This is the view of Stan Cox, a committed, long term food gardener who turned over his lawn to fruit and veg growing, as part of the Edible Estates movement in the USA.

While he says growing your own food is great and he has no regrets about doing it, he also  thinks that,

“The corporate agriculture industry would like nothing better than to see us spend all of our free time in our gardens and not in political dissent.”

And,

“To repair the broken system that supplies the bulk of the nation’s diet will require Americans to step out of the garden and into the public arena. Beyond working to get a better Farm Bill passed five years from now, we have to work together to break the political choke-hold that agribusiness has on federal and state governments.”

For Americans, read people. For Farm Bill, read Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is currently undergoing what seems like a very complicated reform process in the EU.  For federal and state governments, read the European Union and UK government.

This European Food Sovereignty Forum video explains why the reformed CAP should support food sovereignty – not agribusiness production of cheap food for export/dumping in overseas countries, which damages the local farmers who can’t produce such cheap food since they’re not being subsidised by European taxpayers.

Stan Cox’s article, which this post draws on, is on the Alternet website.