WEBVTT 00:00:01.308 --> 00:00:05.327 This is John England. I'm here interviewing. Uh Could you please say your 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:11.427 name Joan mcgregor and today is July 12th, 2016. 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:16.576 And uh we're here in Flagstaff and uh Joan, if you could please tell me 00:00:16.609 --> 00:00:24.609 when and where you were born. Uh I was born in uh Seattle, Washington 00:00:25.539 --> 00:00:31.625 when you don't have to, if you, if you don't want to 00:00:31.658 --> 00:00:36.186 disclose my age, that's fine. 00:00:36.219 --> 00:00:39.135 Yeah. And, and could you tell me a little bit about where you grew up and 00:00:39.168 --> 00:00:42.146 , and sort of the community? 00:00:42.179 --> 00:00:47.457 Ok. I, um I actually was born in Seattle. I grew up in the San Francisco 00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:51.585 Bay area. Um So my parents moved there when I was six months old. So 00:00:51.618 --> 00:00:59.186 pretty much grew up in that um in the Bay area, which is known to be, I 00:00:59.219 --> 00:01:05.135 mean, next to, you know, very good agricultural lands and farms and so on. 00:01:05.168 --> 00:01:10.915 So we used to go out on the weekend to Half Moon Bay and, and buy farm 00:01:10.948 --> 00:01:13.426 food. 00:01:13.459 --> 00:01:20.436 Oh, great. Um So, uh and, and how long did you live there? How long were 00:01:20.469 --> 00:01:23.995 you, did you grow up? Um Well, so I guess I just, I lived there, you know 00:01:24.028 --> 00:01:29.947 , uh, pretty much, you know, uh, you know, through, uh, secondary school 00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:35.036 and then went to a number of places and then eventually ended up at UC 00:01:35.069 --> 00:01:39.717 Davis to do my undergraduate degree in philosophy. Perfect. Yeah, that, so 00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:42.266 that's the next question. Uh, maybe you could tell me a little bit more 00:01:42.299 --> 00:01:46.385 about your schooling and your education, both your, your pre college years 00:01:46.418 --> 00:01:54.418 and then, ok, second education. Well, um, um, let's see. Um, so my, uh, 00:01:55.730 --> 00:02:01.805 primary years were as a, we live down the peninsula. We lived in Belmont 00:02:01.838 --> 00:02:07.727 and then in San Mateo. Um, you know, went to school there, I guess, you 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:12.237 know, in terms of, I mean, one of the things that I often, um, remember 00:02:12.270 --> 00:02:15.786 about going to school is that for some reason, I guess for a variety of 00:02:15.819 --> 00:02:22.517 reasons, my, my dad in particular was very militant about food and, um, 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:27.196 didn't believe in buying any kind of processed food, including, and, and I 00:02:27.229 --> 00:02:30.927 grew up, of course, in the sixties and seventies when it was a sort of 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:38.255 heyday of white white bread, wonder bread TV, dinners. Um, the sort of 00:02:38.288 --> 00:02:42.096 whole process food was just emerging and it was really thought at that 00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:45.566 time for now, I think back on it. But I mean, it was sort of a middle 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:51.467 class way to eat. So when I was a kid we were never allowed to have uh 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:59.146 white bread and, um, or any sugar Um, so, so we, uh my dad at that time 00:02:59.179 --> 00:03:02.217 when I was a kid used to say that sugar was worse than heroin. And I 00:03:02.250 --> 00:03:06.186 always remember thinking, I don't know what heroin is, but it must be 00:03:06.219 --> 00:03:11.707 pretty, must be pretty bad. Um, if I, if I could ask real quick, where do 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:16.946 you think that militancy came from? Um, yeah, I, you know, he, he had been 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:20.816 a gymnast and a bodybuilder back in the, you know, in the thirties and 00:03:20.849 --> 00:03:25.230 forties. And I, and, and he grew up during the depression when there 00:03:25.263 --> 00:03:29.789 wasn't a lot of food around and, and his family always had a little uh 00:03:29.822 --> 00:03:34.178 garden in the backyard where they grew food. And I think he just got, you 00:03:34.211 --> 00:03:38.548 know, got on to, you know, seeing food is really essential to, to health 00:03:38.581 --> 00:03:44.382 and the sort of mind, body spirit idea of uh um you know, the role of food 00:03:44.415 --> 00:03:48.343 in, in, in your life. So it wasn't as if this wasn't, this is, you know, 00:03:48.376 --> 00:03:51.843 in the Bay area way before all the kind. This is not the foodie revolution 00:03:51.876 --> 00:03:56.142 now, but this, I say this is more, you know, the, you know, early sixties 00:03:56.175 --> 00:04:01.542 and um where it was just, you know, it was really unheard of that people 00:04:01.575 --> 00:04:06.495 um you know, wouldn't eat white bread or um you know, wouldn't eat, you 00:04:06.528 --> 00:04:09.376 know, various kinds of processed foods. So, because that was really, what 00:04:09.409 --> 00:04:12.975 was, that was the heyday of that food. Right. It was really, the 00:04:13.008 --> 00:04:17.616 development was in the sixties and seventies. And, um, so, yeah, I think 00:04:17.649 --> 00:04:23.726 my dad probably because of the, um, you know, you know, being, being, uh, 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:27.796 uh, you know, being a weightlifter, being a gymnast, um, seeing sort of, 00:04:27.829 --> 00:04:30.786 and then also seeing him, he always talked about in the depression how 00:04:30.819 --> 00:04:36.276 many people didn't have enough or access to good food. And I remember him 00:04:36.309 --> 00:04:42.187 talking about one of his good friends who, um, you know, his family didn't 00:04:42.220 --> 00:04:45.637 have enough food. I mean, a lot of people didn't at that time and he got 00:04:45.670 --> 00:04:49.156 the kids all got rickets and, you know, really became very sick and those 00:04:49.189 --> 00:04:53.567 , those kinds of health conditions lasted, you know, well into their, you 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:58.336 know, later lives. Right. So, um I think seeing that experience of people 00:04:58.369 --> 00:05:01.666 not, you know, not having access to any food or having access to, you know 00:05:01.699 --> 00:05:07.075 , just very poor quality food, um you know, made him very aware of, of, um 00:05:07.108 --> 00:05:11.467 , you know, eating good food. So even, you know, my mother talks about 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:15.086 that, even though my, my parents didn't necessarily have a happy marriage 00:05:15.119 --> 00:05:18.187 , they got divorced. But she always said the one, the one good thing about 00:05:18.220 --> 00:05:21.947 my father was, he really was insistent that we didn't eat, you know, 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:26.015 canned or frozen vegetables. We would always get fresh vegetables and, you 00:05:26.048 --> 00:05:30.906 know, fresh food. And so, um that was, uh, so that kind of formed, you 00:05:30.939 --> 00:05:35.406 know, my, you know, my thinking about, you know, food and then, you know, 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:40.757 I come from a family though, you know, there's no reason, you know, other 00:05:40.790 --> 00:05:43.926 than eating real food and eating good food that everybody's, you know, 00:05:43.959 --> 00:05:48.627 pretty much lived very long lives that aren't that without, without, um, 00:05:48.660 --> 00:05:51.866 health problems, you know, without significant health problems, you know. 00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:57.205 So, um, and, uh, you know, I always like to tell the story of my, my 00:05:57.238 --> 00:06:01.666 grandfather, my dad's father, I mean, you know, he was from the north of 00:06:01.699 --> 00:06:06.426 England and, and, you know, his family was so poor. I mean, they, and then 00:06:06.459 --> 00:06:09.495 the, the father died and he, you know, he ended up when he was eight, 00:06:09.528 --> 00:06:14.067 working in the, the mines, you know, the coal mines before, before they 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:17.687 came to Canada, all these guys. So there was up, there was no opportunity. 00:06:17.720 --> 00:06:23.176 So they, you know, came and, you know, you know, like in 18, what was it 00:06:23.209 --> 00:06:26.495 like 1911 00:06:26.528 --> 00:06:29.736 or something like that? They came over and, and, you know, but, but, but 00:06:29.769 --> 00:06:33.895 even though, you know, he had that kind of really, you know, pretty 00:06:33.928 --> 00:06:38.257 deficient upbringing and having to work in the mines as a little kid, um, 00:06:38.290 --> 00:06:44.567 he lived to 100 and one but, you know, they always, they always ate good 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:48.046 food. I mean, and again, not sort of fancy food but just they, they had a 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:53.197 garden in the backyard where they grew food. Um, and, uh, they always had 00:06:53.230 --> 00:06:58.467 , you know, you know, fresh, uh, you know, you know, bread that was, you 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:01.276 know, whole wheat bread and, and those kind of things. So, again, not a, 00:07:01.309 --> 00:07:07.856 you know, not a fancy diet. Um, but just, um, but just real fresh, whole 00:07:07.889 --> 00:07:13.846 food. Great. Um, so I know you were, this was kind of a young age, but did 00:07:13.879 --> 00:07:18.205 you get a sense that, that, that your father's idea of food was a common 00:07:18.238 --> 00:07:21.546 idea? No. 00:07:21.579 --> 00:07:27.096 No, not at all. In fact, when we went to school, all the other kids had, 00:07:27.129 --> 00:07:34.226 um, you know, white bread sandwiches with, um, you know, American cheese 00:07:34.259 --> 00:07:40.507 and, um, uh, you know, ding dongs or? Oh, that was the beginning of that, 00:07:40.540 --> 00:07:45.507 you know, the sort of, you know, all those packaged, uh, pastries, right 00:07:45.540 --> 00:07:51.786 from hostess and, um, and potato chips and, you know, I guess kids at that 00:07:51.819 --> 00:07:55.745 point still didn't have soda at school but there, you know, people were, 00:07:55.778 --> 00:08:01.127 would be able to drink soda. We were never to drink soda. So, yeah. So, 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:03.866 you know, I mean, I'd say we didn't forget, you know, we were out and 00:08:03.899 --> 00:08:08.217 about. But, um, but yeah, no, it was not, that was not a common. I knew 00:08:08.250 --> 00:08:11.916 that wasn't common because other people were, um, on the other hand, you 00:08:11.949 --> 00:08:16.205 know, in the Bay area there, you know, um, some of my closest friends 00:08:16.238 --> 00:08:21.106 growing up our neighbors and some of my closest friends were, um, uh 00:08:21.139 --> 00:08:26.575 Chinese ancestry and I learned a lot about food from them because they 00:08:26.608 --> 00:08:32.436 really focused on again, fresh food, you know, made at home and, and even 00:08:32.469 --> 00:08:35.917 though they were, you know, um, you know, these are all sort of 00:08:35.950 --> 00:08:39.407 professional people but they, uh, really, you know, paid a lot of 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:44.047 attention to food and in fact, they used to, they used to call me their 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:47.047 white daughter because I would go, like, I was just part of their family 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:52.375 and we would go to Chinatown on Sunday night and have dinner. And, um, and 00:08:52.408 --> 00:08:55.976 they always said, don't ask what it is, just try it because, you know, and 00:08:56.009 --> 00:09:00.576 there were some pretty far out things that I as a kid. Wow, that's great. 00:09:00.609 --> 00:09:05.927 Um, so that's great. That ties into the next question beautifully because 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.557 I'd like you to tell us a little bit about what your fondest food memory 00:09:09.590 --> 00:09:12.895 is. It's, it's a little bit more of a specific question but maybe you 00:09:12.928 --> 00:09:17.407 could tell us what that was and, and why that was. Oh, that's ok. Um, wow 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:25.440 , that's hard. Um, yes, I have a lot of, um, well, I, you know, I guess, 00:09:26.149 --> 00:09:31.765 you know, I might say, you know, just, um, when I travel, you know, we 00:09:31.798 --> 00:09:36.856 travel a lot, you know, for fun and professional, I guess too. But, um, 00:09:36.889 --> 00:09:42.037 and then, you know, one of the joys of traveling is eating good food. Um, 00:09:42.070 --> 00:09:49.596 and I remember when we were in Oaxaca, Mexico, we um took a class at this 00:09:49.629 --> 00:09:54.236 restaurant and the woman who runs it, the chef who taught us was also, I 00:09:54.269 --> 00:09:59.236 think the chef that taught Rick Bayless. Um I'm forgetting the name of her 00:09:59.269 --> 00:10:03.096 restaurant, but it was really great because you, you know, you spend the 00:10:03.129 --> 00:10:10.625 whole day uh including going to the market and cooking as a group and um 00:10:10.658 --> 00:10:13.826 you know, learning about the ingredients and learning about the cultural 00:10:13.859 --> 00:10:18.467 history behind them and just, you know, working with other people and 00:10:18.500 --> 00:10:22.657 laughing and, and then at the end you sit down and eat this big meal 00:10:22.690 --> 00:10:28.125 you've created. And uh that was a great memory and I've, you know, done 00:10:28.158 --> 00:10:31.066 similar things like that in other countries and find it. It's like a 00:10:31.099 --> 00:10:36.467 really fun way to get into a place 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:42.275 that's great. Um Yeah, food is a place is a, that's an interesting idea. 00:10:42.308 --> 00:10:48.167 Thank you. Um And so, so as you grew up, you started to get into food 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:51.616 sustainability. This idea of food sustainability. Could you tell us a 00:10:51.649 --> 00:10:57.145 little bit about what led to that and how you got into it? Well, I think, 00:10:57.178 --> 00:11:02.625 I, um you know, I didn't really put the food and sustainability together 00:11:02.658 --> 00:11:05.667 until just pretty recently to tell you the truth. I mean, I've been 00:11:05.700 --> 00:11:11.635 interested for a number of years o on um uh issues of sustainability 00:11:11.668 --> 00:11:14.255 thinking about sustainability and, and in particular, since I'm a 00:11:14.288 --> 00:11:18.467 philosopher thinking about the ethics of sustainability and why should we 00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:21.625 care about the future? You know, and so sort of trying to build out, you 00:11:21.658 --> 00:11:25.866 know, what are our moral obligations to the future? And I've, you know, 00:11:25.899 --> 00:11:31.836 come to, to see it as, um you know, I mean, a more complicated story. But 00:11:31.869 --> 00:11:34.797 anyway, so I was interested in that. I was also interested in bioethics. 00:11:34.830 --> 00:11:38.265 So I'm interested in human health, I'm interested in our health systems 00:11:38.298 --> 00:11:46.298 and, and um um and so what was it sort of, you know, iii I in thinking 00:11:46.418 --> 00:11:51.346 about sustainability, I thought um about the issues around climate change 00:11:51.379 --> 00:11:54.755 and then climate change is kind of hard to get people very worked up about 00:11:54.788 --> 00:12:01.316 , right? And so people don't really necessarily, they don't see it, they 00:12:01.349 --> 00:12:05.096 don't, we're not, we don't think we're experiencing it. And of course, we 00:12:05.129 --> 00:12:08.846 may not even experience the worst of it, you know, in some of the some 00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:12.275 regions, maybe Arizona is going to be hotter and drier, but a lot of us 00:12:12.308 --> 00:12:15.436 have enough money, we can probably buffer ourselves from some of the worst 00:12:15.469 --> 00:12:18.895 of it. So how do you get people to kind of care about these issues? And so 00:12:18.928 --> 00:12:23.275 that's where I started to think well, rather than coming at climate, you 00:12:23.308 --> 00:12:27.686 know, why not come at it through food, right? And of course, then once I 00:12:27.719 --> 00:12:32.836 started thinking about food as a sustainability problem, I started 00:12:32.869 --> 00:12:36.907 thinking about all the ethical issues around food that aren't necessarily 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:40.076 sustainability issues. But when, when you think about sustainability in a 00:12:40.109 --> 00:12:44.385 broader context, they are so social justice issues and cultural 00:12:44.418 --> 00:12:48.917 sustainability and so on, right? So that's a kind of roundabout way of 00:12:48.950 --> 00:12:53.946 getting to it. Ok, so I read that your background is in ethics and, and 00:12:53.979 --> 00:12:58.246 social justice, is that so is it fair to say that that kind of led into? 00:12:58.279 --> 00:13:02.456 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I mean, it turns out that food 00:13:02.489 --> 00:13:07.895 has all kinds of ethical issues attached to it. Right. Um, I mean, we, you 00:13:07.928 --> 00:13:11.967 know, we're now, you know, a lot of discussion about the, you know, you 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:15.956 know, just, you know, some of the, the, the climate or the ecological 00:13:15.989 --> 00:13:19.816 issues around food have to do with the carbon footprint, for example, uh 00:13:19.849 --> 00:13:23.606 around the modern, you know, industrial ag, right? It's, it's one of the 00:13:23.639 --> 00:13:28.275 biggest drivers in fact of, of climate change. Right. So if we, if we 00:13:28.308 --> 00:13:32.375 change our, if we change our agricultural practices, we could go a long 00:13:32.408 --> 00:13:37.436 way towards solving that problem. Right. But then there are all sorts of 00:13:37.469 --> 00:13:41.736 other issues. I mean, there's a lot of discussion now about food deserts, 00:13:41.769 --> 00:13:45.907 right? So people in America, um and that's the other thing is we certainly 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:49.177 looking at social justice and food in America. I mean, you see, I mean, 00:13:49.210 --> 00:13:53.157 we're the, um, you know, we're the wealthiest country in the world we 00:13:53.190 --> 00:13:56.677 produce more food than people in the world. In fact, we have so many 00:13:56.710 --> 00:14:00.505 calories. I think we have twice as many calories as every person in 00:14:00.538 --> 00:14:05.326 America needs. But we still have places we still have people that go 00:14:05.359 --> 00:14:09.086 hungry in America. We still have, you know, you know, nutritional 00:14:09.119 --> 00:14:13.218 deficiencies, even if they have enough calories or too many calories is 00:14:13.251 --> 00:14:17.110 what we're finding. But they're eating food that's, you know, bereft of, 00:14:17.143 --> 00:14:21.500 of, of nutritional value, right? So, and sometimes that's because they 00:14:21.533 --> 00:14:24.098 live in a community, there's a food desert, right? So they live in a 00:14:24.131 --> 00:14:29.279 community in which there's no grocery store that sells produce or sells 00:14:29.312 --> 00:14:33.250 dairy products or sells. So they might, so they might just live near some 00:14:33.283 --> 00:14:37.731 place that sells alcohol and soda, right? I mean, it's the 7-Eleven or 00:14:37.764 --> 00:14:43.542 it's the, right? Um So there's a, I mean, so what I guess what I came to 00:14:43.575 --> 00:14:49.032 is I thought, wow, food is a kind of lens in, on, on a lot of uh ethical 00:14:49.065 --> 00:14:54.601 issues that I'm interested in. Great, great. So, so you use a term called 00:14:54.634 --> 00:15:00.133 food desert? Yes. And which is from my understanding, sort of uh an area 00:15:00.166 --> 00:15:06.177 that doesn't have, like you said, access to uh healthy or healthier foods. 00:15:06.210 --> 00:15:09.537 Um Could you say a little bit more about that? Like where they can be 00:15:09.570 --> 00:15:13.875 found? Are they sort of an inner city thing or can they also be found in 00:15:13.908 --> 00:15:17.606 rural community? Yeah. So food desert, you know, I mean, I think it, you 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:21.456 know, it, originally people started noticing it in inner cities when, you 00:15:21.489 --> 00:15:25.496 know, uh, grocery stores were no longer, well, you know, back in, you know 00:15:25.529 --> 00:15:28.395 , when they used to have sort of small corner grocery stores, you know, 00:15:28.428 --> 00:15:32.696 those went away, we went to larger grocery stores but they're not, they're 00:15:32.729 --> 00:15:37.566 not situated in urban centers where there are poor people. Right. So 00:15:37.599 --> 00:15:41.686 you'll have places and I'm not sure what the, the technical definition of 00:15:41.719 --> 00:15:46.895 , but, but the point is that people can't, uh, within easy access walking 00:15:46.928 --> 00:15:51.395 or even a, you know, a short drive or bus ride access a kind of major 00:15:51.428 --> 00:15:55.196 grocery store. Right? And so there might be fast food joints, right? There 00:15:55.229 --> 00:16:00.025 may be a Burger King and there may be a 7-Eleven, you know, that sells 00:16:00.058 --> 00:16:06.385 candy bars. But the idea of a food desert is that it's, it's bereft of, of 00:16:06.418 --> 00:16:11.736 , of, of access to good food. Now, I mean, good point about, you know, is 00:16:11.769 --> 00:16:14.467 it just in urban areas? No, I mean, one of the things they're finding is 00:16:14.500 --> 00:16:20.336 that, you know, like we look at, um, Navajo nation here and, and some of, 00:16:20.369 --> 00:16:25.196 um, and, and other, you know, non Indian country as well, um, where people 00:16:25.229 --> 00:16:30.057 don't have access, uh, you know, again, for miles and miles and miles for 00:16:30.090 --> 00:16:35.206 any kind of, um, healthy foods, you know, produce. And, um, so they might 00:16:35.239 --> 00:16:39.336 have, you know, a convenience market but convenient mar markets, as we all 00:16:39.369 --> 00:16:43.366 know, you know, are loaded up with potato chips, candy bars and, you know 00:16:43.399 --> 00:16:48.366 , so, um, so that they're now mapping this. So it's kind of interesting 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:51.736 because you can look at like GIS mapping, they're mapping food deserts in 00:16:51.769 --> 00:16:57.537 America. And, um, you know, and, and there's a, there's a whole issue of 00:16:57.570 --> 00:17:01.456 why are, why did this happen and a lot of it has, you know, at least in 00:17:01.489 --> 00:17:05.936 the cities has to do with certain kinds of, you know, redlining and sort 00:17:05.969 --> 00:17:10.276 of forcing minority people into certain areas and, and white flight to 00:17:10.309 --> 00:17:14.206 suburb. So there, there is a history there, right? And how this happened. 00:17:14.239 --> 00:17:18.575 Um I'm not a historian but I do know that, I mean, it's an interesting 00:17:18.608 --> 00:17:22.075 question, it sort of why did this happen and how do we solve it? Right? 00:17:22.108 --> 00:17:24.926 How do we, how do we make sure that if we see something like food as a 00:17:24.959 --> 00:17:29.387 kind of basic, right? Healthy food as a, as a kind of basic, right? How do 00:17:29.420 --> 00:17:35.467 we ensure that people all have access to it? Right. Great. Thank you. Uh 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:41.075 So the next question has to do with you and sustainable food systems, but 00:17:41.108 --> 00:17:47.085 if you could just explain what a food system is briefly? Ok. So, I mean, a 00:17:47.118 --> 00:17:55.118 food system is, um you know, is this complex of um you know, everything 00:17:55.828 --> 00:18:03.476 from uh you know, farmers to distributors to restaurateurs to uh you know 00:18:03.509 --> 00:18:09.266 , all those points within that food moves all the way back to waste, right 00:18:09.299 --> 00:18:13.295 ? How, what we do with food waste, right. Which is another problem, right 00:18:13.328 --> 00:18:18.467 ? And, you know, we have landfills filled with food was because we waste 00:18:18.500 --> 00:18:24.496 40% of our food. So, so a food system is just this whole um uh uh um you 00:18:24.529 --> 00:18:30.035 know, system of all the ways in which we kind of input to output of, of 00:18:30.068 --> 00:18:36.426 food. And, you know, as you can imagine, it's kind of a complex, 00:18:36.459 --> 00:18:40.335 you know, set of issues. I mean, we often focus in on uh farmers but 00:18:40.368 --> 00:18:45.575 farmers work within um the farm bill, for example, or certain lending 00:18:45.608 --> 00:18:50.335 practices or certain, right? So it's not just farmers doing their thing, 00:18:50.368 --> 00:18:55.016 they do it within a whole set of structures, right? And so when we want to 00:18:55.049 --> 00:19:00.276 think about the food system, we have to think about it in that more. I 00:19:00.309 --> 00:19:02.956 mean, if we want to, you know, if we think there are problems with it, we 00:19:02.989 --> 00:19:08.305 have to kind of recognize that it's a network of, of issues. OK, great. Um 00:19:08.338 --> 00:19:12.156 So this, this next question sort of it ties in a little bit to the 00:19:12.189 --> 00:19:16.196 questions that, that we've asked before. But how did you become interested 00:19:16.229 --> 00:19:20.335 in sustainable food systems specifically? 00:19:20.368 --> 00:19:27.196 Um OK, so I became interested in sustainable food systems by um seeing, 00:19:27.229 --> 00:19:32.857 you know, for, I mean, kind of essentially how food impacts the 00:19:32.890 --> 00:19:40.890 environment Um So if we wanna worry about um our effect on the um you know 00:19:42.910 --> 00:19:45.877 , the natural environment 00:19:45.910 --> 00:19:50.397 currently and for future generations, then we need to look at our food 00:19:50.430 --> 00:19:57.236 system, we look at how agriculture is uh conducted and um and how that 00:19:57.269 --> 00:20:01.117 whole system works. Right. Right now, we've got, you know, for example, 00:20:01.150 --> 00:20:05.706 incentives to, you know, big egg and that's often working against smaller 00:20:05.739 --> 00:20:12.166 , say organic producers who might be better for say ecological reasons if 00:20:12.199 --> 00:20:17.486 we, if we invested in them rather than investing in big agriculture. So, 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:22.776 yeah. So is there some specific catalyst that got you involved in, in this 00:20:22.809 --> 00:20:29.502 or, or a specific? Yeah. Well, OK. So I guess like, yeah, OK. So I was 00:20:29.535 --> 00:20:37.535 part of a group um that the I hr uh organized um they got a melon grant 00:20:40.088 --> 00:20:45.726 that was to look at the humanity's contribution to the problems of the 00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:49.676 Anthropocene, right? So we all know what this mean. We don't know, but 00:20:49.709 --> 00:20:53.486 it's a problem with the Anthropocene and rather than seeing the problems 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:58.127 of the Anthropocene as a kind of science or engineering problem. Humanists 00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:01.226 have been arguing that no, these are really problems that people in the 00:21:01.259 --> 00:21:05.456 humanities need to be part of thinking about and, and working on solutions. 00:21:05.489 --> 00:21:13.489 So I was part of that group and um and uh as that with that group, we uh 00:21:14.868 --> 00:21:20.476 a group of us um out of that started thinking about um rather than 00:21:20.509 --> 00:21:24.176 thinking about sort of that abstract level of taking the problem of food 00:21:24.209 --> 00:21:28.575 and saying, what can humanity say about the problem of our food system, 00:21:28.608 --> 00:21:31.906 which is they say is a, is a big contributor to the problems of the 00:21:31.939 --> 00:21:38.367 Anthropocene, right? Ok. Great. Um So this is all based on the idea of 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:42.887 food sustainability and maybe could you explain what food sustainability 00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:50.920 means to you? Ok. Well, food sustainability um means to me um I've thought 00:21:51.229 --> 00:21:56.976 about it in terms of five different values that maybe that's too 00:21:57.009 --> 00:22:03.506 complicated. OK. Yeah, I mean, it's only, only academics break things. 00:22:03.539 --> 00:22:07.585 Yeah, sure. A complicated system. No. Anyway, so there's so, I mean, part 00:22:07.618 --> 00:22:10.805 of it is I, I've been thinking about this and also I work with this group 00:22:10.838 --> 00:22:17.627 on it. And so what we came to is that there are different values that we 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:23.585 want to preserve if we want a sustainable food system. And, and, and so, 00:22:23.618 --> 00:22:27.916 you know, and, and, and so in thinking about that, we articulated these 00:22:27.949 --> 00:22:33.467 five values. So the, and what we mean by that is if you want to build a 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:37.627 sustainable food system in your community, what are the things that you 00:22:37.660 --> 00:22:41.206 should be paying attention to? What are the values you want to preserve? 00:22:41.239 --> 00:22:47.867 And again, part is to get people to recognize that our system, you know, 00:22:47.900 --> 00:22:53.107 who we support, who we don't support, who gets food, who doesn't, I mean, 00:22:53.140 --> 00:22:58.967 those represent values of ours, right? We can articulate those values and 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:03.026 change the system based on it. Right? Just as we've made other changes in 00:23:03.059 --> 00:23:06.526 society. Right. We decided that we didn't wanna, you know, necessarily, 00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:12.535 you know, pollute our air and so we put regulations in place and we, you 00:23:12.568 --> 00:23:16.795 know, so we can change our behavior if we, if we decide something of value 00:23:16.828 --> 00:23:21.617 is a particular value of ours. Right. Right. So what I, um, so the, so the 00:23:21.650 --> 00:23:26.387 values that I think are important for a sustainable food system are, first 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:34.127 of all, um that, that your food system preserve the um uh the historical 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:39.416 and cultural traditions of a place, right? So that uh that food is more 00:23:39.449 --> 00:23:45.305 than just energy that it's really is about meaning in people's lives, 00:23:45.338 --> 00:23:49.926 right? And it's tied up with their culture, their history and that, that 00:23:49.959 --> 00:23:54.196 isn't static, that changes. So, you know, I mean, those of us who come to 00:23:54.229 --> 00:23:58.026 , you know, say to Phoenix and maybe we were from back east or something 00:23:58.059 --> 00:24:01.131 or maybe, you know, but suddenly you live here for a while and then, you 00:24:01.164 --> 00:24:04.190 know, sort of Mexican food and, and some maybe indigenous group 00:24:04.223 --> 00:24:08.342 ingredients start to filter into your cooking or, or, or other, but that 00:24:08.375 --> 00:24:12.160 those kinds of foods resonate in this place, right? And there's a reason 00:24:12.193 --> 00:24:17.381 for that because they, they grow well here and they make sense in this 00:24:17.414 --> 00:24:22.781 climate. So the idea that if you want to sustain sustainable food system 00:24:22.814 --> 00:24:27.506 it's also about sustaining culture, right? So culture is part of 00:24:27.539 --> 00:24:31.426 sustainability. And again, that's why I think when, when some of those 00:24:31.459 --> 00:24:35.476 people frame sustainability is just a kind of science problem. They're not 00:24:35.509 --> 00:24:39.295 , they're not recognizing that people don't want to just sustain the world 00:24:39.328 --> 00:24:44.887 , they want to sustain their, their, their traditions, their culture, 00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:49.467 right? So it's cultural sustainability is important. Um So that's the 00:24:49.500 --> 00:24:54.147 first uh value is in the second value of a sustainable food system is 00:24:54.180 --> 00:25:00.206 maybe the more obvious one is, is um is ensuring that the food system, uh 00:25:00.239 --> 00:25:07.766 you know, uh uh uh ensures ecological integrity. Right? Um Right now, you 00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:13.996 know, we have um food practices that are uh we're losing our soil, we're 00:25:14.029 --> 00:25:18.285 killing our bees, our pollinators, right? We're doing these, that's not, 00:25:18.318 --> 00:25:22.196 it's not sustainable, right? If we don't have bees, we're not going to 00:25:22.229 --> 00:25:25.992 have pollinator. I mean, so some of these things are just not sustainable 00:25:26.025 --> 00:25:29.762 and people have been, you know, saying it and, and there are changes here 00:25:29.795 --> 00:25:33.410 and there, but we need to get, we need to think about it. And then we look 00:25:33.443 --> 00:25:37.660 at here in the Southwest and in particular in Arizona where we have 00:25:37.693 --> 00:25:42.732 limited amount of water and um and water is tied to energy because we have 00:25:42.765 --> 00:25:46.301 to pump it. I mean, all those things we have to think about what should we 00:25:46.334 --> 00:25:52.295 be growing here and, you know, and, and um uh uh um and what shouldn't we 00:25:52.328 --> 00:25:58.006 ? Right. And, um, so we have practices in the valley and in Arizona. Well 00:25:58.039 --> 00:26:03.996 , this story came out about the Saudi Saudis owning, you know, big farms 00:26:04.029 --> 00:26:09.785 out out west where they were, when they bought the land, they bought the 00:26:09.818 --> 00:26:14.295 water rights and they're growing alfalfa that they send the alfalfa to 00:26:14.328 --> 00:26:18.186 Saudi Arabia to feed their cows. So they have milk right now. Does that 00:26:18.219 --> 00:26:21.331 sound like a sustainable practice? You know, we don't have a lot of water 00:26:21.364 --> 00:26:26.512 , alfalfa is a big water sucker, but also that alfalfa is not staying, you 00:26:26.545 --> 00:26:31.361 know, here, you know, either, you know, so, I mean, and so you've got the 00:26:31.394 --> 00:26:34.242 carbon footprint of taking it over there. And so there's a, so that 00:26:34.275 --> 00:26:37.331 doesn't seem like a good practice. So we seem to think about those things 00:26:37.364 --> 00:26:42.561 , right? And that goes to water rights, it goes to um you know, what 00:26:42.594 --> 00:26:48.597 should be practiced in certain areas, right? Um So that's the um the 00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:55.476 second value, the, the, the, the, the third value is um uh you know, you 00:26:55.509 --> 00:27:00.726 know, uh practices that uh cultivate and sustain health, human health, 00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:04.416 right? So, um so if we think about, you know, wanting to have a 00:27:04.449 --> 00:27:09.545 sustainable food system, we want one that, you know, really does um uh uh 00:27:09.578 --> 00:27:13.936 you know, encourage healthy habits and, and, and, and health in humans, 00:27:13.969 --> 00:27:17.535 right? So again, we have these problems of, we have communities in Phoenix 00:27:17.568 --> 00:27:23.072 that have um 50% diabetes. Type two diabetes and their Children and their 00:27:23.105 --> 00:27:27.642 Children. Yeah. Yeah. So in, uh, many of the Indian communities and the 00:27:27.675 --> 00:27:31.003 Latino communities and, you know, you know, and even, you know, and, and, 00:27:31.036 --> 00:27:34.191 and, you know, in white communities but I mean, that, but in some of those 00:27:34.224 --> 00:27:38.812 communities that they, it's devastating the kind of, um, impact and that 00:27:38.845 --> 00:27:43.028 is related to food. Right. It's like there's not, you know, somebody's not 00:27:43.061 --> 00:27:46.788 putting something in the water that it's related to our food system and, 00:27:46.821 --> 00:27:50.288 and you know, and also lack of, you know, maybe access to good ex, you 00:27:50.321 --> 00:27:53.518 know, exercise and stuff, but really food is a big driver in the diabetes 00:27:53.551 --> 00:27:57.938 problem. So, so we've got a food system where we're making it cheap for 00:27:57.971 --> 00:28:02.378 people to, to eat, you know, empty calories and then which results in 00:28:02.411 --> 00:28:05.528 these kinds of health problems. So that seems to me another value is, is, 00:28:05.561 --> 00:28:10.309 is designing a food system that really, you know, encourages and preserves 00:28:10.342 --> 00:28:18.246 human health. Um, the fourth value is, um, uh uh food justice and social 00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:22.815 justice. So, you know, a sustainable system has to be one in which, you 00:28:22.848 --> 00:28:25.986 know, people have access to food. So it's about food, deserts. And then 00:28:26.019 --> 00:28:29.256 people who, you know, many people go hungry every day in America, a 00:28:29.289 --> 00:28:33.217 surprising number of them, more than most people are aware of. A lot of 00:28:33.250 --> 00:28:37.217 kids, you know, are on free lunch and often that's the only meal they get 00:28:37.250 --> 00:28:40.295 every day. There are schools that actually give kids, you know, bags of 00:28:40.328 --> 00:28:43.565 food at the end of the, on Friday to take home for the weekend because 00:28:43.598 --> 00:28:46.502 they know they won't have any food at home. So, I mean, we have, you know 00:28:46.535 --> 00:28:50.940 , that those are, that shouldn't happen in this country. Right? And so, um 00:28:50.973 --> 00:28:55.460 , thinking about that issue is an important one, but also thinking about 00:28:55.493 --> 00:29:00.321 social justice issues in, in workers throughout the system. So when we 00:29:00.354 --> 00:29:04.071 think of farm workers, you know, having not only a living wage, but also 00:29:04.104 --> 00:29:07.641 not being, you know, living in an environment where pesticides are dumped 00:29:07.674 --> 00:29:11.831 on them and their kids. Right? And, um, and then we've all heard some of 00:29:11.864 --> 00:29:18.127 the horrors of um um workers in the meat packing industry. Um, you know, 00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:21.956 the dangers involved in that and, you know, and also the exploitation of 00:29:21.989 --> 00:29:25.075 those people. So sort of throughout the system, it's like we should have a 00:29:25.108 --> 00:29:28.535 system where this is about our food, but we want to make sure people in 00:29:28.568 --> 00:29:34.842 the food system are treated decently. And um, and I would put in there as 00:29:34.875 --> 00:29:41.181 well that um, that, that system treats animals in a humane and, and caring 00:29:41.214 --> 00:29:43.601 way. I mean, it seems to me if we're going to, you know, if we want to use 00:29:43.634 --> 00:29:48.152 animals for our food system, we should, we should, you know, demand that, 00:29:48.185 --> 00:29:53.232 that it also live up to our standards of what, uh, decent treatment for 00:29:53.265 --> 00:29:56.888 animals, main treatment. I mean, right now we sort of segregate out. We 00:29:56.921 --> 00:30:00.809 have our, how we treat pets, which we know and then we have, and then, and 00:30:00.842 --> 00:30:04.247 then excluded from that kind of cruel treatment is, is a farm animal and 00:30:04.280 --> 00:30:07.957 that, that, you know, I think it's just been easy for people not to sort 00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:12.159 of, you know, turn a blind eye but from a values point of view that seems 00:30:12.192 --> 00:30:15.406 like not a good idea. 00:30:15.439 --> 00:30:19.276 Great. Do you want to hear about my last value? You're probably going, oh 00:30:19.309 --> 00:30:22.676 my God. I was just counting in my head. I think that's four. You got one 00:30:22.709 --> 00:30:29.686 more. Ok. This is a lecture on food. This is great. Yeah. Anyway, so the 00:30:29.719 --> 00:30:36.236 fifth, the fifth value is um this idea of food sovereignty, which is a bit 00:30:36.269 --> 00:30:39.656 of a buzzword. So, so I was a little worried about using that term. I mean 00:30:39.689 --> 00:30:44.766 , it's being used in different kinds of contexts and it does mean slightly 00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:52.746 different things. What I mean by it is that, um rather than just having a 00:30:52.779 --> 00:30:56.726 kind of the right outcome or the just outcome or the good outcome that, 00:30:56.759 --> 00:31:01.825 that people have a say in the process so that the food system is right now. 00:31:01.858 --> 00:31:04.805 I think a lot of people feel sort of hopeless in our food system. They 00:31:04.838 --> 00:31:09.186 send their kids to school and the kids eat crappy stuff at lunch and, and 00:31:09.219 --> 00:31:15.246 then you know, the TV sells their kids more stuff and then they can't, you 00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:17.446 know, you find out somebody was just telling me the other day there 00:31:17.479 --> 00:31:23.436 sawdust in the, in our um Parmesan cheese. And it's like all these things 00:31:23.469 --> 00:31:26.996 that you find that they don't have to label, right? Somebody told me also 00:31:27.029 --> 00:31:31.397 that red wine puts some cheap red wine puts red dye in it, you know. So, 00:31:31.430 --> 00:31:35.196 so there's a way in which our system is not transparent and people don't 00:31:35.229 --> 00:31:39.502 have a since they, they don't feel like they're in control. So, so for me 00:31:39.535 --> 00:31:43.410 , it's, it's about participatory justice or participatory, being able to 00:31:43.443 --> 00:31:47.861 participate in the process, have a say in the system, have a say in what 00:31:47.894 --> 00:31:54.467 goes on and, and, and have a right to um transparency, right? Uh And this 00:31:54.500 --> 00:31:57.206 is, you know, we've all heard about the labeling issue with GMO. So it 00:31:57.239 --> 00:31:59.795 seems like it's a, you know, a labeling issue about everything. Why 00:31:59.828 --> 00:32:04.085 shouldn't we be able to know what's in our food? I mean, you would, you 00:32:04.118 --> 00:32:07.295 would assume that just as what's in it is what you think was in it, but we 00:32:07.328 --> 00:32:12.127 found out that's not always true. So, so I do think that that, that final 00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:18.226 value is that all of us care about being able to kind of control um you 00:32:18.259 --> 00:32:21.956 know, what happens to us and our family and our communities and, and right 00:32:21.989 --> 00:32:25.686 now there's a of, you know, it's often a sense that these big corporations 00:32:25.719 --> 00:32:30.206 are kind of controlling it and that's not to make them out to be evil, the 00:32:30.239 --> 00:32:34.607 evil demons. But the point is there is a sense in which there are kind of 00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:40.627 closed room doors being deals being done in, in Congress and it's not 00:32:40.660 --> 00:32:45.666 always working out for the advantage of people right away. Yeah, that's 00:32:45.699 --> 00:32:50.285 very interesting. And, and so, so I think it's fair to say then that, that 00:32:50.318 --> 00:32:54.946 sustainability goes beyond this conservation. When you first hear the word 00:32:54.979 --> 00:32:58.387 sustainability, there's sort of a tendency to think conservation or 00:32:58.420 --> 00:33:02.147 preservation. Um Maybe you could say a little bit more about what that 00:33:02.180 --> 00:33:05.156 means. Good. Yeah. And I think that's a good point of that. Conservation 00:33:05.189 --> 00:33:11.506 isn't just about kind of preserving or conserving natural systems. I mean 00:33:11.539 --> 00:33:15.486 , this is, this is one of the sort of debates that's, you know, has gone 00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:19.506 on and, and maybe it's still going on to some degree is, you know, whether 00:33:19.539 --> 00:33:22.936 or not, you know, humans are part of nature or humans are not part of 00:33:22.969 --> 00:33:26.996 nature. I come down on the, look, humans are part of nature. And so if 00:33:27.029 --> 00:33:31.486 we're conserving or preserving natural systems, we better preserve them 00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:35.206 with us in it because we don't have any place to go, you know, and so, and 00:33:35.239 --> 00:33:39.916 , and I also think that other view of that we take humans out of 00:33:39.949 --> 00:33:43.627 environments now, that's not to say there that, that I'm, I'm, I'm 00:33:43.660 --> 00:33:48.867 certainly in favor of, of preserving wilderness areas and so on. But I 00:33:48.900 --> 00:33:52.825 also think that what we need to spend a lot of our ethical, you know, kind 00:33:52.858 --> 00:33:58.736 of brain power and time thinking about is built environments um including 00:33:58.769 --> 00:34:02.696 agricultural environments and, and recognize that we're preserving them 00:34:02.729 --> 00:34:07.315 with us in it. And so it seems to me, sustainability is not just about 00:34:07.348 --> 00:34:13.276 sustaining ecosystems, but is sustaining ecosystems with us in it and of 00:34:13.309 --> 00:34:17.595 course, us in it that we are cultural beings, right? And we want to 00:34:17.628 --> 00:34:24.077 preserve and sustain our cultures, our values, right? And so one of the 00:34:24.110 --> 00:34:29.796 things that we try to do is pass on to the next generation, not only um 00:34:29.829 --> 00:34:34.307 and you know, sort of ecosystems that aren't destroyed, but also values 00:34:34.340 --> 00:34:37.256 that we think are important, right? And so that we like, we think in 00:34:37.289 --> 00:34:41.925 America passing on our democratic traditions, right? We're passing on our 00:34:41.958 --> 00:34:47.046 food traditions to our next generation. So that's, I think that wider 00:34:47.079 --> 00:34:54.827 frame of sustainability to me is a, is a more accurate one. And I think it 00:34:54.860 --> 00:35:00.467 um it then you can build in, you know, things that impact natural systems 00:35:00.500 --> 00:35:04.956 like food, right? 00:35:04.989 --> 00:35:09.706 Wait for that to go by. Yeah, I'm just a busy. That's all right. Well, 00:35:09.739 --> 00:35:13.836 great. Thank you. That's, that's very helpful. Um So the next question 00:35:13.869 --> 00:35:17.675 sort of gets back to your background, your educational background and, and 00:35:17.708 --> 00:35:22.135 your community that you grew up in um were you ever involved in any kind 00:35:22.168 --> 00:35:27.077 of sustainable organization, uh, growing up or can I, can I? Yeah. Yeah. 00:35:27.110 --> 00:35:32.017 Absolutely. Yeah, we can take a break. Ok. So, um, just to sort of repeat 00:35:32.050 --> 00:35:35.836 the question growing up and when you were going through your education, uh 00:35:35.869 --> 00:35:40.086 , were you ever involved in any kind of sustainable organization, uh, in, 00:35:40.119 --> 00:35:46.905 in your school or in your community? Um, well, I do remember the first 00:35:46.938 --> 00:35:53.486 Earth Day in the, in the Bay area going out and cleaning, uh, the beaches 00:35:53.519 --> 00:35:58.686 and there had been an oil slick and cleaning up the birds. Um, but that's 00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:04.155 , I do remember that and then of course, I, you know, always thought of 00:36:04.188 --> 00:36:07.267 myself as an environmentalist, but I don't know that I was actually 00:36:07.300 --> 00:36:11.736 involved in, I can't think of those. I mean, involved now it looks like 00:36:11.769 --> 00:36:16.977 nowadays people are do way more service volunteering when I was a kid. We 00:36:17.010 --> 00:36:23.885 , we were pretty self centered. I don't remember doing any of that. I, I'm 00:36:23.918 --> 00:36:27.327 always surprised with my students who come in and they've already saved 00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:30.885 the world and they're only 18. 00:36:30.918 --> 00:36:35.876 Yeah. So sorry, I don't have anything to say about that. That's great. But 00:36:35.909 --> 00:36:40.345 you were cognizant of things and, yes. Yeah. I mean, that was sort of the 00:36:40.378 --> 00:36:44.865 early days in the seventies. I remember, you know, some of it I was still 00:36:44.898 --> 00:36:48.981 in, you know, certainly in, you know, in secondary school, um, primary and 00:36:49.014 --> 00:36:53.151 secondary school about you know, sort of those early earth day and people 00:36:53.184 --> 00:36:59.691 , you know, that awareness of, um, you know, our impact on the planet and 00:36:59.724 --> 00:37:04.561 that we really need to, um, you know, change how we, um, you know, relate 00:37:04.594 --> 00:37:10.070 to the world and, and it certainly has, um, you know, come a long way fro 00:37:10.103 --> 00:37:14.816 from there, um, you know, sort of the anti littering message and then, 00:37:14.849 --> 00:37:20.606 yeah, they say the oil slicks in California, Um And the impact of that on 00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:24.066 the coastlines 00:37:24.099 --> 00:37:30.115 disaster outside what's going on there. Uh Great, great. That's fantastic. 00:37:30.148 --> 00:37:36.227 Um So part of this program that, that you've helped to put together uh 00:37:36.260 --> 00:37:40.747 has the purpose of building bridges uh with other activists and 00:37:40.780 --> 00:37:48.727 organizations. Um How do you go about doing that? OK. So we, um so WW what 00:37:48.760 --> 00:37:52.956 grew out of this original group from the, from our, you know, human, you 00:37:52.989 --> 00:37:57.856 know, humans or humanity's contribution to the Anthropocene was the idea, 00:37:57.889 --> 00:38:04.747 our group wanted to uh figure out how we could really collaborate and 00:38:04.780 --> 00:38:09.267 learn from people in the community. So often universities have this 00:38:09.300 --> 00:38:13.896 relationship to the community that they're around or other communities 00:38:13.929 --> 00:38:17.316 that, you know, we're sort of the experts, we're the people who know stuff 00:38:17.349 --> 00:38:21.675 and we're gonna go tell you what to do. Um I think that model is really, 00:38:21.708 --> 00:38:27.747 um you know, is, is wrong and, and distorts the picture. I think there's a 00:38:27.780 --> 00:38:34.186 lot of local knowledge out there. A lot of um really creative, insightful 00:38:34.219 --> 00:38:38.945 people out there. The problem is is trying to devise processes or 00:38:38.978 --> 00:38:45.307 procedures to be able to um learn from each other, right? So this idea of 00:38:45.340 --> 00:38:49.327 kind of collaborative learning or, or how it is that we can get people 00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:54.896 with different, you know, not only different um different information but 00:38:54.929 --> 00:38:58.155 different ways of knowing things too. So the idea of different 00:38:58.188 --> 00:39:03.635 epistemology and how do we get those people to work on problems together? 00:39:03.668 --> 00:39:07.827 Um And so one of the interesting things about something like food and, and 00:39:07.860 --> 00:39:11.626 , and other problems in society is that they are what a lot of academics 00:39:11.659 --> 00:39:15.736 are now calling kind of wicked problems. And the idea of that is that 00:39:15.769 --> 00:39:19.916 people come to the problem and sort of think about what the problem is 00:39:19.949 --> 00:39:23.747 differently. And so we were just talking about food, we were saying, you 00:39:23.780 --> 00:39:29.524 know, I mean, there's, there's a problem of, of, um you know, food ski or 00:39:29.557 --> 00:39:34.925 food insecurity and then there's a problem of, of, um you know, treatment 00:39:34.958 --> 00:39:38.644 of, of, of, of workers in the system where there's problem. So there's all 00:39:38.677 --> 00:39:41.593 these different problems and different people are gonna think that's kind 00:39:41.626 --> 00:39:46.354 of the problem of food in America. And so one thing is is that the idea of 00:39:46.387 --> 00:39:50.244 wicked problems, you don't have to resolve all those issues. People can 00:39:50.277 --> 00:39:54.831 come at the problem from different, different kind of vantage points, but 00:39:54.864 --> 00:40:00.682 you still could um come together and think about it and not, you're not 00:40:00.715 --> 00:40:05.952 going to resolve the problem but you might um you know, alleviate it, push 00:40:05.985 --> 00:40:10.892 it down, make it better and um and then keep kind of iterating that 00:40:10.925 --> 00:40:16.702 process and, and, and working on it. So that was the idea of, of trying to 00:40:16.735 --> 00:40:22.539 design a process by which we could collaborate with people in the 00:40:22.572 --> 00:40:25.081 community. And I wouldn't want to call them all activists. I mean, some of 00:40:25.114 --> 00:40:29.640 them are farmers, some of them um you know, work in food banks, some of 00:40:29.673 --> 00:40:33.930 them are people who work for the government, you know, you know, working 00:40:33.963 --> 00:40:38.820 in um you know, farm policy, some are working on um you know, uh 00:40:38.853 --> 00:40:44.258 children's access to, you know, food in the school. So, I mean, it's the 00:40:44.291 --> 00:40:51.099 idea is, is that all these people uh have uh expertise, have a vantage 00:40:51.132 --> 00:40:56.508 point and are all concerned about the food system. So, and so part of it 00:40:56.541 --> 00:41:01.889 is to try to think up a process by which we can learn from one another and 00:41:01.922 --> 00:41:09.922 try to come to solutions for the food problems of our area. So is there um 00:41:10.918 --> 00:41:15.856 is there any uh maybe techniques or strategies that you use on the ground 00:41:15.889 --> 00:41:21.675 to reach out to different organizations or, or different activist people? 00:41:21.708 --> 00:41:27.477 Um Well, we've been um you know, reaching out, you know, part of it is, 00:41:27.510 --> 00:41:34.155 you know, got a few people who are intrigued with the ideas and they know 00:41:34.188 --> 00:41:39.796 people and they connect us with other people. So, part of it is, or we, 00:41:39.829 --> 00:41:44.635 you know, there's somebody who does something and we, you know, think, oh 00:41:44.668 --> 00:41:49.146 , we should contact that person because we need that sort of perspective 00:41:49.179 --> 00:41:54.086 or that kind of expertise. And so the idea is sort of just mushrooming out. 00:41:54.119 --> 00:42:01.615 Um, you know, I hope we're not, um, you know, leaving any big gaps in the 00:42:01.648 --> 00:42:07.467 process. One of the things that I've thought is if we, as we proceed ahead 00:42:07.500 --> 00:42:12.166 and we're gonna have this event, dinner 2040 um event where we're all 00:42:12.199 --> 00:42:15.865 gonna get together. Um But I thought that, that we, you know, that might 00:42:15.898 --> 00:42:20.986 be a process of iterating that process, right? So that it's not just we do 00:42:21.019 --> 00:42:23.546 it once and we've, so because I don't think we're gonna solve, we're not 00:42:23.579 --> 00:42:28.456 gonna solve the problem. Um But the idea that we've set up a process and 00:42:28.489 --> 00:42:30.905 we've also made a lot of connections and they, and they've made 00:42:30.938 --> 00:42:34.131 connections with each other. So it's so it's not like they have to conduit 00:42:34.164 --> 00:42:38.271 back through us. But the point is that we've sort of set up a forum, we've 00:42:38.304 --> 00:42:44.490 set up a, a AAA mechanism that people, diverse, people from different 00:42:44.523 --> 00:42:51.662 areas can sit down and um, and, and, and explore the topic together and um 00:42:51.695 --> 00:42:58.695 , and really listen to each other. Great, great. Thank you. Um So why do 00:42:58.728 --> 00:43:03.695 you think, uh it sounds like uh one of the goals is to build a solid 00:43:03.728 --> 00:43:07.456 network then sort of an expansive network and get everybody sort of 00:43:07.489 --> 00:43:12.416 thinking along the same lines. And why do you think that's important to 00:43:12.449 --> 00:43:17.327 the future of food? It's sort of a simple question. But, um, what, what do 00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:24.195 you think? So, the, the, you know, the problem of food is not gonna be 00:43:24.228 --> 00:43:28.267 solved? Um, well, it's not gonna be solved by the university and it's not 00:43:28.300 --> 00:43:32.227 gonna be solved by any one person and it's probably not gonna be solved 00:43:32.260 --> 00:43:37.586 permanently anyway. But the point is we can make it better. Um, if we have 00:43:37.619 --> 00:43:42.695 , um, you don't have these different vantage points and these different 00:43:42.728 --> 00:43:46.166 perspectives and as I say, some of those perspectives may even see the 00:43:46.199 --> 00:43:50.195 problem differently. But that's not to say we can't find some, some sorts 00:43:50.228 --> 00:43:53.486 of things that we would say. Yeah, we have to, we have to work on getting 00:43:53.519 --> 00:43:56.925 that done and this done. And the point is, there's some, there are some 00:43:56.958 --> 00:44:01.336 points that, that people can, can see are, are real problems. And I think 00:44:01.369 --> 00:44:07.146 getting people to see that they can have a voice and, um, uh, a voice in 00:44:07.179 --> 00:44:10.865 the system is, is, is, is, is really going to go a long way to changing 00:44:10.898 --> 00:44:15.445 the system because I think people feel pretty disempowered, right. So that 00:44:15.478 --> 00:44:20.385 brings up another question then, um, because it seems like with, with this 00:44:20.418 --> 00:44:24.686 network and, and with all the involvement that people might have different 00:44:24.719 --> 00:44:28.945 priorities of, of what, what problems the biggest, what should we solve 00:44:28.978 --> 00:44:32.905 now? What can we solve now? So how do you decide how to go about that? How 00:44:32.938 --> 00:44:39.477 do you identify, uh, which problem to address? And if there's an order, 00:44:39.510 --> 00:44:44.467 how do you decide on that order? That's a good question. Um So what, what 00:44:44.500 --> 00:44:51.997 , what, what we decided to do was to focus on 25 years out rather than 00:44:52.030 --> 00:44:56.517 looking at all the problems of the food system, which we can name, you 00:44:56.550 --> 00:45:02.376 know, hundreds of them, you know, and we kind of know a lot of them. Why 00:45:02.409 --> 00:45:07.365 don't we as a group envision what we'd like it to look like in 25 years? 00:45:07.398 --> 00:45:11.057 Like, what would, what would we like it to look like? Now? You know, I 00:45:11.090 --> 00:45:15.727 think that people would agree that we need to kind of have these values 00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:21.385 that I set out as guiding, you know, kind of parameters, right? That um 00:45:21.418 --> 00:45:26.135 but what do we want it to look like? I mean, how do we want it to function 00:45:26.168 --> 00:45:31.845 ? Um You know, I mean, it, it's all these kind of details about. So let's 00:45:31.878 --> 00:45:35.425 kind of play around with that idea of envisioning 20 dinner, 2040. That's 00:45:35.458 --> 00:45:39.345 our ideas. Like, let's look at um what the food system would look like, 00:45:39.378 --> 00:45:45.925 what dinner would we eat in 2040? And then, then the idea is to, so we're 00:45:45.958 --> 00:45:49.416 gonna, the idea is to engage in this kind of process that's referred to as 00:45:49.449 --> 00:45:55.756 a charette where you, um, you do what's called back casting. So the idea 00:45:55.789 --> 00:46:01.135 is you want to get some place in 25 years, what would you have to have in 00:46:01.168 --> 00:46:06.796 place? Five years from now? 10 years from now, 15 years from now, you know 00:46:06.829 --> 00:46:10.506 , and so on. Right. Because you don't get, he's like you want to be a 00:46:10.539 --> 00:46:14.881 brain surgeon. You, you, you don't, you know, just get there, you know. Oh 00:46:14.914 --> 00:46:18.320 , first of all, I've got to go, go to under, you know, get an 00:46:18.353 --> 00:46:21.561 undergraduate degree and then I've got it right. So you have your end and 00:46:21.594 --> 00:46:24.941 go and you could, you could map out what are all the steps you have to do 00:46:24.974 --> 00:46:30.081 , you know, including a fellowship. And, right. So, so the idea is that 00:46:30.114 --> 00:46:34.131 you would do something like that. Now, of course, so that, so that's the 00:46:34.164 --> 00:46:38.642 basic idea is that you get people to see, ok, we're not gonna get there 00:46:38.675 --> 00:46:46.615 tomorrow. But what can we do to get on the path? Right. And, um, and what 00:46:46.648 --> 00:46:51.945 are those steps now? That's a, that is a complicated issue. I'm not saying 00:46:51.978 --> 00:46:56.186 it's easy but I think it gets people, first of all, seeing that, you know 00:46:56.219 --> 00:47:01.546 , change doesn't happen overnight, but change does happen if you start it 00:47:01.579 --> 00:47:07.486 , right. And you also start to see, you know, how things could get in 00:47:07.519 --> 00:47:11.865 place in a few years. And then how that would allow you to get to the next 00:47:11.898 --> 00:47:17.086 step and the next step, um, now that still doesn't address, you know, sort 00:47:17.119 --> 00:47:23.057 of priorities. Some, some things may fall out that in order to have one 00:47:23.090 --> 00:47:29.925 thing happen, we have to, um, change a law or we have to get a 00:47:29.958 --> 00:47:34.057 distribution network with some refrigerated trucks to get food that would 00:47:34.090 --> 00:47:38.706 spoil to poor people or we have to. Right. I mean, so there are, there are 00:47:38.739 --> 00:47:44.365 some things that we might, um, you know, come to. Yeah, and so, and, and, 00:47:44.398 --> 00:47:49.936 and, and the point is not to come to a kind of, you know, big consensus on 00:47:49.969 --> 00:47:56.066 everything, but rather to, um, see that there are that, that people, even 00:47:56.099 --> 00:48:00.606 people who are in diverse areas can, can, you know, can, you know, they 00:48:00.639 --> 00:48:03.717 might hear, you know, an issue that you, you think is really important 00:48:03.750 --> 00:48:06.675 that, hey, I didn't know about that issue. I didn't know that was 00:48:06.708 --> 00:48:09.916 happening. Yeah, we ought to, we ought to think about how to resolve that. 00:48:09.949 --> 00:48:13.736 So some of it is, you know, kind of consciousness raising just learning 00:48:13.769 --> 00:48:17.577 about, you know, what, what some of the issues are and then how we start 00:48:17.610 --> 00:48:21.695 to solve them. So, um, yeah, we're not gonna, you know, this little event 00:48:21.728 --> 00:48:26.526 isn't gonna change everything but, but part of, um, you know, is, is, is, 00:48:26.559 --> 00:48:30.807 is seeing that we need to have processes like this in place if we're gonna 00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:36.736 make real change. Right. And, and so, uh you talk about sort of obstacles 00:48:36.769 --> 00:48:42.236 or challenges that could come up, um, can you identify any specific 00:48:42.269 --> 00:48:46.706 challenges that, that you've already come up against with in regards to 00:48:46.739 --> 00:48:49.467 food sustainability? 00:48:49.500 --> 00:48:55.615 Well, um there are, um, you know, like a lot of problems there are, you 00:48:55.648 --> 00:49:03.648 know, um entrenched um economic incentives, um, you know, in place and, 00:49:04.239 --> 00:49:09.905 you know, again, you don't have to, you know, vilify, you know, big um, 00:49:09.938 --> 00:49:13.247 companies necessarily. But the point is those are, those are powerful 00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:17.425 forces and they're hard to change. Right. It's sort of like you've got a, 00:49:17.458 --> 00:49:22.267 you know, a, um, a big cruise liner and you're trying to turn it around, 00:49:22.300 --> 00:49:25.905 right? And people say this about big ag in America, you know, industrial 00:49:25.938 --> 00:49:31.807 agriculture is, it's a big thing to turn around, right. Um, and that's 00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:35.655 where, um, you know, you may not have to, you know, you're not going to do 00:49:35.688 --> 00:49:41.247 all that but if you can start to do smaller things, you know, bigger 00:49:41.280 --> 00:49:45.267 change comes from small change, you know, I mean, and I think if you think 00:49:45.300 --> 00:49:50.566 you have to, um, you know, change the whole thing, well, that, for one 00:49:50.599 --> 00:49:54.517 thing that's not how change happens, right? I mean, it does happen by, um 00:49:54.550 --> 00:49:59.537 , by people showing a different way, other people getting interested in it 00:49:59.570 --> 00:50:05.186 and, and, you know, so, so I think, um, but, but, you know, the, the, the 00:50:05.219 --> 00:50:10.557 , the food industry has become a big business and it has become a big 00:50:10.590 --> 00:50:14.497 global business. And so if the community wants to change it, you really, 00:50:14.530 --> 00:50:20.095 you know, so you, you're up against those kinds of things. Um And, uh so, 00:50:20.128 --> 00:50:24.807 so that seems to be a big issue. Um I mean, there are a lot of challenges 00:50:24.840 --> 00:50:30.675 , uh you know, and that's, you know, I mean, it may be the, and of course 00:50:30.708 --> 00:50:35.356 what, what I'm coming at it. I mean, I'm a philosopher, I'm a human, you 00:50:35.389 --> 00:50:42.727 know, I'm in the humanities and this whole project and this idea was that 00:50:42.760 --> 00:50:48.756 is, is trying to keep it in people's minds that these are not solely 00:50:48.789 --> 00:50:53.486 technical problems, right? To keep it in people's mind that food is more 00:50:53.519 --> 00:50:59.736 than, than just a technical problem. Right. And I think that we got sort 00:50:59.769 --> 00:51:05.037 of, um, sidetracked in our food system when we started looking at it just 00:51:05.070 --> 00:51:08.717 as a kind of science problem, you know, techno, oh, look at all the food 00:51:08.750 --> 00:51:12.706 we're producing, you know, we're seeing all these calories, but look, look 00:51:12.739 --> 00:51:18.796 what the result was, um, as opposed to seeing food is connected up with 00:51:18.829 --> 00:51:25.537 culture and meaning and place and, um, and all those other things that, 00:51:25.570 --> 00:51:30.316 you know, that the way we all experience food. Right. Right. We don't 00:51:30.349 --> 00:51:34.316 experience it. I mean, maybe there's a few, you know, kind of nutty, a ath 00:51:34.349 --> 00:51:37.327 athletes who, you know, just think about when they're just you know, 00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:40.307 taking their protein powder or something to think about it, but most of us 00:51:40.340 --> 00:51:45.195 think about food for taste and experience and sitting with people and 00:51:45.228 --> 00:51:50.566 eating food and, you know, all the other kinds of joys of, of food in our 00:51:50.599 --> 00:51:58.599 lives. Right? Ok. Um, great. So, so that brings us now to the, the project 00:51:59.050 --> 00:52:02.635 that we've sort of been referring to throughout the interview, which is 00:52:02.668 --> 00:52:07.776 the dinner 2040. Could you tell us what that is specifically? Yeah. So 00:52:07.809 --> 00:52:15.017 this is the project that grew out of our, um our project here at a su and 00:52:15.050 --> 00:52:23.050 um and the idea of it is to um you know, take, you know, humanists and 00:52:23.659 --> 00:52:31.206 other, you know, artists and then with um community people in the food 00:52:31.239 --> 00:52:37.057 system of, in various ways, everything from farmers to food bank workers 00:52:37.090 --> 00:52:42.595 to legislators to, you know, um all, all the people that impact the food 00:52:42.628 --> 00:52:50.327 system and get them together to um to envision uh what our food system 00:52:50.360 --> 00:52:56.066 should look like in 25 years. And so we've planned an event um in November 00:52:56.099 --> 00:53:04.099 , uh in which we'll have people come out to um an urban farm that will 00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:11.967 have um have the event and we're going to have people at different tables 00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:16.577 and there'll be mixed tables of people representing different aspects of 00:53:16.610 --> 00:53:19.905 the food system and there'll be a humanist there and we'll really work 00:53:19.938 --> 00:53:24.706 through um this, this idea of, you know, first kind of envisioning 00:53:24.739 --> 00:53:28.686 together as a group, what we want to see. And of course, along the way 00:53:28.719 --> 00:53:31.026 with that, envisioning people are often going to bring up, you know, 00:53:31.059 --> 00:53:35.135 things that, uh, what's wrong with this system. But part of it is that, 00:53:35.168 --> 00:53:40.827 you know, to have that kind of spilling out of ideas, um, they talk about 00:53:40.860 --> 00:53:46.186 faucet thinking. So you just sort of get the ideas out and don't, um, 00:53:46.219 --> 00:53:52.307 don't sort of overthink it. Um And then, um the idea is to go through 00:53:52.340 --> 00:53:56.477 another couple of steps, you know, one might look at, you know, what are 00:53:56.510 --> 00:54:01.432 some of the challenges to getting there? And then finally, how, what steps 00:54:01.465 --> 00:54:04.822 can we take to get there and sort of think about that back casting idea of 00:54:04.855 --> 00:54:07.722 , you know, where, what do, what do we need to do now? What do we need to 00:54:07.755 --> 00:54:12.081 do in five years? And so the idea is that you as a group kind of work 00:54:12.114 --> 00:54:15.702 through, you know, what are some of the things that we could do um to 00:54:15.735 --> 00:54:21.611 start on that road to getting to, to that envisioned place? Um So we see 00:54:21.644 --> 00:54:25.092 this as an idea of, uh we mentioned sort of consciousness raising kind of 00:54:25.125 --> 00:54:30.099 learn from one another. Um You know, sharing the, you know, what people's 00:54:30.132 --> 00:54:35.677 views about the problem are. Um And um, you know, and, and what some of 00:54:35.710 --> 00:54:40.988 the challenges are, but then also, um you know, really thinking together 00:54:41.021 --> 00:54:46.898 about how we make change and how we um you know, make a more positive um 00:54:46.931 --> 00:54:51.666 food system going forward, right? Uh So how long would you say that you 00:54:51.699 --> 00:54:55.756 and, and uh the, the other people involved, how long have, have you been 00:54:55.789 --> 00:55:00.655 working on this? Well, we've been working on it actually a couple of years 00:55:00.688 --> 00:55:08.688 now. Um As I say, we started out by um doing this as part of this larger 00:55:09.159 --> 00:55:15.106 project and then we actually held a charrette uh a couple of years ago and 00:55:15.139 --> 00:55:20.186 brought in some community work with some community members, um some local 00:55:20.219 --> 00:55:26.267 farmers um and we went through the charette process and we developed um 00:55:26.300 --> 00:55:30.425 meals that we would eat in 2040. So there, we were sort of focused on what 00:55:30.458 --> 00:55:34.345 we, what would a meal look like. And we found the process really worked. 00:55:34.378 --> 00:55:42.378 It was very um uh evocative. Um and, you know, allowed people to work 00:55:43.349 --> 00:55:50.017 together in a really um constructive way and um develop interesting 00:55:50.050 --> 00:55:55.586 solutions. OK. Uh What was the decision or what was the reasoning behind 00:55:55.619 --> 00:56:03.256 the 25 years? Why? 2040? Well, so, yeah, so why, why 25 years? Um I mean, 00:56:03.289 --> 00:56:08.586 the, the, if you, if you think when you're talking about sustainability, 00:56:08.619 --> 00:56:14.506 one of the challenges of talking about sustainability is what's the, what 00:56:14.539 --> 00:56:19.095 scale are we talking about? Sometimes people talk about scales, you talk 00:56:19.128 --> 00:56:23.327 to people that work in nuclear power, for example, they're often talking, 00:56:23.360 --> 00:56:29.296 I mean, nuclear waste will be around for, um, you know, I mean, they talk 00:56:29.329 --> 00:56:34.396 about things like 10,000 years, you know, 20,000 years that, that waste 00:56:34.429 --> 00:56:39.066 will still be there. Um That's a kind of scale that I think is so out of 00:56:39.099 --> 00:56:45.327 human framework that I don't think it's very productive to, to, to, to 00:56:45.360 --> 00:56:50.445 talk in those very large scales of time. Often people refer to that as 00:56:50.478 --> 00:56:55.606 kind of geological time as opposed to human time. So thinking about it and 00:56:55.639 --> 00:56:59.405 I'm a moral philosopher, I mean, you know, and trying to think of what is 00:56:59.438 --> 00:57:04.365 it that can motivate people morally, to act in certain ways. I think we, 00:57:04.398 --> 00:57:11.445 we, we're morally motivated when we can sort of connect um emotionally and 00:57:11.478 --> 00:57:14.577 , and to some degree, intellectually, we can understand, you know, what 00:57:14.610 --> 00:57:18.115 things would be like. And we also feel like we can kind of emotionally 00:57:18.148 --> 00:57:24.026 connect, um that, that I think the 25 year frame, you know, it is, is a 00:57:24.059 --> 00:57:29.537 framework that makes sense in that way. Um You know, it's our, um it's our 00:57:29.570 --> 00:57:32.756 Children, maybe it's our grandchildren, you know, but I mean, the point is 00:57:32.789 --> 00:57:36.606 , it's, and it's us, right. I mean, a lot of us feel like we'll still be 00:57:36.639 --> 00:57:40.537 around for 25 years. Some people maybe not. But, but the point is you 00:57:40.570 --> 00:57:45.756 don't feel like it's something that you won't experience. And so, um or 00:57:45.789 --> 00:57:52.336 your, your kids won't experience. Uh So, and I think another, another 00:57:52.369 --> 00:57:55.356 aspect of this and this is something I'm learning from my history 00:57:55.389 --> 00:58:03.389 colleagues is that looking back 25 years from now, our food system that we 00:58:04.510 --> 00:58:09.345 have now was created by policies that were put in place 25 years from now 00:58:09.378 --> 00:58:15.816 25 years ago, right? So it has, so there is a, there is an effect on where 00:58:15.849 --> 00:58:21.155 we are now from what happened 25 years ago. So, um and this is where 00:58:21.188 --> 00:58:26.787 history comes in, right? Is that you can see that uh you know, what we do 00:58:26.820 --> 00:58:32.155 now is really is gonna impact us going forward, like what, you know, you 00:58:32.188 --> 00:58:37.227 know, what policy decisions we make, how we treat the soil, how we treat 00:58:37.260 --> 00:58:41.327 our water supply, how, you know, how, what we do with migrant labor. I 00:58:41.360 --> 00:58:45.896 mean, all these things, we had policies 25 years ago and got us in this 00:58:45.929 --> 00:58:51.651 situation. And so what we do now, so 25 years has a lot of um I think 00:58:51.684 --> 00:58:55.291 residents, residents in that way and there's, there really is a kind of 00:58:55.324 --> 00:58:59.481 historical argument for thinking in that kind of a chunk of time. Great. 00:58:59.514 --> 00:59:06.497 So it sounds like the, the Dinner 2040 project um has uh sort of a 00:59:06.530 --> 00:59:10.256 practicality to it. So a lot of times when you hear about environmental 00:59:10.289 --> 00:59:13.675 movements or environmental projects, the critique is that it's just 00:59:13.708 --> 00:59:18.037 unreasonable, is that sort of an intent that you, that you had and, and 00:59:18.070 --> 00:59:21.577 the other folks that helped you start this is that you wanted to have a 00:59:21.610 --> 00:59:26.626 very practical outlook, something that people could, could relate to. Yeah 00:59:26.659 --> 00:59:34.006 , I, I think that, um, um, some environmentalists have put themselves, uh 00:59:34.039 --> 00:59:42.039 , so far out in terms of human concerns that they often, I mean, I think 00:59:42.978 --> 00:59:46.526 one of the ways in which the idea of the, you know, radical 00:59:46.559 --> 00:59:49.385 environmentalists came up is because there were, you know, some people 00:59:49.418 --> 00:59:52.945 claiming that they'd rather, you know, save a rattlesnake rather than a 00:59:52.978 --> 00:59:56.155 human or something. So it's sort of that idea that, you know, humans are 00:59:56.188 --> 01:00:02.066 kind of parasitic on the environment. And I say that seems to me, um not 01:00:02.099 --> 01:00:06.997 uh not accurate and, and not, um, and also not pragmatic, I mean, if we 01:00:07.030 --> 01:00:13.827 want to see real change in how we protect and conserve the environment, 01:00:13.860 --> 01:00:17.967 then we need to see that we're part of that environment. Humans are part 01:00:18.000 --> 01:00:20.865 of that environment and we, and we live here. And so we need to figure out 01:00:20.898 --> 01:00:26.756 ways to have a kind of ethic about that use. And so, um you know, one of 01:00:26.789 --> 01:00:30.776 the reasons that, you know, I'm always attracted to Aldo Leopold's work is 01:00:30.809 --> 01:00:35.066 he talks, you know, about the land ethic and it really is a, um, you know 01:00:35.099 --> 01:00:39.557 , he was focused to a large extent on how farmers and, and other people 01:00:39.590 --> 01:00:43.405 who use the land, how they use the land and saw them as major 01:00:43.438 --> 01:00:47.425 conservationists. So, um, so it's not about just preserving wilderness and 01:00:47.458 --> 01:00:51.106 again against wilderness. But, but I think we would do a lot more for the 01:00:51.139 --> 01:00:57.276 environment if we figured out systems for, um, for taking care of the land 01:00:57.309 --> 01:01:04.287 we use. Right. So, uh, so you're trying to involve not just like humanists 01:01:04.320 --> 01:01:10.166 and, and academic folks, but also people who maybe use the land, uh, as a 01:01:10.199 --> 01:01:16.405 way of life. Whereas, you know, many humanists and, and academics sort of 01:01:16.438 --> 01:01:22.566 see the land as uh uh either a recreational thing or, or um sometimes a 01:01:22.599 --> 01:01:26.717 religious thing or spiritual thing. But, but you're trying to add a 01:01:26.750 --> 01:01:30.717 practical element to it, to involve as many people as possible. Is, is 01:01:30.750 --> 01:01:36.747 that fair to say? Yeah, I think we need to um uh uh you know, in, in 01:01:36.780 --> 01:01:41.836 focusing on a land ethic, we need to not only think about uh preserving, 01:01:41.869 --> 01:01:48.247 you know, wild areas for recreation, a spiritual renewal. Um you know, and 01:01:48.280 --> 01:01:53.186 , and even, um you know, biodiversity but, but rather that we need to 01:01:53.219 --> 01:01:59.186 think about those uh those environments in which we inhabit and that, you 01:01:59.219 --> 01:02:03.057 know, of course, we, you know, I mean, you know, humans always inhabited 01:02:03.090 --> 01:02:06.026 wilderness. I mean, this is sort of the mythology there was, you know, I 01:02:06.059 --> 01:02:10.586 mean, native people lived, lived there. So it wasn't like without people, 01:02:10.619 --> 01:02:15.905 but that became the kind of, um, you know, a kind of mythical view that, 01:02:15.938 --> 01:02:21.717 that you know, um, the sort of colonists got on to and, and of course, 01:02:21.750 --> 01:02:26.606 pushed native people out so they could preserve wilderness, right? Rather 01:02:26.639 --> 01:02:31.925 than seeing that, that those people lived in those environments. But, but 01:02:31.958 --> 01:02:35.146 we live, you know, so there's wilderness and then there's also, of course 01:02:35.179 --> 01:02:40.287 , you know, um, you know, aarian landscapes, uh we have, you know, farmers 01:02:40.320 --> 01:02:45.256 and ranchers using the land. Um We have suburban landscapes, we have urban 01:02:45.289 --> 01:02:49.146 landscapes and this kind of whole continuum of landscapes, most of which 01:02:49.179 --> 01:02:53.416 are all of which were in, right? Except for, you know, maybe an Arctica or 01:02:53.449 --> 01:02:58.037 something. But so, um so we need to think about the land ethic in all 01:02:58.070 --> 01:03:02.115 those contexts, right? We need to think about urban environments and how 01:03:02.148 --> 01:03:08.615 we can um use those in responsible ways, including I think, you know, more 01:03:08.648 --> 01:03:13.626 and more people are talking about having food systems, growing food in 01:03:13.659 --> 01:03:17.956 those urban environments as well as suburban environments may again, you 01:03:17.989 --> 01:03:23.717 know, how can we integrate food systems into our built environments and 01:03:23.750 --> 01:03:29.747 then all, all the way out to Aarian context and, and ranch context. Great 01:03:29.780 --> 01:03:37.126 , great. Thank you. Uh Tell, tell me about your role in dinner 2040. 01:03:37.159 --> 01:03:42.256 OK. Well, I um maybe became sort of the unwitting leader, leader of the 01:03:42.289 --> 01:03:46.287 group, but I'm not really, but I don't, I don't know how it, you know, but 01:03:46.320 --> 01:03:51.017 anyway, so I um you know, and, and it, and it was an intriguing idea. I 01:03:51.050 --> 01:03:54.126 mean, I, I'm a philosopher so I don't, I haven't, you know, I don't 01:03:54.159 --> 01:04:00.256 necessarily do a lot of community work, although I, I've enjoyed what 01:04:00.289 --> 01:04:04.307 we've done so far and I've actually learned a lot from getting to know 01:04:04.340 --> 01:04:09.267 farmers and policy makers and people that are working in the food system. 01:04:09.300 --> 01:04:13.436 So I'm already feel like I'm a beneficiary of this process because I have 01:04:13.469 --> 01:04:16.905 a committee of people I'm working with and, and we also had that first 01:04:16.938 --> 01:04:20.635 show read. And so I, I really have learned a lot and, and it's, and it's 01:04:20.668 --> 01:04:27.077 taught me that, you know, the academy needs to open up and, um and, and 01:04:27.110 --> 01:04:33.706 really figure out processes where we can get the community engaged in the 01:04:33.739 --> 01:04:37.905 research, not just in the way we sometimes do it where it's kind of bring 01:04:37.938 --> 01:04:42.267 one community member in and then not really listen to them, but really see 01:04:42.300 --> 01:04:50.046 them as having a kind of knowledge that is, is important and um that we 01:04:50.079 --> 01:04:52.967 can learn from and that, you know, we probably have something to 01:04:53.000 --> 01:04:56.706 contribute to. But the point is we can really learn from one another. And 01:04:56.739 --> 01:05:01.706 so, um so I, so I sort of ended up sort of the leader of this group. And 01:05:01.739 --> 01:05:05.526 then I started thinking about these values and sort of was able to kind of 01:05:05.559 --> 01:05:11.445 articulate those five values because as a moral philosopher, I think about 01:05:11.478 --> 01:05:18.477 values. So, um and I thought that it it makes sense to get people to see 01:05:18.510 --> 01:05:22.247 that their food system. And we often talk about when you make consumer 01:05:22.280 --> 01:05:26.445 choices that there's a value behind that you may not know it but try to 01:05:26.478 --> 01:05:31.267 get people to often articulate what, what they're doing when they do it. 01:05:31.300 --> 01:05:35.376 And that, and I think in this way, I'd like to have people when they think 01:05:35.409 --> 01:05:39.816 about the food system to recognize the values involved in it. So, if you 01:05:39.849 --> 01:05:44.776 buy a, um, you know, I mean, you know, there's more and more attention to 01:05:44.809 --> 01:05:50.695 how animals are raised, you buy, um, you know, products that are, um, you 01:05:50.728 --> 01:05:54.526 know, raised in a way that, that the animals are treated cruelly. I mean, 01:05:54.559 --> 01:05:59.106 you should recognize that, you know, you're, you know, you, you, you're 01:05:59.139 --> 01:06:04.017 part of that process now by and you can choose to do otherwise, right? Or 01:06:04.050 --> 01:06:09.925 if you, and even, you know, things like organic food, I mean, it's, um, 01:06:09.958 --> 01:06:12.796 you know, organic, you know, and there's a big debate whether it's better 01:06:12.829 --> 01:06:15.717 for you or not. I think it's pretty clear, it's better for the, for the 01:06:15.750 --> 01:06:18.037 environment. So, you know, you don't want to get into the weather, it's 01:06:18.070 --> 01:06:21.436 better for you. It's better for the soil, it's better for the environment. 01:06:21.469 --> 01:06:25.276 So, so you might buy it on that ground. You might say it's a little more 01:06:25.309 --> 01:06:29.327 expensive. But, you know, I'm, I'm gonna, I wanna participate. So the 01:06:29.360 --> 01:06:31.956 point is that you're, you're buying you, you know, you're using your 01:06:31.989 --> 01:06:37.977 dollars to, to express your values. And so, um, so that was my role or it 01:06:38.010 --> 01:06:44.135 has been to really try to keep those value, um, front and center and I 01:06:44.168 --> 01:06:48.256 don't, it's not a hard sell. I just think it's, people haven't thought 01:06:48.289 --> 01:06:51.106 about it. They haven't thought that, that there's all these values 01:06:51.139 --> 01:06:56.327 floating around with what they eat and so on. Yeah. Absolutely. Great. Um 01:06:56.360 --> 01:07:02.615 , So why would you say dinner 2040 is important to the community? Well, I 01:07:02.648 --> 01:07:08.155 think, um I think communities and I'm, you know, we're, we're gonna do 01:07:08.188 --> 01:07:13.376 this in Phoenix. But uh and I think other communities should do something 01:07:13.409 --> 01:07:19.186 similar that it's important that the community get engaged in what their 01:07:19.219 --> 01:07:24.956 food system looks like and also uh get empowered to make the change, right 01:07:24.989 --> 01:07:31.546 ? And um because I think there's a lot of, um you know, feeling 01:07:31.579 --> 01:07:36.497 dissatisfied and feeling like it's a bit out of control and it's not what 01:07:36.530 --> 01:07:42.217 they want for them or their kids or even their communities. And um and I 01:07:42.250 --> 01:07:48.206 think that this process will have, you know, that one outcome of just 01:07:48.239 --> 01:07:53.517 having people recognize that there is a role that they can play and, and 01:07:53.550 --> 01:07:56.256 that can, that can be that there's obviously multiple things that, that 01:07:56.289 --> 01:08:02.247 might mean. But the point is you're not that, that, that you can have a um 01:08:02.280 --> 01:08:05.695 can be empowered in the system. 01:08:05.728 --> 01:08:12.686 Um So, so you said that this is uh sort of this project is, is centered on 01:08:12.719 --> 01:08:20.719 Phoenix. Is that what we were doing was um or are doing, as you'd say, um 01:08:20.878 --> 01:08:28.326 Is we like to think of this process of Dinner 2040 as a kind of template 01:08:28.359 --> 01:08:33.036 or a model? So what we're hoping is that other communities will take it on. 01:08:33.069 --> 01:08:35.916 We've had a few communities kind of say they were going to do it. So 01:08:35.949 --> 01:08:40.027 we're hoping that they will. And that, um the idea is that other 01:08:40.060 --> 01:08:44.456 communities would say, hey, let's, yeah, let's look at our food system, 01:08:44.489 --> 01:08:49.130 let's get together, you know, some humanists, some artists, some farmers, 01:08:49.163 --> 01:08:52.620 some policy, you know, all the people that you think you ought to have at 01:08:52.653 --> 01:08:58.740 that, that meeting and have them get together and uh go through this 01:08:58.773 --> 01:09:02.821 process and again, we're trying to make it a kind of positive process of 01:09:02.854 --> 01:09:08.920 envisioning um the, the future and then talking about how we get there. 01:09:08.953 --> 01:09:13.330 Great. Are you aware of any other communities or any other places in the 01:09:13.363 --> 01:09:19.107 country that are doing something similar or, or is this unique to I think 01:09:19.140 --> 01:09:26.277 that this, this, well, well, there are places talking about the future of 01:09:26.310 --> 01:09:34.310 food. Um I don't, I haven't seen anybody doing it sort of establishing a 01:09:34.588 --> 01:09:38.845 kind of date. And then, I mean, so, but people are kind of talking more 01:09:38.878 --> 01:09:43.937 generally about the future of food. Um Some of that is, is more kind of 01:09:43.970 --> 01:09:49.296 writ large. It's, it's, you know, uh in fact, uh I know at Johns Hopkins 01:09:49.329 --> 01:09:52.246 they're doing a project that's kind of, you know, how to designing the 01:09:52.279 --> 01:09:57.286 future global food system at a much more kind of global level. Um I think 01:09:57.319 --> 01:10:03.746 I know the guy that's working on that, but um I am pretty convinced now 01:10:03.779 --> 01:10:08.366 that um though there are more national and international issues, I, I 01:10:08.399 --> 01:10:13.595 think that there's an importance in getting um communities engaged and 01:10:13.628 --> 01:10:17.116 making sure that there are kind of community solutions. And I don't think 01:10:17.149 --> 01:10:21.845 that every solution that would be um that we shouldn't universalize the 01:10:21.878 --> 01:10:26.536 the solution, right? Because then otherwise you, you, you, you know, you 01:10:26.569 --> 01:10:32.156 run over culture and history, you run over place based ecological 01:10:32.189 --> 01:10:36.425 differences, right? You run, I mean, so the problem is that when we do 01:10:36.458 --> 01:10:40.402 that, we often something we import certain foods to grow here that worked 01:10:40.435 --> 01:10:42.951 in the Midwest, they're great in the Midwest. You got lots of water there 01:10:42.984 --> 01:10:46.951 , you got a whole different soil composition, blah, blah, blah. But so I 01:10:46.984 --> 01:10:51.562 think we have to be careful about that idea of, of scalability or, or 01:10:51.595 --> 01:10:57.192 taking a solution that works in one place and um doing it in another place. 01:10:57.225 --> 01:11:01.071 So the degree to which this is scalable, it's that the template could 01:11:01.104 --> 01:11:06.107 work, the template could work other places that we could take it and other 01:11:06.140 --> 01:11:10.756 communities could use it and that then that starts them on a process of 01:11:10.789 --> 01:11:15.866 planning. Right. And that's what really this is about. Great. And, and, uh 01:11:15.899 --> 01:11:19.916 , you said that, uh, some other communities are sort of paying attention 01:11:19.949 --> 01:11:27.949 to this. Sharing. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm so, I, um, I think one, 01:11:28.060 --> 01:11:32.696 I think it's, um, I think it's because we, we had people from around the 01:11:32.729 --> 01:11:37.696 country who were part of our group and I think 11 is, um, uh, Eugene 01:11:37.729 --> 01:11:45.357 Oregon and, um, um, 01:11:45.390 --> 01:11:50.897 um, a town in Illinois which I can't think of where the University of 01:11:50.930 --> 01:11:56.107 Illinois is. Oh, it's embarrassing. I can't remember what it is. Is it, uh 01:11:56.140 --> 01:12:03.067 , Urbana? It might be Bonna anyway. Yeah. Yeah, somewhere in Illinois. 01:12:03.100 --> 01:12:06.796 And then I thought, um, another one of our group was in Taiwan and that 01:12:06.829 --> 01:12:10.717 some of that in Taiwan they were thinking about taking on. So we haven't 01:12:10.750 --> 01:12:15.876 really made a big push to, to get it out there. Um, I, I think as we go 01:12:15.909 --> 01:12:21.805 forward we would, um, and in particular, once we do ours, then we can kind 01:12:21.838 --> 01:12:27.086 of push it out through social media. Our idea was to almost see if 01:12:27.119 --> 01:12:31.506 communities might, uh, take it on as a kind of challenge, you know, to 01:12:31.539 --> 01:12:36.390 have their community do it too and, and, and then post their results sort 01:12:36.423 --> 01:12:41.531 of, and so part of this is that we'd like to have a, a website and, um, 01:12:41.564 --> 01:12:47.201 where we could post, you know, our, what our outcomes, but also our 01:12:47.234 --> 01:12:52.470 ongoing efforts. But also then if other communities were doing it, we 01:12:52.503 --> 01:12:57.451 could post their results as well. Great. Fantastic. So just expanding that 01:12:57.484 --> 01:13:02.092 network. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And through social networks and so on, we could 01:13:02.125 --> 01:13:06.095 push out the idea. I mean, that's part of it is just getting people to, to 01:13:06.128 --> 01:13:12.027 hear about it and know about it. Great. So the last one, the last question 01:13:12.060 --> 01:13:19.265 is sort of a personal question, but what does dinner 2040 mean to you, 01:13:19.298 --> 01:13:24.567 you can handle this anywhere you want. Uh Well, I mean, it started out as 01:13:24.600 --> 01:13:28.467 a kind of academic exercise, you know, we were part of an academic group 01:13:28.500 --> 01:13:34.397 on a project and um and we were talking about multiple epistemology and we 01:13:34.430 --> 01:13:38.076 were talking about all kinds of highfalutin stuff and now it's become very 01:13:38.109 --> 01:13:45.626 , um you know, community engaged and um a lot of people are excited about 01:13:45.659 --> 01:13:51.506 it. And uh so it's really, for me, it's been a kind of personal journey of 01:13:51.539 --> 01:13:56.425 , you know, meeting people in the food system in the valley and hearing 01:13:56.458 --> 01:14:01.765 about their stories and hearing about their, their excitement around this 01:14:01.798 --> 01:14:08.147 idea. And um so, you know, that's been kind of personally gratifying that 01:14:08.180 --> 01:14:12.746 we've sort of pushed, you know, put this out there and it seems to be 01:14:12.779 --> 01:14:17.967 resonating. Um We have chefs interested in working with us on it. We have 01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:23.586 people who wanna come and wanna wanna participate in it. So it's kind of 01:14:23.619 --> 01:14:29.015 developed into something that, that uh resonates with people. And I think 01:14:29.048 --> 01:14:35.416 it's partly um uh there's something kind of evocative about the idea of 01:14:35.449 --> 01:14:41.246 thinking about dinner in 25 years. And um and also thinking about, you 01:14:41.279 --> 01:14:46.416 know, our role in making something good happen. And again, I think there's 01:14:46.449 --> 01:14:51.156 something about thinking about the positive um and how we attain 01:14:51.189 --> 01:14:56.866 sustainability rather than focusing on all the things that's wrong with 01:14:56.899 --> 01:15:01.397 our system. And in a way, it doesn't give you a kind of vision of where we 01:15:01.430 --> 01:15:05.805 want to go. So I think this, this, this has been, this is this has been 01:15:05.838 --> 01:15:11.656 something that I didn't really expect to be that um enticing, but it, but 01:15:11.689 --> 01:15:17.696 it's turned out to be, in fact, ii a group of us in through GEOS through, 01:15:17.729 --> 01:15:23.416 through the Food Systems Transformation initiative, went to Africa to work 01:15:23.449 --> 01:15:31.027 with young African agricultural entrepreneurs, um a few 100 of them and I 01:15:31.060 --> 01:15:37.006 ran a workshop there and did this process with them. And um it was very 01:15:37.039 --> 01:15:41.656 fascinating because, you know, getting them to, to think in their context. 01:15:41.689 --> 01:15:46.467 And these are, you know, you know, young people who have, who have ideas 01:15:46.500 --> 01:15:50.305 either to be farmers or somehow or rather in the agricultural chain, you 01:15:50.338 --> 01:15:55.675 know, um uh supply chain that they um think about where they want their 01:15:55.708 --> 01:15:58.706 food system to be in 25 years. And they have, you know, you think of 01:15:58.739 --> 01:16:04.237 challenges. I mean, you know, real challenges. But it, it was a really, it 01:16:04.270 --> 01:16:08.487 was a really engaged conversation. We had about 60 of them at different 01:16:08.520 --> 01:16:14.616 tables working together. And, um, again, it was, they, they, you know, 01:16:14.649 --> 01:16:19.897 they really got energized thinking about where they wanted to go, where 01:16:19.930 --> 01:16:23.467 they wanted to go and be in 25 years and then it got them thinking about 01:16:23.500 --> 01:16:28.536 what they could do to get there, right. How they could see their role in 01:16:28.569 --> 01:16:34.326 it. And um, and so it was uh kind of exciting to see this idea work, you 01:16:34.359 --> 01:16:38.425 know, in, in an entirely different context. 01:16:38.458 --> 01:16:44.869 All right. Well, thank you so much for all this, sir. And uh yeah.