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Whenever I stop at a grocery store, hundreds of colorful and various packaged products surprise me.

Whenever I travel to a country, it is not uncommon to see products and fast food restaurant with well known brands.

What is going on in the global food economy?

To put it simply, under the current situation, food is commoditized and only a handful of transnational corporations dominate the food market.

Here is a list of negative impacts of the industrialized food economy.

• “Food from nowhere”: packaged items deprive us of sense of seasonality and connection to a place where food is produced.

• “Food miles”: food travels a long distance, resulting in massive oil use for transportation

• Cheap food: food produced by machinery, fossil fuels and chemicals in a larger scale is cheaper than labor- intensive organic food thus small farmers are overwhelmed.

• Unhealthy: junk food, such as soft drink and snacks with sweetness, fat and artificial flavors, is harmful for your body. Especially, the poor has less access to nutritious and fresh food.

• Diversity: the diversity of crop and genetics is declining as a result of the large scale and mono crop system.

In order to tackle this situation, an “alterNative” method is necessary. Therefore my focus on this blog is TEK (traditional environmental knowledge) in agriculture and food. TEK is “a particular form of place-based knowledge of diversity and interactions among plant and animal species, landforms, watercourses, and other qualities of the biophysical environment in a given place.” Indigenous agroecosystem based on this place-based knowledge is much more sustainable compared to the industrialized agriculture.

Here are some sustainable characters.

• High crop diversity

• Optimal use of space and available resources
  

• Recycling of nutrients and other inputs
  

• Effective soil and water conservation and management

• Natural control of weeds and pets

• Sustainable income and subsistence for local community

So this “alterNative” way of food production is a way to go. I would like to introduce this kinds of TEK in this blog.

Resources

The Global Food Economy, the battle for future of farming by Tony Weis

Mexican Americans and the Environment from Devon G. Peña