-
Title (dcterms:title)
-
Eng
Sustainability Planning in Thurston County, Washington: Opportunities and Challenges for Eco-Civic Agriculture
-
Date (dcterms:date)
-
2013
-
Creator (dcterms:creator)
-
Eng
Johnson, TJ
-
Subject (dcterms:subject)
-
Eng
Environmental Studies
-
extracted text (extracttext:extracted_text)
-
Sustainability Planning in Thurston County, Washington:
Opportunities and Challenges for Eco Civic Agriculture
by
TJ Johnson
An Essay of Distinction
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
Master of Environmental Study
The Evergreen State College
June 2013
© 2013 by TJ Johnson. All rights reserved.
This Essay of Distinction for the
Master of Environmental Study Degree
by
TJ Johnson
has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by
______________________________
Martha L. Henderson
Member of the Faculty
______________________________
Date
ABSTRACT
Sustainability Planning in Thurston County, Washington:
Opportunities and Challenges for Eco Civic Agriculture
TJ Johnson
Agricultural and food systems have undergone significant changes over time.
Radical structural changes have occurred in the past century. The modern
industrial food system is the product of a neoliberal political agenda and global
corporate capitalism. As the environmental and social consequences of this
dominant food regime become increasingly visible a variety of oppositional food
system frameworks have emerged. Each has value, but each also has limitations.
A new, holistic theoretical framework, Eco Civic Agriculture, has the potential to
transform agriculture and food system in ways that improve environmental
outcomes and foster democratic renewal. Realizing the transformative potential
of this new framework will require communities to actively engage in food
system planning based on the principles of Eco Civic Agriculture. Thurston
County, Washington is currently engaged in food system planning as part of a
larger effort to develop a regional sustainability plan. This effort marks the first
time that the local food system has been included in regional planning and mirrors
the reemergence of food system planning as a core concern among planning
practitioners. The degree to which the current planning effort is likely to advance
the principles of Eco Civic Agriculture is assessed through a case study of the
project. The case study includes a review of the history of the project, analysis of
relevant documents and interviews with key participants. The planning process
has elevated the visibility of local food system issues, broadened the geographic
and institutional framework for food system planning and promoted broader
community discussion of key food system sustainability issues. However, future
population growth, loss of agricultural land, definitional problems, insufficient
attention to ecologically-based farming practices and continued acceptance of the
dominant industrial food system pose challenges to advancing Eco Civic
Agriculture through the planning process.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………... 1
Chapter 2: Establishing the Context: The Global Industrial Food System,
Emerging Alternatives and Research Methods…………..………………………. 5
Chapter Overview……………………………………………................... 5
From Hunter Gatherers to Corporate Capitalists…………….................... 5
Social and Environmental Challenges………………………………….. 10
Alternative Food System Theories and Frameworks…………………… 15
Eco Civic Agriculture………………………………………................... 25
Research Methods………………………………………………………. 27
Chapter 3: Food System Planning in Thurston County, Washington:
A Case Study of Sustainable Thurston……………………………..................... 32
Chapter Overview………………………………………………………. 32
History and Evolution of the County Food System…………………….. 32
Food System Planning: Context and History……………….................... 41
Regional Sustainability Planning ………………………….…………… 51
Food System Planning…………………………….……...…………….. 58
Chapter 4: Sustainable Thurston and Food System Planning:
Key Participant Perspectives……………………………………………………. 62
Chapter Overview………………………………………………………. 62
Background and Perspectives on Food and Agriculture ...…................... 62
The Impact of Planning and the Role of the Planner……….................... 64
TRPC’s Role in Community Planning………………………………….. 66
Sustainable Thurston: Origins, Goals and Outcomes………................... 67
The Local Food System and Sustainable Thurston……………………... 71
Challenges and Barriers ………………………………………………... 78
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations………………………………... 83
References ……………………………………………………………………… 92
v
Acknowledgements
In 1991 I moved to Thurston County for the opportunity to pursue graduate level study of
environmental issues at The Evergreen State College (TESC). In 1993 I took a time-out from completing
my degree, largely to start solving some of the problems I had been studying. Over the past 22 years I
have applied my learning towards solving a variety of social and environmental problems and the
betterment my state, region and community as a professional planner, engaged citizen, and elected
official.
After leaving elected office in 2008, I joined the board of directors of Sustainable South Sound
and founded the Local Food System Program. I launched this initiative because my experience has led
me to believe that the key to realizing a sustainable future lies in a radical restructuring of the way we
produce, transport and consume food, and I saw no other organization or individual stepping forward to
address this crucial issue in my own community. Since that time I have worked as a food system activist,
growing and preserving much of my own food, developing community gardens, educating the public and
catalyzing efforts to change local food and agricultural policies. I have also worked as a food system
academic, teaching Ecological Agriculture at TESC. This teaching experience reawakened my academic
curiosity and led to a desire to complete the graduate degree I put on hiatus in 1993. The result is this
document.
I gratefully acknowledge my faculty advisor, Martha L. Henderson, for her support,
encouragement and flexibility in bringing this long-overdue project to fruition, as well as faculty
members John Perkins, Tom Womeldorff and Ralph Murphy for their key roles in my academic
development. I also wish to recognize my faculty colleagues, Martha Rosemeyer and Dave Muehliesen,
for their personal friendship and assistance.
The elected officials and professional planners interviewed for this research provided critical
insight into the origins of Sustainable Thurston and the potential for that planning process to lead towards
the realization of a sustainable local food system. The final product benefitted greatly from their
perspectives.
Special recognition is reserved for Stephanie Johnson for her patience and support, and for
sharing my passion for local food, and for Quinn Johnson, a lover of good food and a member of the
generation that is inheriting the mess my generation created and has proven seemingly incapable of
rectifying.
This thesis is dedicated to Wendell Berry who first sparked my curiosity about agriculture and
food systems, and who reminds us that eating is an inherently political act, and to all the farmers,
gardeners and food activists in the emerging Eco Civic Agriculture movement in Thurston County.
vi
Chapter 1: Introduction
In recent years, the American public has been presented with a flurry of new,
and at times shocking, perspectives on modern agriculture and the food system
that provides most people their daily sustenance. Bestselling books such as
Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Estabrook’s Tomatoland and Schlosser’s Fast
Food Nation have drawn popular attention to the environmental, social and health
problems resulting from the modern industrial food system. Popular films such as
Food, Inc., Super Size Me and Killers at Large have presented an even more
potent and graphic indictment of the system. Product recalls, stories about tainted
meats and vegetables and the dangers of consuming everything from mercuryladen tuna to soft drinks loaded with high fructose corn syrup have become a
regular feature in the morning newspaper and on the evening news.
Becoming equally evident is the massive impact of the modern industrial
economy on the environment and the earth’s basic life support systems. Climate
change has gone from scientific theory to immediate emergency in the form of
superstorms, more frequent and severe tornadoes, prolonged drought and more
widespread and intense wildfires. Degraded air quality regularly results in public
agencies issuing health alerts. Cancer clusters are growing more frequent in
communities surrounding many industrial facilities, and contamination of
drinking water supplies by hydraulic fluids used in natural gas extraction are
forcing people in communities across the country to turn off their taps.
Meanwhile, since 2008 the U.S. economy has been stuck in neutral, still
recovering from the costs of two decade-long wars, Wall Street excesses, well
publicized corporate scandals and trillion dollar government bailouts.
Unemployment and home foreclosure rates remains stubbornly high, there is a
growing gap between rich and poor, and hunger and food insecurity are on the
rise. Basic safety net services such as emergency food assistance often remain the
first to be sacrificed by governments at all levels seeking to balance their budgets
and remain solvent. Increasing numbers of people are wondering how things got
so bad so fast, and many, particularly those with children, wonder what the future
1
holds. Faith in the ability of governments at all levels to address pressing social
and environmental problems is at a historic low.
The combination of these and other factors are causing many individuals and
communities across the country to search for ways to cope with the challenges
and regain some sense of control over their destiny. Growing recognition that the
modern global economy may be antithetical to healthy, functional ecosystems and
the preservation of community identity and local culture has spawned a variety of
movements and initiatives to reassert local control and reshape the system from
the bottom up. One of the most visible manifestations of these efforts to reclaim
community control is found in emerging movements to rebuild local and regional
food systems, which historically served as both an engine of economic
development and a force for social cohesion.
Evidence of renewed interest in the transformative power of local food
systems is found in the phenomenal growth of local farmers markets, community
supported agriculture (CSA) programs, community and school gardens and the
number of young people seeking to become farmers and small scale food system
entrepreneurs. According to Nordahl (2009), local agriculture is “enjoying a
popularity not witnessed in more than half a century” (p. 4). While they still
remain a small part of its overall portfolio, the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) has developed a variety of programs and projects to support
the burgeoning local food movement, including Know Your Farmer, Know Your
Food and several farm to school and farm to institution initiatives.
Increasing recognition of the critical role that food plays in our lives and the
life of our communities, a concept well understood by our ancestors in the nottoo-distant past, provides an opportunity for serious efforts to rebuild local and
regional food systems. In a recent presentation at The Evergreen State College,
author Sandor Katz stressed that reclaiming community control over our food and
reintegrating it into a central role in our lives is “desperately important” (Katz,
2013). Ladner (2011) compares the emerging local food movement to “a giant,
self-organizing community barn-raising that is rebuilding the foundations of
healthy food and self-sufficiency in our cities and surrounding farms” (p. 12).
2
Many of the projects and initiatives growing out of the local food movement
are grounded in the realization that agricultural practices and food systems play a
central role in the transition to a more environmentally and culturally sustainable
future, and that community scaled solutions are the most likely to further
sustainability objectives. Jackson (1996) stresses this point, writing that “as we
search for a less extractive and polluting economic order, so that we may fit
agriculture into the economy of a sustainable culture, community becomes the
locus and metaphor for both agriculture and culture” (p. 50).
Across the country, concerned communities are beginning to purse the
development of sustainability plans to guide future development; some of these
plans include an examination of the local food system as an element of the
planning process. One of the communities currently engaged in a sustainability
planning effort is Thurston County, Washington. This three year, $1.5 million
planning process, Sustainable Thurston, includes analysis of the local food system
and its role in advancing community sustainability.
The research undertaken for this essay includes a case study examination of
Sustainable Thurston intended to assess the degree to which this planning process
is likely to advance a sustainable local food system in the county. Understanding
both the opportunities and challenges for advancing a sustainable local food
system through the Sustainable Thurston planning process provides policymakers,
professional planners and food system activists with valuable information to guide
future efforts. In addition, similar individuals in other communities may find this
research useful as they undertake sustainability and food system planning efforts.
Chapter Two provides a context for understanding this case study. This
chapter includes a discussion of the evolution of the modern industrial food
system, including the profound changes that have occurred in the system in recent
decades, and an analysis of some of the environmental and social consequences of
the system. The emergence of a variety of oppositional food system theories is
examined, with emphasis on the strengths and weaknesses of each. Recognizing
the limitations of these existing theories, I propose a new framework for
sustainable local food systems, Eco Civic Agriculture, which has the potential to
3
successfully challenge the dominant food system while improving environmental
outcomes and strengthening local communities. The chapter concludes with a
discussion of the research methods used for the case study.
Chapter Three provides an overview of the history and development of
agriculture and food systems in Thurston County. Food system planning in the
county is examined within historic and organizational contexts, with emphasis on
the emergence of food system planning as a primary concern of professional
planners over the past several decades. The origin, scope and progress of
Sustainable Thurston are examined, with emphasis on the local food system’s
place within the overall planning effort.
Chapter Four presents the results of research interviews conducted with two
key groups of informants involved in the project, professional planners and
elected officials overseeing the project. The interviews provide crucial insights
not available through bibliographic research and serve as the basis for gaining a
deeper understanding of the origins of Sustainable Thurston as well as the
challenges and opportunities to furthering Eco Civic Agriculture through the
planning process.
Chapter Five presents the conclusions and recommendations drawn from the
research, and suggests potential next steps for fostering Eco Civic Agriculture in
Thurston County.
4
Chapter 2: Establishing the Context: The Global Industrial Food
System, Emerging Alternatives and Research Methods
Chapter Overview
Agricultural and food systems have undergone significant changes over time.
Radical structural changes occurred in the past century, especially since the end of
the Second World War. This chapter examines the origin and development of the
modern industrial food system, the factors that made it possible, and its place
within a larger neoliberal political framework and global corporate capitalism.
Recognizing that this new food regime has been tremendously successful at
increasing agricultural productivity, we also consider some of the social and
environmental consequences of the system that lead many to question its long
term sustainability and resilience to changing environmental, political and
economic conditions.
Opposition to the dominant food regime has spawned various alternative
frameworks designed to reclaim popular control over the food system and
restructure it to support broader social justice and ecological goals. The strengths
and weaknesses of several of these alternative frameworks are examined and a
new framework – Eco Civic Agriculture - is proposed which promotes ecological
sustainability, social justice and community cohesion, an approach with the
radical potential to seriously challenge the dominant food regime.
The chapter concludes with a review of the research methods used to develop
and analyze a case study of the potential for an existing regional sustainability
planning process to advance Eco Civic Agriculture in Thurston County
Washington.
From Hunter Gatherers to Corporate Capitalists
Throughout human history, the means by which individuals and communities
produced, distributed and consumed food has undergone continual and
occasionally fundamental change. The earliest humans were hunters and
gatherers who traveled widely and seasonally in pursuit of food sources.
Eventually small bands of humans established permanent settlements in the
5
Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and transitioned from
foraging for food to cultivating crops (Montgomery, 2007). Over time improved
farming techniques resulted in agricultural surpluses, which began to be traded
with other settlements. By 3.500 BCE Egyptian farmers were producing more
than enough wheat to feed the local population and began trading their surplus
throughout the region; the resulting accumulation of wealth further reduced the
incidence of hunger and supported significant growth in human populations
throughout the region (Roberts, 2008).
Agricultural surplus also meant that not all members of the community were
required to participate in food production, allowing for more labor specialization,
development of more sophisticated economic and social systems, and increasingly
complex trading networks. Expanding agricultural knowledge and scientific and
technological innovations resulted in higher outputs per unit of labor, a cycle that
repeated with only occasional interruptions over thousands of years. Domesticated
animal power increasingly replaced human labor, yet the majority of people were
still engaged directly or indirectly in food production as recently as the beginning
of the nineteenth century. According to Conklin (2008), in 1800 more than 50
percent of human labor worldwide was still engaged in procuring food.
In the U.S. and Western Europe, the Industrial Revolution fundamentally
changed the nature of agriculture by more easily and cheaply manufacturing tools
and machines that supported further increases in farm productivity. Surplus farm
labor was drawn to work in factories, beginning a long steady migration from the
rural countryside to urban areas. In 1800 at least 90 percent of the U.S.
population had some direct tie to agriculture, but by 1900 the percentage of
Americans living on farms had dropped to 40 percent (Conklin, 2008). Urban
residents and factory workers no longer engaged directly in food production
acquired food through market transactions mediated by a growing class of food
wholesalers, retailers and shopkeepers who served as middleman between urban
consumers and rural producers. This pattern that would later repeat throughout
other parts of the world as those regions underwent similar industrialization.
6
German chemist Fritz Haber’s 1913 discovery of a process to convert
atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia, and Carl Bosch’s later scaling up of the
technology, provided the basis for mass production of the first artificial fertilizers.
The Haber-Bosch process is arguably the most important invention of the
twentieth century. These fertilizers allowed for dramatic increases in agricultural
production, which had previously been limited by the amount of nitrogen
available from animal waste and nitrogen fixing cover crops. Correspondingly
large increases in the human population followed. Growing agricultural
productivity further reduced farm labor needs and fueled continued rural to urban
migration. Beginning in the early 1900s the U.S. farm population began a slow
but steady decline that continued through most the century (Conklin, 2008).
The Haber-Bosch process is also the basis for modern nitrogen explosives.
During World War II much of the industrial nitrogen production capacity was
shifted from agriculture to the war effort, temporarily slowing the growth of
agricultural productivity. Following World War II the production of synthetic
fertilizers accelerated dramatically. Montgomery (2007) notes that use of
nitrogen fertilizers “tripled between the Second World War and 1960, tripled
again by 1970, and then doubled once more by 1980” and that agricultural output
doubled in the second half of the twentieth century largely as a result of increased
reliance on manufactured fertilizers (p.197)
In addition to manufactured fertilizers, the production and widespread use of
chemical insecticides, fungicides and herbicides reduced crop loss and resulted in
bigger harvests. A wide range of synthetic insecticides began to be routinely
applied to agricultural crops. Today there are more than 300 fungicides registered
for agricultural use in the U.S. and by 1982 95 percent of the US corn crop was
sprayed with herbicides (Conklin, 2008).
Another factor that explains the dramatic increase in farm productivity over
the past hundred years is the mechanization of agriculture in the form of improved
plows, automated harvesters and tractors which reduced the labor input required
per unit of agricultural output. Most farmers eagerly embraced the labor saving
innovations which allowed them to work more acres in less time, and they
7
increasingly invested in these new technologies. Between 1910 and 1920 the
typical Kansas farmer tripled their investments in these new machines, and tripled
it again in the next decade (Montgomery, 2007).
As important as all of these factors were in dramatically increasing
agricultural productivity, equally important were the changes taking place off the
farm that allowed agricultural surpluses to become the catalyst for creating a
globalized food system. As farmers increasingly adopted a capital intensive
industrial approach to production they also adopted other fundamental principles
of industrialization such as specialization, standardization and centralized
decision making (Ikerd, 2001). Heeding the advice of former U.S. Agriculture
Secretary Earl Butz to “get big or get out” small diversified farms were replaced
by larger farms growing fewer crops with an emphasis on consumer demand for
uniform appearance of the end product. According to the USDA Economic
Research service between 1950 and 2002 the number of farms in the US dropped
from 5.3 million to 2.2 million, while average farm size increased from 213 acres
to 440 acres (Imhoff, 2012).
The transition to a capital intensive industrial model of production meant that
farmers also became more dependent upon the corporations who produced the
chemical inputs and machines, who bought and marketed the harvest, and who
provided the financing to keep the whole system running. As a result food
increasingly became just another industrial commodity. The power to decide what
to grow, how to grow it and when to harvest it shifted from farmers and local
communities to an emerging group of vertically and horizontally integrated
agribusiness corporations operating in a global marketplace and driven primarily
by the imperative of maximizing return on investment to their shareholders.
Ikerd (2001) observes that:
Regardless of whether the result is assembly line production by giant
automobile manufacturers or a large scale confinement animal feeding
operation, the principles are the same. The gains in efficiency from
industrialization result from carrying out specialized functions by
standardized means under centralized management. (para.7)
8
Operating within the dominant neoliberal political economic framework that
accepts the primacy of the market as the means to determine how to best allocate
scarce resources to meet human needs, this corporate food regime has come to
dominate all aspects of the global food system, from farm to table (Alkon &
Mares, 2012). Kloppenberg, Henrickson & Stevenson (1996) write that the
objective of these corporations “is to restructure this marvelously diverse world
into a homogenous plain free of physical or social obstacles to the free flow of
money and agricultural commodities” (p. 34). The practical result is the
clearcutting of Paraguayan rainforests to grow organic sugar cane that is
harvested by poor migrant workers, refined in distant factories and shipped to
wealthy North American consumers whose purchase fills the pockets of the
executives and shareholders of one of the largest food conglomerates in South
America (Rogers, 2010).
Increased concentration of ownership in key agricultural sectors has been one
of the most visible manifestations of this new corporate food regime. By 1980 the
United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations found that five companies
controlled 65 percent of the global pesticide market and the top five grain trading
companies controlled 75 percent of the world cereal market (Halweil &
Worldwatch Institute, 2002). More recently Food and Water Watch (2012)
reported growing monopoly control of the US food system. They found that that
the four largest agricultural companies controlled “82 percent of the of the beef
packing industry, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing
and 53 percent of broiler chicken processing” and that 53 percent of all the
groceries in the U.S. were sold by just four companies (p.4). Guthman (2004)
concludes that even within the rapidly growing California organic food industry a
small number of very large firms exerted disproportionate control of the market.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, U.S. agribusinesses spend
over $100 million per year on lobbying at the state and federal levels to ensure the
continuation of public policies favorable to their corporate interests (Imhoff,
2012). The political and economic pressures exerted by the agribusiness giants
has resulted in a national agricultural policy, as codified in the Farm Bill, that has
9
remained largely unchanged and supportive of large corporate interests since the
1970s. Imhoff (2012) notes that by the early 1980s “large grain handlers like
Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland and other agribusiness giants were essentially
writing the Farm Bill for their own benefit” (p.48).
Social and Environmental Challenges
The corporate industrial model that dominates all facets of the modern food
system has been tremendously successful at increasing agricultural output.
According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO),
between 1961 and 2000 the value of international food trade tripled and the
tonnage of food shipped between countries grew fourfold (Halweil & Worldwatch
Institute, 2002). By 2007 the world’s farmers grew enough food to provide
everyone living on the planet with 3,500 calories per day, more than required to
provide an adequate daily level of nutrition to everyone (Montgomery, 2007).
Between 1909 and 2004 per capita daily food availability increased by four
hundred calories (Lang, 2009). American consumers, living at the top of the
global food system, also enjoy unprecedented consumer choice. There are at least
300,000 food and beverage products available in the US, with the average
supermarket stocking 30,000-40,000 products (Murphy 2008).
While dramatic increases in both agricultural productivity and consumer
choice have been hailed as evidence of the success of the global food system there
are also growing concerns that the social and environmental consequences of the
system make it unsustainable in the long term and increasingly vulnerable to
changing political, economic and ecological factors. One of the earliest and most
widely read systemic critiques of the industrial agricultural model is offered by
Berry (1977) in which he questions the mechanistic foundations of the system,
which he linked to the destruction of both human communities and nature.
Berry’s friend and fellow farmer Wes Jackson offers similar criticisms, noting
that it is the nature of the larger political and economic system in which modern
agriculture exists that must be examined and challenged and “therefore we should
not expect sustainable agriculture to exist safely as a satellite in orbit around an
extractive economy” (Jackson, 1996).
10
The industrial agriculture model disconnects producers from consumers
through a complex and tightly controlled global marketplace, and as such
undermines functional human communities and complex systems of established
human relations. Ikerd (2001) suggests that this disconnectedness “is no
coincidence with industrialization; instead it is a direct consequence of
industrialization. And equally significant, we will not become reconnected as a
people until we move beyond industrialization to a fundamentally new and
different era of human progress” (para. 12).
By shifting food systems from their historic groundings in local communities
to a tradable commodity in a global marketplace, community values and goals
cease to be relevant factors in basic production and consumption decisions. Lacy
(2000) writes that “globalization enriches the consumer in us, but Friedman
observes that it can also shrink the citizens in us and diminish space for individual
cultural and political expression” (p. 8). Francis, Lieblin, Steinsholt, Breland,
Helenius, Sriskandarajah & Salomonsson (2005) observe that distancing
consumers, who primarily live in urban areas, from the realities of agricultural
production, which usually occurs in rural areas, means that they have:
Little knowledge or concern about where their bananas were produced and
what the effect of insecticides (perhaps banned in their own countries) had
on the people at the other end of the supply line, or on their own families
who may have used the chemical containers for storage of food or water.
They are unaware that their instant coffee was produced by small farmers
in Viet Nam as a result of massive support from the World Bank, which
promotes global political and economic decisions driving similar coffee
farmers in Kenya and Costa Rica from the market, while helping
international food companies to assure cheap supplies and higher profits.
(p.62)
Attempts to provide consumers with more information about the conditions
under which their food is produced are often met with resistance by both industry
and government, such as the recent wave of “ag gag” bills sweeping state
legislatures in the US which make it a crime to videotape large industrial
11
agricultural operations or to write or speak disparagingly about specific
agricultural products or processes.
Industrial enterprises operating in global markets under neoliberal economic
policies and trade regimes means that the factors of production, particularly
capital, are able to move freely across the planet. Kloppenberg, Hendrickson &
Stevenson (1996) note that “agribusiness tends to gravitate to areas where
government intervention is minimal and wages are low… or in which costs can
be reduced through mechanization and increases in scale” (p.35), a thoroughly
modern twist on Ricardo’s classical theory of competitive advantage. With the
ever present threat that the local chicken processing plant or corporate vegetable
farm could move operations to another state or another country, putting local
workers in the unemployment line and undermining municipal coffers,
community leaders are at a perpetual disadvantage in terms of ensuring that
agribusiness interests enhance the economy and quality of life of their
communities.
Such a system tends to have a downward pressure on wage structures and can
result in grueling and event violent workplace conditions for agricultural workers.
Estabrook (2011) documents the situation of migrant tomato pickers in Florida
who live in near-slavery conditions and are routinely harassed and even murdered
by their agribusiness employers. Holt-Giminez (2011) questions how the existing
food regime can ever be successfully challenged without addressing the crucial
role that labor plays in perpetuating the system.
Just as people serve as labor to support the industrial food system, they also
act as the final end user of the system’s products as food consumers. As noted
earlier, the industrial food system has been quite successful in increasing
agricultural output and offering increased consumer choice. But these benefits
have not accrued equally across the globe. Nearly 900 million people are
chronically malnourished and another billion people lack food with sufficient
nutritional value, offering “dramatic proof that the modern food economy is
failing catastrophically” (Roberts, 2008, p.146). In the US between 2002 and
2012 federal spending on nutrition programs to feed the growing number of
12
hungry and food insecure Americans grew dramatically, totaling $470 billion
(Imhoff, 2012).
With enough calories being produced each year to feed everyone on the planet
an adequate diet it is clear that continued hunger is not due to lack of production
but rather to a global food system that prioritizes profits over people. A potent
example is offered by Kaufman (2010) in his detailed account of how Wall Street
speculators led by Goldman Sachs manipulated the global wheat market at a time
of record harvests, increasing the ranks of the hungry by 250 million people in a
single year.
At the other end of the spectrum Roberts (2008) chronicles how
overconsumption of calorie rich nutritionally deficient junk food has resulted in
skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes, threatening a public health crisis.
Pretty (2010) notes that one in seven people in industrialized countries are now
clinically obese. Similar trends are seen in other countries as they undergo
industrialization of their food system and transitions away from traditional diets
and towards foods that are fattier, saltier and sweeter (Lang, 2009). Murphy
(2008) notes that at the same time federal health care spending to address obesity
and diabetes is moving sharply upward, federal policy continues to ensure
massive subsidies to the corporate producers of the very foods and additives
linked to the problems.
Concerns over the safety of the food supply are also becoming more frequent.
Highly publicized incidences of salmonella in poultry and e.coli in beef, rising
antibiotic resistant superbugs and a host of newly emergent and highly aggressive
pathogens have left government food safety regulators scrambling to reassure a
skeptical public that their food is safe. Roberts (2008) also notes growing concern
about the vulnerability of the industrial food system to disruption and
contamination from a terrorist attack. As world acreage planted with genetically
engineered crops expanded 40-fold between 1996 and 2003 public concern about
the safety and long-term consequences of this type of agricultural biotechnology
have also increased (Gliessman, 2007).
13
There are also serious questions about the industrial food system’s ability to
keep pace with a rising population that is expected to top nine billion by the
middle of this century. The UNFAO estimates that global food production will
need to increase at least 70 percent by 2050 to meet rising global demand
(Ladner, 2011). Expanding production to meet the increased demand will require
significant investments in all facets of the food system from the development of
more productive and resilient crop varieties to improved on-farm management
systems to expanded and enhanced transportation, processing and distribution
facilities. This could be complicated or curtailed by unforeseen geopolitical or
economic events or natural resource constraints.
The industrial food system is highly dependent on oil and other fossil fuels to
power and lubricate all components of the system from on-farm equipment to
transportation and refrigeration to end user preparation. The continuation of the
system will not be feasible without abundant cheap supplies of energy. Halweil &
Worldwatch Institute (2002) notes that a head of lettuce grown in California and
shipped to the East Coast requires 36 times as much fossil fuel energy as the food
energy it supplies to the eater. In 2007 the U.S. Government Accountability
Office reported that global peak oil will occur sometime in the next decade
(Murphy, 2008). More recently Murphy (2011) found that increasing oil supplies
to meet demands of the industrial economy will require significantly higher
prices, which will in turn reduce economic growth, and that the rising economy of
the past 40 years is unlikely to continue.
The oil and natural gas used to power the industrial food system is a
significant factor in rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change.
Estimates of agriculture’s contribution to global GHG emissions range from 10 to
60 percent; one study suggests that livestock alone may be responsible for 51
percent of GHG emissions (Holt-Giminez, 2012). The existing food production
model also depends on a stable climate (Donlon, 2013), and a major new report
for the USDA by Walthal, Hatfield, Backlund, Lengnick, Marshall & Walsh
(2013) finds that rising temperatures, changing patterns of precipitation and
increased severe storms events linked to rising GHG levels in the atmosphere will
14
have significant negative consequences for U.S. agricultural production. The
Washington State Department of Ecology (2012) recently concluded that climate
change threatens Washington’s farms with increased risk of disease, pests, weeds
and fire and reduced water supplies.
Water availability is a crucial factor in the success of industrial agriculture and
resources are already stretched precariously thin in many parts of the world.
According to Ladner (2011), global demand for water will exceed supply by 60
percent within a generation. Saudi Arabia, previously self-sufficient in wheat, saw
production drop by two thirds between 2007 and 2011 and will soon become a net
importer due to declining water reserves. In the U.S. the Ogallala Aquifer, which
supplies water to 20 percent of all the irrigated acres in the US, is being
overdrawn by 3.1 trillion gallons a year (Roberts, 2008).
The loss of productive farmland is another pressure squeezing the system.
Dumas (2013) reports that in the U.S. a combination of “drought, weather,
economic factors and fluctuating commodity prices combined to take 3 million
acres of farm and ranch land out of production in 2012.” While recent years have
seen accelerated conversion of grasslands and wetlands to agricultural use
(primarily biofuels) in the American midwest (Wright and Wimberly, 2013), U.S.
farmland acreage peaked in 1954. Between 2002 and 2007 the U.S. lost 3.2
million acres of farmland, mostly to urban development (Ladner, 2011). Soil
degradation and erosion caused by industrial farming practices is impacting
millions of acres of farmland each year (Roberts, 2008). Montgomery (2007)
estimates that globally 24 billion tons of topsoil are lost annually.
Alternative Food System Theories and Frameworks
The growing awareness of the problems associated with the global industrial
food system and questions about its ability to equitably meet the needs of an
expanding human population on a rapidly changing planet have in recent years led
to vigorous discussion in academic and popular circles about potential alternative
approaches.
Before examining some of these emerging alternatives, it is important to
understand that while the global industrial model is firmly established as the
15
dominant food system across most of the planet, it has always and continues to
coexist in relationship to other agricultural models and scales of production. In
some places, particularly in the Global South, many people continue to practice
traditional methods of food production for self-sufficiency and localized
exchange. Some do so because the tentacles of the dominant system have not yet
penetrated their communities; others do so as acts of active resistance to the
industrial model. In addition, interest in agricultural systems more closely aligned
to human needs, local social and economic conditions and natural cycles and
processes are on the rise in a variety of forms.
Jensen (2010) presents a useful discussion of the relationship between the
various types of food systems based on a model developed by the University of
Wisconsin-Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems. This model is
presented as a series of concentric rings representing a nested, multi-scaled food
system with personal production of food at the center, small scale and regional
exchange of agricultural products in the inner rings and the global system as
embodied by companies such as Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill in the outer
ring. The model recognizes the dominance of the global industrial food system as
well as the existence of multiple other systems within its sphere of influence.
Clancy (2012) relies on systems-level analysis to offer a similar nested approach
for understanding food systems.
The existence of multiple food systems operating at different scales and with
different underlying values and goals results inherently in tension between the
systems. Campbell (2004) finds that these tensions occur at epistemological,
political, institutional, socioeconomic, spatial, community and organizational
levels. Holt-Giminez (2012) presents a very useful and practical framework for
understanding these tensions between what he calls “corporate food regimes” and
‘food movements” by identifying the institutions, orientations and approaches that
are the foundation of each. Ikerd (2001) believes that the tension between these
various systems is based on irreconcilable world views that underlie each, and is
evidence of what he calls a “great transition.” Drawing from the work of a wide
range of thinkers Ikerd writes:
16
of a shift in worldview from the mechanistic, industrial model of the past,
where people derived power from control of capital and the technological
means of production, to a new life-centered, post-industrial era where
knowledge becomes the new source of power, of wealth and future human
progress. (para. 18)
Colasanti, Wright and Reau (2009) draw a similar conclusion that new food
system models are emerging because “conventional agrifood systems typified by
commodification, intensification and industrialization have proven incapable of
meeting the multiplicity of human needs embodied in health, environment, and
distributive justice issues” (p. 3).
Market based industrial food systems have failed to ensure equitable access to
sufficient quantities of nutritious food for all members of the human family. One
of the emerging frameworks for challenging the dominant food system model
from this perspective is the concept of food security. Anderson and Cook (1999)
note that this concept first appeared in international development work in the
1960s, and was defined as the ability to consistently meet the food needs of a
population. By the 1980s the term had expanded to include issues of food access
as well as adequate levels of production. However, applying food security
frameworks at a global, regional or even national level proved problematic, and
by the 1990s a new community-scaled approach to food security gained
popularity, particularly in the U.S. Hamm and Bellows (2003) write that
community food security (CFS) provides an expanded emphasis on economic and
social rights, community empowerment and sustainable use of natural resources.
Community food security is most accurately envisioned as a reformist movement
designed not to overthrow the industrial food system but to move it in the
direction of being more attentive to social and environment concerns.
Growing interest in CFS in the U.S. was evidenced by a variety of projects
and initiatives that found shelter under its banner, from community gardens and
farmers markets to food banks and soup kitchens. Community food security found
its institutional home with the establishment of the Community Food Security
Coalition (CFSC) in 1998. The CFSC sought to bring together people and
17
organizations interested in a variety of food system issues, including local
production, ecological sustainability, social justice and economic development,
into a single coherent movement. The CFSC defined community food security as
“all persons in a community have access to culturally acceptable, nutritionally
adequate food through local non-emergency sources at all times” (Henderson,
1998). However, Hamm and Cook (1999) found that tensions between the
different interests, lack of metrics to measure success and absence of a coherent
underlying political philosophy presented challenges to the reformist potential of
CFSC and the larger CFS movement.
Despite launching and supporting a variety of important projects and
initiatives and hosting popular annual conferences for over a decade, the CFSC
dissolved in 2012 due to lack of funding and the inability to resolve the challenges
identified by Hamm and Cook a decade earlier. Lacking a national organization
to support and advocate on its behalf, the future of community food security as an
organizing framework to reform the dominant food system is very much in doubt.
Even if it finds renewed traction, there are questions about its potential and
whether it is really a solution to the problems caused by the industrial food system
or “something that will produce only a minor irritant to corporate dominance of
the food system” (Henderson, 1998, p.123).
In contrast to the community food security movement another emerging
theoretical framework, food sovereignty, presents a more direct challenge to the
neoliberal hegemony of the dominant food regime. The concept of food
sovereignty is most closely linked with La Via Campesina, the International
Peasants’ Movement, and was first articulated in 2007 in the Nyeleni Declaration
as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced
through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their
own food and agricultural systems” (Holt-Giminez, 2012, p. 24). Alkon and
Mares (2012) write that food sovereignty “moves beyond a focus on food security
– access to sufficient food – to advocate for communities’ rights to produce food
for themselves rather than remain dependent on international commodity
markets” (p.348). Food sovereignty embodies a structural critique of the
18
industrial food system and is manifested in efforts opposed to trade liberalization,
expropriation of indigenous land and institutions such as the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Thus far, the food sovereignty movement has been strongest and most visible
in the Global South, particularly in those regions of Latin America and Africa that
have been most victimized by the global industrial food system. Holt Giminez
(2012) draws on the writing of activists and academics from around the world to
present a snapshot of a vibrant movement which is gaining momentum in many
areas.
However, to date the food sovereignty movement has failed to gain traction in
the U.S. A variety of reasons might explain that situation. First, despite its many
negative consequences most Americans have benefitted greatly from the
industrial food system, which has provided them with unprecedented consumer
choice and reduced food costs. As such, the natural inclination of U.S. food
system activists is to work for politically feasible policy reforms within the basic
framework of the current system. Second, social movements that explicitly
address issues of class and power are seen as antiquated and radical by many
Americans. Generally speaking most Americans will tolerate or even support
reformist movements but are frightened by radical movements. This is a country
that recently honored civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. with a monument on
the National Mall, but which still trembles at the rumor of a gun-toting member of
the Black Panthers patrolling polling places in Philadelphia during the 2012
presidential election. Third, the language of the food sovereignty movement –
even the word sovereignty itself – is simply not germane to many Americans, and
the myth of American exceptionalism leads many to dismiss the relevance of any
movement or cause that originates outside of its boundaries.
While in the U.S. food sovereignty presents a problematic conceptual
framework for challenging the industrial food system its two main tenets – that
food should be produced in ecologically sound and sustainable ways and that food
systems should be organized and controlled at the local level – are gaining
19
widespread attention in the U.S. and across the globe. Thus it is worth considering
each of these ideas and their potential.
The increasingly visible environmental impacts of the industrial food system
discussed earlier in this chapter have prompted growing numbers of academics,
farmers, policy makers, businesses and consumers to consider alternative methods
of production. The emergence of the organic agriculture movement in 1970s
offered a model of production that relied less on chemical inputs and
mechanization and more on farming in ways that did not degrade natural systems.
However, as Guthman (2004) documents the U.S. organic movement has strayed
from its promising early roots. The organic movement has evolved into the
organic industry, a niche market existing largely within the established global
industrial system, tightly controlled by a handful of major producers and
distributors, and operating within a narrow regulatory framework that consists
primarily of identifying specific allowable practices and inputs that determine
whether a product can be labeled organic.
The emergence of agroecology, also known as ecological agriculture, holds
greater potential. Gliessman (2007) defines agroecology as “the science of
applying ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of
sustainable food systems” (p. 369). In his widely used textbook, he discusses a
variety of plant and environmental factors and system level interactions that need
to be understood and considered when designing sustainable agricultural systems
based on agroecological principles. Agroecology moves beyond the organic
industry’s narrow focus on acceptable inputs and methods of production to
understanding the full range of issues that constitute the ecology of food systems
(Francis, Lieblin, Steinsholt, Breland, Helenius, Sriskandarajah & Salomonsson,
2003).
Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Food, writes that agroecological approaches have the potential to increase the
income of small scale farmers, contribute to rural development, improve nutrition
and mitigate climate change (Holt-Giminez, 2012). However, tension between
supporters of the current food system and advocates of agroecological approaches
20
remain significant, as evidenced by the controversy surrounding the development
of the recent International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology
for Development (IAASTD) report (Stokstad, 2008).
Critics of ecological agriculture often claim that such approaches result in
lower yields and are unsustainable due to insufficient quantities of natural
nitrogen fertilizers. However, Badgley, Moghtader, Quintero, Zakem, Chappell,
Aviles-Vazquez, Samulon & Perfecto (2007) found agroecological farming
systems could produce enough food to sustain the current human population
without increasing the agricultural land base, and that leguminous cover crops
could fix enough nitrogen in the soil to displace all synthetic fertilizers currently
in use. Maeder, Fliessbach, Dubois, Gunst, Fried & Niggli (2002) conclude that
fertilizer, pesticide and energy use are dramatically lower in agroecological
systems, soil fertility and biodiversity are higher, and “organically manured,
legume-based crop rotations utilizing organic fertilizers from the farm itself are a
realistic alternative to conventional farming systems” (p. 1697).
Francis, Lieblin, Steinsholt, Breland, Helenius, Sriskandarajah &
Salomonsson (2003) suggest that agroecology is the logical framework to
integrate the full range of human and ecological concerns that are the foundation
of a sustainable food system. Gliessman (2012) argues that agroecology should
be framed as a social movement whose goals are to reconnect producers and
consumers and which removes exploitation of people and nature from the food
system. However, to date most of the agroecology literature tends to focus on the
environmental and ecological elements of agroecosystems, with far less emphasis
on the social, political and economic dimensions of agriculture and food systems.
While agroecology holds significant potential to redesign farming and food
systems in ways that reduce their negative environmental and social
consequences, the other major element drawn from the food sovereignty
movement – the relocalization of food systems – holds equally significant
potential to rebuild local economies, enhance civic engagement and strengthen
communities.
21
The emergence of vigorous food system localization efforts in the US and
elsewhere is the strongest manifestation of resistance to the dominant corporatized
global economy (Norberg-Hodge, 2001). The assumption underlying food system
localization is that by reducing the scale of agricultural production and
distribution and building more direct connections between producers and
consumers, many of the negative consequences of the dominant food regime can
be curtailed or eliminated. However, just as local food systems exist in
relationship to regional, national and international systems they are also
embedded in complex social structures unique to each community (Granovetter,
1985).
Born and Purcell (2006) caution against what they call “the local trap” which
assumes that local food is always preferable. They write that “no matter what the
scale, the outcomes produced by a food system are contextual: they depend on the
actors and agenda that are empowered by the particular social relations in a given
food system” (p. 196). Dupuis and Goodman (2005) note that food system
localization cannot be assumed to lead towards a more socially just food system
because local communities are often sites of great inequality and hegemonic
domination. Hinrichs (2003) cautions against localization becoming market
obsessed, elitist and reactionary. Winters (2003) offers a similar warning to
assuming that localized food systems are inherently more likely to result in
ecologically sound agricultural practices. DeLind (2010) worries that the growing
popularity of the local food movement in the US - with its locavore emphasis,
preoccupation with celebrity spokesman like Michael Pollan and its embrace by
major retailers like Wal-Mart – is shifting attention from “deeper concerns about
equity, citizenship, place building and sustainability” (p. 273).
Accepting that relocalization may not be a panacea for addressing all that is
wrong with the industrial food system, there are still reasons to be optimistic
about its growing popularity. Lacy (2000) believes that efforts to strengthen
active participation and engagement in local food systems “will greatly enhance
the creation of sustainable communities and temper the negative effects of
globalization” (p. 23). Kloppenberg, Hendrickson & Stevenson (1996) encourage
22
the development of “regionally based food systems comprised of diversified
farms using sustainable practices to supply fresher, more nutritious foodstuffs to
small-scale processors and consumers to whom producers are linked by the bonds
of community as well as economy” (p.34).
Local and regional food systems have the potential to make significant
contributions to building prosperous and resilient local economies. Hewitt (2011)
chronicles how a variety of local food system initiatives in Hardwick, Vermont
are creating jobs and revitalizing the economy of a formerly prosperous
community that had fallen on hard times. Developing clusters of food systemrelated businesses keeps more money circulated in the local economy, increasing
the multiplier effect of food system investments. Economic multipliers are used
by economic development professionals and elected officials as a key measure to
assess the potential benefits of various investments. Ken Meter cites a number of
studies to demonstrate that the multiplier effect of investments in local farmers
markets and locally owned restaurants are significantly higher than comparable
investments in national grocery stores or chain restaurants (Holt Giminez, 2012).
Another way local food systems can contribute to community vitality is by
fostering stronger connections between rural and urban populations. Francis,
Lieblin, Steinsholt, Breland, Helenius, Sriskandarajah & Salomonsson (2003)
make useful distinctions between the sometimes different goals of rural and urban
populations while identifying opportunities for local food systems to advance the
interests of each group. Connecting rural food producers to urban consumers
through shortened supply chains can foster what Sage (2001) calls a “geography
of regard” as both groups come to understand and appreciate the values and needs
of the other. Selfa and Qazi (2005) found that while significant misunderstanding
persists between rural producers and urban consumers in Washington State and
definitions of “local food” differ, initiatives are beginning to emerge that could
benefit both groups and lead to improved social understanding. Ross (2006) finds
that rural urban relationships embedded in local food systems in Maine provide a
springboard for both economic success and enhanced social relations.
23
Lyson (2004) describes these local agricultural and food production systems
that are tightly linked to a community’s social and economic development as civic
agriculture. According to Lyson, civic agriculture describes:
the emergence and growth of community-based agriculture and food
production activities that not only meet consumer demands for fresh, safe
and locally produced foods but create jobs, encourage entrepreneurship,
and strengthen community identity. Civic agriculture brings together
production and consumption activities within communities and offers
consumers real alternatives to the commodities produced, processed and
marketed by large agribusiness firms. (p.2)
In contrast to the dominant industrial food system, civic agriculture has the
potential to transform individuals from passive consumers into active food
citizens, which Lyson envisions as someone “who not only has a stake but also a
voice in how and where his or her food is produced, processed and sold” (Lyson,
2004, p. 77).
By placing agriculture and food systems in a local context that acknowledges
the role of individuals not just as passive consumers but also as active citizens,
civic agriculture has significant potential to serve as both a framework for
developing sustainable food systems and for empowering individuals to actively
participate in self-governance and the renewal of democratic institutions.
Kemmis (1990) notes that in the U.S. farming historically served as the
embodiment of civic virtue and that all community members were assumed to
have some obligation to participate in the maintenance of civic culture. Lacy
(2000) observes that a functioning democracy and thriving communities are
dependent on nurturing this civic-spiritedness. According to Swanson (2001) the
convergence of several factors suggests that the time may now be ripe for the
reemergence of such local collective agency.
If civic agriculture is to realize its potential for catalyzing both sustainable
food systems and democratic renewal, it will need to evolve beyond its current
emphasis on strengthening relations between producers and consumer to address a
wider set of issues. DeLind (2002) is concerned that civic agriculture manifests
24
many of the same contradictions that characterize industrial agriculture and she
questions its “pronounced reliance or dependence upon traditional market
relations” which “revolves largely around private enterprise, private ownership
and private accumulation” (p.218). However, she still believes that civic
agriculture has the potential to transcend its economic preoccupation to prioritize
citizenship and civic engagement. In a later paper Delind and Bingen (2007)
argue that agriculture is a civic enterprise and:
it emerges from lived experiences, shifting relationships and common
cause. It is the culture of shared understandings and responsibilities. It is
not agreement, or sameness, or personal comfort; rather it is bound into
democratic process and engagement. Raising, selling or eating a cabbage,
however worthy and delicious, is not inherently a civic act. (p.129)
All human communities and agricultural systems are embedded in specific
landscapes, and civic engagement in the management of agricultural and other
natural resource systems is critical to bringing these systems into greater
alignment with ecological processes (Brunckhorst, Coop & Reeve, 2006). The
implicit assumption of civic agriculturalists seems to be that relocalizing food
systems will inherently result in better environmental outcomes. However, to date
advocates of civic agriculture have paid little attention to the underlying
ecological context of agricultural systems. Even Lyson (2004), who first
articulated the concept, only loosely connects civic agriculture to sustainable
farming practices, assuming that civic agriculture “captures the problem-solving
foundations of sustainable agriculture” (p.79).
Eco Civic Agriculture
A variety of frameworks have emerged for challenging the dominant global
food system. Each has value and has contributed to the discussion, but each also
has limitations. Community food security emphasizes improving access to food
for all members of a community, but largely accepts the existence of the global
industrial food system. Food sovereignty presents a more direct challenge to the
underlying economic and political foundations of the dominant system, but its
direct structural critique of global capitalism poses challenges for such a
25
framework gaining popular acceptance, particularly in the U.S. Agroecology
places the food system in a larger ecological context that can address some of the
worst consequences of existing agricultural production systems, yet often fails to
consider the role of human communities as actors in the system. Conversely,
civic agriculture offers the potential for fostering thriving local communities and
renewing democratic participation, but lacks deeper attention to the underlying
ecological context and limitations of agricultural systems.
What is needed is a new holistic theoretical framework, one which draws the
best elements from the existing approaches, which grounds food systems in an
ecological context, which recognizes individuals and communities as actors in the
system, and which is expressed in a way that is culturally acceptable and likely to
engender popular and political support. I propose that such a system be called
“Eco Civic Agriculture.”
Eco Civic Agriculture embodies the complex understanding and appreciation
of the plants, animals, environmental factors and system-level interactions that are
the basis of agroecology. It places priority on farming practices that are grounded
in local environmental conditions and which enhance soil fertility, promote
biodiversity and conserve finite natural resources. The foodstuffs produced by
such a system are intended primarily for personal consumption and consumption
by the local population. Local people acquire food primarily through personal
production, direct relationships with producers or through short local food supply
chains, fostering social cohesion and concern for both the land and the people
who steward it.
In Eco Civic Agriculture, export of agricultural products occurs only after the
food needs of the local population are satisfied, with trade focused primarily at the
regional level. In some situations, space exists between the producer and
consumer for small scale food aggregators and processors to develop niche
markets for preserving food and creating value added products, allowing these
entrepreneurs to create and contribute additional wealth to support local
communities. Locally produced and consumed food becomes a source of
community pride and conversation, and the basis for small scale, diversified,
26
sustainable economic development. Multi-generational food system education,
advocacy and celebration become integrated throughout the community’s public
and private institutions. Individuals have made the transition from passive food
consumers to active food citizens and are engaged directly and indirectly in food
production and the development and implementation of practices and policies
which reinforces and expands the success of the system.
The realization of such a system is not only possible but essential. However,
unleashing the transformative potential of Eco Civic Agriculture will require
citizens and community leaders to first recognize the dysfunctional nature of the
global industrial food system and then to begin actively planning for and
transitioning to this new model.
Research Methods
In order to assess the degree to which Eco Civic Agriculture can be advanced
through local food system planning, and therefore its potential to contribute to the
realization of sustainable local food systems, this paper includes a case study of
an existing sustainability planning process in Thurston County, Washington. The
case study of Sustainable Thurston includes a review of the history and evolution
of the county’s food system, examination of the institutional framework in which
food system planning occurs and an analysis of the origin, development and status
of the planning process. Sources used to develop and analyze the case study
include historic and legal documents, government and non-profit agency papers
and reports and articles from academic and professional journals.
In addition, to gain a deeper understanding of the potential for the Sustainable
Thurston planning process to advance Eco Civic Agriculture in the region,
personal interviews were conducted with representatives of two key groups of
informants involved in the project and whose support and leadership will be
necessary to implement any recommendations included in the final regional
sustainability plan approved at the end of the process.
Interviewing key informants directly involved in a project is a powerful form
of qualitative research well suited for analyzing complex processes, including
planning efforts like Sustainable Thurston. Dooley (1984) defines qualitative
27
research as “social research based on nonquantitative observations made in the
field and analyzed in nonstatistical ways” (p.287). According to Manheim, Rich,
Willnat & Brians (2008), intensive interviewing techniques are often used “as a
means of gaining in-depth understanding of a phenomenon and understanding
aspects of that phenomenon that researchers did not anticipate” (p. 372).
The interviews conducted for this research were relatively unstructured and
based on a series of open ended questions. The same general topics and questions
were posed to each interview subject, though the exact wording varied. An
interview guide was developed and used to steer the general flow of each
conversation. Dooley (1984) notes that using interview guides provides a useful
tool for researchers to ensure that all relevant issues are addressed in the course of
each interview (p. 278).
According to Manheim (1977) in an unstructured interview “the interviewer is
permitted – in fact encouraged – to vary the manner and wording of the questions
in order to fit the peculiarities of the situation, and he may follow up on
opportunities suggested by the respondent’s replies” (p. 212). In a later text
Manheim, Rich, Willnat & Brians (2008) use the term “unscheduled” to define
the same type of interview, and note that intensive interviews like the ones used in
this research are especially useful “when the researcher is interested in learning
what the respondent perceives as important and relevant to the research and lets
the respondent’s observations suggest what questions should be asked in order to
gain useful information” (p. 372).
Collecting data through unstructured or unscheduled interviews based on open
ended questions presents both challenges and opportunities in terms of analyzing
the data, discerning patterns or themes and drawing conclusions. Manheim, Rich,
Willnat & Brians (2008) write that:
unscheduled interviews produce data that are difficult to condense and
summarize and that may not allow precise comparison among
respondents. The asset accompanying this liability is a greater opportunity
to learn from respondents and to acquire unexpected information that can
lead to truly new ways of understanding the events being studied. (p.373)
28
Despite the challenges inherent in qualitative research, the opportunity to gain
direct information and perspectives from people directly involved in Sustainable
Thurston makes it uniquely suited to achieving the goals of this research.
The subjects chosen for the research interviews were drawn from two key
groups of informants. The first group are professional planners employed by the
Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC), the lead agency for the Sustainable
Thurston project. The second group are elected officials who serve on the project
task force. From a sociological research perspective, the interview subjects
represent individuals with an elite status, given their access to information that
can help answer the research question (Manheim, Rich, Willnat & Brians, 2008).
In addition, support from both groups will be critical in implementing the
sustainability plan adopted by TRPC, so understanding their views is important
for assessing the potential for the planning process to help advance Eco Civic
Agriculture in the region.
The planners that were interviewed were chosen because of their intimate
knowledge of the origins of Sustainable Thurston and their deep involvement in
the project. In addition, each has been employed by TRPC for many years, and as
such can provide perspective on this planning process within the context of other
regional planning activities and the evolution of TRPC’s planning programs.
The elected officials selected for the interviews reflect the diversity of
jurisdictions represented on the task force. In addition, these interview subjects
represent a broad spectrum of philosophical and political ideologies as well as a
mix of policymakers who have been involved in regional planning activities for
many years and those relatively new to regional planning.
The goals of the interviews are to gain insight into why the Sustainable
Thurston project was undertaken, how it relates to other planning initiatives,
policies, programs and activities at the regional and local level and what the
expected outcomes are for the project. Specific to the issue of local food systems,
the goals are to determine why the topic was originally not included in the project,
what factors caused the scope to be broadened to include food issues and how
food systems relate to the other parts of the plan. Finally, the interviews are
29
designed to determine each subject’s perspectives about the connections between
the food system and community sustainability and to identify opportunities and
challenges for fostering Eco Civic Agriculture through the planning process.
All interviews were arranged in advance and with one exception each
interview lasted between sixty and ninety minutes. Interviews were conducted in
locations that were convenient to the interview subject, ranging from local
coffeehouses to private offices to personal homes. All interviews were digitally
recorded and handwritten notes taken during the interviews. The first two
interviews were conducted with assurances that direct quotes would not be
attributed to specific individuals in the final report. However, during these
interviews it became apparent that there would be tremendous research value in
being able to specifically attribute statements to the individuals who made them.
Each of the first two interview subjects were subsequently contacted and
permission requested and granted to change the original confidentiality
agreement. In one case an interview subject asked to be allowed to review any
quotes for accuracy prior to publication of the research, a request that was
granted. The remaining six interviews were all conducted with the understanding
that all data and information collected through the interview could be attributed to
the subject of the interview.
After completing all of the interviews, the handwritten notes were typed up
and responses organized in a thematic format based on key topics that paralleled
the interview guide. The digital recordings of each interview were reviewed and
key statements from each interview transcribed verbatim and placed within the
established format.
The first level of data analysis focused on identifying key themes identified by
each of the two groups of interview subjects, with specific attention to identifying
major areas of convergence and divergence within each group. The second level
of analysis concentrated on analyzing areas of convergence and divergence
between the two groups. The third and final step focused on interpreting the data
and drawing conclusions to help answer the basic research question - whether the
30
Sustainable Thurston project has the potential to advance Eco Civic Agriculture in
Thurston County.
31
Chapter 3: Food System Planning in Thurston County,
Washington: A Case Study of Sustainable Thurston
Chapter Overview
This chapter begins by presenting a short history and description of the
evolution of agriculture in Thurston County, recent changes in the local food
system, and the need for coordinated planning to ensure a more sustainable and
resilient food system in the future. The history and organizational context for food
system planning is examined, with emphasis on the origin, evolution and scope of
the Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC), the primary agency responsible
for regional planning. The absence of food system planning as an area of concern
within the larger planning framework is examined in a historical context, with
emphasis on its re-emergence as a prominent topic within the discipline over the
past two decades.
After establishing the context for regional food system planning in Thurston
County, the focus shifts to an examination of the origin and scope of Sustainable
Thurston, the first comprehensive countywide sustainability planning project ever
undertaken in the county. Food system planning is considered within the context
of this larger planning effort, including an examination of the key participants,
major findings and recommendations.
History and Evolution of the County Food System
Thurston County is located in Washington State at the southern end of Puget
Sound. Several bays and inlets form the northern border of the county. Thurston
County is bounded by Mason County to the northwest, Grays Harbor County to
the West, Lewis County to the south, and Pierce County across the Nisqually
River to the east.
The United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service
(1990) reports a total land area of 761 square miles while the TRPC (2012b)
claims an area of 736 square miles The topography of Thurston County ranges
from coastal lowlands in the north to relatively flat prairies in the central part of
32
the county to peaks reaching elevations over 2,500 feet in the southeast and
southwest.
The earliest permanent inhabitants of the region were Coast Salish people who
settled on the shores of Puget Sound and its tributaries to take advantage of the
abundant fish and shellfish populations. Archeological research and carbon dating
have established the presence of permanent coastal settlements dating back at
least 3,000 years (Dougherty, 2006). Wild game was plentiful, and the native
population gathered and over time cultivated a variety of plants, roots and fruits
which provided additional sources of food and fiber. Descendants of these
original inhabitants continue to live in the area, and the county includes two large
tribal reservations, the Nisqually and the Chehalis.
The first documented European exploration of the area occurred in 1792 when
British Captain George Vancouver dispatched officers Peter Puget and Joseph
Whidbey to map the southern reaches of Puget Sound. In the 1820s, members of
an expedition funded by the Hudson’s Bay Company explored parts of Thurston
County, traveling up the Chehalis River and then overland to Eld Inlet. In 1833,
the Hudson’s Bay Company founded the Puget Sound Agricultural Company
which established large cattle, horse and sheep ranches in parts of Thurston
County, and vegetable gardens and dairying operations in nearby Fort Nisqually
(Washington State Department of Agriculture, 1956). By the late 1830s, small
diversified farms began to appear along the Deschutes River between the present
day towns of Tenino and Rainier (Crooks, 2011).
The first American exploration of the area occurred under the command of
Charles Wilkes in 1841, and several years later American settlers began reaching
the area. The Simmons/Bush party arrived in 1845, establishing small farms,
homesteads and a new settlement that eventually became the City of Tumwater.
One year later, Levi Smith and Edmund Sylvester founded what would become
the City of Olympia on the shores of Budd Inlet where the Coast Salish village of
Steh-Chass was located.
The first American immigrants had primarily come to the area seeking to
establish farms. The advance and retreat of the Pleistocene era glaciers in
33
Thurston County had resulted in the deposition of rich mostly impermeable clay
subsoil covering confined aquifers, overlaid with outwashed sands. Over time, the
retreat of the glaciers created numerous small lakes and ponds as well as the
development of three large river basins – the Nisqually, Deschutes and Chehalis –
and their adjacent floodplains (Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2012b). For
the new immigrants, this meant good quality though limited supplies of
agricultural soils and plentiful water for irrigation. According to Crooks (2000),
there were soon tensions between the new settlers and existing British farmers
over access to agricultural lands, leading the Puget Sound Agricultural Company
to eventually abandon their outposts in Thurston County.
The first American farms in the county were highly diversified, producing a
variety of vegetables, grains and animal products. On his two acre Olympia farm,
Levi Smith grew corn, beans and squash, and raised hogs, hens and goats for
meat. Meanwhile at his farm near what is today the Olympia airport, George
Washington Bush grew mixed vegetables, hops and high quality wheat that was
prized throughout the region. By 1860 the James Farm in the southern part of the
county was harvesting 65 bushels of wheat per acre (Crooks, 2011). According to
the Washington State Department of Agriculture (1956) early advertisements in
the local newspaper demonstrated that “bacon, lard, wheat, milk, butter and
cheese were being produced for sale on farms on the prairies of Thurston County”
(p.2).
Small scale processing and distribution facilities were also established. The
Simmons party built a small grist mill along the banks of the Deschutes River to
grind flour from the local grain, and the establishment of port facilities and the
Customs House on the banks of Budd Inlet in Olympia provided an opportunity to
ship agricultural products not consumed by the local population north throughout
Puget Sound (Washington State Department of Agriculture, 1956).
Farming successfully in Thurston County required the early settlers to adjust
to a different climatic regime than they were accustomed to on the eastern and
mid-western farms from which they emigrated. Unlike the hot summers and cold
winters they were used to, Thurston County has a mild climate year round.
34
Temperatures vary across the county, with the average winter daily minimum
temperature in the mid to upper thirties (degrees Fahrenheit) while summer high
temperatures average in the low to mid seventies. A bigger challenge was
adjusting to more plentiful and seasonally variable precipitation. Total average
annual precipitation ranges from a high of 51 inches in Olympia to a low of 39
inches in the southeast portion of the county (United States Department of
Agriculture Soil Conservation Service, 1990). The majority of the precipitation
falls in the winter, while summers are usually dry. Cloud cover exists throughout
much of the year.
Dealing with the vagaries of their new climate was a constant challenge. A
shorter growing season and extended wet winters required new approaches to
farming, and ensuring adequate water supplies during the dry summer months
entailed the construction of irrigation systems. Many early farmers constructed
windmills to pump water to their fields (Crooks, 2011). More challenging was
the fact that the limited number of flat prairies and fertile flood plains were soon
filled with farms, meaning that settlers arriving later were forced to clear the
dense forests that covered much of the county to establish their farms and
homesteads. The farms in these logged areas were often on slopes and lacked the
fertile soils found in the flatter local prairies, and required more labor and effort to
produce crops. Over time, many small farmers opted to work in the more
lucrative timber industry and purchase their food from other producers
(Dougherty, 2006). Crooks (2011) notes that many of these abandoned “stump
farms” were later leased to Chinese immigrants who grew a variety of vegetables
and herbs for personal consumption and local sale.
Revenue from the timber industry, and to a lesser extent from agricultural
trade, provided the basis for increased investments in roads and rail lines in the
second half of the nineteenth century. The improved infrastructure allowed small
farming and logging communities throughout the south part of the county – Yelm,
Rainier, Tenino and Bucoda – to prosper and link to growing populations in the
northern part of the county. The resulting county land use pattern is the one that
remains today: a strong urban core composed of three primary cities (Olympia,
35
Lacey, Tumwater) surrounded by low density residential development and a
patchwork of agricultural and forest lands, connected to smaller outlying
communities by a few key transportation corridors.
Mirroring larger national trends in agriculture, the early 1900s saw the
increasing mechanization of local farms and a transition to larger farms with an
increased emphasis on producing products destined for feeding growing regional
and national populations. Crooks (2011) notes that these new “scientific farms”
prospered throughout Thurston County until the advent of the First World War
when disruptions to national and international trade caused many of these capital
intensive enterprises to collapse.
Agricultural production and trade recovered briefly after the war, but the
impacts of the Great Depression of the 1930s were soon felt in Thurston County
in the form of bank closures, high unemployment and a decline in the economic
importance of farming and extractive industries, especially timber, which never
regained its pre-depression prominence. The farms that remained were producing
crops primarily for local consumption and the number of farms in Thurston
County peaked in 1940 at 2,876, largely as the result of a new irrigation system in
Yelm opening up additional acres for production. In 1940, nearly 180,000 acres,
or 39 percent of the county’s land, was devoted to farm use (Thurston County
Agriculture Committee, 1978).
During World War Two, the labor force in Thurston County and throughout
the nation was diverted from farms into the war effort. Following the war, many
opted not to return to the farm. The number of farms in the county dropped to
about 2,000 by 1950, with most of the remaining farmers being part time and
increasingly employed off-farm in the growing industrial sector or the expanding
state government (Washington State Department of Agriculture, 1956). Many
local farmers stopped farming altogether, unwilling or unable to adapt to the
massive changes sweeping the agricultural system in the form of specialized
equipment, new fertilizers and pesticides, expanding national and international
markets and radically different economics of production (Dodds, 1986). As the
36
number of farms in the county fell, many canneries and other local food
processors also disappeared.
The changing nature of agriculture in the decades following the World War
Two is reflected in changing characteristics of Thurston County farms during that
period. Data compiled by the Thurston County Agriculture Committee (1978)
show that in 1945 27 percent of the county’s farms were less than nine acres, but
by 1964 that had dropped to 4 percent. Meanwhile, the number of farms between
100 and 219 acres more than doubled, and the number of farms over 220 acres
more than tripled. Mirroring similar trends throughout the U.S., average farm size
more than doubled between 1940 and 1974, from 63 to 124 acres, while the total
number of farms in the county dropped from 2,876 to only 529 in the same period
(Thurston County Agriculture Committee, 1978).
While the average size of local farms was growing dramatically and there
were fewer farms overall, the value of agricultural products produced in the
county increased significantly. Between 1969 and 1974, the average value of
agricultural products sold on farms with annual sales greater than $1,000
increased 25 percent, with the largest gains taking place on the largest farms
(Thurston County Agriculture Committee, 1978).
Since the 1970s, the face of farming in the Thurston County has continued to
change. A 1994 survey found that most farms in Thurston County were now parttime small acreage operations that gross less than $25,000 per year and were
primarily operated by family members (Thurston County Advanced Planning and
Historic Preservation, 1994). The same survey found that average farm size had
shrunk from its 1974 peak of 124 acres to just over 70 acres, with the most
common farm size being 10-49 acres. However, only one of the three most
important crops identified by farmers in the 1994 survey, beef, was a crop raised
for direct human consumption (Thurston County Advanced Planning and Historic
Preservation, 1994).
More recently, the 2007 agricultural census found that the total number of
farms in the county had more than doubled since 1974 to 1,288 while the amount
of land being cultivated had grown by over 15,000 acres (Thurston County,
37
2010). Washington State University Extension (2006) reported that the number of
farms over 50 acres in size was decreasing while those under 50 acres were
increasing. While the number of small and medium sized farms focusing on
specialty crops and niche markets like herbs, berries and organic vegetables has
grown in recent years, the number of large agricultural operations has shrunk
considerably. Between 1995 and 2008 the number of dairies in the county fell
from 29 to one, the number of chicken fryer facilities fell from five to one and
there are no longer any large acreage commercial growers of peas or sweet corn
(Thurston County, 2010).
In the past few years, average farm size has continued to shrink. In 2010, the
largest number of farms in the county were between one and nine acres in size
and were small scale vegetable and livestock operations (Thurston County, 2010).
The recently released 2013 direct sales farm map identifies 54 agricultural
producers in the county that market their products directly to consumers (South of
the Sound Community Farmland Trust, 2013). Agriculture remains a significant
factor in the local economy, with the total value of farm products sold in 2009
estimated at $117 million per year (Thurston County, 2010).
Starting in the 1950s, one of the major factor fueling changes in the scale and
nature of farming in Thurston County was rapid population growth. Many of the
people who came to the region during the war to work in national defense
facilities in nearby Tacoma or train at Fort Lewis opted to settle in the area after
the war. The growth of state government, including the establishment of The
Evergreen State College in 1967, provided increased opportunities for off-farm
employment. The construction of Interstate 5 through the heart of Thurston
County, as part of the Interstate Highway System, improved access to the county.
A growing network of roads connected the new subdivisions being constructed on
the fringes of Olympia, Tumwater and Lacey, and people seeking to raise their
families in an area with tremendous natural beauty and a high quality of life
flocked to the area.
Between 1960 and 1974, Thurston County was the second fastest growing
county in the state (United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation
38
Service, 1990). According to data compiled by the TRPC (2012b), between 1960
and 1980, the population of the county grew from 55,059 to 124,624, and more
than 30,000 new homes were constructed. In recent years, the county has
continued to consistently rank among the fastest growing in the state. Between
1990 and 2000, the population grew 2.5 percent per year, slowing slightly to 2
percent per year between 2000 and 2010, with a total population in 2010 of
252,264. By 2012, there were 110,490 housing units in the county; 66 percent of
the units are single family residences on individual lots.
The rapid population growth and development has whittled away at formerly
large tracts of agricultural land as housing developments, roads and businesses
increasingly sit atop land previously used for farming. The extensive subdivision
of agricultural lands since the 1970s is a prime factor in the decreasing number of
large farms still operating in the county. A report by Fisher and Mitchell (2009)
found that between 1950 and 2008, the county’s population grew by over 193,000
and over 90,000 acres of farmland were lost. Farmland per capita declined from
3.8 acres to just over a third of an acre.
Further, 75 percent of the remaining farmland is located in close proximity to
urban areas and at risk of development (Fisher and Mitchell, 2009). A report by
Thurston County (2010) notes that the remaining agricultural lands tend to be
relatively flat and attached to stable water rights which make them attractive to
developers. Additionally, the report cautions that the average Thurston County
farmer is 56 years old and finding it difficult to transfer their property to the next
generation of farmers who cannot afford to purchase the land at current market
values.
Meanwhile, consumer interest in locally produced food is on the rise in
Thurston County, echoing similar trends around the nation. The Thurston County
Agriculture Committee (1978) noted over three decades ago that the growing
interest in fresh local produce was one of the factors that could help sustain the
local agricultural economy. Thurston County (2010) finds that the success of
existing farmer’s markets in the county’s urban areas and recent increases in
39
direct farm sales could be leveraged to support efforts to protect farmland and
catalyze the development of a thriving local food system.
With a median household income of $60,930 between 2006 and 2010
(Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2012b) and an educated, health conscious
population, the county may be well positioned to protect its remaining farmland
and nurture a stronger local food system. However, the vast majority of food
consumed by Thurston County residents today is the product of the global
industrial food system, primarily purchased from numerous large national retail
grocers located throughout the county. Locally produced food purchased directly
from producers or at small, locally owned grocery stores is an almost insignificant
part of the total local food economy.
In addition, the impact of the ongoing financial crisis and stubbornly high
local unemployment have left growing numbers of local residents unable to feed
themselves, undermining food security for the region. There were 10,293 visits to
the Thurston County Food Bank in 2010, a 29 percent increase from 2009 and up
99 percent since 2005, and the level of in-kind food donations decreased 11
percent between 2009 and 2010 as former donors became emergency food
recipients (Thurston County Food Bank, 2011).
Renewed interest in the health of the local food system is evident in recent
government actions that make it easier to grow food in urban areas and protect
rural agricultural lands. Since 2011, the cities of Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater
have all adopted new urban agriculture ordinances designed to encourage
community gardens, small scale backyard fruit and vegetable gardens and the
keeping of bees, chickens, rabbits and goats. In addition, the City of Olympia is
considering comprehensive language to encourage urban gardening and farming
as part of its long term growth plan. Thurston County Commissioners expanded
the amount of land zoned for long-term agricultural use in 2010, and in 2011
adopted a new agritourism ordinance intended to provide regulatory flexibility for
existing farmers and potential food system entrepreneurs in specific parts of the
county.
40
Grassroots community efforts led by a variety of individuals and non-profit
organizations have also drawn attention to the condition of the local food system
and have complemented and supported government actions. In 2011, over 500
people participated in a two day local food summit organized by Sustainable
South Sound, and follow up efforts have resulted in the creation of the Thurston
Food System Council (TFSC). Local organizations offering workshops on
everything from garden design to seed saving to canning the harvest are attracting
widespread interest, and Garden Raised Bounty (GRuB), an organization that
builds gardens for low income residents and provides farm-based life skills
development for at-risk youth, recently secured a permanent site for an expanded
program. In addition, Enterprise for Equity, an organization that provides
business development training to low income individuals, has developed a
popular agripreneur training program.
In sum, there are reasons to be both cautious and optimistic about the future
prospects for the food system in Thurston County. The current condition of the
local food system is the result of over a century of individual choices made by
farmers, consumers, businesses and local elected officials responding to a variety
of environmental and geographical factors, consumer preferences, and changing
demographics, technologies and market conditions. Creating a new system that is
grounded in the principles of Eco Civic Agriculture and which can provide local
resilience to unpredictable future economic and environmental conditions will
require a more coordinated approach. In essence, it will require a level of
comprehensive food system planning that up until now has not existed at the local
level.
Food System Planning: Context and History
To understand the potential for food system planning to support the realization
of Eco Civic Agriculture in Thurston County, it is necessary to understand the
history and institutional framework in which planning occurs in the county. As
noted previously, the county’s existing food system is the product of a series of
unique conditions and decisions made over a long period of time, lacking in
coordination and without intent to achieve specific outcomes for the system as a
41
whole. Today, a variety of laws and policies at the federal, state and local levels
encourage or require the jurisdictions within the county to pursue a more
coordinated approach to future development.
Recognizing the impacts of rapid population growth on Thurston County and
other fast growing regions, in 1963 the Washington State Legislature passed a
new law designed to improve and coordinate regional planning statewide. The
law allows that:
A county or a city may join with one or more other counties, cities and
towns, and/or with one or more school districts, public utility districts,
private utilities, housing authorities, port districts, or any other private or
public organizations interested in regional planning to form and organize a
regional planning commission and provide for the administration of its
affairs. Such a regional planning commission may carry on a planning
program involving the same subjects and procedures provided by this
chapter for planning by counties, provided this authority shall not include
enacting official controls other than by the individual participating
municipal corporations. The authority to initiate a regional planning
program, define the boundaries of the regional planning district, specify
the number, method of appointment and terms of office of members of the
regional planning commission and provide for allocating the cost of
financing the work shall be vested individually in the governing bodies of
the participating municipal corporations. (Regional Planning Commissions
Act)
The law also allows for any planning agency created pursuant to the act to
receive and expend state and federal funds in a manner that is consistent with
fulfilling its responsibilities under the act.
In 1967, the Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC) was established as
set forth by the statute and through mutual agreement by the Thurston County
Commission and several of the cities within the county. Today TRPC includes 22
members representing all of the cities and towns within the county, as well as the
Nisqually and Chehalis tribes, the North Thurston and Olympia school districts,
42
Intercity Transit, the LOTT Clean Water Alliance, the Port of Olympia and
Thurston Public Utility District 1. An additional six entities serve as associate
member.
The current mission of TRPC is to “Provide visionary leadership on regional
plans, policies and issues” (Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2012b). To
further its mission, TRPC develops regional plans and policies for transportation,
growth management, environmental quality and other topics as determined by the
council members. It provides data and analysis to support local jurisdiction
planning efforts and regional decision making, and brings together local, state,
federal and tribal leaders to build consensus on regional issues. It also provides
additional technical services to members on a contractual basis. As of January,
2012 TRPC employed 21 permanent staff members and had an annual budget of
approximately $4.8 million, sourced primarily from state and federal grants,
contracts and member dues. The agency reports that every dollar provided in the
form of membership dues leverages an additional $10 in federal, state and local
funding (Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2012c).
TRPC is the regional repository for population, land use, transportation and
other data. It uses the data to produce regional growth forecasts, develop
transportation and other infrastructure plans and provides data to member
jurisdictions to support local planning efforts. Since 1982, TRPC has produced
The Profile, an annual comprehensive collection of demographic, land use and
economic data about Thurston County that is widely used by policy makers,
academics, researchers, businesses and activists.
TRPC also supports a wide variety of environmental planning projects. Under
a contract with the Thurston County Emergency Management Council, it
developed and maintains a natural hazards mitigation plan for the county. Since
passage of the Washington State Shoreline Management Act in 1971, TRPC has
provided support to member jurisdictions as part of their requirement to
periodically update their Shoreline Master Program. It has also been active in
facilitating watershed-level land use planning activities required under state and
federal laws. In 2010, it received a large US Department of Energy grant to
43
reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions through innovative transportation
programs, increased density through infill development, and broad public
education and outreach.
The importance of regional planning was further emphasized and TRPC’s role
as a regional planning agency for Thurston County was significantly expanded by
passage of the Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) in 1990. Most
of the agency’s current planning activities take place within the framework
created by GMA. Despite improved regional planning that had followed passage
of the 1963 legislation and the creation of TRPC and similar regional planning
organizations across the state, the consequences of continued rapid population
growth prompted the legislature to take additional action. The legislative findings
setting the context for GMA state that:
uncoordinated and unplanned growth, together with a lack of common
goals expressing the public's interest in the conservation and the wise use
of our lands, pose a threat to the environment, sustainable economic
development, and the health, safety, and high quality of life enjoyed by
residents of this state. It is in the public interest that citizens, communities,
local governments, and the private sector cooperate and coordinate with
one another in comprehensive land use planning. Further, the legislature
finds that it is in the public interest that economic development programs
be shared with communities experiencing insufficient economic growth.
(Growth Management Act)
The law requires that any county with a population of 150,000 or which had
experienced greater than 10 percent population growth in the previous ten years is
required to plan under the act. Counties passing the minimum population or
growth threshold after 1995 are also required to begin planning under the act.
Thurston County, with a population of over 160,000 in 1990, was one of the
original counties immediately impacted by the law.
The goals of GMA included reducing urban sprawl, creating efficient
transportation systems, providing affordable housing, promoting economic
development, improving the environment, promoting citizen participation,
44
protecting property rights and maintaining agriculture and other resource based
industries. The land use pattern that the act envisions creating are well designed
compact urban core areas, surrounded by economically productive natural
resource and agricultural lands and rural areas. The primary means of achieving
the preferred land use pattern rely on each city adopting urban growth boundaries
beyond which it will no longer allow certain types of development nor provide an
urban level of infrastructure service.
To continue to be eligible to receive state funds, a critical source of revenue
for local transportation and other infrastructure projects, counties impacted by the
law and each of the jurisdictions within the county are required to develop
comprehensive 20 year land use plans that will accommodate the projected
population increase for each jurisdiction. Cities and counties must also develop
shorter term capital facilities plans that are consistent with their land use plans.
Both the land use plans and the capital facilities plans are required to be internally
consistent with other policies and plans in each jurisdiction and externally
consistent with the plans developed by adjacent jurisdictions.
Following passage of GMA, TRPC served a vital role in bringing together
elected officials and their staff to develop strategies to implement the new
requirements. Building on their previous role as a clearinghouse for demographic
and other data, TRPC developed 20 year growth projections for the county and
facilitated decisions about allocating the projected growth between the various
jurisdictions. Updating the growth projections on an annual basis continues to be
an important service provided by the agency. The local jurisdictions continue to
use the projections as the basis for state required updates to their comprehensive
plans.
TRPC also played an important in role in ensuring that the various
comprehensive plans developed by jurisdictions within the county met the state
requirement for external consistency. The primary means for ensuring
consistency was through the development of countywide planning policies, and
TRPC provided the table around which these policies were developed. The
countywide planning policies were ratified by each of the impacted jurisdictions
45
and officially adopted by the Thurston County Board of Commissioners in
September, 1993.
TRPC’s long history as a regional planning agency and the critical role it
plays in promoting consistent countywide implementation of GMA highlights the
value of the organization as a forum for policymakers and planning professionals
from each jurisdiction to gather, address issues of mutual concern, and forge a
shared vision for the future of the region. In addition, by generating, analyzing
and providing consistent data to member jurisdictions TRPC helps ensure that
regional and jurisdictional planning in Thurston County is based on a common set
of assumptions. Over time, TRPC has fostered and nurtured the development of
relationships between staff and elected officials in the various jurisdictions and
agencies within the county, relationships that are necessary to address the
complex challenges confronted by a rapidly growing community.
While the range and scope of planning activities undertaken by TRPC has
grown significantly over time, one of the areas in which it has not had significant
engagement until quite recently is food system planning. The GMA, which sets
the primary context for most of TRPC’s planning activities, does not require
counties or jurisdictions to engage in food system planning. While one of the
goals of GMA is to preserve agricultural opportunities, and the law requires
counties to designate and zone long term agricultural lands, there are no
requirements to address broader planning issues related to the development or
maintenance of local or regional food systems.
The lack of food system planning requirements in the GMA and TRPC’s lack
of engagement in food system planning are not unique. Pothukuchi and Kaufman
(2000) note that “the food system, however, is notable by its absence from the
writing of planning scholars, from the plans prepared by planning practitioners,
and from the classrooms in which planning practitioners are taught” (p.113).
However, this was not always the case. Samina, Born & Russell (2010) note
that in the early 1900s planners operating within a variety of theoretical
frameworks routinely included food within the scope of their planning activities.
A variety of possible explanations have been offered for why food system
46
planning took a back seat to other issues through most of the last century, but one
of the primary reasons is rooted in the growing specialization within the field of
planning itself, as urban planning became differentiated from rural planning and
the former took on an increasingly prominent role within the discipline.
The increased emphasis on urban planning reflected the demographic changes
underway in the country, as increasing numbers of people left the countryside and
agricultural activities to move into rapidly growing cities which offered greater
economic opportunities. In the first years of the twentieth century most
Americans still lived in rural areas. In 1920 the U.S. Census Bureau found for the
first time that more people were living in urban areas than in rural areas. By 1990,
there were over 180 million urban residents compared to 62 million people living
in rural areas (United States Census Bureau, 1995).
As professional planners increasingly shifted their focus towards urban issues,
food came to be seen as beyond their scope of interest or influence. Pothukuchi
and Kaufman (1999) identify four primary factors that explain why food systems
had such low visibility among urban planners, elected officials and city residents.
First, in the absence of shortages, urbanites take the food system for granted.
Second, agriculture and food were seen as rural issues. Third, rural issues largely
go unnoticed in cities. And fourth, the federal policy framework increasingly
created a growing dichotomy between rural and urban policy.
One exception to the general lack of attention paid to food systems by urban
planners and officials in the twentieth century was the Victory Garden movement
during World War Two and to a lesser extent a similar movement during World
War One. During the wars diversion of materials for military use and labor
shortages in the agricultural sector resulted in concentrated efforts to produce
food in urban areas. By some accounts, small urban gardens supplied nearly 40
percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the US at the height of their
popularity during World War II (Nordahl, 2009). The productivity of these urban
gardens was encouraged and made possible by widespread public information
campaigns and planning programs that supported the conversion of public and
private space in urban areas to food production.
47
The economic prosperity that returned following the end of the Second World
War once again pushed food system issues to the back of the planning agenda.
Even prominent planners such as Lewis Mumford and Benton MacKaye, who
argued for comprehensive land use planning based on principles of equity and
vitality, failed to make the connection between food systems and other planning
topics (Pothukuchi & Kaufman, 2000).
Beginning in the last decades of the twentieth century, food system issues
once again began to find their place on the planning agenda. A variety of factors
explain the renewed interests in food systems among planners and planning
organizations. Many of the issues identified in Chapter Two, including
environmental and health concerns and the emergence of various communitybased alternative food movements, have all combined to push planning
professionals to take a fresh look at food systems.
A survey of planning agencies in 22 U.S. communities conducted between
1997 and 1998 by Pothukuchi and Kaufman (2000) found a small but growing
number of these organizations involved in food system issues, though the level of
involvement varied greatly with most organizations only slightly involved in the
topic. The primary areas in which planners were engaged with the food system
were zoning, siting and design of grocery stores, establishing and regulating
community gardens and farmers markets and food related economic development.
The survey also found that most planners’ involvement with the food system was
on a case-by-case basis and lacked a systemic approach to addressing issues. The
low level of planner involvement in food system issues could be attributed to a
number of factors. Some planners still felt that food issues are not a core urban
planning issue, or that it was primarily an issue to be addressed by the private
sector. Others cited a lack of funding for food system planning or insufficient
information about the topic to make meaningful contributions to the issue.
A more comprehensive on-line follow up survey conducted by Samina, Born
& Russell (2010) ten years later provided additional insight into planners’
perspectives on food system issues. Conducted under the auspices of the
American Planning Association (APA), the leading organization for professional
48
planners in the U.S., the results of this survey were based on 192 responses from
planners working in a wide range of planning organizations and on a wide range
of planning issues. This survey found widespread support among planners for
involvement in food system issues, with a majority responding that food system
planning should be a top tier priority for their organization. This survey found
planners engaged in an increasing variety of food system issues, ranging from
farmland preservation and promoting food access through public transportation
planning to developing local food policy and promoting healthy food in schools.
One of the key findings from the survey was that “despite the involvement of
planning organizations in food issues, it is quite clear that a significant gap exists
between planners’ preferred level of involvement in the area of food systems and
their planning organizations’ actual involvement” and that many of the barriers
identified by Pothukuchi and Kaufman still exist (p. 31).
The growing interest in food system issues among professional planners
prompted the APA in 2005 to include for the first time a full conference track on
the topic as part of its annual meeting. Since that time, food system topics have
become a regular feature of the meeting. In 2006, the APA appointed a Food
Systems Steering Committee to develop tools to help planners integrate food
system planning into more traditional planning approaches (Samina, Born &
Russell, 2010). Over the past few years, the APA has produced a variety of
reports and documents designed to enhance the capacity of planners to address
critical food system issues.
Both studies discussed above found that one of the primary issues driving
planners’ interest in the food system was a growing recognition of the close
linkages between food system planning and other traditional planning topics. A
recent report by Hatfield (2012) notes that “Food systems are fundamentally
linked to issues such as health, equity, environmental sustainability and economic
development” (p.1). In a special edition of the Oregon Planner’s Journal, Abrams
(2009) writes that:
As we recognize the effects our current food system has on community
health and environmental sustainability, it is increasingly clear that we
49
need to address food production and delivery through planning. In fact,
food systems planning should be given an equal footing with efforts
already undertaken for housing, land use, transportation and economic
development… From land use and transportation, to economic
development and community building, food systems touch on nearly every
part of a planner’s work. (p.3)
The field of planning is inherently interdisciplinary. Professional planners
must juggle a plethora of economic, environmental and social factors while
working to find common ground among elected officials and the public and
develop blueprints for the growth and development of the communities in which
they work. Campbell (2004) writes that planners have a critically important role
in the food system by acting as “bridgers” charged with mediating the needs and
desires of various food system stakeholders while simultaneously advancing
issues of economic viability, environmental sustainability, social equity,
environmental justice and civic participation. Similarly, Samina, Born & Russell
(2010) write that “Planners have an especially important role in tying many of
these fields by facilitating the planning and design of communities where healthy
food systems and healthy eating become possible” (p.100). Campbell (2004)
identifies a number of key methods by which planning professionals contribute to
the development of local food systems including collecting and analyzing data,
participating in specific food system projects, developing and revising land use
plans, facilitating public participation in food system issues and the development
of food system policy.
While there is growing recognition that planners have a valuable role to play
in creating sustainable food systems, and the inherent interdisciplinary nature of
the planning field lends itself well to fulfilling that role, the institutional
framework in which planning often occurs limits the engagement and
effectiveness of planning professionals in food system issues. Most planning
organizations operate at a local or regional scale, with the scope of their activities
determined by political borders. For example, a city planning department plans
for the development of land inside of the city’s boundaries, while a different
50
public agency, usually another city or a county, plans for the development of
lands just outside of the first city. Even if there is coordination of planning
efforts, as required by the Washington State GMA, planning responsibilities are
fragmented between different agencies with different elected leadership charged
with responding to potentially different public interests.
The fragmentation of planning is especially problematic when it comes to
food system planning because food systems usually transcend jurisdiction
boundaries. Kloppenburg, Hendrickson & Stevenson (1996) use the term
“foodshed” to describe the geographical context within which local and regional
food systems exist, a term that encompasses the places where food is produced,
the places where it is consumed, and the linkages between the two. In Thurston
County, most food production takes place on farms located in unincorporated
parts of the county, while most food consumption takes place in the cities. This
disconnect between the political scale at which food system planning occurs and
the geographic and ecological scales in which agricultural and other natural
systems exist limits the effectiveness of planning efforts.
Brunckhorst (2002) recognizes the importance and challenges of linking these
social and ecological systems more intimately in the planning process, writing
that “Studies of cities, urban infrastructure and services, rural (and indigenous)
community development and development of aid projects should, therefore, be
approached from a regional-landscape context that addresses both landscape
ecological processes (services) and social processes and functions. In a later
paper, Brunkhhorst, Coop & Reeve (2006) notes that “opportunities to improve
resource management outcomes significantly will rely on our ability to modify
our social systems to serve our long term interest in the natural world” (p. 266).
Regional Sustainability Planning
The need to work in a wider geographic and ecological context to address an
ever-expanding range of environmental and social issues is pushing planning
agencies and institutions at all levels to develop new tools and approaches. In
recent years, a growing number of planning organizations have looked towards
the development of local and regional sustainability plans as a means to bring all
51
of these factors and issues together within the context of a single planning
approach. While many communities in Washington State and elsewhere have for
years been required to develop and implement comprehensive plans to guide their
long-term development, there are no similar requirements to develop
sustainability plans. Hodgson (2012) writes that “While not typically required by
state statute and lacking the legal standing of comprehensive plans, sustainability
scholars are recognizing the importance of the sustainability plan for guiding local
government actions and achieving sustainable development” (p.7). In contrast to
comprehensive plans she describes sustainability plans as a type of strategic plan
that are:
used to expand the transportation, resource conservation, climate
protection, air and water quality, open space, economic development,
health and education components of the comprehensive plan and address
new and emerging issues, such as the health and sustainability of the local
and regional food system. (Hodgson, 2012, p.7)
The development of local and regional sustainability plans is still a relatively
new planning approach. In her survey of 888 planning professional across the
U.S. Hodgson found only 15 percent of respondents reported that their
jurisdictions were either drafting or had adopted sustainability plans, and only 18
percent of these respondents reported that food systems issues were addressed in
the plan.
One of the forces driving local and regional planning agencies to consider the
development of sustainability plans is the federal government. The election of
Barack Obama in 2008, in the middle of a severe recession that was negatively
impacting federal revenues, prompted several newly appointed members of his
cabinet to begin discussing ways to leverage the impacts of various federal
programs housed in multiple agencies in order to increase each program’s overall
impact. After meeting for several months to identify potential areas of
collaboration, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun
Donovan, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Environmental Protection
Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced the creation of a new program, the
52
Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The program is housed in the new
HUD office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. The goals of the program
are to better coordinate federal transportation and housing investments with local
land use decisions, to foster innovation and the development of a green economy
and to create more sustainable communities.
The primary means by which the new program hopes to achieve its goals is
through the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program.
According to information from the HUD website:
The Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Program supports
metropolitan and multijurisdictional planning efforts that integrate
housing, land use, economic and workforce development, transportation,
and infrastructure investments in a manner that empowers jurisdictions to
consider the interdependent challenges of: (1) economic competitiveness
and revitalization; (2) social equity, inclusion, and access to opportunity;
(3) energy use and climate change; and (4) public health and
environmental impact. The Program places a priority on investing in
partnerships, including nontraditional partnerships (e.g., arts and culture,
recreation, public health, food systems, regional planning agencies and
public education entities) that translate the Federal Livability Principles
into strategies that direct long-term development and reinvestment,
demonstrate a commitment to addressing issues of regional significance,
use data to set and monitor progress toward performance goals, and
engage stakeholders and residents in meaningful decision-making roles.
(United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, n.d.,
para. 1)
In 2010, HUD received over 200 applications in response to its first round of
requests for grant applications. According to Shelley Poticha, Director of the
Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities “The response to the program is
huge. We were inundated with applicants from every state and two territories –
from central cities to rural areas and tribal governments” (United States
Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2010, n.p.).
53
In October, 2010 the agency announced it was awarding nearly $100 million
to 45 regional applicants. In announcing the grants Secretary Donovan noted the
federal money will “leverage existing infrastructure and reward local
collaboration and innovation” and that “rather than sticking to the old
Washington playbook of dictating how communities can invest their grants,
HUD’s application process encouraged creative, locally focused thinking”
(United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2010, n.p.).
Grant recipients were distributed throughout the country, including two in
Washington State. The Puget Sound Regional Council, responsible for planning
in King, Pierce, Kitsap and Snohomish counties received nearly $5 million. The
other recipient was TRPC, which received a $1.5 million, three year planning
grant.
TRPC submitted the grant application on behalf of a multi-jurisdictional and
multi-sector partnership. In addition to including the minimum partners required
by the federal program - in this case Thurston County, all of the jurisdictions
within the county, and the non-profit Housing Authority of Thurston County - the
consortium assembled by TRPC also included five school districts, three fire
districts, two colleges, two state agencies, Intercity Transit, the Economic
Development Council, several chambers of commerce and a local utility provider.
Also represented were several local non-profits including the League of Women
Voters Education Fund and the Thurston Climate Action Team (Thurston
Regional Planning Council n.d.b., p. 2).
The grant application states as its goal the creation of a Regional Plan for
Sustainable Development (RPSD) that “will provide a clear and integrated
regional vision and implementation plan that pulls all of the individual plans
together” (Thurston Regional Planning Council, n.d.b., p. 2). The application
extensively documents TRPC’s experience and capacity as a regional planning
organization, highlighting its role in developing comprehensive plans under
GMA, regional transportation, housing and other infrastructure plans, evaluating
and monitoring progress, and fostering citizen engagement in planning processes.
54
The application also identifies a variety of specific systems and issues that would
be analyzed and included in the plan. While the application did identify the
continued conversion of agricultural lands to non-agricultural uses as a land use
issue of regional concern, the application did not specifically address the larger
issue of the condition or future of the local food system.
Development of the regional sustainability plan will rely on existing
economic, land use and transportation models. TRPC will develop a baseline of
existing conditions and a range of projections for future growth, and will identify
barriers for achieving a more sustainable future. The final steps in the process
involve forging a regional consensus on a preferred growth scenario, taking steps
to implement the vision, and establishing and tracking metrics for monitoring
progress.
Existing regional planning staff are charged with day to day management of
the project. According to Thurston Regional Planning Council (n.d.a.), of the
total $1.5 million budget, seven percent ($105,458) is allocated to project
management. Eight percent of the budget ($123,267) is allocated for coordination
of consortium members. Outreach, education and public input is allotted 24
percent ($358,823) while research, data support, monitoring and metrics accounts
for 27 percent ($399,252). The largest pool of funding, 34 percent ($513,200), is
reserved for development of the plan. Considered from a different perspective, 75
percent of the total grant funding ($1,127,825) is retained by TRPC, while the
remainder is spilt among local jurisdictions, other public agencies and non-profit
partners.
Project oversight resides with the RPSD task force, which includes one
representative from each of the consortium partners. The task force is charged
with recommending a final plan for adoption by TRPC policymakers at the end of
2013. All of the partners identified in the application have committed to actively
participate in the process, though the level of commitment varies. Once adopted,
the partners agree to use the plan to update the County Wide Planning Policies
(CWPP), which have not been updated since their adoption in 1993. The CWPP
55
will then be used to guide each jurisdiction’s required comprehensive plan
updates.
The general public has a significant opportunity to become involved in the
process. The grant application identifies a goal of actively engaging a broad cross
section of over 4,000 community members in the project, using a variety of
outreach tools and strategies. The project was officially launched in 2011 with
several public meetings that were widely advertised throughout the region. This
was followed by a survey of over 1,200 county residents conducted in
collaboration with Washington State University. One of the goals of the survey
was to identify community perceptions about regional growth and quality of life
issues. In addition, TRPC established an interactive website which allows the
individuals and organizations to provide input, suggestions and comments on the
planning effort.
In early 2012, nearly 350 people attended seven “Build Our Future”
workshops. An additional 49 people participated on-line. The goals of the
workshops were to identify the issues that were most important to residents when
it comes to growth planning for the region, to identify how different responses to
growth would impact the things people care about and to engage participants in a
hands-on exercise to allocate the projected regional population increase across the
landscape using county maps and Lego blocks.
In addition to the public engagement process and detailed data analysis and
input from professional planners at TRPC, the plan recommended by the task
force will be based on input and advice from a variety of expert panels. The
creation of expert panels is identified in the grant application. The panels are
designed to ensure broad input from issue experts on the full range of topics that
will be addressed as part of a robust and comprehensive regional sustainability
plan.
In 2011 TRPC staff established the following nine panels: Blue Ribbon
Economic Development, Housing, Public Safety, Water Infrastructure, Health and
Human Services, North County Schools and Transportation, South County
Schools and Transportation, Outreach and Education, and Land Use,
56
Transportation and Climate Change. Following initial input from the public and
the task force, additional panels were added on Energy, Solid Waste and Local
Food Systems. The chairs of each panel also serve on the project task force.
Panel members were recruited by TRPC staff, and a set of norms and
operating procedures were established to ensure clear expectations for participants
and timely completion of work. Following several meetings at which panel
participants discussed issues and ideas relevant to their topic, each panel produced
a white paper for the task force. The white papers summarize the panel’s
discussion and identify how the topic relates to other topics and panels that are
part of the project. The white papers also identify things that are working well
today, challenges and opportunities for the future, and short term actions.
After the white papers were presented to the task force, the task force asked
each panel to reconvene and develop a list of “modest” and “mighty” measures.
These measures are intended to be specific, practical actions that could be taken to
address identified problems and move the region in a more sustainable direction.
“Modest” measures are intended to be actions that could be implemented in the
short term, on which there is widespread agreement, and which don’t require
significant additional resources. “Mighty” measures are those things that would
be more complicated to implement or would require additional resources. After
identifying these additional measures, each panel made final recommendations to
the task force, which reviewed and in some cases modified or added additional
ideas.
All of the public input, panel information and other data generated and
compiled through February 4, 2013 were used by TRPC staff to generate a series
of growth scenarios for the region (Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2013c)
The scenarios identify potential paths for future development in the region, and
are supported by 14 key sustainability indicators that measure each scenario’s
impact. In March 2013, the public was invited to provide feedback on the
scenarios through an interactive website and two community meetings. The
website drew about 100 participants, but neither of the public meetings drew more
than two dozen participants. Based on the public feedback, the scenarios will be
57
refined and a proposed growth vision approved by the task force and presented for
final public comment in the summer of 2013. Final public comments on the
proposed vision will be considered prior to task force adoption of a regional
sustainability plan that it will recommend to TRPC policymakers by the end of
2013.
Food System Planning
The Local Food Systems panel convened its first meeting on November 30,
2011. The panel consists of 18 individuals representing a cross section of food
system stakeholders, including citizens, several non-profits, emergency feeding
programs, the local agricultural extension office, state agencies, school districts,
local jurisdictions, public health agencies, and farmland preservation advocates.
At the first meeting, the staff to the panel reported that they had sought broader
food system representation, particularly from food retailers, wholesalers and
processers, but had been unsuccessful at attracting these interests to the table.
Although the operating norms for each panel that had been developed by
TRPC staff prior to the meeting required that each panel would select its own
chair, for reasons never articulated to other panel members the chair of the Local
Food Systems panel, the executive director of the regional food bank, had already
been identified by TRPC staff prior to the time the panel had its first meeting.
However, the other operating norms were explained and agreed to by all of the
panel members.
The panel spent several meetings reviewing existing data on a range of food
systems topics including the results of a recent local food system assessment, the
annual user survey conducted by the Thurston County Food Bank, and priorities
identified by over two hundred participants at the recent community Food Summit
organized by Sustainable South Sound. Additional written materials and reports
were presented by TRPC staff and panel members, and the cumulative
information used to brainstorm a long list of opportunities and challenges for the
local food system. In addition, the panel identified additional food system
stakeholders that were not members of the panel but whose input would be critical
for understanding current realities and establishing a vision for future of the local
58
food system. Some of these additional stakeholders were subsequently
interviewed by TRPC staff and their perspectives reported back to the panel.
The panel completed its draft white paper and presented it to the Task Force in
January, 2012. The white paper defines a local food system as “the ways that the
people of the Thurston Region grow, produce, process, distribute, access,
consume and dispose of food. This includes all types of food, both from within
and outside the Thurston Region” (Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2012a,
p.4). The report notes that additional discussion is required before it will be
possible to define a “sustainable” local food system.
In stressing the relevance of addressing the local food system within
sustainability planning, the white paper notes high public interest in food systems
throughout the region, the lack of basic data available about the local food system
and economic and other vulnerabilities exposed by inadequate attention to food
system issues in the planning process. In addition the report identifies a number
of other challenges including “geographic and seasonal constraints; logistical and
marketing issues; policies and politics; and – perhaps most daunting – the
changing of personal habits” before noting that “Thurston Regional Policymakers
are up to those challenges.” (Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2012a p. 8).
The white paper includes a long list of what is currently working well,
existing challenges and future opportunities for the local food system. The
panel’s recommendations to the task force include identifying opportunities for
integrating the food system into community and public sector activities,
considering the formation of a local Food Policy Council, completing a full food
system assessment, reaching out to the business community, and developing a
community-based food system plan.
After receiving feedback from the task force and direction to identify
“modest” and “mighty” measures intended to create a more sustainable local food
system, the panel engaged in on-line discussion over the next few months before
agreeing on final recommendations. After several delays in scheduling due to
extended task force discussion about the recommendations from other panels, the
panel results were presented to the task force in January, 2013.
59
The information presented includes a general explanation of how food
systems support a more sustainable community and the relationship between food
systems and the other elements of Sustainable Thurston.
It also “envisions a
thriving, inclusive and just local food system that enhances the health of people,
diverse communities, economies and environments” (Thurston Regional Planning
Council, 2013b, p.1) while supporting family farms, reducing chemical and
energy use, improving working conditions for farm labor, fostering a strong
business environment, creating more direct links between producers and
consumers, educating the community, reducing waste and improving access to
food and eliminating food insecurity.
The modest and mighty measures identified by the panel include conducting a
production/capacity analysis to determine how much food and land is needed to
feed the future population, actions to increase agricultural production while
encouraging sustainable farming practices and reducing waste and the
environmental impacts of food production and developing more efficient
transportation and distribution systems and a vibrant agricultural economy. The
panel also highlighted the importance of food system education and celebration.
After considering the panel’s input, the task force engaged in a lengthy
discussion of the recommendations. During the discussion additional issues were
identified in both the modest and mighty categories, and some movement of
actions between the categories took place. The final version of the panel’s
recommendations, which includes modifications made by the Task Force,
includes creating a food policy council or advisory group charged with
developing a local food system action plan (Thurston Regional Planning Council,
2013b).
The indicators for the growth scenarios developed by TRPC in the spring of
2013 include one indicator for the health of the local food system, farmland
preservation. If future development mirrors past development the county will lose
32 percent (15,600 acres) of its remaining farmland by 2035. If the county adopts
the most aggressive sustainable development scenario currently being considered
60
it will still lose 18 percent (13,300 acres) of its remaining farmland by 2035
(Thurston Regional Planning Council, 2013c, p. 54).
61
Chapter 4: Sustainable Thurston and Food System Planning: Key
Participant Perspectives
Chapter Overview
This chapter presents the results of research interviews conducted with two
key groups of informants involved in the Sustainable Thurston project. The first
group are professional planners employed by the Thurston Regional Planning
Council (TRPC) and include Lon Wyrick, the Executive Director of TRPC, and
Senior Planners Kathy McCormick and Karen Parkhurst. The second group are
elected officials who serve on the Sustainable Thurston task force, the oversight
committee for the project, and include: Dennis McVey, Rainier City
Councilmember and Task Force Chair, County Commissioner Karen Valenzuela,
Olympia Mayor Stephen Buxbaum, Lacey City Councilmember Andy Ryder, and
Yelm City Councilmember Bob Isom.
The chapter begins with a review of each of the subjects professional
backgrounds and perspectives on food and agriculture, followed by analysis of
TRPC’s role in community planning and the origin, goals and potential outcomes
of Sustainable Thurston. The chapter concludes with an examination of the
potential for advancing a sustainable local food system through the Sustainable
Thurston planning process.
Background and Perspectives on Food and Agriculture
The subjects interviewed for this research have diverse educational and
professional backgrounds that help provide context for understanding each
person’s perspective. Among the planners interviewed only one, Wyrick, has
academic training in community planning. McCormick and Parkhurst are both
graduates from The Evergreen State College (TESC). McCormick has a general
liberal arts degree and is a board certified planner through the American Institute
of Certified Planners (AICP). Parkhurst’s degree focused on labor studies; she
holds no formal planning certification. Each was drawn to the field of planning
because they like the complexity of dealing with a myriad of interrelated issues
and identifying opportunities to engage people in active discussions about the
62
future of their community. Each of the planners acknowledged a personal political
philosophy, but stressed that as professional planners they are required to
approach their work with objectivity and without political bias. Wyrick notes that
“we all have our own biases of what we’d like to see, what we think is right, but I
really push back at my staff if they are putting too much personal views in, trying
to drive the discussion too much” (personal communication, January 23, 2013).
The background of the elected officials interviewed is even more diverse. All
were active in community organizations or local government before being elected
to office. Isom holds an associate degree in legal assistance, and has worked in
various program coordination and contract positions for the State of Washington.
McVey has a degree in political science and spent 31 years in the U.S. army.
Ryder’s degree is in political science with a minor in chemistry and biology; he
studied to be a dentist, and currently owns several small businesses. Buxbaum
has a MPA from TESC; he spent several decades working on various community
development issues, including agriculture, in both the private and public sectors
and is currently an adjunct member of the faculty at TESC. Valenzuela holds
graduate degrees in both anthropology and public administration, and has worked
for the state legislature and in the field of public health.
Valenzuela is a Democrat and the only elected officials interviewed who holds
a partisan political office. All of the other elected officials ran as non-partisan
candidates, though several campaigned with the support or endorsement of a
particular political party and all agree that their political orientation shapes their
views and public work. Ryder is an active member of the local Democratic party.
As a candidate Buxbaum received support from the local Democratic party, but
considers himself a socialist. McVey describes himself as fiscally conservative
and socially liberal, while Isom identifies himself as an independent.
A common theme that emerges from the interviews is that each of the subjects
have significant personal histories with food and agriculture which has shaped
their views on the issue. Wyrick, McVey and Isom all grew up and worked on
farms, and all realized early in their lives that they did not want to be farmers.
McVey said his experience helps him “understand the difficulty that producers
63
face economically and environmentally” and that protecting the land and water is
essential for continued agricultural production (personal communication,
February 16, 2013). Ryder remembers growing up in Lacey, Washington when it
was still filled with farms and recalls that “in the 1980s you started to see the local
farms go away, the meat lockers disappear. The whole idea of self-sufficiency
almost went out of fashion” (personal communication, January 22, 2013).
Parkhurst, Ryder, Buxbaum and Valenzuela all grow some of their own food
today, and McCormick, Valenzuela and Buxbaum all expressed strong support for
local and organic food, with Buxbaum noting that:
sourcing food locally is a critical part of maintaining a community’s
vitality. Food is so much more than just being about food. It really is, as
far as I’m concerned, the thing that is one of the fundamental common
denominators in a community, and a healthy community really comes
together around the table. (personal communication, January 23, 2013)
The Impact of Planning and the Role of the Planner
While there is general agreement on the need for planning to ensure the
orderly development of a community, there are significant differences in how the
subjects viewed the importance of planning and the role of the planners. As a
group, the planners view planning more as a process of engaging elected officials
and the public in a conversation, and they express a stronger belief in the role of
planning in terms of actively shaping the form and function of communities.
McCormick calls planning “a very powerful process for communities to be
thoughtful about the actions they take (personal communication, January 18,
2013). According to Parkhurst, “absent planning, a community develops by
accident, sometime happy, sometimes not so happy” (personal communication,
January 15, 2013).
In contrast, most of the elected officials view planning as both a process and a
product, and the importance of planning was more mixed among the elected
officials. Isom describes his views as “laissez-fair” and feels strongly that
planning should not be used to tell people what they can and can’t do (personal
communication, January 24, 2013). McVey notes that:
64
planning is probably 50 percent of the end product. Plans are nice, they
are ideas or philosophies. The reality is that the people with the ability to
provide money to make something happen don’t always have the same
idea or philosophy. (personal communication, January 16, 2013).
Buxbaum believes that planning is important because it “is a way of making
sure that we integrate our systems and make things work together” but that “we
can’t do everything in a plan” (personal communication, January 23, 2013) .
Valenzuela expresses a similar sentiment, paraphrasing Peter Drucker by saying
“plans are just good intentions unless they deteriorate into hard work” and noting
that planning is one of the three main responsibilities of elected officials (personal
communication, January 29, 2013).
There are also differences among the subjects in terms of how they view the
role of planners in the planning process. All of the planners describe their
primary role as providers of information and facilitators of an ongoing
conversation, but are clear that decision making resides with the elected officials.
Wyrick states that “we don’t make decisions, we make recommendations based
upon technical information, science and public input” and quotes his academic
mentor saying that “if as a planner you find yourself making decisions you’ve
taken a wrong turn” (personal communication, January 23, 2013).
Several of the elected officials view the planners as more active participants in
shaping the final products of a planning process than the planners see themselves.
Valenzuela agrees that planners have an important role as conveners and
facilitators of conversations, but that “sometimes they go into these community
conversations with their minds already made up, and they have a variety of ways
of making sure their made up minds are what happens out the other end”
(personal communication, January 29, 2013). Ryder also states that planners have
more power to shape outcomes than they give themselves credit for, saying:
it is the staff and the planners that are really the ones who move policy in
Thurston County, because they are tapped into what is probably the most
important thing in municipal government or county government or
65
probably state government right now which is finances. They know how
to receive money. (personal communication, January 22, 2013)
TRPC’s Role in Community Planning
There is broad agreement among all of the interview subjects on the regional
planning council’s role in the community. McVey describes TRPC as a “big tent”
where people can come together to think about larger regional issues (personal
communication, January 16, 2013) while Buxbaum says that he thinks of it as “an
interesting place for people to get together and work as a learning community”
(personal communication, January 23, 2013). Parkhurst describes TRPC as:
the place where all the jurisdictions and other members come together and
are able to take off their jurisdictional hats and think about the fact that our
community doesn’t recognize political boundaries in perhaps the same
way elected officials do in their governance structure. (personal
communication, January 15, 2013)
Both planners and elected officials recognize the expertise and resources that
TRPC makes available to support its member jurisdictions. Wyrick states that
“they pay us to be their extended staff and look at bigger issues” (personal
communication, January 23, 2013) and Valenzuela says she looks to TRPC as
“the sort of planning super-organization that can help us, can provide assistance to
us in our planning efforts” (personal communication, January 29, 2013).
There is also a shared understanding that TRPC is not a regulatory agency.
According to Wyrick “we are not regional government, we are regional planning”
(personal communication, January 23, 2013). Ryder notes that “TRPC doesn’t
really have any true power” and that jurisdictions are not bound to implement
plans developed by TRPC (personal communication, January 22, 2013). Isom
views the role of TRPC as “guidance and counseling” and notes that “they have
no enforcement role nor should they ever” in terms of controlling what happens in
individual jurisdictions (personal communication, January 24, 2013).
Mirroring changes in the community and the legal and financial framework in
which it operates, all of the subjects agree that the range and types of issues that
TRPC tackles change over time. Ryder notes that in recent years TRPC has
66
helped facilitate “more interjurisdictional cooperation than we ever have”
(personal communication, January 22, 2013). The agency’s annual work program
is approved by the elected officials that oversee the agency and Buxbaum notes
that “as with any loose confederation it can sort of ramble and move in all kinds
of directions” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). McVey observes that
the agency sometimes “gets too far into the weeds” and loses focus on the bigger
picture (personal communication, January 16, 2013). Several subjects cited
TRPC’s increased focus on sustainability planning and making stronger
connections between transportation, land use, economic development, housing
and other issues as evidence of the agency’s flexibility to adapt to the concerns of
a changing community.
Sustainable Thurston: Origin, Goals and Outcomes
There are distinctly different perspectives on the origin of the Sustainable
Thurston project. The planners that were interviewed all see the project as being
initiated by the elected officials. All three planners trace the origin of the project
to a TRPC retreat in 2009 where the elected officials expressed interest in a
project that would build on previous policy maker discussions about sustainability
and allow them to make more connections between a broader range of planning
issues. McCormick recalls “the frustration of the policy makers for the lack of
opportunity to delve more deeply into issues that they cared about or to have more
ways to make connections they were beginning to see were so important”
(personal communication, January 18, 2013). Wyrick says that “the Council laid
out what they wanted us to do. Our job was to find out how we can do it, what
kind of resources were out there so we can accomplish the task” (personal
communication, January 23, 1013).
The elected officials see the origin of Sustainable Thurston as primarily driven
by the planners. Isom states that “the project was launched by TRPC staff as the
result of a grant they applied for and received. It was a means to, quite frankly,
go after some money” (personal communication, January 24, 2013). Buxbaum,
Ryder and Valenzuela agree that the project was initiated by staff, with
Valenzuela stating that “it was probably planners at TRPC noticing a grant
67
opportunity they could use to support this work” (personal communication,
January 29, 2013). McVey believes “it was a grant opportunity from HUD. One
of the realities of life is that TRPC primarily survives through grant funded
projects. However, there was a desire to work towards sustainability” (personal
communication, January 16, 2013).
McVey’s observation seems to be the most accurate. TRPC planning staff
likely saw a grant opportunity to fund work they perceived was increasingly
important to the elected officials, while some of the elected officials perhaps
overlooked the recent history of their sustainability discussions when the grant
opportunity was presented to them by the planners.
Regardless of who originally conceived of the project, both planners and
elected officials agree that receiving the grant allowed them to initiate a broad
dialogue about future growth in the region. Wyrick notes that the first major
product that has come out of Sustainable Thurston is the conversation, because
“people are talking about these things. That is a product – awareness, bringing
ideas forward” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). Buxbaum observes
that the project “builds upon an ongoing dialogue among professional planners in
the region, exploring ways to knit together different community development and
planning efforts” (personal communication, January 23, 2013).
The degree to which Sustainable Thurston is related to the other planning
activities traditionally performed by TRPC, and the project’s importance to the
agency and the region, vary. The planners see the project as one of the most
important or the most important activity taking place at TRPC. Parkhurst
identifies it as “the top priority” (personal communication, January 15, 2013) and
McCormick says “it makes everything else that TRPC does more effective”
(personal communication, January 18, 2013). Wyrick believes:
It incorporates all the other programs we have. Everything. Everything we
work on has to do with community and region, and sustainability has to do
with community and region. It incorporates our environmental work, our
community outreach work, our small town planning, our water and
transportation work, our GIS work, our mapping, our public information.
68
Sustainability encompasses everything we do, and it brought new ideas to
our table. (personal communication, January 23, 2013)
The elected officials have more diverse opinions about the importance of
Sustainable Thurston and its relationship to other planning programs within
TRPC. Isom believes that “on a scale of one to ten, I would say this is a two or
three right now. It’s a pretty low priority” (personal communication, January 24,
2013). Buxbaum thinks that “relationship wise the work is very important
because I get to talk and connect with other elected and appointed officials on
things of common interest” (personal communication, January 23, 2013).
Valenzuela believes the importance of the project “will depend on the end
product, the plan” (personal communication, January 29, 2013). McVey says that
he thinks Sustainable Thurston is a good fit with other work undertaken by TRPC
saying “this dovetails pretty well. If you do not have sustainability – clean water,
plentiful healthy food, shelter – then there is no reason to have a planning
organization to develop communities” (personal communication, January 16,
2013).
Both the planners and the elected officials see two goals for the project;
providing an opportunity for public discussion about the future of the region and
producing a document to guide development. For Parkhurst, an important goal is
to “get people to the table that need a voice, and ensure that our plan reflects as
much as we can a really broad range of thoughts and ideas in our community”
(personal communication, January 15, 2013). Buxbaum believes that “enhancing
relationships regionally and building a common vocabulary around sustainable
development and regional relationships… is a good goal in and of itself”
(personal communication, January 23, 2013). McCormick agrees and is
optimistic that the process will “define what sustainability means for this region”
(personal communication, January 18, 2013).
McVey hopes that the process results in “a real plan that the communities and
the county can implement, not just a dream document that we are going to put on
a shelf for nice reading. We want to have a realistic, achievable method of
delivering sustainability” (personal communication, January 16, 2013). Ryder
69
agrees, saying that “the best case scenario at the end of the day is that we will
have a product that can look at sustainability from a ground-up approach”
(personal communication, January 22, 1013).
While there is broad agreement on the goals of the project, there is less
concurrence on what the likely outcome of the project will be. The planners
believe that the discussion that have taken place and the relationships forged
through the process will continue beyond the life of the project and the
information accumulated will be used to shape future decisions made at the
county and local levels. Wyrick says that he is “positive we’ll come up with a
product that reflects all the input on the issues, and that we will be able to pull that
into a document that reflects a regional vision” (personal communication, January
23, 2013). McCormick agrees and believes that the outcome will be more than
“just a plan that sits on a shelf, but has an action plan, has some kind of tracking
mechanism and performance measures attached to it” (personal communication,
January 18, 2013).
The elected officials are more cautious about the likely outcome. Ryder says
that “I may be a little jaded, but my feeling is that what this is turning into is a
planning tool that is being set up in a certain way so the end result is more
funding to do some things, and not necessarily solve the problems” (personal
communication, January 22, 2013). Valenzuela agrees, saying that:
The jury is still out because of the troubling conversation we continue to
have at the Sustainable Thurston table. My issue is always this. You can
tell around the table there is vast variation among the participants in
understanding of the problem statement, and I would argue even a lack of
agreement on the problem statement. There is everything from “there is
no problem” to “we are too late to solve this problem” and most of us of
course are somewhere between those two extremes. So, I don’t know
what to hope given the situation. (personal communication, January 29,
2013)
Isom agrees, saying that “I think there are too many divergent ideas and I
don’t think a group that size can ever come to consensus” (personal
70
communication, January 24, 1013). Buxbaum feels that the likely outcome
will be “a large body of information that chronicles the conversations we’ve had
at a leadership level as well as a sampling of perspectives from different factional
interests around the county” and that there may be some spinoff projects to
advance particular issues in the future (personal communication, January 23,
2013). McVey agrees, noting that “some jurisdictions and some communities will
actually pursue sustainability, and some will find it too difficult and they won’t”
(personal communication, January 16, 2013).
The original intention was that the regional sustainable development plan
produced through this process would be used to update the county wide planning
policies (CWPP) and the updated CWPPs would be used by elected officials in
each jurisdiction to update their comprehensive plans and development
regulations. However, none of the elected officials interviewed expressed strong
commitment to implementing the full range of recommendations likely to be
contained in the final plan, though most agreed they would consider the
recommendations and potentially implement those that make sense in their
jurisdiction. Isom says that “I would hope that certain parts of the document are
such that they can be implemented on a local basis” (personal communication,
January 24, 2013) and Buxbaum says that “I see this conversation leading to some
things, its just hard to know what at this point” (personal communication, January
23, 2013).
The Local Food System and Sustainable Thurston
The original Sustainable Thurston grant application did not identify the local
food system as an issue to be included in the planning process. Both the planners
and the elected officials agree that not including the local food system in the
original grant application was a largely due to the structure of the grant program
itself, which emphasized transportation, housing and economic development, and
the short timeline for preparing the application. According to McCormick “this
was a fast process. There was not a huge amount of time to put this whole thing
together” (personal communication, January 18, 2013). Parkurst notes that “it
was not obvious that food could be addressed by this grant funding, and food
71
seemed really big, we didn’t know how to do it and we can’t do everything so we
needed to narrow our focus” (personal communication, January 15, 2013).
Buxbaum agrees that the structure of the grant application itself and the fact that
the program was largely designed by TRPC staff were probably the reasons that
the local food system was not originally included, noting:
I would not say that was a policy maker decision. I think the basic
framework of Sustainable Thurston was primarily driven, from my
observation, by professional planners at TRPC. The framework itself I
think was a logical and reasonable framework, but it was not consciously
driven by policy maker decisions. The framework was very structured and
laid out before the Task Force was really even formed. Some policy
makers may have an illusion that this was a policy maker, leadership
driven structure but I don’t see it that way. (personal communication,
January 23, 2013)
Another reason the local food system was not originally included in
Sustainable Thurston was the fact that it was not an issue that had been previously
discussed by TRPC. Wyrick explains that “it was not a high level discussion with
the policy makers at that time. People talked about preserving agricultural lands,
but there was never a food systems or local food discussion” (personal
communication, January 23, 2013). Ryder believes that the oversight was due to
the fact that “the food thing is something that has been taken for granted”
(personal communication, January 22, 2013). Valenzuela admits that it was an
oversight, noting that there had not been much previous discussion of the topic
and that “I don’t know that the planners who put together this grant know the size
of the carbon footprint attached to the food we all consume everyday” (personal
communication, January 29, 2013).
While the local food system was not originally included in the project,
according to both the planners and elected officials the scope of the project was
expanded to include the local food system shortly after the project began due to
strong public advocacy of the issue. Wyrick says that early in the process “the
community brought it up” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). Parkhurst
72
agrees, saying “we heard from our community. They asked why food was not at
this table” (personal communication, January 15, 2013). Ryder recalls that it was
“a combination of the public saying hey, what about food and hearing what other
sustainability projects were doing” (personal communication, January 22, 2013).
Isom says food was added because “I think there was enough community interest
expressed, or at least a vocal interest” (personal communication, January 24,
2013).
Once identified as an issue of concern and an important part of the
sustainability planning effort, both the planners and elected officials agreed to
include it in the project. Valenzuela says that “I’m proud that neither Mayor
Buxbaum nor I had to argue too strenuously to get food included” (personal
communication, January 29, 2013). McVey adds that when people said “hey, this
is something we need to talk about it was pretty much a consensus to include it”
(personal communication, January 16, 2013). According to Wyrick, the decision
to include the local food system in the project is “a huge product of the
conversation. Citizens may disagree, but that kind of stuff shows that we are
listening, we are trying to incorporate things” (personal communication, January
23, 2013).
Both planners and elected officials agree that the local food system is closely
connected to multiple other issues being addressed in the planning process.
Parkhurst believes “it is an integral part of everything else in the grant. I can’t
think of anything else in the grant its not involved with” (personal
communication, January 15, 2013) and Wyrick says that “I can tie it back to
everything we do” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). According to
Buxbaum “I don’t think there is an element in the plan that I could not find a
concrete, tangible connection to food policy, and I’d be happy to be challenged on
that” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). For Valenzuela, “its not a
complete plan if you are not talking about food. I mean what other thing do
people do every single day that sustains us, that we will die without? I mean
water, ok, but food is so basic” (personal communication, January 29, 2013).
73
While the local food system is being addressed in the planning process, there
is disagreement about its importance relative to other issues. From the planners’
perspective, the original grant program emphasized land use, transportation,
housing and economic development and all of the other issues, including food, are
anchored to these core issues. Parkhurst says that “there was a real focus on land
use and transportation” (personal communication, January 15, 2013) and
McCormick notes that “the economic development piece was key” (personal
communication, January 18, 2013). Ryder also identifies the economic
development piece as “extremely important” (personal communication, January
22, 2013) while Isom says “I’m glad that economic development is at the
forefront because without economic development you have no sustainability”
(personal communication, January 24, 2013). Valenzuela points to housing,
transportation and economic development as key factors to address in
sustainability planning noting that “where we live and the way we get around are
big nuts to crack if we are serious about sustainability and reducing our carbon
footprint” and that one of the reasons for highlighting economic development is
that “what we do as business in our future will be more centered around a
different kind of economy, a green economy” (personal communication, January
29, 2013).
While there are other issues that may be more high-profile or important in the
planning process, most of the interview subjects express recognition that
developing a more sustainable local food system is an important element of
achieving regional sustainability. McCormick calls it a “key piece” of the overall
sustainability plan (personal communication, January 18, 2013) and Parkhurst
notes that in light of climate, economic and cultural changes “we have to figure
out how our children will be able to eat and have healthy food and access to food”
(personal communication, January 15, 2013). McVey links a sustainable local
food system to healthy people, and notes that “healthy people make healthy
communities. If you are not well fed, then you are not going to be as healthy or
productive as you could be, and your ability to have a sustainable community is
74
going to decline” (personal communication, January 16, 2013). Buxbaum
believes that:
How we go about sourcing our food determines a lot of the other patterns
about how we behave and function. Sourcing food determines what kind
of waste streams we create, how we use energy, how healthy we are.
Working and thinking about food systems gives us an opportunity to work
and think about how we function as a community. (personal
communication, January 23, 2013)
There is generally shared agreement that creating a sustainable local food
system is a key piece of a realizing a sustainable community. However, there is
less agreement about what constitutes a sustainable local food system. Isom says
that “I have not given it enough thought to even worry about it” and that “no one
has been able to define for me what a sustainable food system is” (personal
communication, January 24, 2013). For several of the subjects, the concept is
linked to notions of social justice. For Parkhurst “the biggest element is equal
access and justice. No matter what economic strata you are or what area of the
community you live, in I believe it is sustainable only if you have access to
healthy and culturally appropriate foods” (personal communication, January 15,
2013). Ryder says that “we have huge poverty issues when it comes to our
children” and a “huge problem when it comes to hunger in Thurston County” and
indicates that he would like to see more emphasis on growing food at schools
(personal communication, January 22, 2013). Valenzuela argues that “any food
system plan has got to have as part of it the whole notion of equitability and social
justice… it has got to take into account access by people no matter their ability to
pay for it” (personal communication, January 29, 2013).
Other definitions centered around the local production of food. To
McCormick it means “producing as many different products as we can locally and
making those readily available and accessible to people” (personal
communication, January 18, 2013). McVey “would like to see more home-based
food production for personal consumption and sale” and says that recent changes
to development codes in the City of Olympia that encourage more home-based
75
food production are a step in the right direction. He is also concerned about the
loss of agricultural land and the impact of regulations on local beef and dairy
producers (personal communication, January 16, 2013).
For Buxbaum “a truly sustainable food system is one that is regenerative, it is
highly self-reliant and has the basis of sourcing all aspects of the food production
system in a way that is renewable and not self-depleting” (personal
communication, January 23, 2013). Valenzuela indicates that her definition of a
sustainable local food system is still evolving but that:
It does have something to do with all of the concepts we’ve been mulling
over the past 5 years or so. So, eating from within 100 miles of where I
live. Eating within season. Growing either myself, or my neighbors, or
my neighbor farmers growing as much of it as possible. Not relying
heavily on the meat-centered diet as we do, but a much more plant-based
way of eating. (personal communication, January 29, 2013)
In contrast to Valenzuela’s emphasis on food produced in close proximity to
Thurston County, Wyrick is concerned that “sustainability is often confused with
isolation. It is not. We are not going to live on only the food we produce. We
could, but people still want pineapple” (personal communication, January 23,
2013).
Regardless of their definition, almost everyone agrees that achieving a more
sustainable local food system will require deliberate planning aimed at achieving
specific goals and that it is too soon to tell the seriousness and urgency with
which regional leaders and the public will address the issue. McCormick says
that “it will be up to regional leaders and the community to decide what role, or if
there is a role” for TRPC in food planning at the end of Sustainable Thurston
(personal communication, January 18, 2013). McVey says that “unfortunately it
is probably a low priority” for his jurisdiction and TRPC in the future due to
competing demands and finite resources (personal communication, January 16,
2013). Isom sees a limited role for government in food system planning,
primarily in terms of providing “infrastructure – roads – to have the ability to get
food into the area” (personal communication, January 24, 2013).
76
Ryder believes food system planning as critical because “food is a security
issue in my opinion. Its just as important in many ways as our police, our fire, our
other major services” and he notes that climate change “is wiping out crops” and
that “food security and water security are going to become the two biggest issues
that my children are probably going to have to face” (personal communication,
January 22, 2013). Valenzuela says that food system planning is an important
part of land use planning and needs to be made a higher priority because “we
can’t pave the whole place over because we need water and we need food …to
make sure you have a drinking water supply and a food supply you can’t cover
the place in asphalt” (personal communication, January 29, 2013).
There is shared optimism among all but one of the subjects interviewed that
the Sustainable Thurston planning process will help advance a more sustainable
local food system. The lone exception is Isom, who says that he “would be
surprised if it did” (personal communication, January 24, 2013). Reflecting their
focus on planning as a process as well as a product, all of the planners believe this
effort has actually already created a more sustainable local food system.
Parkhurst says “it has raised awareness with policy makers of different voices and
different ways of looking at the food system” (personal communication, January
15, 2013) and Wyrick says “it already has made a difference, with this
discussion” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). Valenzuela believes
that while this process will not be enough to make fundamental change towards a
more sustainable local food system, it is a step in the right direction. She notes
that “Prior to Sustainable Thurston, the conversations about a local food system
were pretty confined to a small number of us in this county. If nothing else we’ve
broadened the conversation” (personal communication, January 29, 2013). Ryder
calls it “a necessary first step” and is “encouraged that we are heading in the right
direction” and hopes that the planning effort will result in the region acquiring
additional resources to “start moving the pendulum” (personal communication,
January 22, 2013).
77
Challenges and Barriers
While there is agreement that Sustainable Thurston has nurtured interest in the
local food system and that the conversations that have taken place so far are
positive steps, both planners and elected officials identify a number of issues and
barriers that will need to be addressed to transition to a more sustainable local
food system. One of the major issues to confront is continued population growth
in the county. The assumption on which the entire planning process rests is that
there will be an additional 170,000 people to feed in Thurston County by the year
2035. None of the planners interviewed raised continued population growth as a
potential barrier to achieving a sustainable community or a more sustainable local
food system. However, for several of the elected officials it was a major or even
the most significant barrier. McVey noted that:
A good community is like a magnet. It causes more people to come
because they like that and you reach a tipping point where you may not be
able to stay sustainable because you become overloaded. How do you
reach a balance and say enough is enough? (personal communication,
January 16, 2013)
For Valenzuela, failure to address the issue of population growth and its
consequences is a significant flaw in the planning process:
This goes back to the question we haven’t confronted yet at the
Sustainable Thurston table, which is the notion of what’s the carrying
capacity of Thurston County? How many people can Thurston County
reasonably support if we are looking to be more locally self-reliant with
food and other things? At some point we have to confront that problem
because otherwise we are stuck with this other paradigm which is the one
called ‘we have to plan for 170,000 more people in Thurston County in the
next thirty years’ and I’m not there. I’m not accepting that as my future.
(personal communication, January 29, 2013)
Both McVey and Valenzuela link population growth and urban development
to the disappearance of agricultural lands. McVey notes that when Black Hills
High School was built “we took some of the best farmland in the county and put
78
asphalt on top of it. If we don’t stop doing that we are not going to be able to
grow the food to support our community” (personal communication, January 16,
2013). Valenzuela is concerned that “we don’t want to be the people who preside
over the loss of our farmland in Thurston County” (personal communication,
January 29, 2013).
Another challenge to advancing a more sustainable local food system through
the Sustainable Thurston process is that the final plan that emerges may be so
broad that it will not set priorities or provide specific focus on the most important
actions needed. Parkhurst is concerned that “we are looking at so many different
things that it will be hard to focus on one thing” and that “we will dabble rather
than be strategic because we want to do everything” (personal communication,
January 15, 2013). Ryder is concerned that the final plan will not address “how
we are going to break down the major barriers that are preventing us from being
sustainable” (personal communication, January 22, 2013). Valenzuela fears that
the plan “will end up trying to be all things to all people” and a “compromise with
that broad spectrum of people who are everywhere from ‘there’s no problem’ to
‘its too late to solve the problem’.” She is also concerned that the white paper
developed for the task force by the Local Food System Panel is:
Not quite what I hoped for. It reflects a lot of what the chair of the food
panel’s concerns are. He’s concerned with a major feeding program in
this county – wonderful – but that’s not the sum total of the things you
mean when you talk about a local food system. (personal communication,
January 29, 2013)
Another barrier identified is the fact most Thurston County residents, like
most Americans, take the food system for granted and believe that as long as there
is food available to purchase at the grocery store then there is no problem. Wyrick
observes that “the food system for the average citizen out there is rarely on the
radar screen” (personal communication, January 23, 2013). McCormick
recognizes the need for food system education and says “we have to start
educating our kids when they are young, and then start educating the parents
through the kids” (personal communication, January 18, 2013). Buxbaum also
79
highlights the need for greater awareness and says it is absolutely critical to get
people to think about food and food systems:
One of the notions in sustainability to me is the issue of intention, that you
need to have a lot more intent behind your actions. One thing we don’t
have much intention about at all is that we don’t think about food, so
guess what, we don’t. (personal communication, January 23, 2013)
Several other subjects also identified lack of public awareness about the food
system as a barrier, and suggested various ideas to increase local residents’
awareness and support for local, sustainable food including buy local campaigns,
supporting farmers’ markets and encouraging more backyard and community
gardens.
Most of the subjects recognize the important role that non-profit advocacy
organizations play in increasing individual awareness about the local food system
and pushing local governments to take action. Valenzuela says “this community
is rocking with non-profits who really get it” and credits much of the success in
elevating the visibility of the local food system within the Sustainable Thurston
process to these groups (personal communication, January 29, 2013). McVey
believes that “they are the ones right now actually making it happen. They are the
people growing the food, who are trying to preserve land, who are trying to get
people interested” (personal communication, January 16, 2013). Buxbaum says
that these groups are “helping people discover how they can be self-reliant and
contribute directly to their own well-being. To me that is embodied in local
sustainable food system practices” (personal communication, January 23, 2013).
Parkhurst says that:
The system works well when government does what they can do and
advocates do what they can do. Governments can do planning, systems,
infrastructure, they can look at policy, but advocates can say things
governments can’t, they can engage and speak for people in a more direct
way, they can challenge government to change what seem like
unchangeable rules and regulations. (personal communication, January 15,
2013)
80
Lack of strong private sector involvement in Sustainable Thurston by local
food retailers, producers and institutional producers is also viewed as barrier to
advancing a more sustainable local food system. Parkhurst notes most of the food
purchased in the county is bought at major grocery stores, but that efforts to
include representatives from these businesses in the process were not very
successful. She wonders “how do we articulate a business case for sustainable
food systems absent the voices of the major food retailers that have been difficult
to get to the table (personal communication, January 15, 2013). Wyrick explains
that “the biggest problem with the private sector is that they are so good at their
jobs, so engaged in the job, its hard to convince them instead of leaving the shop
open they should come to a meeting to discuss a vision with us” (personal
communication, January 23, 2013). Isom believes that “the private sector has the
major role” in creating a sustainable local food system (personal communication,
January 24, 2013). McVey says that “the private sector is the one that is going to
have to make it happen” adding that government should “give them some
flexibility, some incentives” (personal communication, January 16, 2013).
Valenzuela agrees that the private sector “ought to be much more engaged in this
conversation than I currently see them” (personal communication, January 29,
2013). Buxbaum adds that:
Sustainable food systems are profit maximizing in the long run and that its
critical, particularly from a local small business perspective, to invest and
think about ways we can locally source and keep capital revolving locally,
keep profits invested locally. I think all of those things are ways that
private enterprise can more consciously engage in the development of a
sustainable local food system. (personal communication, January 23,
2013)
Valenzuela summarizes the challenge and importance of building a
sustainable local food system, saying:
This is absolutely important and critical work. We are not going to get to
a more sustainable future until we crack this local food system nut. And
it’s the hardest part of the nut to crack… this is so hard. What do we take
81
more for granted then the food we eat and the water that comes out of my
tap? (personal communication, January 29, 2013)
The prospects for “cracking the local food system nut” and the potential for
the Sustainable Thurston planning process to advance Eco Civic agriculture in
Thurston County are the subject of the next and final chapter of this document.
82
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Recommendations
In his acceptance speech to the Swedish parliament after receiving the Right
Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, on December 8,
2000 Wes Jackson observed that “if we don’t get sustainability in agriculture first,
sustainability will not happen” (Jackson, 2001, n.p.). With Jackson’s advice in
mind, it is now time to consider the degree to which we have achieved
agricultural sustainability and whether the Sustainable Thurston planning process
is likely to foster a sustainable local food system based on the practice and
principles of Eco Civic Agriculture.
In recent years it has become increasingly evident that the dominant global
industrial food system is unsustainable in its current form. From an
environmental standpoint the system’s overwhelming dependence on inexpensive,
non-renewable fossil fuels for everything from tilling the soil to global transport
of food products is problematic in an era of declining supplies and increasing
costs. Even without the very real supply and price challenges, the food system’s
major contribution to rising greenhouse gas emissions and global warming must
be addressed as part of any serious climate change management strategy. Both in
the U.S. and across the globe, agricultural water use is outstripping supplies, a
problem likely to be exacerbated by changing precipitation patterns resulting from
climate change. The system’s heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers, pesticides
and herbicides has reduced soil biodiversity and seriously impacted countless
ecosystems. Topsoil loss due to industrial agricultural practices has reached
alarming levels, and nutrient runoff from degraded soils has impacted local
watersheds in agricultural regions and in the US has led to a “dead zone” in the
Gulf of Mexico. Conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses is a
further stress on the system.
From a human and social perspective, the dominant industrial food system has
resulted in nearly a third of the human population going to bed hungry or lacking
access to nutritionally adequate food. Another third of the population suffers
from or is at risk of obesity and diabetes due to overconsumption of calorie rich,
83
nutritionally deficient junk food, artificial sweeteners and excess fats. Even those
who enjoy high levels of food security are increasingly concerned about the safety
of their food supply, the risk of supply-chain disruptions, and the impacts of new
technologies such as genetically modified seeds and crops. Neoliberal trade
policies, the global mobility of capital and corporate consolidation places power
over the food system in the hands of an increasingly small group of vertically and
horizontally integrated global agribusiness enterprises. Lacking meaningful
connection or commitment to specific locations or communities, these
agribusiness giants often fail to consider the impacts of their business decisions on
individuals or on existing, place-based human relationships. Jackson (1996)
summarizes this final concern saying “the forces of power, particularly corporate
power, are impatient with what is adequate for a coherent community. Because
power gains so little from community in the short run, it does not hesitate to
destroy community in the long run” (p. 115).
Various alternative frameworks, including community food security, food
sovereignty, agroecology and civic agriculture, have emerged in opposition to the
dominant global food regime and with the goal of promoting greater social and
environmental sustainability. Each of these alternative approaches has its
strengths, yet in the end each is lacking is some critical element that would
achieve true food system sustainability. The framework I have proposed, Eco
Civic Agriculture, combines the best elements of these emerging alternative food
system models and presents them in a way that is culturally acceptable in the U.S.
and likely to engender popular and political support. As such, it holds radical
potential to reshape agriculture and food systems in ways that are consistent with
environmental realities, ecological processes and community-based democratic
renewal.
However, for Eco Civic Agriculture to realize its potential, it needs to be
developed and practiced in local communities within the context of existing
landscapes, institutional and individual relationships, and political and economic
systems. Local and regional planning agencies like the Thurston Regional
Planning Council (TRPC) exist at the intersection of these and other factors and
84
as such are uniquely positioned to either help or hinder the realization of Eco
Civic Agriculture. TRPC’s current effort at sustainability planning, Sustainable
Thurston, provides a unique case study to consider the degree to which regional
sustainability planning can help advance Eco Civic Agriculture. The lessons to be
learned from this case study provide important insights into the future prospects
of Eco Civic Agriculture in Thurston County, Washington.
Sustainable Thurston represents the first time that all of the jurisdictions
within Thurston County have come together to discuss potential future
development of the county within the context of the larger issues of
environmental, social and economic sustainability. Building on decades of
coordinated planning efforts within the county, Sustainable Thurston has for the
first time forced policymakers and the public to think about the various elements
that contribute to a sustainable community, the relationships between the elements
and the actions needed to move the needle in the right direction. This in and of
itself is a significant step, and as noted by several of the individuals interviewed
for this research, the conversations that have taken place and the relationships that
have developed through the planning process are likely to continue beyond the
three year life of Sustainable Thurston. Eco Civic Agriculture rests on a high
level of popular and political engagement and the connections forged through
Sustainable Thurston are a strong foundation for advancing Eco Civic
Agriculture.
Sustainable Thurston has reinforced the recognition that compartmentalized
planning based on arbitrary political boundaries is unlikely to lead to more
sustainable outcomes, mirroring the argument by Brunckhorst (2002) that
institutional realignment is necessary to achieve sustainable management of
agricultural and other natural systems. The planning process has also bolstered
the notion that all of the residents of the county share what Kloppenberg,
Hendrickson & Stevenson (1996) call a foodshed, from rural farmers to urban
eaters, and it has opened the potential of forging new rural/urban alliances to
strengthen the local food system. Kemmis (1990) believes such alliances are
critical to rebuilding fractured community identities and reasserting a
85
community’s control over its future, noting that “a politics of inhabitation may
well be one in which cities and their hinterlands, together, are understood as a
basic political unit” (p. 123). Continued regional coordination efforts will
certainly be necessary help advance Eco Civic Agriculture in the county.
It is also clear from this research that planning is a necessary but insufficient
step towards realizing a more sustainable community and a more sustainable local
food system. The best laid plans resting on the most noble assumptions will make
no difference if they are never implemented. TRPC is a regional planning agency,
not a regional government, and as such it cannot force implementation of the
sustainability plan that emerges from the planning process. At this point it appears
that there is no strong shared commitment among regional policymakers to
implement the final plan developed through Sustainable Thurston. As a group the
elected officials interviewed do not feel strong ownership of the project, which
they see as largely driven by the professional planning staff at TRPC. The staff
considers the project extremely important, while the level of importance varies
greatly among the elected officials. It appears likely that some elements of the
final sustainability plan will be implemented in some jurisdictions, but that this
process will take years to trickle through the system as the sustainability plan is
used to revise the county wide planning policies, which will then be used to revise
local comprehensive plans, which in turn will trigger code and law changes and
eventually, potentially, visible differences in the community. All of this is
complicated by the fact that at this point there are no specific sources of funding
identified for actually implementing the final sustainability plan.
One of the concerns shared by both planners and elected officials is that that
the plan that emerges from this process will not establish clear priorities and next
steps and will be so vague as too be virtually meaningless, echoing DeLind (2010)
who cites Dahlberg’s warning that “only the language, but little of the substance
of sustainability will be adopted” (p.275).
The future vision that is emerging through the planning process rests on the
assumption that in 2035 the Thurston County region will look and function mostly
like it does today – most people driving unsustainable cars to homes in
86
unsustainable subdivisions, purchasing unsustainable products (including food)
from unsustainable big box retailers at the tail end of unsustainable global supply
chains – but that there will also be a thin veneer of sustainability in the form of
more access to local food, more buses, more vibrant city centers and reduced per
capita use of energy and water.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Sustainable Thurston in terms of its ability
to help realize a more sustainable future and food system is the underlying
planning assumption that there will be an additional 170,000 living in Thurston
County by the year 2035. None of the planners interviewed identified continued
population growth as a serious challenge to sustainability, and only two of the
elected officials raised this issue or the related issue of the actual carrying
capacity of local food, water or other systems. Meanwhile population growth and
carrying capacity are issues that have been repeatedly raised by members of the
public who have participated in the planning process. Without seriously
questioning the desirability of continued population growth, the plan that emerges
from the process is likely to include only recommendations to accommodate the
growth with less adverse impacts rather than discourage it, hence undermining
sustainability objectives.
Adequate land to ensure commercial and personal food production is a key
element of Eco Civic Agriculture, and continued population growth poses a
significant challenge. Under the most optimistic sustainable development
scenario being considered the county is still expected to lose nearly a fifth of its
remaining farmland by 2035, and under less “sustainable” scenarios it could lose
nearly one third of the remaining farmland. In addition, accommodating a large
population increase within the bounds of the existing urban growth areas, as
required by the Growth Management Act, will result in smaller lots and denser
neighborhoods, making it challenging for backyard and community gardeners to
find space, particularly space with sufficient solar access, to pursue some measure
of food self-sufficiency. Citizens and elected officials must immediately begin
aggressive efforts to protect farmland and preserve places for urban food
production if the region is to develop a robust system of Eco Civic Agriculture.
87
The fact that the local food system is even being considered in the Sustainable
Thurston planning process marks a positive departure from previous planning
efforts in the county and mirrors the planning field’s growing recognition of the
importance of local food systems. For the first time ever, regional policymakers
and the public are actively discussing food and agricultural issues in a coordinated
and integrated way and with a sustainability focus. The inclusion of the food
system in the process is a testament to the effectiveness of citizens, planners and
policymakers who pushed to add the topic to the agenda after it was not originally
included in scope of the project. This also demonstrates the vitality of civic
engagement and the importance placed on democratic participation by local
elected officials and institutions, key elements for advancing Eco Civic
Agriculture in the region.
While there is a shared sense that the local food system is a key piece of the
sustainability puzzle, it has yet to be placed on the same tier as more traditional
planning elements such as transportation, economic development and housing,
and policymakers disagree about whether it should receive equal footing. There
are also serious questions about the degree to which regional policymakers are
prepared to take specific actions and make tough political choices to strengthen
the local food system in ways that would support the growth of Eco Civic
Agriculture.
To date, there is no clear agreement or definition for what constitutes a
sustainable local food system. Planners and policymakers interviewed for this
research identified a range of issues that are part of a sustainable local food
system including social justice concerns, strengthening community and multigenerational connections, preserving agricultural land, encouraging home based
production and promoting economic development. Each of these are elements of
Eco Civic Agriculture, so it would appear that using Eco Civic Agriculture as a
framework for defining a sustainable local food system in Thurston County has
significant potential.
Many of the individuals interviewed expressed concern that most people are
ignorant about the food system and that there is a need for broad public education
88
in order to develop a more mindful and food literate public. Francis, Leiblein,
Steinsholt, Breland, Helenius, Sriskandarajah & Salomonsson (2003) also stress
the importance of educating citizens and consumers about the realities of food
production as a pre-requisite for changing the system. Developing and
implementing food system education programs is essential for creating a sense of
food citizenship and is another key element of Eco Civic Agriculture.
One of the most surprising findings from this research was the almost total
lack of attention paid to sustainable agricultural practices, particularly in regards
to designing and operating agricultural systems based on agroecological
principles. While one of the policymakers interviewed did mention the need for
farming systems that were regenerative, and there are vague references to organic
practices, soil fertility and minimizing waste in the Food Panel white paper, there
is no clear focus on the need for food production and farming to work within the
bounds of ecological cycles and natural processes. Eco Civic Agriculture is
grounded in the principles of agroecology, and if Eco Civic Agriculture is to gain
traction in Thurston County far greater emphasis will need to be directed in this
area. Lacking a strong agroecological basis, no local food system can rightly be
considered sustainable in the long term.
Much like the assumption discussed above that Thurston County in 2035 will
look more or less like Thurston County in 2013, an underlying assumption for the
future of the local food system is that it too will look much the same in the future
and that most people will continue to acquire the majority of their food from
national food retailers located throughout the county. This was a theme that came
up repeatedly during the Food Panel’s discussion and during the research
interviews. This shared assumption about the continued prominence of a handful
of large national food retailers, in many ways the most visible manifestation of the
dysfunctional global industrial food system, shows the near universal acceptance
of global corporate capitalism, the private sector as a mediator between producers
and consumers and the belief that food should remain a market driven
commodity. As such, the earnest hopes of many Sustainable Thurston
participants for encouraging more direct connections between local producers and
89
consumers might be seen as little more than a slight softening around the jagged
edges of the entrenched corporate food system, and a significant challenge to
developing a culture grounded in Eco Civic Agriculture.
If the majority of the food consumed in Thurston County continues to come
from outside the county or region, while agricultural products from Thurston
County are exported before the needs of the local population are met, it will be
hard to call the system sustainable, and it will certainly be disconnected from the
principles of Eco Civic Agriculture. For the foreseeable future local and regional
food systems will continue to exist as junior partners in relationship to the
dominant industrial food system. However, the goal of any community intent on
reclaiming control over its food future should be to prioritize and empower local
food producers and citizens while at the same time actively seeking ways to
disconnect itself and wrest power from the dysfunctional industrial food system.
In the end perhaps the most disappointing realization from this research is that
most of the key participants in Sustainable Thurston fail to see the larger
ecological, political and economic context in which efforts to foster a sustainable
local food system reside.
Sustainable Thurston opened a broad conversation about the future of the
local food system that had previously not existed, and TRPC has an important role
to play in continuing to facilitate dialogue after the end of the project if they
choose to do so. The policymakers who serve on TRPC and the Sustainable
Thurston Task Force have equally important roles to play in ensuring that local
food system issues continue to have a seat at the table in future regional and
jurisdictional planning discussions. While food system planning remains a low
priority for most jurisdictions, local policymakers must realize and be
continuously cognizant of the fact that their policies and actions will either help or
hinder the realization of a sustainable local food system based on the framework
of Eco Civic Agriculture.
If the community is to realize the transformative power of Eco Civic
Agriculture, leadership must also come from the bottom up. Individuals, working
through one of the many committed advocacy organizations in Thurston County,
90
have the opportunity to lead the way by educating themselves and their neighbors,
practicing conscious food consumerism, becoming informed and engaged food
citizens, forming coalitions, developing strategic action plans and exerting the
political power needed to catalyze structural change.
Wendell Berry (2009) reminds us that food systems and agriculture “must
mediate between nature and the human community, with ties and obligations in
both directions” (p. 96). Eco Civic Agriculture is uniquely positioned at the
intersection of nature and community, and recognizes and values the ties and
obligations to each. Sustainable Thurston has provided an opening for the
development of a sustainable local food system built on the principles of Eco
Civic Agriculture. The individual and collective actions of the region’s citizens
and elected officials in the coming years will determine the degree to which this
opening serves as a catalyst for change and, ultimately, the degree to which the
citizens of the region can rightfully assert that they live in a sustainable
community.
91
References
Abrams, A. Planning for food systems in Oregon. Oregon Planner’s Journal,
(September/October 2009), 3–6.
Alkon, A., & Mares, T. (2012). Food sovereignty in US food movements: radical
visions and neoliberal constraints. Agriculture and Human Values, 29(3),
347–359.
Anderson, M. D., & Cook, J. T. (1999). Community food security: Practice in
need of theory? Agriculture and Human Values, 16(2), 141–150.
Badgley, C., Moghtader, J., Quintero, E., Zakem, E., Chappell, M. J., AvilésVázquez, K., … Perfecto, I. (2007). Organic agriculture and the global
food supply. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 22(02), 86–108.
Berry, W. (1977). The unsettling of America: Culture & agriculture. San
Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books.
Berry, W. (2009). Bringing it to the table: On farming and food. Counterpoint.
Born, B., & Purcell, M. (2006). Avoiding the local trap: Scale and food systems in
planning research. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(2),
195–207.
Brunckhorst, D., Coop, P., & Reeve, I. (2006). “Eco-civic” optimisation: A nested
framework for planning and managing landscapes. Landscape and Urban
Planning, 75(3–4), 265–281.
Brunckhorst, D. J. (2002). Institutions to sustain ecological and social systems.
Ecological Management & Restoration, 3(2), 108–116.
Campbell, M. C. (2004). Building a common table: The role for planning in
community food systems. Journal of Planning Education and Research,
23(4), 341–355.
Clancy, K. (2012). Issues of scale. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and
Community Development, 3(1), 21–23.
Colassanti, K., Wright, W., & Reau, B. (2009). Extension, the land-grant mission,
and civic agriculture: Cultivating change. Journal of Extension, 47(4), 1–
10.
Conklin, P. K. (2008). A Revolution down on the farm: The transformation of
American agriculture since 1929. Lexington, Ky: The University Press of
Kentucky.
Crooks, D. (2000). The farming outstations of Fort Nisqually. Presented at the
Colloquium 2000, The Center for Rupert’s Land Studies, University of
Winnipeg.
Crooks, D. (2011, October 4). The agricultural history of Thurston County.
Presented to the Ecological Agriculture Program, The Evergreen State
College, Olympia, WA.
DeLind, L. B. (2002). Place, work, and civic agriculture: Common fields for
cultivation. Agriculture and Human Values, 19(3), 217–224.
DeLind, L. B. (2010). Are local food and the local food movement taking us
where we want to go? Or are we hitching our wagons to the wrong stars?
Agriculture and Human Values, 28(2), 273–283.
Delind, L. B., & Bingen, J. (2007). Place and civic culture: Re-thinking the
92
context for local agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics, 21(2), 127–151.
Dodds, G. B. (1986). The American northwest: A history of Oregon and
Washington. Arlington Heights, IL: Forum Press.
Donlon, D. (2013, January 13). The agricultural fulcrum: Better food, better
climate. The Atlantic Magazine. Retrieved from
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/the-agriculturalfulcrum-better-food-better-climate/267298/#.UQwNx8eFkyc.email
Dooley, D. (1984). Social research methods. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
Dougherty, P. (2006, November 15). Thurston County - thumbnail history.
Retrieved from http://www.historylink.org.
Dumas, C. R. (2013, February 2013). U.S. land in farms shrinks 3 million acres in
2012. Capital Press.
DuPuis, E. M., & Goodman, D. (2005). Should we go “home” to eat?: Toward a
reflexive politics of localism. Journal of Rural Studies, 21(3), 359–371.
Estabrook, B. (2011). Tomatoland: How modern industrial agriculture destroyed
our most alluring fruit. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Fisher, J., & Mitchell, L. (2009). Thurston County farmland inventory: Summary
report to the Bullitt Foundation. South of the Sound Community Farmland
Trust. Olympia, WA.
Food and Water Watch. (2012). The economic cost of food monopolies (p. 55).
Washington , DC: Food and Water Watch.
Francis, C., Lieblein, G., Gliessman, S., Breland, T. A., Creamer, N., Harwood,
R., … Poincelot, R. (2003). Agroecology: The ecology of food systems.
Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 22(3), 99–118.
Francis, Charles, Lieblein, G., Steinsholt, H., Breland, T. A., Helenius, J.,
Sriskandarajah, N., & Salomonsson, L. (2005). Food systems and
environment: Building positive rural-urban linkages. Human Ecology
Review, 12(1), 60–71.
Gliessman, S. R. (2007). Agroecology: The ecology of sustainable food systems.
Boca Raton, Fl: CRC Press.
Gliessman, S. R. (2012, February 1). Agroeology. Lecture to TESC Ecological
Agriculture program, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of
embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510.
Growth Management Act. Revised Code of Washington (1990).
Guthman, J. (2004). Agrarian dreams: The paradox of organic farming in
California. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Halweil, B., & Worldwatch Institute. (2002). Home grown: the case for local food
in a global market. Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute.
Hamm, M. W., & Bellows, A. C. (2003). Community food security and nutrition
educators. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 35(1), 37–43.
Hatfield, M. M. (2012). City food policy and programs: lessons harvested from an
emerging field. Portland, OR: City of Portland, Oregon Bureau of
Planning and Sustainability.
93
Henderson, E. (1998). Rebuilding local food systems from the grassroots up.
Monthly Review, 50(3), 112–124.
Hewitt, B. (2011). The town that food saved: How one community found vitality in
local food. New York, NY: Rodale Books.
Hinrichs, C. C. (2003). The practice and politics of food system localization.
Journal of Rural Studies, 19(1), 33–45.
Hodgson, K. (2012). Planning for food access and community-based food
systems: A national scan and evaluation of local comprehensive and
sustainability plans. American Planning Association.
Holt-Gimenez, E. (Ed.). (2011). Food movements unite!: Strategies to transform
our food system. Oakland, CA: Food First Books.
Ikerd, J. (2001). Reconnecting consumers and farmers in the food system.
Presented at Reconnecting Consumers and Farmers, Columbus, OH.
Imhoff, D. (2012). Food fight: The citizen’s guide to next the food and farm bill.
Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media.
Jackson, W. (1996). Becoming native to this place. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint.
Jackson, W. (2001). Food in the coming century: Right livelihood awards. The
Land Report, (69).
Jensen, J. (2010). Local and regional food systems for rural futures (No. 1). Rural
Policy Research Institute.
Katz, S. (2013, April 11). Fermentation: Coevolution, culture & community. The
Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA.
Kaufman, F. (2010, July). The food bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and
got away with it. Harper’s, 27–34.
Kemmis, D. (1990). Community and the politics of place. Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press.
Kloppenburg, J., Hendrickson, J., & Stevenson, G. W. (1996). Coming in to the
foodshed. Agriculture and Human Values, 13(3), 33–42.
Lacy, W. B. (2000). Empowering communities through public work, science, and
local food systems: Revisiting democracy and globalization. Rural
Sociology, 65(1), 3–26.
Ladner, P. (2011). The urban food revolution: Changing the way we feed cities.
Gabriola Island, B.C: New Society Publishers.
Lang, T. (2009). Reshaping the food system for ecological public health. Journal
of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 4(3-4), 315–335.
Lyson, T. A. (2004). Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting farm, food, and community.
Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.
Maeder, P., Fliessbach, A., Dubois, D., Gunst, L., Fried, P., & Niggli, U. (2002).
Soil fertility and biodiversity in organic farming. Science, 296(5573),
1694–1697.
Manheim, H. L. (1977). Sociological research: Philosophy and methods.
Belmont, CA: Dorsey Press.
Manheim, J. B., Rich, R. C., Willnat, L., & Brians, C. L. (2008). Empirical
political analysis: Quantitative and qualitative research methods. New
York, NY: Pearson/Longman.
94
Montgomery, D. R. (2007). Dirt: The erosion of civilizations (1st ed.). Berkeley
and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Murphy, D. J., & Hall, C. A. S. (2011). Energy return on investment, peak oil, and
the end of economic growth. Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences, 1219(1), 52–72.
Murphy, E. (2008). Plan C: Community survival strategies for peak oil and
climate change. Gabriola Island, B.C: New Society Publishers.
Norberg-Hodge, H., & International Society for Ecology and Culture. (2001).
From the ground up: rethinking industrial agriculture (2nd rev. ed.). New
York, NY: Zed Books in association with International Society for
Ecology and Culture : Distributed in the USA by Palgrave.
Nordahl, D. (2009). Public produce: The new urban agriculture. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
Pothukuchi, K., & Kaufman, J. L. (1999). Placing the food system on the urban
agenda: The role of municipal institutions in food systems planning.
Agriculture and Human Values, 16(2), 213–224.
Pothukuchi, K., & Kaufman, J. L. (2000). The food system: A stranger to the
planning field. Journal of the American Planning Association, 66(2), 113–
124.
Pretty, J. (2010). Can ecological agriculture feed nine billion people? Monthly
Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, 61(6), 46.
Regional Planning Commissions Act. , Revised Code of Washington (1963).
Roberts, P. (2008). The end of food. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.
Rogers, H. (2010). Green gone wrong: How our economy is undermining the
environmental revolution. New York, NY: Scribner.
Ross, N. J. (2006). How civic is it? Success stories in locally focused agriculture
in Maine. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 21(02), 114–123.
Sage, C. (2001). Embeddedness and the geography of regard: Good (agro-)food
networks in south west Ireland. Presented at the International Perspectives
on Alternative Agro-Food Networks: Quality, Embeddedness, BioPolitics, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Samina, R., Born, B., & Russell, J. (2010). A planners guide to community and
regional food planning: Transforming food environments, facilitating
healthy eating. American Planning Association (Planners Press).
Selfa, T., & Qazi, J. (2005). Place, taste, or face-to-face? Understanding
producer–consumer networks in “local” food systems in Washington state.
Agriculture and Human Values, 22(4), 451–464.
South of the Sound Community Farmland Trust. (2013). South Sound direct sales
farm map. Olympia, WA: South of the Sound Community Farmland Trust.
Stokstad, E. (2008, March 14). Dueling visions for a hungry world. Science, 319,
1474–1476.
Swanson, L. (2001). Rural policy and direct local participation: Democracy,
inclusiveness, collective agency and locality based policy. Rural
Sociology, 66(1), 1–21.
Thurston County. (2010). Thurston County working lands strategic plan.
Olympia, WA: Thurston County.
95
Thurston County Advanced Planning and Historic Preservation. (1994).
Agriculture in Thurston County. Olympia, WA: Thurston Regional
Planning Council.
Thurston County Agriculture Committee. (1978). Agriculture in Thurston County:
A citizens report. Olympia, WA.
Thurston County Food Bank. (2011). A look at hunger in Thurston County.
Olympia, WA: Thurston County Food Bank.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (2012a). Food system panel draft white
paper. Olympia, WA: Thurston Regional Planning Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (2012b). The profile. Olympia, WA:
Thurston Regional Planning Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (2012c, December 2). Thurston Regional
Planning Council 2012 work program and funding. Olympia, WA:
Thurston Regional Planning Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (2013a). Local food systems. Olympia, WA:
Thurston Regional Planning Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (2013b). Draft local food systems
visions/challenges/strategies. Olympia, WA: Thurston Regional Planning
Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (2013c). Sustainable Thurston draft
scenarios and indicators. Olympia, WA: Thurston Regional Planning
Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (n.d.-a). Budget breakdown - Sustainable
Thurston. Olympia, WA: Thurston Regional Planning Council.
Thurston Regional Planning Council. (n.d.-b). Proposal for regional plan for
sustainable development, Thurston County, WA. Olympia, WA: Thurston
Regional Planning Council.
United States Census Bureau. (1995, October). Urban and rural population: 1900
to 1990. Washington D.C.: United States Census Bureau.
United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service. (1990). Soil
survey of Thurston County, Washington . United States Department of
Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service.
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. (n.d.). Sustainable
communities regional planning grants. Retrieved from
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/sustainable_c
ommunities_regional_planningh_grants
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development). (2010, October
14). HUD awards nearly $100 Million in new grants to promote smarter
and more sustainable planning for jobs and economic growth.
Walthall, C. L., Hatfield, J., Backlund, P., Lengnick, L., Marshall, E., & Walsh,
M. (2013). Climate change and agriculture in the United States: Effects
and adaptation (Technical Bulletin No. 1935). Washington , DC: United
States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Climate
Change Office.
96
Washington State Department of Agriculture. (1956). Thurston County
agriculture. Seattle, WA: Washington State Department of Agriculture,
Crop and Livestock Reporting Service.
Washington State Department of Ecology. (2012). Preparing for a changing
climate: Washington state’s integrated climate response strategy (No. 1201-004). Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Ecology.
Washington State University Extension. (2006). Agriculture in Thurston County,
Washington: Trends, needs and implications for Washington State
University Extension. Washington State University.
Winters, M. (2003). Embeddedness, the new food economy and defensive
localism. Journal of Rural Studies, 19(1), 23–32.
Wright, C. K., & Wimberly, M. C. (2013). Recent land use change in the western
corn belt threatens grasslands and wetlands. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Science, 1-6.
97
98
