CEDnet Retreat

Last Thursday, December 3^rd, I attended the annual CEDnet retreat at the Highlander Center in New Market, TN. CEDnet or Community Economic Development Network of East Tennessee,  is an organization that was founded in 1997 as a tool for socio-economic networking. The network is comprised of three task forces, each of which elected a guest speaker for the event to be followed by breakout sessions for group discussion.

Ms. Mercedes Strollo spoke on behalf of the Latino Task Force, which originated in 2001 to assist migrant workers with banking services. The subsequent program, Centro Hispano, is working on a legal rights manual in addition to continuing its aid in banking. They hold monthly meetings at the CAC West Center to address Latin American issues in Knoxville. Dr. Bill Turner spoke with regard to the second task force, the African American Heritage Alliance, which focuses on preservation and recognition of significant African American historical sites. He discussed trends of African American populations in Appalachia, and charged the region with a crisis of culture in rural towns. Coal mining was the main sector of labor for African Americans, but as the process mechanized with bulldozers and dynamite, African Americans flooded out of Appalachia to follow the labor into cities like Detroit and Cleveland. Now they are returning, but without any property ownership. He emphasized the importance of reclaiming cultural pride and a cohesive sense of community that aspires for higher standards of living in this region. I really appreciated a quotation by James Baldwin (not to be confused with Alec) that he used in his presentation, “All that is faced cannot be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We cannot fix everything, but that realization makes it all the more important to relish and labor diligently in your passion if you are lucky enough to find it.

Chad Hellwinckel is an agricultural economist at the University of Tennessee, and represented the third task force, SEAD. SEAD is Sustainable Equitable Agricultural Development, which aims to draw a closer connection between farms and food, in school cafeterias in Greene Co. for example. Dr. Hellwinckel focused his presentation on the relationship between agriculture and oil. He highlighted some staggering statistics and pinpointed three policy imperatives by which we can reverse our current trends: First, we have to reverse the energy balance.  Until 1960, agriculture was a net energy source; now we only get .7 calories of energy out of every one calorie of input. This presents a problem as we are approaching the peak of the world’s oil production. From this point, says Hellwinckel, we will only see diminishing returns in our perpetual hunt for petroleum.  Second, we must regenerate and rebuild our soil. Since the beginning of agriculture, we have plowed 1/3 of all arable land on the planet into exhaustion. Farmers abandon 30 million acres (the equivalent of one Ohio) every single year. Finally, we have to produce abundant food per acre (I assume, here, that he refers to edible food, not Number 2 corn for feedlots).  Hellwinckel addressed two schools of thought concerning ways to accomplish the third imperative. The first, supported by Rajiv Shah and Bill Gates, relies on scientific advancement to feed the planet via biotechnology – drought resistant crops and genetically modified crops that maximize nutrient use in the soil. The other option follows the values of Wendell Berry and regenerative agriculture such as intensive grazing and small-scale organic farming, crop rotation, etc. One method puts all of our futures into the hands of a couple of scientists in Maryland and giant monopolies like Monsanto. The alternative cannot possibly feed 7 billion people, can it? Is scientific adaptation good for the future of food? Can small family farms feed the world? Chad Hellwinckel says “yes.” These are the issues we considered and debated in our breakout sessions with SEAD during the afternoon. We did not solve the world’s food crisis, but it was a positive discussion that illuminated many small grassroots initiatives (like Beardsley, like Rural Resources) and demanded new studies to determine the logistics of feeding people healthy food on a massive scale. Which alternative do you think is better?

- Rachel

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