This area of food waste has drilled into me for months, perhaps years.  The concept—truly something that can only happen in a “developed” country—bothers me: that waste could co-exist with food. I watched my mother for years empty the coffee grounds out the back door, and it took me until recently to figure out she was amending the soil around the lilac bush.

I’ve gone back to school—again—to learn about Horticulture because I got sucked into the whole compost thing. When an interest finds me, I generally follow through exposure after exposure until enough sticks and I learn some things about the topic. Compost got more and more complex, until I found myself back in college, learning about soil chemistry. Suddenly my mother’s seemingly eccentric action took on great, deep meaning.

The microbes—and it’s all about the microbes—are key to our survival, our sustainability if you will. And, we’ve been very systematically destroying them with our actions I’ll term “corporate practices” for now. “Corporate” because externalized costs and limited liability are inherent.

Think of the images you might be able to dredge up of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the Cradle of Civilization, and the Center of Agriculture. Do you see lush gardens—the Garden of Eden, perhaps, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—or do you envision deserts and sterility? We now know but have difficulty accepting that our agriculture practices (as opposed to farming; but more about that later) instigate desertification. Create deserts.

So, I began composting because where I live was once a colony of Spain, then part of Mexico, and now part of the U.S.A. Most colonies were managed by corporations, but Spain used religious organizations with even more rights and privileges than corporations. The Spaniard religious organizations with the help of the military enslaved the people who already lived here, had them burn the forests when they couldn’t cut the trees down fast enough, and created huge tracts of grasslands so as to raise cattle. To sell their skins. The only export from the colony back to Spain for more than a hundred years was cattle hides. Shipped out of the famous missions around Monterey, California.

You may recall the provocative TV ad for some car with seats of Cordovan leather. Well, that part of Spain became famous for their leatherwork because of the religious business in the colonies. And leather was where it was during the 1500s and 1600s, as durable fabrics were difficult to come by. These cattle hides were even used for money in the area where I now live on Monterey Bay. And because of the extensive and prolonged grazing, my soil is practically sterile and will grow fewer and fewer things—like thistles—these days.

Agriculture VS Farming

Calling it corporate agriculture—as opposed to farming—is a very critical distinction. Probably the last strawberry you ate came from here. We grow a lot of strawberries, and this has had some interesting consequences. Strawberries require lots and lots of water. So, my local water association, with our mutual wells, ran into trouble because one well was coming up with nitrates (from nitrogen fertilizer for heavy feeders like strawberries being washed into our water system with all the watering by the heavy drinker strawberry plants) and arsenic (not sure yet where that’s coming from, but I’m checking). So, our recourse was to drill further away from the corporate ag fields.

And I say “corporate ag” because of these features: companies with limited liability leasing fields to grow crops. They have no interest in water quality or quantity: this is proven by their practices of water delivery and usage, fertilizer usage, and lack of consideration for the surrounding community. They use a very toxic substance closely linked to global warming and banned nearly everywhere else—methyl bromide—in their strawberry production. Special dispensation from the California legislature and federal government allows this nasty substance to be used after it was legally banned, and why? Good question. I’ll get back to you.

Other corporate practices that don’t mesh with sustainability are growing continuously without letting fields lie fallow to regenerate or mixing crops to enrich the soil. This goes on until the water is gone, the land is sterile, and the money has fled. And that money does flee. First, when local land is leased to a corporation, the chances that corporation keeps the money in the community are very, very slim. Most leaves the area. This has had an amazing drain on our economy; and we’re not alone. You too could be experiencing this drain if your town is full of Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, and others who sap vitality from local economies.

Back to the soil: when fertilizer is used on soil, it changes the environment so much that soil microbes don’t enjoy living there any more and they move or die. This means the “fertility” of the soil changes, as the microbes are there to transfer the nutrients and minerals via chemical exchanges. When the microbes are gone, this exchange ceases, and artificial fertilizers must used in great quantities with greater frequency. Does this sound like a drug habit to you? It is.

So, I’m finally getting to the food waste thing. Food is all around me. Fields and fields, with no fences, no barriers. Acres of broccoli, lettuce, those strawberry fields forever, and more. We have 12 feet of loam, the best kind of soil at a depth not found many other places on earth. It is an amazing resource. It grows all sorts of things well. So spectacular crops lead to spectacular levels of waste. People and businesses in our area are casual about tossing anything but the best looking fruit, the best looking lettuce.