These thoughts began in late July. I was in a “Trump-slump” you might say—healthcare, immigration, racism, environmental issues all showing further signs of an unraveling of core values of civility, caring, and responsibility. Worst-case climate scenarios were being actively debated (more on that another time). How did we get into this mess? More importantly, how do we get out?

I believe that we can get out of this slump, that we can restore these core values, and that local food is just one tool—but a very powerful and nurturing tool—for addressing many root causes of these current issues.

Caring: Perhaps the most important underlying cause of unsustainability is simply a lack of sufficient caring for other than ourselves—other people, other beings, the world around us. Sharing food is one of the most fundamental human acts of compassion and an enduring symbol of caring for other people. The more we practice this by first being willing to see that others are hungry, sharing—especially food we have grown locally, and then working toward food security for all people, the more we will reinforce this core value and extend it to areas other than food.

Bringing Culture Back into the Food System: Michael Pollan, Gary Nabhan, Winona LaDuke, and many others have underscored for me the importance of culture in diets, in growing food, and in our basic relationships to food. Cultural tendencies—for food and otherwise—can obviously be good or bad; not all norms from the past are good by any means. But if we critically choose and embrace those cultural tendencies that we know are good for us, it can add a richness to dietary guidelines that transcends lists of ingredients, vitamins, and minerals. For example, following Pollan’s admonition, “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food,” could completely transform—and perhaps simplify—your next trip to the supermarket. Supporting and honoring culturally appropriate foods of Native Americans and other cultural groups taps into nutritional wisdom acquired over centuries.

Confronting Fast-Food Values: Alice Waters has made the most wonderful comparison between fast-food values and slow-food values—that we are choosing between not only foods but values when we eat. My take on this is that we have the opportunity—three times a day—to confront our human tendencies for too much convenience, immediacy, cheapness, and consumerism (all of which I am painfully aware of in myself). Left unchecked, these tendencies hurt not only our health, but the health and well being of others and our future. Growing our food, seeking real food from nearby farmers, taking time to cook, and eating a bit slower and more deliberately surely run counter to our modern lifestyle and tendencies, but embody the slow-food values that can transform our lives and the world beyond the dinner plate.

Growing Food—An Overwhelmingly Practical Solution: Bringing attention to critical problems without suggesting solutions is pointless. Solutions abound, but one of our favorite “whole solutions” can give people something practical, nurturing, economical, rewarding, instructive, lifestyle-enhancing, and therapeutic to dig into, so to speak. Nearly everyone can grow at least a small amount of food, from a container tomato on the doorstep or sprouts on a sunny windowsill to a backyard garden or community garden plot. Next best, you can get to know and support one or more local growers—and visit their farms and ranches. Getting involved in growing food, one way or another, helps us make better food choices, be more supportive of local farmers and ranchers, and be more aware of the interconnections between food production and nature. Finally, growing food keeps us actively engaged in helping solve several of the more perplexing social, economic, and environmental problems our society faces.

Connecting Food Systems and Ecosystems: We at HCFS use the landscape-level concept of the foodshed to make this connection. Envisioning our local foodsheds as encompassing our food producing ecosystems and the surrounding more natural ecosystems forces us to see their mutual dependence—one can’t be healthy without the other. A local food system—all that is done to bring us local food—is healthy only when the foodshed is healthy. I see this as a test of our wisdom, of our ability to see the connection between our food choices, our agriculture, and the integrity of the natural world. I feel blessed to live in Southwest Colorado with plenty of wild areas surrounding a patchwork of gardens, farms, and ranches—a great place to observe, preserve, and restore healthy connections between agricultural and surrounding ecosystems.

Exploring Carrying Capacity or “Foodability”: If the people of an area wish to be more self-reliant for food, the question arises of how many people can the local area support in terms of food. Questions abound: How self-reliant can we be—or want to be? With what desired quality of life? How much natural area do we want preserved? How do we separate the footprint for food from that for all else we require—or desire? Then, what about land suitability, water, climate, diets, and market forces—and the fact that all of these are changing! The asking of these questions may be as instructive as finding an elusive “answer.” Again, in Southwest Colorado, we have much open land, a modest population overall, and people who care deeply about food and about our natural landscapes. The questions may be somewhat different elsewhere, but wherever you live and eat, exploring “foodability” can help guide the preservation, appropriate use, and stewardship of our land and our environment—and to find our “place in nature.”

Ultimately, our quest for localizing food can help us find our place in nature which in turn should inform our efforts toward overall sustainability into the future.

Observation as a Multisolving Tool: We are becoming more and more convinced that observing—in its many forms—has enormous benefits in the work we do at the intersection of food and the climate and biodiversity crises. From unstructured curiosity-fed observation in a school garden, to local food supporters regularly monitoring a foodshed, to a community engaging in Citizen Science, observation can be a soul-healing therapy, a rich learning experience, a community service, and a contribution to scientific solutions to perplexing problems we face today.

Experts counsel us that careful observation is the key to good management, especially in biologically based gardening, farming, and ranching. Gardening with the Wild expert, Tammi Hartung sees it as her primary tool. Learning from nature, or biomimicry, as Gary Nabhan promotes, has careful observation at its roots. Observation is the core of our HCFS Wild School Gardens project. Benches in the garden are one of my favorite garden improvements and one of the most peaceful and reflective spots I can find during my day.

Monitoring the Local Foodshed: We consider the local foodshed to be the area we should look first for our food, and that area we should feel most responsible for.  Repeated observations of what we call “indicators of foodshed health” takes us into the realm of monitoring. For us the local foodshed includes food producing ecosystems as well as the surrounding natural ecosystems which profoundly affect, and are affected by, our food production. Monitoring over time the air, water, wildlife and biodiversity, and ecosystem processes—in other words the foodshed’s health—is critical to our stewardship of these landscapes.

Seeing is Believing—for climate change in particular: Social science research indicates that education and simply relaying facts will not necessarily, by themselves, convince someone that climate change is a real problem that we must address. Rather, our experiences help shape how we interpret what we hear and “learn.” Along with gardening, observing over time the natural processes in and around our gardens, farms, and ranches holds great promise in helping the unconvinced that we all must act to address climate change—and why not start with local food.

B-6—Our Prescription for DNS (Disturbing News Syndrome): I must admit to being afflicted with DNS over the past few months as the political will on the federal level to protect and restore our environment is at a low point—for now. The therapeutic value of observation of nature in our managed and surrounding wild ecosystems can counteract this unsettling news, while keeping us engaged rather than “checking out.” A daily dose of B-6 can be just the answer—watching birds, bees, bats, bugs, beavers, and biota (soil biota that is). Foolishness aside, these are actually a few of the most important things we can be monitoring (and protecting) as human-caused climate change and other environmental disruptions affect our foodsheds and our ability to grow food.

Doubling the Dosage with Citizen Science: One big step beyond being watchful over time is to start sharing your observations with others. This can be done rather informally on a local community basis, or it can actually be reported through a large number Citizen Science programs to help scientists better understand the changes occurring and to develop science-based solutions to many of the problems we see. Lost Ladybug, Bumblebee Watch, Monarch Butterfly Project, eBird, Nature’s Notebook, Journey North, Project Budburst, PikaNet, Vegetable Varieties, and the CoCoRaHS weather network are examples of the large number of national projects set up by universities and scientific organizations that are quite easy to start contributing to. The value of observing thus becomes multiplied as we contribute to solutions.

Engaging Local Food Lovers as Environmental Activists: As Mary Ellen Hannibal documents in her new book, Citizen Scientist, many communities partner with scientists to set up their own citizen science programs to address specific local issues. Monitoring the local food system as a first step to protecting and restoring it can help engage those who love local food—and want to see more of it—become local environmental activists and stewards. Some who are convinced of climate change, but not active in fighting it, can find a way to become engaged. Others who do not yet see the climate crisis will become acutely aware of it if they watch the local foodshed and the impacts of climate and extreme weather on local farmers, ranchers, and gardeners.

Our Map, Monitor, and Adapt guides and our Observing guide and are designed specifically to help people and their communities start thinking of healthy foodsheds, monitor their health over time, and start planning to adapt local food production to a changing climate and in ways that achieve other biodiversity and conservation goals. It is our hope that you will check them out and adapt them to the needs of your community and local food system. Observation is the keystone of this whole process, and the most fun and rewarding. Don’t forget your B-6 every day!