Migration forces

In a masterfully crafted piece on nationalgeographic.com, David Quammen traces the paths and explores the reasons for animal migration. Animal migration is distinct from other animal movements since, as biologist Hugh Dingle explains, they are prolonged, linear, and focused movements that carry animals beyond their familiar habitats. Quammen further explains: "Migrating animals maintain a fervid attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other animals aside." When people build roads, houses, and other bottlenecks that force migratory animals from their singular journey, survival is threatened.

Two weeks after I landed in France to start my first post-college job with a conservation organization, I was lathering on mosquito repellent and untangling migrating barn swallows from mist nets. From late August through early October, hundreds of thousands of barn swallows roost in Provencal marshland while on their way to the Sahara. By day the swallows disperse to feed, but around sunset, the birds come back to the flooded reedbed to roost. I had never before worked with birds so closely (I'm a plant girl!), but I had to learn quickly on the job, as each evening at least 10,000 swallows swoop onto an acre of reeds for the night. A Rocha France, my employer, is working with local farmers to encourage them to leave flooded reedbeds and marshlands of the Rhone River untouched. While some farmers hesitate to let valuable land lie, all who come to the roost site during migration season are shocked and awed into agreement: migration is a mighty force to be reckoned with.

Quammen's article communicates such images with conviction. It reads like a novel and you may be impressed, as I was, as the author literally walks in the trail of migration. Quammen concludes the article with an image of 60,000 sandhill cranes rising from a marshland after a rest on their journey. "It was the accrued wisdom and resoluteness of evolution that I was witnessing, airborne above the Platte. If we humans have accrued equal wisdom and can summon equal resoluteness, I thought, maybe we'll allow them to continue their journeying a while longer."

Food insecurity in the US

In international development circles and at local food banks, there's been a lot of talk about 'food security.' Curious about this phrase and the potential differences between the domestic and international interpretations of food insecurity, I did a little digging.

Let's start with definitions and details: A food secure household has "consistent access to enough food for active healthy living" (USDA). Food insecurity, therefore, is when access to food is limited due to poverty, environment, disaster, or social upheaval (think Zimbabwe). Health problems increase and environmental degradation (particularly in countries populated by subsistence farmers) is a given as people eke out food, cash, and shelter from whatever natural resources are available.

Poor food availability and choice in the US has become a necessarily hot topic. In the US, 1 out of 10 households struggle to put food on the table. American families with minimal food security can trend towards obesity and food insecurity simultaneously, as they choose processed food that fills bellies rather fresh produce that nourishes. In 2007, the USDA surveyed households about food insecurity, asking questions such as: 'In the last 12 months, did you or other adults in the household ever cut the size of your meals or skip meals because there wasn’t enough money for food?'

Childhood food insecurity - and often-related obesity due to poor food choices - is a significant problem in the US. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization, renewed in similar, if water-downed versions in both the House and Senate this year, promises funding for farm-to-school programs and lunches. Farm to school programs partner local farmers with government-funded school lunch programs, providing fresh, nourishing food with a story. These programs cultivate young citizens who are friends with farmers, aware of what they eat, and connecting their food with their environment. The bill awaits passage in the November lame-duck session of congress, so child hunger relief - and local food - advocates are holding their breath.

In the next post, we'll discuss international food insecurity - linked directly with rising food prices and environmental fragility.