[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.98″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_testimonial _builder_version=”3.0.98″ author=”Take My Hand” url_new_window=”off” quote_icon=”off” use_background_color=”on” quote_icon_background_color=”#f5f5f5″ background_layout=”light” job_title=”A song for ARI” background_color=”#ffffff”]<\/p>\n
\u201cTake my hand which has labored in the soil<\/p>\n
Together we will stand for together we must toil<\/p>\n
To build a world where hunger will not keep the people chained<\/p>\n
To build a world that will still bear fruit tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.98″ background_layout=”light”]<\/p>\n
For economists, freedom is merely the ability to choose, as your own individual self, how to engage in the free market. If you\u2019re pessimistic, like the Marxian Stolz in his book Bad Water<\/em>, this means individuals only have the \u2018freedom\u2019 to pick where they want to buy food they\u2019re alienated from or sell their produce to a few equally exploitative corporations. If you\u2019re more optimistic, this definition of freedom means you can choose what will be best for your sense of security and health, like a consumer cooperative. But ARI has a very different view on what it means to be free.<\/p>\n Freedom at ARI is closely tied to sustainable food production and consumption. If you are struggling with merely eating enough each day, you cannot be free \u2013 you cannot be the fullest you that you can be. You\u2019re enslaved to a system, whether that is a polluted environment that can no longer support healthy human life or to a market system that threatens to take away your livelihood at every turn. Just how much can you choose if you can\u2019t even feed yourself, your family, and your community?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.98″ background_layout=”light”]<\/p>\n ARI takes food and life as one and the same. This is reflected everywhere, but nowhere is it more salient than in the ARI term \u201cfoodlife\u201d. Each morning and evening, everyone on the farm participates in foodlife work, which can be anything from cooking meals to caring for the chickens to mixing compost to harvesting carrots. For participants whose communities struggle daily to produce enough food to eat and sell because of a changing environment, changing agricultural rules, and changing expectations, food is literally the difference between life and death. For people like my fellow St. Olaf classmates, we don\u2019t have to think about that. We\u2019re unconnected to our food, but that means we constantly have access to it. Even at ARI, if you have money, you have the freedom to choose not to eat at ARI and instead bike down to the 7-Eleven or a downtown ramen shop for dinner.<\/p>\n But is personal freedom the real definition? If we just gave everyone money to buy food, would they be free? I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the answer ARI is looking for, and it\u2019s not the answer I\u2019m looking for either. No one is completely isolated from other people, the environment, and zillions of other things outside their control, so you can never choose completely of your own will. Framing freedom as individual choice disenfranchises the poor and the socially weak, who don\u2019t have the resources or the circumstances (both of which are often outside their control, it\u2019s not like you\u2019d choose to be starving) to simply choose a better life. In Fukushima after the triple disaster, some farmers worked as part of the nuclear clean-up crew, alongside day laborers from Tokyo\u2019s slums. They lacked the freedom of choice \u2013 they couldn\u2019t move away, but their land was unusable and they needed to eat somehow. Their way to feed themselves was twisted by a disaster; no longer could they rely on their own farms, which had sustained their families for generations and they understood deeply. They were no longer free, but instead chained by dependence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_gallery _builder_version=”3.0.98″ posts_number=”1″ show_title_and_caption=”on” show_pagination=”on” gallery_ids=”692,693,691″ fullwidth=”off” orientation=”landscape” zoom_icon_color=”#003923″ hover_overlay_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.9)” background_layout=”light” pagination_font_size_tablet=”51″ pagination_line_height_tablet=”2″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.98″ background_layout=”light”]<\/p>\n When Mr. Osamu of ARI first spoke with St. Olaf, he told us that food self-sufficiency is human independence, because food and life cannot be separated. They are one, they are collectively foodlife. The first verse of \u201cTake My Hand\u201d ends with this:<\/p>\n \u201cUntil the day we all can feed ourselves we never will be free.\u201d<\/p>\n So, when will<\/em> we be free?<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.0.98″ src=”https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/esj-2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1128\/2018\/01\/View.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” force_fullwidth=”off” show_bottom_space=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cTake my hand which has labored in the soil Together we will stand for together we must toil To build a world where hunger will not keep the people chained To build a world that will still bear fruit tomorrow.\u201d