From taste and nutrition to cost, safety, and yield, Just Grow It Yourself contrasts home and industrial food production head to head. Its startling conclusion: per pound of food production, home gardens are vastly more efficient while delivering far greater health, economic, social, and environmental benefits. This book proposes a new, three-tiered system, anchored in home and community gardens backed by locally and distantly sourced food. It contends that this redesigned system has much greater potential for alleviating food insecurity than industrial food. Most encouraging is the message that home gardens will help reconnect us to ourselves, one another, and nature in a way that all of us can relate to on the most personal level: growing and consuming some to most of our food.
From taste and nutrition to cost, safety, and yield, Just Grow It Yourself contrasts home and industrial food production head to head. Its startling conclusion: per pound of food production, home gardens are vastly more efficient while delivering far greater health, economic, social, and environmental benefits. This book proposes a new, three-tiered system, anchored in home and community gardens backed by locally and distantly sourced food. It contends that this redesigned system has much greater potential for alleviating food insecurity than industrial food. Most encouraging is the message that home gardens will help reconnect us to ourselves, one another, and nature in a way that all of us can relate to on the most personal level: growing and consuming some to most of our food.
Good morning, America! How are you this bright and cheerful day?
âBright and cheerful? Maybe for some. Frankly, Iâm not exactly feeling like a million bucks, which I think has a lot to do with what I eat. And speaking of millions, I see these marvelous supermarkets all over my country brimming with food, yet pre-COVID-19, 49 million of my people didnât have enough to eat, which experts say has increased by at least 17 million with the pandemic. Even before the virus, five million of my children were too small and thin for their ageâright here in one of the worldâs richest countries. I thought stunting was something you only see in desperately poor countries.
But how can that be? We have plenty of food, at least twice as much as we need to feed everyone.
âI donât know where it all goes, but that brings up an even bigger problem: eating too much. Of my 331 million citizens, 132 million are overweight, with another 66 million obese. Even 8 million of my children are now obese, and it starts at age two. All of which has led to some 150 millionânearly half my populationâto being diabetic or pre-diabetic. I have an epidemic on top of the pandemic.â
Mercy! I can see why youâre not feeling cheerful.
âMeanwhile, modern farming loses two billion tons of my topsoil each year, at ten times the rate itâs being replaced[i]. How on earth am I supposed to grow food when itâs gone?
My food companies spend $11 billion peddling junk food each year, often targeting the most vulnerable of my peopleâchildren and the poor.
Over $1 trillion of the health, social, and environmental costs of food production donât show up in the prices my people pay at the grocery store.
As if all thatâs not enough, wasted food costs my economy $2.6 trillion a year.[ii]
And on and on it goes in the dreadful millions, billions, and trillions of dollars. Iâm truly a mess of âillâ-ions.
So yeah, Iâm hanging in there, but I sure could stand to be a lot less ill. Which is to say, Iâm seriously hurting.â
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This poignant, imaginary interview with our beloved country highlights my reason for writing this book: to address our food-derived hurting in the millions, billions, and trillions by much more fully engaging a powerful, effective solution that so far has been almost completely overlookedâhome gardens. First, I want to inspire potential new gardeners, as well as those currently gardening to expand their efforts. Second, Iâd like to motivate policymakers and community leaders to leverage individual efforts enormously. Gardeners are on the front lines, and policymakers are the strategic support teams. They need each other, and each should be aware of everything thatâs primarily directed to the other to make the most of their own role.
Why turn to home gardens? To begin with, the industrial food system is failing. Itâs unsustainable in the long term and struggling even in the short run, especially with getting food to the low-income. COVID-19 has made the systemâs shortcomings even more obvious, and it appears that this pandemic is going to be with us awhile. Although advocates of sustainable/regenerative agriculture have promoted many worthwhile solutions to food production and distribution, theyâve missed the vast potential of home gardens. These gardens, contrary to the common narrative, are not only an extraordinarily potent source of food production, theyâre much more efficient, with far greater returns for the energy and effort, than industrial food.
All of which adds up to my primary proposal: a three-tiered food system, anchored by 1) home gardens, backed up by 2) local food production, in turn complemented by 3) pared-down distant food production, that could plausibly replace much to most industrially produced food. This system would save trillions in costs to human health, the economy, and the environment. It would not replace non-food use of crops for purely industrial purposes, such as corn and soybeans for fuel. My secondary assertion is that food gardens can be the most promising and dignified path to permanent food accessibility not just for those who are better off, but also, and especially for those who are less well-off. Donât believe it? Then read on: Iâll show you why itâs genuinely workable. Weâll begin with the example of victory gardens.
Chapter 1
[i] Dobberstein, J. âDo We Still Have Only 60 Harvests Left?â No-Till Farmer, March 25, 2020. https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/blogs/1-covering-no-till/post/9569-do-we-still-only-have-60-harvests-left.
[ii] Hyman, M. Food Fix â How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet â One Bite at a Time. Little, Brown, Spark. 2020.
Just Grow It Yourself by David Fisher dares to challenge the industrial food system. While a courageous and lofty goal, to his credit, he does justice to the topic, and readers will be convinced that home gardens are the better option. If you are interested in learning more about starting your own garden, why it is the healthier alternative, and the challenges we will face ignoring this option, then you must read this book!
Fisher starts off his book with a very thought-provoking interview with Americans. An interview that will get readers thinking about the cost of depending on the industrial food complex. This makes his thesis clear from the get-go. His goal is to inspire potential gardeners as well as motivate policymakers and change-makers to look at the vast potential that lies in home gardens. While many complain about inefficiencies in the distribution link that have left our store shelves empty, Fisher produces a solution that is so simple it is often overlooked.
Further, Fisher makes slam-dunk points that will knock any excuse about why it cannot be done - out. He does this by supplying the reader with information and data that will make any intelligent person seriously consider home gardens as a viable alternative to the mega-industrial food system. Home gardens support a sustainable environment with their energy efficiencies. They also promote a healthier diet that could reduce morbidity and mortality rates and teach the young a very valuable skill. This book makes the emphatic point that home gardens can do much more for us than the industrial food complex.
On the downside, Fisher often makes his points by using countries that have questionable political policies, like Cuba, to prove his points. Nonetheless, I think his cogent arguments are persuasive. However, this could make some readers skeptical as they might view the writer's points through a particular political prism.
Even so, I found this book to be very interesting. It is packed with information to help novice gardeners and policymakers craft ideologically sound policies that are backed by data-driven results. As such, I believe every policymaker should receive a copy.
In fact, I would recommend this book to everyone. You can start a garden wherever you are!