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An Exclusive to MollieKatzen.Com
Dear Friends,
This month we have a guest here on the Kitchen Table Gazette: Andy Griffin, who, along with his wife Julia, farms delicious organic produce in Watsonville, California. Andy is a terrific writer as well as a dedicated farmer. I'm pleased he has permitted me to share his vision with you.
Yours In health,
Mollie
Guns and Butter: Some Thoughts on Modern Agriculture
By Andy Griffin
Mariquita Farm
Organically Grown Vegetables, Berries and Herbs
P.O. Box 2065 Watsonville, CA 95077
(831)761-3226
www.mariquita.com
The Luftwaffe bombed the London Zoo during the German blitz on Britain in the Second World War. Survivors of the attack crept out of the cellars where they'd been hiding to find lions, tigers, bears, and wolves that had been sprung from their cages wandering wild-eyed down the smoky streets. The campaign of terrorism from the air that sought to panic and kill all the inhabitants of London even down to the animals in the zoo was the inspiration of world renowned wine connoisseur, gourmand, and psychopath Reichsmarshall Herman Goering.
In
a radio address to the German Nation during the summer of 1936, the bloated commander of the German Air Force had felt moved to reflect on the meaning of dairy products. "Guns will make us powerful," he proclaimed,
"butter will just make us fat." I'm writing this just before Memorial Day, a time set aside from our busy work schedule to remember the sacrifice made by the people who died or who were maimed defending our country from
the likes of Herman Goering. But each year at this time, as we bust out the picnic baskets or fire up the barbecues, let's take a moment, too, to think about this dichotomy of guns or butter, arms or food, that Goering posed.
You can't eat a gun, so even the most militaristic societies have to make some concessions to the production of food. Here's some history to raise our awareness: Prior to the First World War farms depended on draft animals to pull the plows, the harrows and the wagons. Crop fertility programs were based around animal manures which were cheap and plentiful. Even seemingly technologically advanced chemical fertilizers of the day like sodium nitrates were actually seabird
guanos mined from deposits along the Chilean coast where eons of seagull excrement had built up into mountains. Germany, with a huge population to support, imported Chilean nitrate by the boatload. After the First World War
broke out the Germans found themselves cut off from their supply of South American nitrates by the British fleet. This was an especially devastating blow to the Kaiser's war effort because the same nitrates used as fertilizers were
also necessary in the manufacture of gunpowder. To be able to dedicate all available nitrates to ammunition production, the Germans were forced to improvise. Soon German scientists figured out ways to create synthetic fertilizers from coal, petroleum and natural gas. These innovations changed the face of agriculture to this day.
Modern conventional growers depend on these synthetic fertilizers to get the high levels of production they are famous for. Case in point: just watch conventional food costs go up as all the proposed new natural gas-burning power plants, once built, begin to compete with agribusiness for the limited natural gas supplies.
The logic of imperialism prompted the Japanese Navy to strike at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese empire was going to need the rubber plantations in Malaya and the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies and the American Navy was in the way. The Japanese Army took over the U.S. colony in the Philippines cutting the Americans off from their principal source of foreign labor. With the war underway, most young able-bodied American men went off to fight, leaving no one at home to work the fields. The U.S. turned to Mexico to solve this equation, and supplying farm
laborers to the north became Mexico's contribution to the war effort. Cheap Mexican labor notwithstanding, the war served as a powerful stimulant for industry to develop the chemical pesticides and herbicides that would
dramatically lower the need for farm labor. After the A-bomb dropped and the fighting stopped, the soldiers came home, but few people went back to the fields. Farm labor was left to the Mexicans and when they got exposed to
dangerous pesticides on the job, few people noticed. It has taken a long time and a lot of damage to the environment to get people to focus on the deleterious side effects of these "cheap" and "efficient" agricultural chemicals.
For Goering the choice was between guns and butter. He reached for his gun and ended up eating cyanide. We won the shooting war but it's important to remember we've all ingested poisons as a result of the "efficiencies" prompted by conflict.
I'd like to have a different debate, a different dichotomy. Wouldn't it be more fun to chose between various brands of butter? Wouldn't it be nice for our society to rethink its agricultural systems in a peaceful mood, with ecological sustainability recognized for being the most truly efficient and ultimately powerful goal?
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