Horn Of Plen Author Oran Hesterman discusses global food production and how it could be mankind's undoing. By Brett Callwood 1 D r. Oran Hesterman may have the ultimate green thumb. The Ann Arbor agronomist has a backyard garden that's the envy of his neighbors. "Whatever he plants is four times larger than anyone else's — it's mysteri- ous," says his wife, Lucinda Kurtz. "His kale, collards and Swiss chard are giant. His tomatoes grow Jack and the Beanstalk-like. The garden feeds us all summer and into fall, and we have greens until Chanu- kah. We give food away to everyone on our street; it's way too much for us." Seems fitting for the author of Fair Food: Growing A Healthy, Sustainable Food System For All (PublicAffairs), a book that offers a thorough examination of the world's broken food system as well as a plan to fix it. A former university professor, Hesterman, 59, is founder, president and CEO of the Ann Arbor-based Fair Food Network, which he describes as "a national nonprofit that works at the intersection of food systems, sustainability and social equity to guarantee access to healthy, fresh and sustain- ably grown food, especially in underserved communities." Sustainability, or a variation of it, is of key importance to Hesterman, who is touring extensively with his book — he'll travel in August to Davis, Calif., to speak at a food conference hosted by Hazon, a group founded to support the Jewish environmental movement in North America and Israel that stands at the forefront of a new Jewish Food Movement — and that is part of what makes Fair Food such a compulsive read. Hesterman doesn't just point out the problems with the current world food system, he points out in stark and blunt, yet realistic, terms what needs to be done to create a sustainable food system. Even Gov. Rick Snyder was inspired enough to say that "Oran Hesterman convinc- ingly argues that reinventing our food system is crucial for improving the health of our cities and our economy — policymakers are wise to spend time considering the ideas he lays out in this book." Inspiration for the mission that has been such an im- portant part of his life came from two places. www.redthreadmagazine.com rt i D • • • CAOWING i 14ZikilifY, rood t rittlIt 70A 11LY OPIIN B. RES7'Enallihr Ph.D. "One comes from very early in my life," says Hesterman, who grew up at Temple Beth El in Berkeley, Calif, participating in North Pacific Coast Young Judaea. "I was 21 years old. I had just returned from a year in Israel [on Young Judaea Year Course], where I had been working on a kibbutz. I started university at the Univer- sity of California-Santa Cruz, working on the student organic farm. It was the first one in the country. This was back in the early '70s. I just got captivated by it and spent a couple of years full-time learning how to farm and learning how to grow food. "The other inspiration that really deepened my experi- ence and took it in a different direction was when I was 36 years old and I had been diagnosed with an illness," Hesterman says. "I was in the hospital and my digestive system was nonfunctional. The doctor was telling me that surgery was an option. When I could finally eat a few days later, they gave me roast beef, mashed potatoes and a big piece of cake made out of white sugar and white flour. I knew that this was not the food I needed to get myself healthy." Today, Hesterman is a poster boy for his own solutions. Fit and trim, he exercises regularly, practices yoga and meditates each morning. He and Lucinda are members of Pardes Hannah, Ann Arbor's Jewish Renewal community, which emphasizes Jewish mystical and meditative practices as well as environmentalism. At home, he's the cook in the family — they have three grown children — and he uses produce from his gar- den, often making morning eggs with freshly cut kale and collard greens. Yet he knows the problems in the food system inti- mately. In Fair Food, he points out that food quality is declining, food safety is compromised, the concerns over animal welfare, the issues of soil erosion and depletion, water pollution, loss of farmland, greenhouse gas pro- duction, problems with food access, diet-related illnesses including (though not restricted to) obesity, worker ex- ploitation and the aging farmer population. You could be forgiven for thinking that he is a pessimist, but he's not. He provides a very clear roadmap to make things better. He says stores like Whole Foods Market provide a better quality of food, and just shopping there is a good start. Kate Klotz, corporate public-relations manager for Austin-based Whole Foods, feels the company echoes many of Hesterman's concerns and helps to address them. "We are the world's leading grocery of natural and organic products," Klotz said. "Everything we sell is free of anything artificial — colors, flavor, preservatives, trans fats — and we emphasize foods that are organic and/or local. We are experts at helping people with special di- etary needs and at working with local producers at using more sustainable food-growing methodsf GREEN DETROIT Hesterman is a realist though, and he knows that not everybody can afford to shop at a specialty store. Fortu- nately, there are other answers. "I think about a couple of things," Hesterman says. "Detroit is known as the city with the most extensive urban gardening and small-scale farming in the country. Greening of Detroit is supporting more than 1,600 com- munity gardens, backyard gardens and street gardens. 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