Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why this bill and why now?
We are at a crossroads. Climate change is a world-threatening challenge – but also an opportunity to set a new course together.
This bill makes our pathway visible.
We already have a publicly funded food economy-just not the one we need. This bill invests our public dollars to create a source to table locally adapted food web economy designed to depend on healthy ecosystems.
The economic resiliency program defines a vital leadership role for Minnesota and the tools needed to create an inclusive economy that delivers health and well-being to communities and restores health to ecosystems.
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2. What is the driving premise?
The twin challenges of food and water security and climate change impact everyone, every community. We can find common purpose in pursuing climate readiness and food and water security for every community bridging urban and rural landscapes across regions and borders.
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3. Why a new economy? Why not fix the current economy?
Water! Nothing illustrates more clearly the need to create a sustainable food and water economy than the condition of water.
In the next few decades, the Ogallala Aquifer will disappear. This underground water source is one of the world’s largest extending 174,000 square miles from South Dakota to Texas. The area is home to millions of acres of industrial farms growing commodity crops to feed hogs and cattle confined in enormous feedlots. Currently, the aquifer is being depleted at an annual rate of 18 Colorado Rivers. 90% of the water is used to irrigate industrial crops. Other aquifers used for irrigation face a similar fate.
The depletion of the aquifer was not inevitable or the result of simple carelessness. It is the by-product of a publicly- subsidized food economy designed to depend on this practice. And it is legal.
It is also legal to contaminate water and soil with fertilizers and pesticides. The industry’s dependence on toxic chemicals has left thousands of miles of rivers and lakes lifeless and unfit for consumption.
70% of the world’s fresh water is used to irrigate industrial crops. This simply cannot be sustained. Our dependence on the industrial food chain places us in peril.
The leaders of the industrial food chain claim that we need this industry to feed the world.
We need to challenge that claim.
Equally important, we need to create a coordinated decentralized, locally adapted food web economy designed to be climate ready and deliver health and well-being. Healthy ecosystems are crucial for meeting the demands of food, water and climate.
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4. How will this bill address the challenge of climate?
The industrial food chain is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions - 44-57% of overall emissions.
Taken together, the impacts of every link in the industrial food chain add up. Processing, packaging and transportation over long miles added to deforestation practices and waste all contribute to emissions. The system cannot be sustained.
Conversely, locally adapted regenerative food systems depend on practices that create and maintain healthy soil and biodiversity, provide abundant sources of food and actually capture carbon.
They achieve these objectives using less energy and less land and water. The art and science of regenerative food systems provide local communities with the means to care for themselves and their ecosystems and cool the planet.
We need to get the story straight.
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5. Why do we need to challenge the claims of the industrial food chain?
The success of our publicly-funded industrial food chain depends on practices that erode the ecosystems we need to sustain life.
The Chain:
Use more than 75% of the land and in the process destroys 75 billion tons of topsoil annually
Cuts down 7.5 million hectares of forest annually
Uses 90% of fossil fuels used for agriculture and 80% of freshwater to irrigate crops
Is responsible for 44-57% of all greenhouse gas emissions
Of the 4 billion tons of food the Chain produces per annum, 33-50% is wasted along the Chain at a cost to consumers of $2.49 trillion per annum
50% of all the Chain’s synthetic fertilizers and pesticides reach the crop at one end of the food chain
Barely 50% of its food is consumed at the other end of the Chain
Today 70% of the world’s food is sourced by small-scale growers using 20% of the world’s resources-including land, water, and fossil fuels.
The industry cannot compete with their results in any category. This despite the fact that every link in the Chain economy is supported. As illustrated by this diagram.
We need to get the story straight.
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6. What does this bill do?
Provides an economic solution to an economic problem. Our current publicly funded food economy depends on destroying the very ecosystems that sustain life. With every acre of contaminated soil and forest removed to grow commodity crops, industrial agriculture makes us more vulnerable. We need to create the economy we need from source to table.
This bill provides the infrastructure to support a decentralized, coordinated food web system designed to deliver sources to locations where food is needed in our neighborhoods.
That infrastructure is crucial to generate and maintain capacity to source, preserve and deliver food in local ecosystems. Right now, we have a patchwork of local initiatives (farm to table collaborations, CSA farms, urban farms) that offer a variety of sustainably produced food sources. No infrastructure supports these operations as a system. The current number of local sources is inadequate. To meet demands, the Headwaters Economic Resiliency Program provides resources to current producers to ensure their operation’s viability and increase their capacity where possible. For example, farms may need resources to build solar powered conservatories to extend their growing season and additional storage facilities. Others may need additional staff to manage the increased capacity. With funding from the economic program farms can participate in the food web system as vital partners.
In addition to helping current producers, the bill creates a set of Community Care Programs. Like the New Deal Programs that put our grandparents’ generation to work in the 1930’s, these complimentary Community Care Programs ensure the effective operations of the food web from source to table. As members of the food web economy, Community Care Program employees provide essential services to local communities. A number of those programs provide training and development resources. We will need thousands of food web members to operate the source to table operations of the food web.
The food web design intentionally connects urban and rural communities. The bill provides resources to establish and maintain those connections for their mutual benefit. The bill envisions every neighborhood connected within the food web to Together, neighborhoods located in urban and rural landscapes will pursue common purpose.
In the new economy every community becomes a player in addressing climate change. With regenerative food systems integral to the success of every local economy, the way food is sourced and prepared and the way we eat will help us capture carbon for good.
Communities become successful players in a planet -wide endeavor to produce abundant sources of food, capture carbon and cultivate health and well-being.
Designed to promote well-being, this economy helps us be good neighbors .
Every community will participate and benefit from the new economy.
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7. What are the costs of the industrial food chain?
For every dollar spent on food from the industrial food chain another $2 is spent on managing the Chain’s destruction.
Here is the Chain’s math:
The direct food bill paid annually by consumers is $7.55 trillion.
That bill includes $2.49 trillion lost or wasted along the Chain and the $1.26 trillion price tag for overconsumption (or 50% of the total direct bill paid for food.
Indirect costs for social, health and ecosystem damages caused by the Chain amounts to $4.8 trillion.
The total cost of the Industrial Food Chain is $12.37 trillion
Together the costs of waste, overconsumption and indirect damages incurred by the Chain totals $8.56 trillion-69 % of the Chain’s total cost is counterproductive
For comparison-The Chain’s real total cost equals 5 times the world’s annual military expenditure.
And this wasteful system only feeds 30% of humanity.
For more information see the ETC Group Report “Who Will Feed Us?”
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8. How does it do all this?
Public money will be invested in developing a successful food web linking small scale, regenerative farms providing local sources of food to Neighborhood Commons in urban and rural communities.
The food web economy is designed to align the community’s local economic development goals for climate readiness and food and water security.
Connected by common purpose, every component of the food web will serve as an incubator for generating sources of food, knowledge and skills, and skilled workers in the local food system.
Fully invested in regenerative economies, communities will adopt practices that eliminate dependence on destruction of ecosystems.
Eliminating dependence on the industrial food system, communities can set and meet goals for capture carbon.
Local sourcing and delivery of food eliminates the greenhouse gases produced by the practices of the Industrial Food Chain from :
Industrial production of crops (fertilizers and pesticides)
Transportation (of crops and products)
Packaging and processing (processed foods)
Deforestation (to produce commodity crops)
Waste (Water to produce commodity crops and food delivered in the food chain)
Communities can replace processed foods with sources of food available in reusable containers prepared on site in neighborhoods.
For more information, see: Neighborhood Commons, Neighborhood Food Hub Network, and Community Care Programs.
Goal is to develop 365-day operations that can employ workers full time at a living wage with benefits.
See "Creating Publicly Funded Locally-Adapted Farming" for further information.
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9. How will it help communities? Our community?
The objectives of this bill are:
Create strong connections between rural and urban communities by linking small-scale farms that encircle an urban area. These farms provide a source of locally grown food, employment in food cultivation, harvesting, and preparation and research and delivery operations.
Create Neighborhood Commons that provide food sources, space for community gatherings and facilities for developing food preparation, preservation and delivery services in the heart of every community.
Reduce cost and waste due to packaging, storage, and transportation, waste and deforestation.
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10. Who knows how to adapt to local climate?
Indigenous People discovered, protected or domesticated, and bred and nurtured every food species we use.
Indigenous People generated every known method of preservation including: Drying, salting, smoking, pickling, fermenting, and freezing.
With food systems designed to adapt to local climate and ecosystems, indigenous knowledge, skills and foods remain the foundation for our food security.
With a powerful combination of policies and reforms, it is estimated that these communities can produce food efficiently while slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 90%. By extension, investing in rural communities to participate fully in the food web economy, rural economic landscapes will be transformed. Restoring health to rural ecosystems (water, soil, pollinators) provides a foundation for capturing carbon and sourcing food and an economic legacy to share with future generations.
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11. What is the purpose of the food web economy?
The food web is a tool for generating and managing energy-the energy that is food.
It is comparable to how families plan and manage their daily meals. Food supplies must be purchased, prepared, stored, or preserved to prevent waste. Supplies need to monitored and restocked. Managing a family’s food requires a team effort-sharing the the various tasks that ensure access to food daily.
The food web economy is designed to do all of this in a decentralized, highly coordinated system that connects our homes, neighborhoods and communities across urban and rural landscapes.
Generating and Managing food sources
From source to table, the web is organized to create capacity to ensure that food sources are harvested, preserved, delivered and stored effectively in our communities. Nothing is left to chance. Every field and every orchard is assigned a destination so that nothing is wasted and food that is not eaten immediately is preserved and stored. Those destinations could be one of a number of locations where food is sold fresh, prepared, or preserved and stored as illustrated on this diagram. Connecting sources directly to the locations where food is needed each day, local farms (and other sources) is mutually beneficial. The system is creates conditions that are responsive to needs. For instance, during peak harvest times, the web design ensures that farms, orchards and food preservation sites are fully staffed and delivery systems are prepared to handle larger quantities. In locations like the Neighborhood Commons where food is sold fresh or prepared or stored for future use, adequate staffing and effective delivery systems are essential to web operations.
Dynamic Communications
An effective feedback loop is crucial for managing the web operations. Consequently, the web’s economy is designed to be decentralized but coordinated by a system for sharing information and responding to needs in a timely manner. Each site will participate in tracking and documenting foods and conduct regular evaluations with other sites to ensure effective delivery, preservation, storage and food waste prevention. This communication is vital for daily operations. The feedback loop provides a means to track and evaluate vital information from sites where food is produced and preserved. Evaluating this information is critical for understanding and managing the challenges and promise of food production, but also for documenting observations and research within the system. Our daily and long term food and water security depend on conducting and maintaining in situ research and sharing the knowledge gained from it. Consequently, the web economy will maintain feedback loops (teams) for operations and research. At regular intervals, these teams will share information and conduct dialogue to determine potential changes or additions to the web’s system.
An Essential Economy
In the economic program outlined by the Headwaters Bill, all members of the food web economy are essential workers-vital to operating an effective system that serves community needs. To generate our communities’ capacity to produce food and care for the land, the Headwaters Bill creates a set of complimentary Community Care Programs throughout the food web economy. As the name indicates, these programs will meet vital needs.
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12. How will the bill’s economic program address the injustices created by the current food economy particularly the enduring impacts on black, indigenous, and people of color?
The bill’s program provides resources for every community to participate in the decentralized, locally-adapted, food web economy. No exceptions.
The purpose of this approach is to ensure that every community has the tools it needs to live sustainably and be resilient. Those resources will be available to leadership initiatives already operating in communities to support and expand their operations. As it happens, many of these initiatives are led by BIPOC communities. One example is movement within tribal communities to revive native food systems that pre-date colonization.
The Headwaters Bill would provide resources to advance their mission and acknowledge the vital leadership role they play in advancing a sustainable food system. Similarly, number of community-led local food systems already operate in communities of color and predominantly black communities (e.g. Sioux Chef, Natifs, Dream of Wild Health, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Community-led local food system in North Minneapolis.) These operations would receive resources to be successful members of the food web economy. They may choose to participate in the Community Care Programs to augment their current operations.
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13. Why is it called the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill?
The state of Minnesota happens to be the headwaters for three major watersheds. The water that begins life here within our borders connects communities and landscapes through vast networks of streams, rivers and lakes across the continent. Our state bears a profound responsibility to care for this water. The bill’s name acknowledges that responsibility. Equally important, the locally-adapted food web economy created by the bill provides a practical tool to care for the water and land together.
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14. How will the bill affect rural communities?
A key feature of the food web economy created by the bill is the connection it establishes between rural and urban communities. In the food web economy, land plays a crucial role in meeting common resiliency goals. Rural communities have land that can produce food for urban communities. The bill provides resources to increase the number of regenerative farming operations and build local and regional capacity to source food while managing healthy ecosystems. Additionally, resources are provided to restore health to ecosystems that have been contaminated by industrial operations.
As members of the food web economy, rural and urban communities together will implement the Community Care Programs to ensure the effective functioning of the web. Those programs offer a range of employment opportunities.
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15. How soon can the food system be changed?
Local efforts to provide healthy, locally-sourced food and demand for these foods have begun to change the landscape, but the capacity of the patchwork of farms, businesses and community programs is very limited.
What is missing is the economic infrastructure to create and maintain a system designed to support local operations and connect them to a common purpose. The bill creates complimentary Community Care Programs to generate our capacity from source to table to meet the demands of food, water and climate. This infrastructure will drive change across rural and urban communities by creating and maintaining an effective food web economy.
Crucial to our success is access to land for food production, research and seed saving, and delivery of local food sources in our neighborhoods everywhere.
On farm sites we know from the experience of the Main Street Project that it is possible to convert a conventional farm to a regenerative farming system in a few years. Planting cover crops on soil that was depleted changes soil composition with the first planting. With each planting, the health of the soil increases. The addition of native varieties of plants and managed animal grazing further increases the soil health. The Main Street Project demonstrates that we can restore an ecosystem to health while generating food and employment for farmers.
The Finland Food Chain is an exciting leadership initiative in northeastern Minnesota that is creating a community based, local food system designed to depend on healthy ecosystems. Like the food web economy created by the Headwaters Bill, this model could be adopted in other communities.