Stewardship

The systems that create food waste also create vast environmental damage.

Much of the food grown or consumed in this country is produced at a surplus, valuing quantity over the demands of the market, according to Earl Butz’s policies from the 1970s. (about) 40% of the food produced in the US is being thrown out at some point from farm to store to fridge to table to trash. This is an output of our linear thinking and industrial efficiency.

We are at a critical juncture. Climate change is a reality, already evicting hundreds of thousands from homes they have lived in for generations. Linear ways of thinking have led us to very efficient means of production of food, but the costs to the environment and vulnerable communities (“externalities”), such as huge dead zones of the Gulf of Mexico that are devoid of oxygen due to fertilizer that washes down the Mississippi, go unseen by those in charge of our industries.

Along with this linear mode of thinking, inputs are emphasized, and as such large amounts of water, fossil fuel, fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, and land are required in order to produce our food; simultaneously, outputs are also huge, in terms of food produced but also pollution and seasonal (temporary) jobs, often that exploit migrant laborers. This is industrially efficient because the externalities go unaccounted for, resulting in cheap means of production, cheap food, and also degradation of our farmlands, the lives of farm laborers, and our environment at large.

Do we, as Jews, have a responsibility to take care of the planet?