Alice Waters and the not-so-incredible schoolyard.

Generally speaking the Cod feels about a Caitlin Flanagan/Alice Waters dustup the way he feels about the Jets-Chargers matchup. However, CF raises an interesting point or two about the oft-lauded Edible Schoolyard programs, especially that for many students, the Edible Schoolyard recapitulates the kind of work they or their parents are all too familiar with:

Imagine that as a young and desperately poor Mexican man, you had made the dangerous and illegal journey to California to work in the fields with other migrants. There, you performed stoop labor, picking lettuce and bell peppers and table grapes; what made such an existence bearable was the dream of a better life. You met a woman and had a child with her, and because that child was born in the U.S., he was made a citizen of this great country. He will lead a life entirely different from yours; he will be educated. Now that child is about to begin middle school in the American city whose name is synonymous with higher learning, as it is the home of one of the greatest universities in the world: Berkeley. On the first day of sixth grade, the boy walks though the imposing double doors of his new school, stows his backpack, and then heads out to the field, where he stoops under a hot sun and begins to pick lettuce.

It's an interesting idea, though it's possible that CF's argument depends a little bit on essentializing brown folks, and maybe even the idea that schools should, um, garden to the test, but it's provocative for sure. It strikes a chord in particular b/c of another well-meaning endeavor I was associated with, a CSA in Boston (actually Lincoln, MA, where kids from the proverbial inner city would garden, and bougey folks would buy shares and bring home kale and such every week. It was a good idea, except all of the shareowners except for me were white hausfraus from the western suburbs, piloting their Swedish armored personnel carriers to and from the CSA, while all of the gardeners were black kids wearing purple tee shirts. But for the lack of cotton in the CSA shares, the absence of sweet, soft, singing, and the presence of so many Volvos, it could have been a scene from a William Gilmore Simms novel. Tip of fin to Addison.

Comments

[Jay Porter]

Seems to me that Ms. Flanagan's argument is built on the meme that the industrialization of agriculture has freed us from being servants of the land. You know, that petroleum and machines and fertilizers have allowed us to leave the farm and seek happiness in the suburbs, just like we've always wanted. To me, that's a simplistic -- and willfully ignorant -- trope.

How many of those immigrants -- or, perhaps, immigrants from rural states to coastal states -- were in fact forced to leave when the economy of their states or regions dried up. How many Iowans and Nebraskans have no choice but to leave their dying town, get a degree from a land-grant university, and aim for a job at Initech? How many families in Mexico have been forced north when their traditionally planted land was replaced with mono-cropped Monsanto-style commodity?

A community able to garden enough to feed itself might be beneath Ms. Flanagan, but for a lot of people, the possibility participating in that community beats the hell out of filling out TPS reports.

Our country, through policy decisions, has replaced almost all of our farmland, traditionally maintained by people to grow food that people can eat, with industrial cropland, maintained by machines, fed by petroleum, growing food that can only be either processed, fed to industrial livestock, or fed to machines (ethanol).

If we don't teach by-people-for-people agriculture in the school, who will do it the future? And without it, we're consigned to an existence of Brawndo and Frosted Flakes.

[The Gurgling Cod]

Thanks for the thoughts, Jay. I did not intend an endorsement of CF's article, but thought it was worth sharing. For now, I'll hedge and say that the article and your response suggests the ideological volatility of the intersection of agriculture and class.

[Starzstylista]

Ha. Never enough WGS allusions I say. My nickname for Whole Foods is "The Plantation" for similar reasons.

[Jay Porter]

Cod,

I completely agree with you about the intersection of agriculture and class (and knew you weren't endorsing Flanagan's argument).

I propose there's been a vicious circle driving down the class/class-perception of agriculture, as corporations push the idea that agricultural work is low-class (in order to drive family/community/small farming out of business), and in turn replace small farms with consolidated corporate food plants that employ/exploit only the least-skilled, lowest-class workers.

When people rail against the real-food/small-farm movement as elitist, I think it perpetuates that cycle. Not that there aren't plenty of elitist people involved with the real-food/small-farm movement, of course. The fact that there are plenty, give the criticisms unfortunate staying power.

[Jay Porter]

I should have written "as part of driving", not "in order to drive".