A Consumer’s Guide to Sustainable Food Choices

FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE WITH FOOD
This series is a collaboration between Goya & Greenpeace. Writers, researchers and activists explore what sustainability looks like out in the field, and as an extension, in your kitchen. From seed libraries and their importance in the face of climate change, to how the cultivation of ragi is woven into the needs of soil, livestock and nutrition; finding alternative uses for spent grain in the microbrewery capital of India, and offering insight into building your own toolkit for gauging sustainability, this series offers a slice of what sustainable, organic agriculture and consumption in India looks like today.

To learn more on sustainability, organic farming and the impact-driven work of Greenpeace in the field, click here.

Shivani Unakar writes about cutting through the noise and developing a tool kit to help consumers navigate the many choices they face when it comes to food and its impact on the planet.

In conversations about eating better, we often get caught up searching for labels like organic, fair trade, preservative-free, artisanal, and so on–and let’s be honest, there is no shortage of content in the world telling us what is and isn’t good for our bodies and the planet. But rarely is this jargon explained and broken down for the layman. Neither is there a clear indication of whether these labels truly translate to more ecological, economic, and equitable food systems on the ground.

This led to me wonder whether it would be more effective to ask the right questions to the right people, rather than blindly following influential speakers and food trends. I began at the grassroots, speaking to people at producer organisations working towards strengthening the food system at its base. I felt if I understood what mattered most in the field, I could choose how to act, as the next link in the chain. I had a lot of questions to ask. Here are some that gave me perspective.

Visiting with primary producers
(image credit: Shivani Unakar)

Is My Food Organic?

“This is a yes or no question, it will give you a very superficial understanding of your food,” says Chef Thomas Zacharias, whose new platform The Locavore aims to help consumers connect with producers doing important work towards a better food system.

Everyone I spoke to pointed out the growing need to be weary of greenwashing, the process of providing misleading information or making unsubstantiated claims about how a company's products are more environmentally sound than they may in fact be.

Labels like organic are no longer enough of a promise of good, sustainable agricultural practices. “We already see the benefits of organic farming being disproved in the US,” Chef Thomas continues, “where large corporations operate huge monocrop organic farms.” While the avoidance of chemical inputs may be beneficial, monocropping, or growing just one crop on large tracts of land is still extremely taxing on the soil and environment, making the whole process effectively counterproductive.

The labels of organic certification we typically see on our food products are most often external or third-party certifications, in which you pay a fee to a private, national or international certifying body, explains Manisha Kairaly, a food activist, who has worked extensively in the spheres of agrobiodiversity, circular economies and regenerative design. “The certifying body sends someone in a lab coat to collect samples from the land and test it for chemical inputs.” Apart from the high costs of such certification it also entirely excludes the innate understanding and traditional knowledge used by the farmer on the land, reducing it to mere lab reports. She explains that many farmer groups are now using a method of organic certification known as the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), in which farmers using organic methods will vouch for their peers’ best practices, forming a system of collective accountability. For over fifteen years Manisha has worked with Timbaktu Organics, a farmers’ cooperative in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, that has been using PGS.

“In many cases organic certification is a corporate maneuver to validate charging a premium for basic food products,” says Shailesh Awate, founder of OOO Farms. Through this organisation, he works with marginalised tribal farmers across the country, helping them revert to the cultivation of heirloom seeds and native varieties of crops, to mitigate the ecological and economic impact of the growing climate crisis. He explains that many farmers in India may be organic by default, simply because they can’t afford expensive chemical inputs, and instead rely solely on biomass from livestock dung or mulching from threshed remains of their crops to fortify their fields. “How can we expect them to afford getting certified? Just because they don’t have the stamp doesn’t mean their product isn’t organic,” he adds.

Millet Diversity of Maharashtra at the OOO Farms Rice Festival in Mumbai
(Image Credit: Shivani Unakar)

What Inputs Go Into Growing My Food?

Shailesh’s example illustrates that this one may be a more effective question to ask, revealing much more about the realities of our farming practices and what goes into them.

But to go a step further, we may consider one of the more basic inputs of agriculture: water. And the need for and access to irrigation can vary greatly across agricultural regions in India.

In the Sahyadri hills of Maharashta, one of the regions where Shailesh works, flowing fresh water is not easily available. Here, he focuses on reviving the cultivation of native crops that were primarily rain and moisture-fed.

The arid Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, where Manisha has worked with Timbaktu Organic, is a rain shadow and the second driest region in the country. Here, communities still grow old draught resistant varieties of wild rice. “The gene material is so old and non-hybridised, it behaves like a wild grass - the seeds are like thorny burrs!”

In wet Wayanad in Kerala, where rainfall is abundant, a paddy farmers’ cooperative called Thirunelly Agri Producers Company or TAPCo, works towards reclaiming and retaining traditional methods of paddy cultivation. Its CEO Rajesh Krishnan explains, “growing paddy the traditional way, in flooded fields is an important system for groundwater recharge.” It also supports a micro-ecosystem within each field, including wild greens, small snails and crabs, all of which also contribute to the local diet. But in order to ensure these diverse ecosystems are maintained, it is critical to grow paddy without the use of chemical inputs, where he finds it is the traditional varieties of heirloom paddy that thrive best.

What Varieties Am I Eating?

A simple question about irrigation reveals that the need for water is closely tied to local geography, climate, and crop seed varieties. So then we may look at the most fundamental of inputs in agriculture – the seed.

“Native seeds are climate resilient,” says Shailesh, sharing an interesting anecdote of how an entire seed plot of heirloom rice being grown in Satara, Maharashtra got washed away in a flood, only to be found downstream a week later, having taken root where the water deposited them!

“For decades our agricultural policies and subsidies have encouraged farmers to grow non-native or hybrid varieties of food, from grains and pulses to oilseeds and vegetables – even cotton!” says Manisha. Among several reasons, a big motivator is that these varieties produce higher yields. But in fact, the flavour, aroma and nutrition of our native varieties are far superior! And the focus must be on quality over quantity.

Traditional crop varieties are also more culturally significant. “We encourage the farmers in our cooperative to grow traditional rice varieties that are native to Wayanad,” says Rajesh, “because if they grow these, they are more inclined to save a portion of their harvest for their own year’s supply rather than sell it all and eat from the Public Distribution System rations.” In this way, it ensures the people growing our food have access and inclination to eat good quality food.

Rice Diversity of Maharashtra at the OOO Farms Rice Festival in Mumbai
(image credit: Shivani Unakar)

This brings us to the people who grow our food.

Who Is Producing My Food?

Today greenwashing is not the only problematic practice to watch out for. There is also the tricky business of gatekeeping and the politics of representation. We may buy from brands and organisations with wonderful messaging, but often we know little, if anything, about the people who are actually growing, processing, and packaging our food within these organisations. There is no way to be sure if the people who bear the brunt of the effort are reaping the most benefits, or even getting credit where it is due.

According to Manisha, one of the most basic but important questions you can ask of your food sources is about their primary producers. Look for the names and faces of real people at the very first level of the process, those saving seeds, tilling land and harvesting grain, and fruit. If possible, she adds, put in a request to visit them.

Corporate structures within our food system have long benefited from widening the gap between producer and consumer. But many organisations that are working towards a more equitable food system actually encourage their consumers to visit their farmers and processing teams and have open and informal dialogues with each other. When Timbaktu hosts such visits, consumers often ask, ‘how can we be certain this food is organic?’ And farmers sometimes ask, ‘how come you are interested in millets? We thought city folk only eat bread!’

Such interactions humanise the various stakeholders along the value chain, and ultimately build greater trust and accountability than certifications can.

How Much Do Producers Earn From It?

The harsh reality is that many of our country’s producers still live hand to mouth. The historic farmer protests that took the country by storm not long ago were a fight to secure farmers' rights to a minimum price for crops they sell in the government-regulated market. Of course, the reality of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to Maximum Retail Price (MRP) gap is far more complex – and the subject of a different essay. But as a result of this gap, our farmers pay a hefty price to cover the true cost of producing the country’s food.

This is why a number of producer-organisations and farmers’ cooperatives believe in price guarantees. They promise to pay producers fairly for their efforts and investments, irrespective of turbulent and often harsh market fluctuations.

At TAPCo farmers collectively decide upon prices for their paddy at the start of each year. “We want to ensure we grow a number of different rice varieties, but not all varieties produce the same yield by weight. To level the playing field, we focus on parameters like nutrition, aroma, flavour, medicinal benefits, and cultural importance of each rice when setting prices. Quality over quantity,” says Rajesh.

Perhaps you’re not sure how this information helps you, the consumer, understand how your purchasing power can have a direct impact. So, ask brands you patronise how much of the MRP you pay for a food product makes it to the primary producer. For example, Timbaktu is transparent about the fact that 50-60% of the MRP charged is paid to the farmer. The rest may be used for packaging, transportation, margins for retailers, and so on. Such economic breakups can help consumers feel the impact of the good money they pay the brands they choose to buy from. As Manisha puts quite succinctly, “transparency is authenticity, transparency is power.”

And if all this feels too daunting to do on your own, find support in community! Producers often join forces with their peers as ways to safeguard themselves against volatilities, and collectively benefit from systems. Consumers can do the same by forming or joining consumer cooperatives.

Okay, With All This Information, What Exactly Can I Do?

Start by asking questions. You can use the ones I have asked above, or perhaps you have your own. The answers you get may not be simple. But nothing is simple, not in the least our food systems. And often the most impactful solutions are those that embrace the complexity.

“It is important to examine everything within its context of geography, economics, politics, history and culture,” says Chef Thomas. His project The Locavore tries to take away some of the pressure by doing the research and spotlighting producers and organisations they believe are doing good work. To set the context of which he speaks, each spotlighted producer is evaluated against seven criteria - Origin, Composition, Production, Packaging, Workforce, Knowledge, and Community.

Of these, different criteria may be important to different consumers, depending on what you value in your food. You may seek foods with specific nutritional benefits or want to eat only native food crops, you may find it important to know your food has zero chemical inputs, or you may care deeply about the materials used to package your food. So listen to what feels important to you.

There are plenty of producers doing good important work towards building a better food system and creating market access to good food. There are also plenty of producers that are doing it because sustainability is a hot commodity today. But when you use your agency as a consumer to ask questions of your producers, of your system, you start to hold them accountable. And this is perhaps the most powerful action you can take as a consumer.

Shivani Unakar explores the traditional food cultures of India, especially in rural regions, where they are still alive and used in daily cuisine. She was invited by Slow Food International to present at their conference, “We Feed The Planet” in 2015, to encourage the appreciation of diversity in India’s traditional food cultures. You can follow her at @shivaniunakar.

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