The 100 Mile Principle

Came across this rather interesting piece from Ela Bhatt, founder of the very inspiring Self-Employed Women's Association based in Gujarat, India - http://www.sewa.org/.

At the Tallberg Forum, Sweden, I heard two women farmers from Ghana lament, “The food we produce we do not eat, the food we eat we do not produce.”

Would India’s farmers sing a different sorrow?

According to the latest FAO report, the number of hungry people worldwide increased from 848 million in 2005 to 1 billion in 2008. The spreading hunger is weakening food security. Evidently, the world food system is unable to ensure food, which is adequate and safe, to sustain human life. Is India any exception?

If nothing else, over the years we have kept up with the world food system in making it more and more complex but less and less useful to feed the hungry. Simple questions remain unanswered. Safe and nutritious food is promoted as a fundamental right and yet our people remain hungry.

Why do those who produce and process food, farmers and farm workers, most of them women, do not have enough food to eat? Why do food exporting regions report starvation? Returns on global food markets have become increasingly attractive but why do the farm labourers remain the lowest paid and work under worst conditions? Food has today become a mere commodity.

But, food is much more. Food has a sense of locality, home, sthana in India. Food is many-layered in its use and satisfaction. Food is our link from cosmos to livelihood to ritual to myth. It is our life’s culture. Food is our history and our future. Food has many meanings to us. But food security is the language of the state today.

Can food be reduced to business and trade opportunity? Is it not the result of failed political economy, the other of failed morality? Our civilization started with agriculture and today agriculture is under threat. What about our civilization?

We have to protect ways of life and livelihoods of the farming communities from the threat of extinction. We must protect the base of agriculture, small farmers, their produce and their locality of farming. Security stems from local innovations, not distant imports.

To build food security, we must understand that security needs autonomy that grants diversity which stems from locality. Autonomy, diversity and locality are the fundamentals of our food security.

Producer & consumer must come closer.

To achieve the above, we must reduce the distance, economic and ecological, between food producer and consumer. Here I wish to suggest my 100 Mile Principle that stems from ecology of food that I mentioned at Tallberg Forum.

I urged all to think of using essential foods and food-related services that are produced within 100 miles around us. I explained that the 100 Mile Principle weaves decentralization, locality, size and scale with livelihood of agriculture. What we need for livelihood as material, as energy as knowledge should stem from areas around us.

We can start with our own food first. Seed, soil and water are forms of knowledge developed over generations that need to be retained locally. So are the uses, storage, processes, recipes and packaging of food. Let us experiment with the 100 Mile Principle with our daily staple food in 2009.

It cuts economic and ecological cost on food. Essentially, the organic human link between ecology and economy has to be restored. The millennia old link between producer and consumer has to be recovered. Ultimately, ecology as cosmology or economy as market is the weave of life. Let us start weaving it tighter from 2009.

Wings On My Heels

The beginnings of my days have become a tad ritualistic: coffee, cereals (or toast and butter) and the silent accompanying of my country, India, and the rest of the world through the online news portals. And in that order too! The solitude is these early hours of the morning, while the rest of the household sleeps, is pleasing and nourishing.

And then begins the 'great rush': dress up, boot up, make sure everything's in the bag (don't forget the mobiles - 2 of them!), bus travel, tube travel, train travel, don't be late...and one begins to lose oneself in the cacophony of existence. There is just one desire: get to the office! Until something happens; If something happens.

Walking through a construction site en route to my office yesterday, I was 'rushing' through this narrow path created by the construction chaps lost in my God-alone-knows-what-thoughts and then all too unexpectedly, I was forced to a complete slow-down! There, right ahead of me, was this feeble old woman dragging her shopping trolley - completely unhurried, inching forward with baby-steps. I was, in that single instant, dragged back to planet earth.

Suddenly, there was a unique awareness of the sounds and sights of the world that I was passing by in haste: the discordant humming of the machines, the vigorous shouts of the workers, the squeals of laughter and chatter of children going to school, the parents quickening their pace to keep up with their kids, the cold in the air...I was living in the now. My spirits rose and I was inexplicably conscious of the 'rush' replaced by wings on my heels.

What came to my mind at that very moment was a memorable verse from the poem Leisure by William Henry Davies: What is this Life if full of care; we have no time to stand and stare.

Salmon Tikka

I've been promising my peers - fellow foodies in the office - to put up some recipes here and I thought I'll begin with the simply delightful Salmon Tikka. This is heaven on earth - the subdued taste of Salmon infused with the indian spices to produce a mouth-watering finish!

Required:
4 Salmon Fillets (halve them if large)
1 generous tbsp of Greek Yogurt
3/4 tbsps of Tandoori Masala/Powder (available in Asian stores. My personal favourite is the SHAN brand - Tandoori Chicken BBQ Mix.)
3/4 tbsps of fresh lemon juice
Olive oil

(Please note: The brand I use has salt in it already but if the one you use doesn't have any, then include 1 tsp of salt)

Method:
a) Prepare a marinade of Greek Yogurt, Tandoori Masala, Lemon Juice and 1 tbsp of Olive Oil and apply it to the fish. Keep aside (in the refrigerator) for 30 mins.
b) Heat some oil in the frying pan. Once hot, reduce the heat to medium and fry the fish. A couple of mins for either side of the fish and Salmon Tikka is ready!

A good twist of lime on the fish before serving it will add to the lovely strong flavours. Best served hot - straight from the pan!

Paul Chapman: Casting His Lot with the Poor

Today, a good friend and colleague, Paul Chapman was interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland. Paul is 78 and believes that he is too young to stop working. I have known Paul for over 2 years now and have wondered what keeps him going: Is it good genes in the family or is it his life-long passion for social justice? At an age when many of us would have justifiably hung in our boots and expected the society (and family) to indulge us with respect and care, Paul, an American, is here in Scotland as a Volunteer with us - prowling around the cities and among its people especially those struggling to be equals in a society deeply divided on the lines of class, income and opportunities.

One of Paul's favourite slogan is 'Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us'. He brings it with him from his days of working alongside Martin Luther King and his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. The poor, Paul says, are the indispensible 'professionals' and 'experts' in any political recipe for social change.

Paul's zest for life and its many flavours extends beyond the social arena right into his kitchen! My family and I have tucked in many of his delightful cullinary creations and I feel much at ease with his '365 reasons to have champagne' theory!

What a fascinating young man, this Paul Chapman!

A Leap Into Immortality

My immediate inspiration for starting a blog comes from these haunting lines that I recently read in a novel, The Sacred Scripture, by Sebastian Barry:

"It is funny, but it strikes me that a person without anecdotes that they nurse while they live, and that strikes them, are more likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following them. Of course this is the fate of most souls, reducing entire lives, no matter how vivid and wonderful, to those sad black names on withering family trees, with half a date dangling after and a question mark."

I suspect, if truth be told, much of what I have done and am doing is about how I want to be remembered. Is it selfish - in a world that extols selflessness - to want that? I'm not entirely certain of this yet.

I read somewhere once that 'people will not remember what you did or what you said but they will always remember how you made them feel'. A reflection on my own tiny history and the people who have made it so rich indicates that to be ever so true. It is a paradox then, isn't it, for immortality to be an ever present possibiliy for us mere mortals?

Perhaps my anecdotes and memories will survive beyond me. A blog is a good way forward to attempt immortality - especially for those of us who will never quite have enough words to fill up a book!

Now all I need is a bit of discipline to weave my thoughts into words for posterity!