FERN’s Friday Feed: The soldier and the soil
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
An Iraq war vet’s struggle to cultivate peace
Orion Magazine
“I first heard about Steve Acheson and his farm while playing pickup basketball with some colleagues from work,” writes Barrett Swanson. “As we dribbled under yolky sunlight, my friend Josh gushed about his weekly CSA parcel … The farm was called Peacefully Organic Produce, ‘and the guy who runs the place,’ Josh said, ‘is absolutely incredible.’ He proceeded to describe Steve, a young Iraq War vet who had been something of an eminence in the contemporary anti-war movement and had apparently thrown away his service medals at a 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. A few years ago, Steve withdrew from activist circles and moved to Waunakee to start the veteran farm, trading the rancor of dissidence for the tranquility of the plains. ‘Sometimes in the furrows, out of nowhere, he’ll blurt things like “Fuck the Koch brothers!”’ Josh said. ‘And I’m like, what? And then he explains that the twine we’re using to trellis the tomatoes is actually manufactured by Koch Industries.’”
As obesity rises, Big Food pushes ‘anti-diet’ advice
The Washington Post and The Examination
Global food marketers are “seeking to cash in on … the ‘anti-diet’ movement, a social media juggernaut that began as an effort to combat weight stigma and an unhealthy obsession with thinness … One company in particular, General Mills, maker of Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms cereals, has launched a multipronged campaign that capitalizes on the teachings of the anti-diet movement. General Mills has toured the country touting anti-diet research it claims proves the harms of ‘food shaming.’ It has showered giveaways on registered dietitians who promote its cereals online with the hashtag #DerailTheShame, and sponsored influencers who promote its sugary snacks. The company has also enlisted a team of lobbyists and pushed back against federal policies that would add health information to food labels.”
The cartel on your dinner plate
The Atlantic
“The Federal Trade Commission has just released its long-anticipated report on the major disruptions to America’s grocery-supply chain during the coronavirus pandemic—and it confirmed the worst. According to the report,” writes Eric Schlosser, “large grocery companies … deliberately wielded their market power amid food shortages, entrenching their dominance and keeping their shelves stocked even as smaller companies had to scramble for goods or simply close up shop. For the big players in the grocery industry—companies such as Walmart—the pandemic was a boon. And profits have continued to climb, along with food prices, even as supply-chain disruptions have vanished. Why did all of this happen? The FTC report implied an answer but did not state it outright: A handful of companies now control the food system of the United States, stifling competition in ways not seen since the great trusts and monopolies of the late 1890s.”
Food as weapon makes a deadly comeback
Foreign Affairs
“Food is a weapon of war. Like nuclear weapons, the weaponization of food can bring about mass civilian deaths and unthinkable horrors, provoking rightful moral outrage at the prospect of its use. But unlike nuclear weapons, food weaponization is routinely used in warfare. And in our globalized world, this tool has become more dangerous than ever. Conflict has long been a central driver of global hunger. This enduring pattern is on tragic display today in places such as the Gaza Strip, Haiti, and Sudan, where millions of civilians are now on the brink of famine. The link between conflict and hunger stems in part from the weaponization of food itself, a method of warfare that exploits the coercive potential of disrupting (or threatening to disrupt) critical food supplies through the looting and destruction of farms, the manipulation of food supplies to exert domestic political control, and the use of sieges and blockades calibrated to starve the civilians trapped inside.”
The eider keepers
Biographic
“Located just south of the Arctic Circle, off the Helgeland Coast in the Norwegian Sea, the Vega Archipelago consists of 6,500 islands, islets, and skerries,” writes Devon Fredericksen. “Satellite to the main island of Vega are constellations of outer islands—wind-raked and treeless, with an alpine feel. Across the heather moors, vegetation crouches low to the ground. Map lichen, typically found in the mountains, paints sea-level moraines with dabs of lime green. Isolated and exposed to the northern elements, Vega seems a harsh, inhospitable seascape—except that here, nestled amid bushels of kelp, lies a treasure long coveted by Norwegian coastal communities: unfathomably soft eiderdown.”