The Co-op Food Stores

added 02/06/08

by Terry Appleby, Co-op General Manager

Two recent articles by well-known activists have been cause for optimism, at least for me. Writing in the April 22nd New York Times Magazine (“You Are What You Grow”), Michael Pollan, whose book The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a provocative look at how and why we eat what we do, offers some thoughts on the upcoming debate on the nation’s farm bill.

In February, Co-op management and staff will begin the process of redeveloping our site at the Lyme Road Community Market in Hanover. (No, really, it is going to happen.) In January, we signed an agreement with UK Architects of Hanover and now have the design team on board. Our whole team is committed to developing a store that meets the needs of our many shoppers, the community, the staff, and the objective of an environmentally sound project.

Pollan begins his essay by discussing the work of a researcher on obesity who found that the cost of calories that are good for us (like fruits and vegetables) were much more expensive than those that cause more harm (like lots of the “empty” calories in sugary snacks). He points out that the farm bill, which he says “sets the rules for the American food system” and promotes some food commodities over others, in effect subsidizes the manufacture of cheap junk food and thus contributes to the obesity problem. It is a thought-provoking piece. And the idea that I find most interesting is that Pollan believes the farm bill can be written in a way that puts the interests of healthy eating for Americans first, and that activism can make that happen. He opines that people can have power over entrenched interests.

The noted environmentalist Paul Hawken also writes about activism in the latest edition of Orion Magazine (“To Remake the World”, available online at www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/265). In this article Hawken offers a glimpse at an unstructured “movement” that he estimates at one million grassroots organizations worldwide working on issues like climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, hunger, and more. Groups that, he claims, are “trying to safeguard nature and ensure justice” are part of a diversified, but unformed, movement that has “tens of millions of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people working to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty in the world.” He states, “The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what appear to be incalculable dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism, ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture … it is trying to remake the world.”

What I find most appealing about these articles is the hope they engender. To understand that problems that seem so complex as to be incapable of solution actually have millions of people actively cooperating to solve them is inspiring. And to realize that hundreds of those groups are working in our localities is more inspiring still.

These essays are idealistic and even radical. Certainly the ideas will provoke responses about why they cannot be achieved. But the fact is, progress is being made on many of the thorny issues confronting us, and this only needs a little research to be confirmed. Read Hope’s Edge by Frances Moore Lappe for confirmation of the power of people to confront problems and take resolution back into their own hands. Or visit her website at www.smallplanetinstitute.org and read some of the stories of the ongoing work she has archived.

Why, you may ask, is this relevant to the Hanover Co-op? To answer that question I only have to point to the Ends Policy adopted by the Co-op’s Board that states: “The Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society exists to provide cooperative commerce for the greater good of our members and community.” This statement places us squarely in the camp of organizations trying to do positive things in the world and provides a link to other people and organizations trying to do the same. So the question for us becomes, “How shall the Hanover Co-op help to remake the world?”