While most people were plotting escapes to the beach with their summer book in tow, I remained in the city with an armful of information that cropped up rather suddenly.
For starters, earlier in the week, WMEAC announced on their
blog that the City of Grand Rapids is moving toward the adoption of a real composting policy that actually would allow us to add one of the ingredients that makes it work in the first place: food scraps.
Prior to this we could allow our leaves, twigs and grass clipping to co-mingle, but the missing element that provides the "fuel" has been as elusive as gay rights protection in Holland.
But times are a-changing and so, there is reason for us in the city to have hope.
As a region, we have shown we are capable of taking the necessary steps to tackle various topics when the modern imagination of our citizens is tapped for ideas. But, as I dove further back through my personal notes and our history books, I was surprised at what I discovered.
Truth is, composting isn't new in the urban setting. This simple system for rejuvenating gardens is something we lost along the way toward the present industrialized food system.
My first stop on my summer memory trip was to a recent lecture by the Venice Biennial artist from Sweden, Fia Backström.
I heard Backström speak in Boston about her inspiration and body of work. She casually mentioned in her presentation that up until the industrialization of our food systems, the city of Paris had excelled in the area of urban farming.
Parisians apparently devoted a sizeable portion of their city's landscape to the activity of growing food.
Now, this very in vogue inner city trend is one that is happening in cities as close as East Grand Rapids, where they have adopted numerous urban farming policies that encourage greater freedom in the production of food by the family.
As I read about the philosophy behind urban farming from past centuries, Paris' model, one that recognizes a community's wealth springs up from the land, reminded me of Rapid Growth's recent Grand Rapids to Detroit bus trip to visit the
Earthworks Urban Farm.
France and Detroit have these farming activities in the urban center showcasing the power of a closed loop system where waste-to-food and back-to-waste-again cycles are in harmony with the earth.
In Detroit, while we visited the growing facilities and distribution center with the area gleaners, we were also treated to a tour of their vast composting operation.
What we gained from our Detroit visit is what so many people in the Detroit region benefited from as well: A group of people reintroduced to the knowledge of how food is produced helps to create a healthy community. With many medical and health professionals asking us to consider our diets, this is a chance in our history to once again teach children and adults about the origin of our food.
As I circle back home on my mental journey, I begin to ponder what other benefits might be awaiting us if we adopt a realistic composting policy here in Grand Rapids.
For starters, when Paris introduced this nutrient-rich, life-promoting composting procedure back into their soil, the crops produced an amazing bounty.
In fact, in Paris, it was so successful that they not only fed the city's population, but the excess was exported to England. For those who live via their Excel spreadsheet, a new income stream in our city should be very exciting news.
This is the obvious first benefit of producing and using compost in our city.
Another benefit follows when we take the time to introduce urban farming to our community. We have an opportunity to once again train a new generation about the power of gardening. Studies have shown such knowledge helps break the cycle of poverty when sustainable farming practices are made available to all.
By changing the food-to-waste loop, we do more than benefit our environment as far as the earth is concerned. We also improve our quality of life. Urbanists have even discovered that crime rates decrease in neighborhoods where community farming is encouraged.
When a community embraces gardening, whether on their own property, on vacant lands or at designated community gardens, a from-the-ground-up style of conversation occurs among gardeners. These informal networks of neighbors begin conversations about their gardens and other topics. This sort of friendly shoptalk is difficult to cultivate in the super center grocery aisle of a Wal-Mart.
This friendly process of working in the garden with our neighbors encourages us to enter into conversations where we begin to listen to each other's stories. Just as people who garden often want a greater connection to their food, we as a community benefit from connecting with each other in an urban setting.
Furthermore, composting waste products in our city is just good business for the environment. The EPA estimates that nearly one quarter of the food we purchase in our country ends up as waste with a paltry 3% being redirected to compost piles.
With a modern compost policy, this trend will begin to reverse the ecological waste of using diesel-fueled trucks to haul this energy-rich product to our city landfill or burn it up in our waste-to-energy plant along the Grand River.
Before I go back to pulling weeds in my garden, I want to share a powerful quote by Thomas Jefferson.
"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds."
The passing of a real composting policy in the city of Grand Rapids should not be delayed or be drawn out. It makes us not only a healthy city, but gives each of us a chance to reintroduce to each other the rich history of a thriving urban garden culture.
It should inspire us to be better stewards of this planet and also better neighbors.
The Future Needs All of Us (to compost.)
Tommy Allen
Lifestyle Editor
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