Setting Broken Limbs

Today I watched the documentary, Broken Limbs, once again. I always show it in my food ethics class. It is important to show because it puts a face on sustainable, local agriculture. Made a few years back by a Wenatchee, WA native, it is about the apple industry in Washington state and how it has changed in a single generation.

It used to be that in Wenatchee, dubbed "the apple capital of the world" a five acre orchard could support a family and now that is unusual. Farmers are pulling out apple trees because they just don't pay the bills anymore. They have to try something new, something different if they are to stay small and stay in business.

Students usually respond positively about the film and not only because many of them are from the Wenatchee area or know someone who is (this year one student said that if the footage had been from the 2004 instead of 2003 Apple Blossom Parade she would have been on the float). But since it is local to us here in Washington state I do think it hits home in a different sort of way.

I grew up on the East coast knowing about Washington apples and believing they were good apples. When I first moved to Washington state and heard the governor on the news talking about trade agreements with New Zealand which included apples I thought it was pretty silly. Aren't apples naturally something that can be held over the winter? Or at least a good chunk of the winter? A new crop apple in February is something you know isn't locally grown around here.

There are two parts of the film that touch my heart every time I see it. When the farmer, losing his land, talks about how hard it is as his wife tears up and when the man making the film starts to help his dad on his land and to see the importance of farmer. He describes himself as the broken limb, since he did not want to go into the orchard like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

And there are two parts that give me hope every time I see it, too. When Ikerd, who is interviewed explains the purpose of agriculture--to make people's lives better and the triple bottom line of sustainable agriculture--that is needs to be sustainable for the environment, for the farmer (i.e., profitable) and for the people in the community and when small farmers who are sustainable are interviewed and say that they are happy to share what they know with others.

Being able to eat ethically once again is something that starts slowly. It used to be the only way to eat--there weren't big businesses involved as there are today. This isn't to say all business is bad, but that once we became disconnected from the food system we eat in, eating unethically, because we ate unknowingly became a possibility. As people try to get back to methods that are sustainable and eaters demand that of their food system we have hope that we can, bite by bite, make a better choice and a better world. My apple a day will be a Washington apple for as long as I live here--that's my bite into the better world.