Reading: Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Upon arriving at pre-service training, the 21 sustainable ag volunteers that made up omnibus 105 were informed that we were the last group of ag vols in Ecuador, as the program was ending at the end of the year. The remaining ag vols would be dissolved into the health program under the veil of food security. (This would not be that much of an issue in the life of a volunteer, except for the fact that the communities requesting volunteers were rarely informed of this bureaucratic change of objectives.)
Regardless of the politics or effectiveness of this change, the 17 of us sust. ag vols plus the newest group of health volunteers spent this last week back in the Tumbaco training center for a debriefing on what exactly is food security and the newest objectives that we're now suppose to be meeting.
The basic premise is that although Ecuador is not faced with outright starvation, there is a pressing issue in the nutritional value and use of food within this country. Paralleling the debate of food deserts that plague the pocketed poverty of the States, much of the conference revolved around the notion of food sovereignty. Another nifty development buzz word, it deals with the idea that without personal control over access, ability and utilization of healthy, nutritious food, the health of a country is compromised. This relates back to development in the fact that malnutrition is often directly linked to poverty. More so, poverty and underdevelopment is likely to result in the absence of one of the three components of food sovereignty-security. In an ideal world, people would have a secure source of food buffered from external forces such as unstable markets and income lulls, both of which are common in the developing world.
Thus, our four days were spent discussing the symptoms and causation of malnutrition and how ag related projects, like family gardens, could be used to combat it. Much of these lectures were hinged on a lack of education, particularly in rural communities, but even more so on the struggle against cultural norms. Ecuador is an extremely collectivist society, which can provide a wealth of benefits, but at the same time removes an element of individualism. Consequently, a mother may know that it is better to supplement her child's diet with fresh fruits and veggies, but they are not cultural acceptable, like rice and fried plantains.
These types of behaviour changes take time - we're still facing them in the States (how many people do you know who mistake corn for a veggie?) What more is that education can only go so far before personal choice takes over. We all know that running is good for us and probably shouldn't eat that bagel, but often old habits and instant gratification outweigh the long term harms. So game on for the next year and a half - I'll be combating poverty driven malnutrition one garden at a time... or something like that...
As for a little piece of irony: the conference was catered by an Ecuadorian group that provided meals mainly consisting of white rice and potatoes.
Upon arriving at pre-service training, the 21 sustainable ag volunteers that made up omnibus 105 were informed that we were the last group of ag vols in Ecuador, as the program was ending at the end of the year. The remaining ag vols would be dissolved into the health program under the veil of food security. (This would not be that much of an issue in the life of a volunteer, except for the fact that the communities requesting volunteers were rarely informed of this bureaucratic change of objectives.)
Regardless of the politics or effectiveness of this change, the 17 of us sust. ag vols plus the newest group of health volunteers spent this last week back in the Tumbaco training center for a debriefing on what exactly is food security and the newest objectives that we're now suppose to be meeting.
The basic premise is that although Ecuador is not faced with outright starvation, there is a pressing issue in the nutritional value and use of food within this country. Paralleling the debate of food deserts that plague the pocketed poverty of the States, much of the conference revolved around the notion of food sovereignty. Another nifty development buzz word, it deals with the idea that without personal control over access, ability and utilization of healthy, nutritious food, the health of a country is compromised. This relates back to development in the fact that malnutrition is often directly linked to poverty. More so, poverty and underdevelopment is likely to result in the absence of one of the three components of food sovereignty-security. In an ideal world, people would have a secure source of food buffered from external forces such as unstable markets and income lulls, both of which are common in the developing world.
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| Lindisma tomates |
These types of behaviour changes take time - we're still facing them in the States (how many people do you know who mistake corn for a veggie?) What more is that education can only go so far before personal choice takes over. We all know that running is good for us and probably shouldn't eat that bagel, but often old habits and instant gratification outweigh the long term harms. So game on for the next year and a half - I'll be combating poverty driven malnutrition one garden at a time... or something like that...
As for a little piece of irony: the conference was catered by an Ecuadorian group that provided meals mainly consisting of white rice and potatoes.
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