The Victory Garden Initiative

On the coat tails of the a post I received from a listserv of which I am part,  inviting me to the panel discussion of “sustainability experts”, from corporations such as Monsanto and Dow Chemical,  let me pass along this interesting letter (below) about large ag companies.  People have asked me why I chose the name Victory Garden Initiative when it is related to war propaganda…but I would argue that we average citizens are at war with the corporate control of our food and environmental resources.  This is a battle that we can no longer afford to lose.  The rapid and astounding destruction of the planet due to corporate agriculture has left us with a small window of time to take action before the world is a very different place.  So, yes, we grow our own food because its fun, because its inexpensive, because it tastes better, because its more nutritious, because it builds community, because it uses fewer fossil fuels, but quite possibly we must grow our own food because our basic human rights are being threatened by the complete corporate takeover of the food and water systems for large profit for the few and at the demise of everyone else.  This new form of global slavery is reaching a tipping point. 
 
So, you and I, we are partners in this, and we need eachother to grow it….

The Post from Chris Bedford: 

All. Today is the 25th Anniversary of the Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. The number of people affected, injured, and killed has been the subject of debate. But it seems clear that a half a million were exposed to some degree to MIC and other chemicals released and approximately 40,000 people died either immediately or from injuries directly related to the accident. MIC was a key ingredient in India’s petrochemical Green Revolution — an intermediate chemical in the production of a number of insecticides, some still in use today. Union Carbide still claims the MIC release was an act of deliberate sabotage and that “it” was the victim at Bhopal. This giant-chemical-corporation-as-victim delusion is symptomatic of our time; the end-of-free-market capitalism in which corporations have become too big to fail, too powerful to be held accountable. So why remember the Bhopal tragedy today on this 25th anniversary, aside from respect for all its victims? I believe the Bhopal tragedy offers us some insights and lessons in our struggle to build true community food security today. In the years after the tragedy, I encountered countless “near Bhopal scale” incidents in the US chemical industry. At Bhopal’s sister MIC facility in Institute, West Virginia, an emergency inspection of the unit found three of the four redundant safety systems disabled – the same as at Bhopal. A hydrofluoric acid spill in Texas City, Texas came within 6 inches of killing 50-100,000 people downwind. The petrochemical industry has a long record of valuing production and profits over safety. I believe they have made a calculation that the costs of an accident or an exposure are miniscule compared to the career building profits possible from a kind of “what can I get away with?” attitude towards production and safety. Indeed, the record suggests they are right. No one has been held accountable for the Bhopal tragedy. Token payments have been made to some victims, but Union Carbide has never claimed responsibility for the failure. This denial is part of an agrichemical industry strategy to escape the costs of corporate irresponsibility or at least delay them long enough to allow current management to retire blameless. In Michigan, where I live, Dow Chemical (now owner of Union Carbide) has fought a shameful battle against residents of the Midland and the Tittabawasee River basin exposed to very high levels of dioxins and furans. Dow’s goal has been to avoid responsibility for at least a quarter century of contamination while claiming it now acts with the highest standards of safety. In the west end of Louisville, Kentucky in an industrial area known as Rubbertown, Dupont exposed largely African-American chemical workers to hazardous chemicals for decades. One Dupont manager reportedly said that the corporation would resist settling a class action lawsuit based on this poisoning until “all the plaintiffs were dead.” I could go on and on with stories like these based on my two decades of work investigating the petrochemical industry. What is important for us today is to realize the large corporations that monopolize conventional industrial agriculture today aren’t going to suddenly change when they “see the light”. From the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico to the health of agricultural workers to consumer exposure to unsafe ingredients, these corporations have too much liability, too much to lose to engage in real negotiations about changing the way our nation farms. Petrochemical domination of conventional and industrial farming is based on a fundamentally wrong paradigm of destruction of life in the soil. Living soil is seen as the enemy. Their goal is organism-free dirt that functions as a medium to deliver man-made inputs and nutrients. This extraordinary mistake has produced record amounts of production (not food) in the very short-term while reducing carrying capacity in the long term and causing almost unimaginable damage in the process. If a realistic calculation were done to assess the total environmental, economic, and public health damage done by agricultural chemical and industrial corporations, the sum would exceed the book value of the corporations responsible. So, if the food security of our nation depends, in some critical measure, on the scale and speed of a transition to sustainable farming using 80% less petroleum, that protects water quality and conserves water quantity through organic growing practices based on healthy, living soil, what are we do to about the corporate inheritors of the legacy of Bhopal? I propose we look to South Africa for a solution. When apartheid was abolished and Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, the new South Africa was confronted with legacy of repression, torture, and death caused by its own citizens. There surely must have been a very strong temptation to take revenge. But a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created instead. The goal was to make public the “truth” about what had happened under apartheid – to grant amnesty to virtual all responsible for past actions. The “truth” was important to help the new nation find a path forward. We are in a similar moment with regard to industrial, petrochemical intensive conventional agriculture. Though its corporate proponents still rule in Washington like South African President de Klerk ruled in Pretoria, change from the ground (literally the soil, in our case) is coming. We need our own version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for agriculture, one that helps conventional farmers see not only how they have been victimized by the agricultural petrochemical industry, but helps them chart a new path ahead. We also need to grant amnesty to those corporations that stop producing the most damaging, most resilience destroying chemicals. Short of consumers marching on agrichemical corporate headquarters with pitchforks and torches, I don’t see any better way of making this change. We need to acknowledge what has happened is wrong. Forgive and move swiftly in the right direction (because of our survival requires it of us). That is the lesson of Bhopal that I see. I still dream of what it must have been like that night of December 3rd in Bhopal’s crowded neighborhoods pressed up against the Union Carbide plant. The choking. The panic. The crush and trampling. The long term suffering of those who didn’t die immediately. We must remember those victims. I propose that we use their memory to create light and life. We must move forward. Peace and good food and living soil, Chris Bedford Christopher Bedford CENTER FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY #6543 Hancock Road Montague, MI 49437 chrisbedford@charter.net 231-893-3937 + 231-670-4817 (cell) www.HealthySchoolMeals.org www.center4economicsecurity.org

We did it!  We more than did it!  We took pledges for more than 400 fruit and nut trees, vines, and bushes.  Not only did we take pledges for these trees, we got the word out to hundreds, or probably thousands of people about the importance of creating a local sustainable food system.  And, we had fun doing it.  This is the beauty of entering into the work of creating a sustainable future…community.  Working together for our future by growing nutritious delicious foods…what more can we ask for.

Thanks to everyone who planned, participated, and planted.  Thanks to All People’s church for taking a proactive role in feeding it’s congregation with local food.  Thanks to all the friends we made along the way.  Special thanks to River West Victory Garden Mobilizer, Sarah Moore, whose vision was compelling and successful.

This is a grassroots movement.  Move grass.  Grow fruit and nuts.

350 Fruitty Nutty on WUWM

NOTE – Steins is having a HUGE sale on Fruit trees and Bushes.

New Link to photos from All People’s Church Planting!

Transition Milwaukee and The Victory Garden Initiative are hoping to inspire the planting of 350 Fruit and Nut Trees, Vines, and Bushes, to bring awareness to the number 3 – 5 – 0.

350 is the number of CO2 ppm that are acceptable to prevent run away climate change. We are too high, at 385! and we must get back. Help us localize our food system, reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, build resilient food systems and bring attention to climate change by being counted on October 24th, The International Day of Climate Action…..350 Day!

Things you can do:

* Log on to TheVictoryGardenInitiative.com and tell us how many trees you will be planting, or pledging to plant in the spring.

* We are taking orders for Hazelnut Trees, for just $6, contact sarahworks@wi.rr.com to place an order. Local protein, local fat – what is more important than that?

* Tell your friends and neighbors about this event, hoot and holler ’til they pledge, Help them plant a tree, help your parents plant a tree, help your church plant a tree, help your school plant a tree, help, help, help, plant trees.

* Help us at All People’s Church on October 17th, from 9-2, plant a food forest. Come to the garden at 2nd and Clarke and Bring your shovel!

* Join us at the 350 Carnival on October 24th from 12-3:50, at Gordon Park, while we show people how to prepare a nut seed for spring growth.

* Since you know it is good and right to move away from a consumerist society and protect our earthship, why do you need money?…donate to this cause and we ensure that every dime goes towards planting fruit and nuts trees in our beautiful city.

* Think us lame? Then blog about how you’ve outdone us on TheVictoryGardenInitiative.com or TransitionMilwaukee.com website or log onto 350.org and tell them.

Transition Milwaukee, where Calamity meets Magnanimity.
The Victory Garden Initiative: This is a grassroots movement. Move grass. Grow food

PLEASE VIEW THE COMMENTS TO THIS POST TO SEE ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED!

PLEASE PLEDGE YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN 350 BY ADDING A COMMENT TO THIS BLOG POST!

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Responding to the needs of our planet one tree at a time.

~g

Sign this petition.  Its important. Speak up.  Get involved. Spend your money wisely.  Grown your own.

Hello Greenhorns, 
This month’s Eat and Meet will be held in Bayview at Swee Sims House. 

802 E Lincoln, corner of Lincoln & Aldrich in Bayview. 

It’s about 3 blocks east of the store. 

Swee’s cell is 758-8562 
Gretchen’s cell is 333-2537 
We will be focusing on Bayviews involvement in the VGI.  If you come, 
surely we will put you to work. 

Agenda: 

Eat, Drink, and be Merry (please bring local dish to pass and a 
beverage, if desired). 

Update on what is happening with VGI, overall. 

Hear from Bayviewers about what is happening with urban ag in your 
area. 

Discuss Bayview involvement. 
- Compost collective, where, when, who, why 
- Increase the Urban Farm in Bayview??? 
- What is already happening in Bayview?? 
- How to partner with existing entities - 
-Political Allies in Bayview 

Spend 15 minutes brainstorming these areas and then move into second 
half 
developing a plan for engagement. 

Identify people to spearhead projects. 
Identify projects for each person to 
lead. 

We have much to do, and so little time. 

Bring a notebook, your calendar, your thinking cap, and you enthusiasm 
for this cause. 
(and of course a bit of you garden to share)