happiness, is equally important.

In relation to the cafeteria, I have explored the implications of locally versus globally produced food, how the food we purchase from the distributors directly impacts communities and the environment in a destructive way, and how, in addition to the distance traveled by a given food item, the cultivation and production of that item is equally, if not more, important. I will also discuss the different avenues I was able to explore through the assessment related more to community outreach than assessment, and present ideas about how I plan to further explore these issues.

In an article about local farms, Woody Guthrie said, “Participating in local and regional food and farm markets helps keep food dollars circulating in the local economy—rather than increasing the profits of distant corporations that suck the dollars and the life out of our communities.” The cafeteria purchases food from Watsonville Produce, which, misleadingly, doesn’t distribute produce grown in Watsonville. The man I spoke with at Watsonville Produce, Adrian, was extremely helpful, and he gave me detailed information on some of the food products bought most frequently and in the greatest quantities by the cafeteria. The origins of the foods we sell in the cafeteria are mainly international, and a few are from different places in North America. Even though California is ideal for growing most of the produce sold in the cafeteria, they are wastefully shipped thousands of miles. Below is the information Adrian at Watsonville Produce gave me:

 

Bananas           Ecuador                                   Shipped by truck in Banana Boxes to Los

Angeles or San Francisco

Nectarines       Chile                                        Shipped by truck in bins to coolers to be

packaged either loose or in layers

Grapes             Chile                                        Grown in controlled atmosphere and     

                                                                        shipped by boat

Onions             Oregon, Idaho, Nevada         Stored up to a year in cold, dark

                         Washington, California          environment with no oxygen

Potatoes          Same as Onions

Bell Peppers    Mexico                                    Soon to be Florida. Workers walk down

                                                                        rows with large backpacks like with

                                                                        artichokes, shipped by truck, depending on

                                                                        how bruised, price follows.

Cucumbers      Mexico                                    Same process as Bell Peppers

 

Focus packaging, the company who supplies the cafeteria with plastic-ware, napkins, and the disposable trays and boxes for the food, is located in Fresno and uses a common carrier for shipment. They wouldn’t tell me more. Of course, they get their materials from somewhere else as well. “Food sovereignty promotes closed-circuit local production and consumption, and community action for access to land, water, and agro-biodiversity, using agro-ecological methods. Local production for local consumption allows consumers to know that their quality of life is tightly linked with the type of agriculture practiced in neighboring rural areas.”

One of the strongest arguments for supplying local products in the cafeteria is that “…most ‘hungry countries’ have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.” Poole-Kavana. Our purchases disregard the fact that “at present, 37 countries throughout every region of the world are experiencing localized food insecurity, lack of access to food, or shortfalls in food production or supplies” (USAID). Importing food internationally without guarantee that the workers, local ecology and economy are not being compromised is irresponsible. In this case, the power lies with the consumer; we choose what we want to support with our money.

It is important to consider the complexity of the issue of local food. While in California, we can grow much of what we like to eat because our climate is ideal for growing diverse types of crops. In some cases, however, it takes more energy and fossil fuels to grow certain crops in this climate. In addition to the importance of considering regionally appropriate foods, the methods of production are extremely important. With this information in mind, it was difficult to focus so narrowly on the miles a single food product traveled.

To calculate the miles traveled by all the products used and sold in the cafeteria is an immense task, but the total emissions one food product is responsible for isn’t explained only by the distance it traveled. The method of cultivation and production are huge factors, and in some cases, have greater impacts on the environment than the shipment. The types of agricultural practices are so varied that in some cases, a tomato grown out of the area would have a smaller “carbon footprint” than a tomato grown conventionally and locally. The amounts of pesticides, fertilizers, tractors, water, etc. are all crucial in determining how much of an impact a single food item has had on the environment and it’s inhabitants. Unfortunately, this data is extremely difficult to quantify.

The Cabrillo campus is stocked with beverages made by Pepsi, which, without looking deeply into the specific negative aspects of supporting this company, simply does not link consumers with what they consume, nor does it support the local economy. The bottom line with big businesses is profit; whatever and whoever else is impacted by the company’s practices are intentionally ignored.

[Corporations’] power have extracted enormous profits for their owners and managers. And it has promoted dramatic increases in food exports from poorer nations to the industrialized north that have resulted in a downward spiral of poverty, low wages, rural-urban migration, dramatic cross-border migration, and massive environmental degradation. (Altieri)

 Our support for one of the world’s largest corporations encourages all these injustices. While it is unfair to say that every corporation is run on greed and disregard for it’s consequences, it is generally understood that their practices are seldom beneficial to more than a handful of already wealthy people.

Without focusing too much on the negative aspects of the cafeteria, I have found it necessary to balance details and downers with ideas for creating a better system. The best response toward becoming a sustainable campus, community and world, is to “democratize the world’s food systems, taking the control away from the handful of agri-food oligopolies and putting it back into the hands of the farmers and consumers who are supposed to benefit from agriculture”(Patel). Clearly this is an ideal, and the cafeteria is one place to start.

However important this information is as an underlying principal and inspiration, the specifics of the products sold in the cafeteria are crucial in order to understand the true reaches and implications of our campus. The quantifiable aspects like miles traveled and even fossil fuels used in the production of a given product will take time and much investigation. The most difficult part of this assessment will be somehow gauging the social implications of our food system. Not only is it difficult to express in numbers, but if injustices do exist within some of the companies we support, they will not be forthright with that information. What to do?

Since the class is so new, and the parameters hazily defined, I had a lot of freedom to find different ways of assessing and promoting sustainability on campus. I ended up working a lot on Earth Week and speaking at the social justice conference more than actually assessing the carbon footprint of the school. Initially, Karen, my friend Erin and I were working on a plastic water bottle display and another with disposable coffee cups. After that was finished and strung across the library, I helped Ryan Kaplan for the rest of the day, and the following two days. Ryan had set virtually every speaker, performance, and booth, and it was perfect that I needed hours and was able to help with the event. There aren’t enough people working on these things in the way he is, so this gave me a great opportunity to help.

The water bottle display was 365 bottles strung across the front of the library, and was meant to show people how much waste they generate just by buying a bottle of water every day for a year. With the same message in mind, we collected 365 coffee cups and, with Justin Donofrio’s artistic sensibility, scattered the cups across the lawn. We borrowed a Nalgene and a reusable mug from Cabrillo’s bookstore to present alternatives. Throughout the day, we overheard people commenting on the displays, and it was exciting to hear people’s responses; the message was delivered. Along with the images we displayed statistics about water bottle recycling, tap water quality, exposed the myth that coffee cups can be recycled, and other information to try to discourage the use of disposable bottles and cups.

These things spread some awareness about waste and the health of the earth around campus, but I’m looking forward to making some changes in the system itself. The cafeteria, the vending machines, the little café, and the food people bring to school in all stages of production and disposal need to be assessed eventually. And ideally some transformations will occur before the entire food system on campus is assessed. There are plans in the works for a café on the lower level of the Student Activities Center West, which faculty members have considered allowing students to run. Perhaps some of the more quantifiable aspects of the current food system will help inspire the faculty to support a student run café that reunites students with what and who sustains them.  Maybe even how!

 

Works Cited

 

Altieri, Miguel. “Food Price Increases—Who Gets Hurt and What can be Done About      it?” May 20, 2008. < www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2084>

Barber, Dan. “Solving the Food, Health, & Energy Crisis: Local & Organic Production     on Smaller Farms.” May 22, 2008.        

            <organicconsumers.org/articles/article_122    16.cfm>

Food First admin. “Forging Food Sovereignty for Human Rights and Sustainable Livelihoods,” May 23, 2008.  <www.foodfirst.org/en/about/programs>

Food First admin. “Manifesto of the Americas: In Defense of Nature and Biological and Cultural Diversity,” May 23, 2008. <http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/1470>

Gentleman, Amelia. “Pesticide Charge in India Hurts Pepsi and Coke.” May 25, 2008.

<http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14039>

Guthrie, Woody. “Save Family Farms, Save America,” May 20, 2008.        <www.alternet.org/envirohealth/35404/>

Patel, Raj & Holt-Gimenez, Eric. “The New Green/Biotech Revolution and World Food   Prices.” May 23, 2008. <www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_12039.cfm>

Poole-Kavana, Holly. “12 Myths about Hunger,” May 20, 2008.

            < www.foodfirst.org/12myths>
USAID. “USAID Responds to Global Food Crisis,” May 28, 2008.

<http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/foodcrisis/>