Essays from West of 98: Food, Food, Everywhere
“Water, water, everywhere
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
--The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
It is a haunting and powerful image, that of a sailor dying of thirst while surrounded by the water of an endless sea. Over the years, this famed lyric from 18th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge has become a metaphor to describe the feeling of being surrounded by something useful from which you cannot benefit at all.
To anyone who understands the distinction between fresh water and saltwater, it is easy to understand the plight of the mariner. We have many “wants” in our lives, but only a few true “needs.” We might whine and complain, but we will absolutely survive if were robbed of access to smartphones, automobiles, or sports (yes, even football in Texas). On the other hand, we will absolutely die without food, water, and clothing and shelter that protects us from the harsh elements of nature.
This is why Wendell Berry describes food, clothing, and shelter (water being included as part of “food”) as the “fundamental economic provision” about which a community should concern itself economically. If we can supply ourselves with the true necessities, we can prosper no matter what else happens in the world. If we prosper from the luxuries that might evaporate in an instant but depend on others for our fundamental economic provision, then our prosperity is wholly out of our own control. The shortages of the COVID pandemic were challenging enough. As a rural leader, I will not stand for my community’s fate to be wholly out of our control.
Recently, I was thinking about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner (don’t ask how my brain works, it’s safer that way) and it struck me as a metaphor for the accessibility of food in rural America. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, just about 2% of the American labor force works in production agriculture (farming, ranching, forestry, and fishing). Those jobs are heavily weighted towards the rural population and about 14% of Americans live in rural communities. So the folks producing the food should have the most access to food, right?
Right?
Wrong.
In 2021, the USDA-ERS estimated that 10.2% of American households were food insecure. In layman’s terms, “food insecure” means a person is not consistently confident in the source of their next meal. Years of research shows that food insecurity is associated with chronic disease, poor health, and poorer outcomes in learning, productivity, mental health, physical health, and family life. Food is one of the few true necessities in life, so when you don’t know the source of your next meal, it tends to be a problem that cascades through the rest of life. Ever gotten hungry in the middle of the day and have it destroy your ability to concentrate on whatever task is at hand? Imagine that as a constant, nagging feeling. How well would you perform at school, at work, at home, or in the community?
Despite being the powerhouse that feeds America and ostensibly “feeds the world” (as championed by our old nemesis Earl Butz), 10.8% of the rural population in America was food insecure in 2021. That number dipped slightly from 2020, but the baseline has been the same for many years: rural Americans actually struggle to feed themselves at a higher rate than America at large. We are asked to feed the world, but we are struggling to even feed ourselves.
Food, food, everywhere, and for rural America, not enough to eat. That is unacceptable.
Next week: some people who are harnessing the forces of the food system to feed their own.
📷: Gustave Doré’s wood engraving from the original poem (public domain)
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.