The Diversity of Food

There are many alternatives to the top three main crops that provide half of the calories people consume. Wheat, rice, and corn can move over and make room for millet, amaranth, montina, tapioca (manioc), yucca, sorghum, quinoa, buckwheat, arrowroot, and teff. Quinoa is the powerhouse of the group, with an almost-perfectly balanced amino acid composition for humans. It has a high content of calcium, phosphorus, and iron and is low in sodium. Significant vitamins include B6, niacin, riboflavin, and thiamin. Other minerals include copper, magnesium, manganese, potassium, and zinc. Wheat is the only cereal grain that comes close to matching quinoa's protein content. Like soybeans, quinoa is high in lysine, an amino acid often lacking in vegetable products. On a side note, despite its name, buckwheat isn’t a wheat or grain — it’s a fruit from the same plant family that includes rhubarb and sorrel. Millet, montina, tapioca, yucca, sorghum, quinoa, buckwheat, arrowroot, and teff have the distinction of being perennials. Perennials are hardy plants, requiring little more than watering and a new layer of compost yearly. Perennials are good for the soil. Generally speaking, less tillage means less upset of the soil food web that recycles and mobilizes soil nutrients. Because perennial roots and plant crowns remain in place even throughout the winter, they help protect the soil from wind and water erosion. The relatively permanent roots also provide a nearly continuous supply of carbon-rich nutrition to the soil food web in the form of compounds that their roots secrete.

Depending on three main crops to supply half of all the calories consumed is a train wreck waiting to happen. The loss of crop diversity translates into increased susceptibility to devastation brought on by pests and blight. This is because crops that share a common genetic heritage are susceptible to the same types of pests and fungi. With increased plant diversity, and its resulting varied genetic heritage, the pests and fungi that might wipe out one strain of crop will leave another virtually unscathed. Also, crops with a varied genetic heritage provide different amounts and sometimes varying vitamins and minerals. This results in better all around nutrition for the world's population. Farmers can choose which plant strain grows best on what land, reducing the need to fertilize so heavily, and thereby reducing toxic fertilizer runoff into the watershed.

Corporate agribusiness is behind the push to decrease diversity. By selecting crop strains that can withstand being transported, they make a bigger profit because they can ship to locations further and further away with little loss of product. Flavor and nutrition are distant concerns compared to transportability.

Also, in their short-sighted, profit-oriented vision, they can streamline business operations and boost profit by growing the same genetic strain of crop year after year. All that is required is to fertilize more and more heavily each year as the soil becomes more and more depleted. The downside to this is that the danger of the world's food supply being wiped out is increasing as more crops are derived from the same strain, and therefore susceptible to the same pests and blight.

As far as the argument that being able to transport crops further and further away to be sold creates increased choice for the consumer, consider this: what kind of choices are being made available when a shopper in England has the same choice of three or four varieties of apples as the shopper in America?

Stephen Fayon, who directs an international seed bank in Auroville, India, makes several important and poignant points regarding the importance of plant diversity in the following clip........

Worst Mistake

The decision to increase food production over limiting population did have many negative connotations for the physical well-being of humans. When considering human nature, it also seems inevitable.

Jared Diamond is correct in asserting the security of having a large quantity of food to harvest was offset by many negative factors. The restricted variety of foods in farmers’ diets does not provide the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that the hunter-gatherer’s diet does and leads to stunted growth. This is evidenced by the decrease in height of the Greek and Turkish male, from 5’9” at the end of the Ice Age (and during the hunter-gatherer era) to 5’3” by the year 3000 BC (after the adoption of agriculture). The most significant change is the lives of these males during this time period is going from a hunting-gathering society to an agricultural society. Diamond also notes other important findings, such as research done on 800 Indian skeletal remains found in burial mounds in the Ohio and Illinois river valleys. Compared to their hunter-gatherer ancestors, the early Indian farmers who practiced intensive maize farming techniques had increased indicators of malnutrition, anemia, infectious disease, and degenerative spine conditions. Again, the most significant change in their society was the move from hunting-gathering to farming. The incentive to farm was to provide food for ever-increasing numbers of population. This in turn led to an increase in disease and parasites because of crowded conditions. These diseases and parasites never had a chance to take foothold and spread among the small groups (around 30 members) of hunter-gatherers that were constantly on the move. One other pitfall of farming was the reliance of one main crop for a food source. Drought and insect infestations could nearly wipe out entire communities.

The shift to farming was inevitable because humans as a whole covet power and possessions. With farming, land ownership came to a chosen few, and with land ownership came wealth and power. Large families provided a greater source of personal economic power – the more bodies in a family, the more work that can be done. It is also in human nature to want to see the “family tree” continued into the future, and farming gave early families a better chance to fulfill that desire.

5/19-Inequities food dist/avail; assoc issues

Politics interfere with food distribution - the situation is Myanmar is an excellent example. Even when a government does allow food to be brought in from outside agencies, there is good cause to wonder how much of the product reaches those who need it the most. Many times, there have been reports of the military stealing food meant for those who are suffering, and selling it on the black market.

Children born into poverty stricken environments are the hardest hit among starving populations. Through no fault of their own, they are born into lives of hardship and oftentimes misery.

On the other side of the equation are those citizens of wealthy countries whose health woes are self-inflicted. Because of a lack of personal responsibility for one's health, certain types of illness and disease are prevalent in countries where processed food is abundant. These health woes are not found in countries where a more natural diet is the norm.

Education provides an excellent service to all citizens of all countries. In the poorer nations, charitable groups teaching the value of soil enrichment, irrigation, livestock care, and use of solar ovens are helping citizens overcome malnutrition. These groups supply seed stock, tools and animals that serve as the foundation of building herds and flocks, and providing a seed supply for the following year. In the richer nations, where there are still a portion of citizens who are malnourished, education provides links to social services and information on nutritious food choices.