A new world order

This 2024, what we thought we would only see in a futuristic movie is now here. And it is a mere five years until 2030, when we should have solved the challenges brought about by climate change. Yes, we must all think of 2030 like we thought of the year 2000 or the big scare of the millennium bug. Days before the clock struck midnight announcing the year 2000, we thought our computers would die, or something would explode somewhere near us.

Notice how we have accepted or started to accept many changes in our lifestyle since the pandemic caused lockdowns. We now find it oh so normal to not carry cash, and instead pay with e-wallets. We also now have to go online for almost anything that we need: ordering food, paying for services, booking a doctor’s appointment, among many others.

The pandemic period 2020-2022, almost three years in total, taught us many new things to embrace and to learn to do despite our resistance to change. The pandemic changed us and changed how consumers behave, changed how we react to disease and changed even the way people work or play. Do you agree?

Now that a new year is upon us, it may be worthwhile to sit down and reflect, think about what we still cannot accept as reality and go with the flow so our lifestyles may not be restricted. We need to think about what we cannot change anymore and just move on to the next year with ease.

At the end of 2023 I met a few people who made me realize further that habits must change if we are to leave a greener planet to the next generations. At 37 years of age, this professor, lecturer and practitioner of organic agriculture shared with us how he has embraced teaching about Nature. While he wanted to be a barista in his college years, one thing led to another, which brought him to the agriculture path until he finally went on to get a Doctorate in Permaculture Design and Sustainability. Yes, at this age below 40 he can create change, positive change, among his peers and everyone younger in his school.

But it does not stop there. He also became a master at Drone Technology and is using this new way, not for vlogging or taking beautiful wedding photos, but to “see” Nature improve as man repairs what man has destroyed.

Dr. Jabez Flores is an example of youth embracing the new world order to create positive changes in people’s habits, such as farming organic vegetables and consuming only safe and better food. He is in charge of the Permaculture garden in UP Open University campus in Los Baños, Laguna where he can show the examples of working with Nature for a better tomorrow.

Another impressive person I met accidentally is Maurizio Mariani, a multi- talented consultant for logistics, food literacy and nutrition. He states that children in school are the citizens of tomorrow and must be fed well so they can be better thinkers, while college students are the leaders of tomorrow and must be gathered to spread one gospel: eat well so we can think well.

And both age groups must be taught Food Literacy. Many of us grow old being illiterate about food. We are not aware that there are only two poisons in our food: sugar and salt. We use so much of these two ingredients today to make up for the lack of taste in industrialized food or food produced in plants and not from plants. In the past, we used herbs to flavor food instead of salt and/or sugar. But modern day food production starts with a fertilizer-laden plant that lacks nutrients, so we make up for it by heavy processing so it can still have some taste.

Maurizio further correlates industrial food production with health issues. They follow the same line – as one increases, so does the other. It is because we have little choices in food available for sale, as many farmers have stopped planting on small scale and big producers replace these lost small farmers with mono-cropping food production. Mono-cropping produces food lacking in nutrients which then become processed to simulate what Nature can give naturally, albeit with salt and sugar.

The bigger part of food cost is logistics and he knows what he speaks of, because he has been in the logistics business, transporting food from different countries to one place. Even processed food must be made in a plant which then requires distribution – so we are in fact paying for distribution rather than paying the farmer for what he has done to produce good food. Do we get it? Over 30 percent of what we pay for tomatoes or vegetables does not go to the farmer – it goes to the distribution system. The farther the source, the more we pay for the logistics, and not for the food itself.

Meeting these two gentlemen over two days made me think about what the New Year brings – there is hope but we must strive to learn more about food production and food consumption. The shorter the line between the two, the healthier we can be, and the better we can address new health issues of the future.

Responsible food consumption and production starts with education. If we know where our food comes from, we can start to make changes in how it comes to our plates. We can buy local, buy fresh and generally change the way we shop for food. We want farmers to thrive as they produce food for us to carry on with life.

This New Year, let us eat better by buying wiser and better. And asking – where does my food come from?