From the Desk of Fred Kirschenmann, Food Alliance Board Member

Dear Fellow Food Citizen,

In an essay published in the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan made an acute observation. “What would happen,” he asked, “if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?” That question captures the essence of the changes needed in our food system today.

The majority of our current food system presents us with food as a commodity like any other, an undifferentiated “thing” that is produced, processed, and placed on the market as cheaply as possible. Increasingly, food consumers are told to “just eat it!”

For a growing number of food customers, this system has lost its appeal. Many of us did not need to see the movie, Food Inc. to conclude that something was seriously wrong.  A constant stream of media stories has awakened us to the problems related to treating food like a “thing,”—stories depicting how animals are sometimes mistreated, how individuals are sickened by E-coli, salmonella, and other contaminants that can cause serious illness and death, and how farmers and farm workers are marginalized along the way.

As a result, many consumers want a different relationship with the food they buy. They want to know where their food comes from, how it was produced, how farm workers were treated, if farmers were adequately compensated, how the animals were treated, and if there was good environmental stewardship all the way from field to table.

In short, food consumers want a relationship—an alliance—that extends all the way from their table to the farm that produced the food. And they demand full transparency and authenticity as part of that relationship.

For the past six years I have served on the Food Alliance board of directors because I believed it was one way that consumers could attain that kind of relationship. From its inception, the goal of Food Alliance was to be more than a third party certification organization—its goal was to build an “alliance” between consumers and producers.

That alliance was not only intended to assure consumers that food carrying the Food Alliance Certified seal was produced in accordance with a transparent set of sustainability standards that are constantly reviewed and enhanced as new sustainability practices emerge, but also to foster a trusting relationship between the farmers and ranchers that produced the food, the processors that prepared the food, and the consumers that eat the food.

Certainly, Food Alliance cannot be the answer to all of the problems in our current food system—those problems must be addressed on many different levels. But I am convinced that Food Alliance is making food more of a “relationship” and less of a “thing.” In doing so, Food Alliance will continue to make a major contribution to the evolution of a food system  where farmers, ranchers, and their customers will join together as “food citizens” and advocate for the kind of policy changes needed to provide safe, healthy, affordable, great tasting food for all.

So what can you do right now, direct and tangible, to spur the evolution of this new food system? Make a generous contribution to Food Alliance!

Sincerely,

Frederick Kirschenmann
Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.

P.S. Invest in a strong “alliance” between farmers, ranchers, and consumers, in a transparent relationship with the food you eat, and in a better food future. Thank you very much for your commitment to positive change in our food system, it is greatly appreciated.

Watch a video of Fred's lecture on the Future of Agriculture >>