I am learning more everyday about the importance of eating locally grown food, especially food grown from heirloom seeds (a catchall term for seeds that have not been genetically modified). A few recent conversations with a close friend who is involved with Slow Foods and the Fayetteville Farmers Market reminded me about how I have been wanting to post some information about a great place to get heirloom seeds in Arkansas.

Heirloom seeds produce food that tastes much better, has a wider variety, and a higher nutritional value that genetically modified seeds. But that’s not the only reason to invest in growing them and/or support farmers who sell them. Heirloom seeds and the farmers that grow them operate in direct opposition to major corporate seed/pesticide companies like Monsanto and Dow. Huge companies like Monsanto and their non-diversified seeds that produce sub-par vegetables have purposefully put generations of small, local farmers out of business both in the United States and around the world. They have polluted our food sources and water sources with chemical fertilizers and made it so that farmers have to produce food on a mass scale if they want to make a living at farming.

To make matters worse, these genetically modified seeds and their vegetable offspring have little power to withstand changes in climate, new strains of disease and other such instabilities.

In fact, if you begin looking deeper into the information about food shortages around the world, you will discover that one of the problems creating these shortages can be traced back to the lack of crop diversity and mass-scale farming created by major seed/chemical companies like Monsanto.

In short, I think heirloom seeds are (or at least potentially are) radical little specks of plant and animal resistance to a cooperate owned food system that pits urban dweller against rural farmer and creates environmentally stupid situations like shipping in tomatoes from Florida even though we can grow them just fine right here in Arkansas. I think also ties in with the injustices that happen every day at meat and poultry processing plants across our state.

I just recently found out about the Northcentral Arkansas Heirloom Seed Shop and Food Bank when trying to hunt down some heirloom seeds in Arkansas. What I find so potentially wonderful and amazing about this place is not do they sell heirloom seeds; they also operate a food bank to help bring a sustainable solution to food insecurity in Northwest Arkansas. It’s one of those ideas that is so creative and ingenious because it makes so much common sense.

This is a direct and regional solution to the low nutritional deficit, food insecurity, and instability caused by genetically modified crops, and this Seed shop and foodbank seem to be addressing that link in a practical, solutions-based manner.. I am curious about how things are working out for them and once I get a chance to learn more about the operation I will post some more information.

The website has information about the difference between heirloom and hybrid seeds, the importance of getting away from genetically modified food, and an online catalog from which to order seeds.

They also have a blog about the Foodbank. It has not been updated in a while, but it still has some interesting information.

I am in the midst of writing a post about what I have been learning about the importance of growing our own food and the heirloom seeds and who this all relates to folklore and a food culture of social action. But I wanted to make sure to get this information up now.

If you want to learn more about the fight against Monsanto in particular, go here: Millions Against Monsanto.

If you want to learn more about the importance of heirloom seeds, Barbara Kingsoliver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life has some great information, especially chapters three and four.
The book also has a website
If you have any other reading suggestions, please let me know!

Also, I would love to hear if anyone has ever been out to the seed shop, knows anyone who saves/grows heirloom seeds, or any other related comments.

He describes immigration as a “political act,” and discusses not only immigration stories in the U.S. and Canada, but also the situation in Spain where over 6,000 northern African immigrants died last year trying to make the journey.

Most importantly he provides examples of ways to resist and provides examples of resistance from Vancouver.

The only problem is that there is some music playing in the background that can be very distracting. I can’t figure out why it’s there.

Listen Here.

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Barre Toelken always talks about the “So What? Question.” So…Some questions for folklorists and ethnographers that come to mind—

Because of our economic system, we all unintentionally engage in the exploitation of human rights through our food consumption, our driving, and other daily activities. How can public folklorists, whose mission it is to study the rhythms of daily life, help in organizing against these abuses?
I think for starters we can open out the story to move past just the local–to see how the local is global. Material Cultural specialists often talk about studying the “life history” of an object. What about folklorists examining the life history of one of our common denominators: a trip to the grocery store, for example.

Folklorists and other so-called ‘cultural professionals’ can also parter with worker’s rights organizations to learn more about local immigration situations. Rather than just looking at how immigrants dynamically combine the culture of their country of origin with the culture of their new home, folklorists can actively listen to the stories of why they are here.
I think this also brings up a discussion about the importance of being at least conversationally multi-lingual. We need to place a higher priority on our language skills.
Current articles on public folklore theory encourage us to learn to speak the language of business, of marketing, of tourism. How about we learn to speak the language of the people we are supposed to be working with?

Of course, that begs the question how CAN we work with immigrant communities in a way that is not superficial? Do we have models for this? If not, how do we start working toward one?

I often think about the often disputed Kelly Feltault article, “Development Folklife: Human Security and Cultural Conservation,” published in the special JAF Public Folklore Edition. She argues that without a greater understanding of globalization, we can’t truly be folklorists who focus on human rights.

I also think we can use one of our greatest skills: asking questions. Public folklore programs are forever wanting to embrace ‘the diversity’ of people. But so much of this so-called ‘embrace’ stays at a superficial level. Let’s start being part of the voice that asks questions like, What are the stories of immigration in my community? What economic policies keep this in place? What is the human face of immigration, as the radio piece asks. I think Kelly Feltault is right. If we want to do what we say we do, we have to actively pursue a deeper understanding of economic systems, cooperations, immigration laws, guest worker programs, and the like.

LINKS FOR KY AND AR:
Northwest Arkansas Worker Justice Center
Kentucky Jobs with Justice

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas? From folklorists or anybody else?