By Roger Doiron

Happy World Food Day! You did remember, didn't you? Yes, today's the day that people worldwide stop to think about food: what it is, how it's produced, by whom, and, most importantly, why so many people - 840 million according to the United Nations - still don't have enough of it. There are thousands of experts from governments, international organizations, and NGOs crisscrossing the globe searching for the solution to world hunger and they've been looking for a while. I am writing to inform them that I think I found the answer. It was in my backyard.

So what's in back of my house that's so special? Well, let me whet your curiosity. It's a true marvel of science that comes in many shapes and sizes. It runs on the most advanced solar technology and is capable of producing a continuous and diverse supply of foods. In many cases, the food it produces come pre-packaged in 100% natural and recyclable containers that allow the food to be stored safely for a number of months. It requires minimal inputs and produces minimal wastes, all of which can be recycled back into inputs. It can produce a wide range of flavors and colors without any artificial additives. And here's the topper: the more you use it, the fitter and healthier you become. No this is not the subject of some late-night infomercial, and no you can't buy it in any store. You have to make it yourself. Give up? It's called…drum roll please…an organic kitchen garden!

If we look at the situation in the US using this criteria, we're not well placed to be preaching to anyone. Most farmers and farm workers in the US lead a precarious existence. Of all the occupations in America, farming is facing the greatest decline. Nearly half of all the remaining farmers are over age 55, while just 8% are under 35. It’s true that American farmers are the most productive in the world, thanks largely to the technologies at their disposal. Yet, while their equipment and seeds may come from the space age, their means of economic subsistence harks back to the middle-ages. More and more farmers are having to resort to "contract farming" which is the modern-day equivalent of serfdom.

Farm animals don't fare much better. Unlike many poor immigrant farm workers, farm animals don't have to worry about where their next meal will come from. On the contrary, they are fed a generous regime of genetically-modified grains and growth hormones to get them to slaughter weight as quickly as possible. The animals also don't have to travel to Canada for affordable prescription medicine; they receive regular doses of antibiotics for free, whether they need them or not.

As for eaters, Americans have the largest choice of food products that any society in history has ever seen. The average big-box grocery store stocks nearly 30,000 different items. Unfortunately, a growing number of us seem hell-bent on trying them all this year. Obesity in the US no longer qualifies as a national concern, but as an epidemic with 2 out of 3 adults either overweight or obese. Health officials estimate the annual costs of America's obesity crisis at $100 billion. To get an idea just how large this number is, compare it with the $42 billion allocated in last year's federal budget for education. Clearly, we Americans need to relearn how to eat.

In terms of our natural resource base, there is cause for concern there too. Despite the trend towards organic production, most food in the US is still produced using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides which, once applied, travel into the environment, our food, and ultimately our bodies. If cereal yields in the US have gone up over the past 50 years, it's not because the soil has become more fertile. It's because farmers -- led by "market forces" and industry-funded extension agencies -- have been using more and more chemicals. In many parts of the US, the soil is so tired and eroded that it serves no ecological function other than holding up the plants between fertilizer applications. While some of these chemicals find their way to the plants' roots, an alarming amount leach into waterways polluting groundwater and disturbing the ecological balance of rivers, lakes, and oceans. Each year, the chemical discharge from the Mississippi River creates a "deadzone" in the Gulf of Mexico larger than the state of New Jersey.

One precious natural resource that has become the subject of national and international debate over the past year is oil. What many people don't realize is that fossil fuels are key ingredients in the production of most foods that fill our supermarket shelves. These fuels power the chemical factories where synthetic fertilizers are produced, as well as the gigantic farm machines that crawl over the landscape to apply them and to harvest the crops.

Oil is also what keeps the growing fleet of food transport trucks moving. The problem is that these trucks are travelling farther than ever. According to a study by the WorldWatch Institute, food in the US travels on average 1500 to 2500 miles from farm to table, as much as 25 percent farther than in 1980. If we're sincerely interested in conserving this strategic resource, we can begin at the dinner table. Surveys have shown that a typical meal (ie. meat, grain, fruits, and vegetable) composed of local ingredients uses up to 17 times less petroleum consumption in transport than the same meal bought from the conventional supermarket.

Our genetic resource base faces similar threats. US lawmakers under pressure from big business have let the gene genie out of the bottle without knowing what the full, long-term implications of genetically-modified crops will be. While agribusiness puts its hope in new these miracle varieties, many of the old varieties of food plants and farm animals face extinction because they don't lend themselves to the conventions of industrial agriculture.

The philanthropists at Monsanto and the other big agribusiness firms insist that transgenic crops are needed to feed the hungry and that those who oppose them are contributing to the world's hunger problem. Fortunately, most sensible people are not swallowing that claim. In fact, opposition to genetically-foods has never been higher. According to a recent poll by ABC News, 92% of Americans believe that genetically-altered foods should be labeled (which the agri-food industry is fighting tooth and nail) and that, if they were labeled, well over half of those surveyed said that would not buy them.

Even in hungry Africa, there is growing skepticism about transgenic crops and their role in food security. Last year, Zambia's government told aid agencies to refuse thousands of tons of genetically-modified corn, preferring to wait for a shipment of unmodified aid. The chorus of skeptics now includes not only development and environmental activists in Africa, but religious organizations . "We do not believe that agri-companies or gene technologies will help our farmers to produce the food that is needed in the 21st century,'' said the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference in a recent statement. ''On the contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for millennia and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves."

It's in statements like these that we can find hope on World Food Day. At its simplest, the movement towards food sovereignty is about individuals and local communities taking control of their own food future. For those who lack the basic rights or materials means for doing so, we have to find ways of empowering them and giving them the resources that will allow them to become more self-sufficient.

The economist E.F. Schumacher once wrote that "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." It's precisely in this other direction -- towards production on a human-scale, simplicity, and harmony with nature -- that we need to steer our food system. I am confident that this path will ultimately lead us to the same place: to the good, nourishing food that is possible and in many cases already available in own our backyards.

Roger Doiron is the founder of Kitchen Gardeners International.