Fair: Food can be used as a peace weapon

Students danced and practiced yoga for peace in the SUB Wednesday.
The fifth annual UNM Peace Fair, held in the SUB, featured performances and about 25 Albuquerque organizations presented ideas about peace.
“As part of the Peace Studies program, students do an internship,” said Les Field, director of the Peace Studies program. “This was their internship project this semester. We got the ball rolling, and then the students organized it.”

Simon Ejdemyr, a Peace Studies student, said the fair was organized around two principles.
“The first step was brainstorming what theme we wanted,” he said. “We focused on two: religion and peace and food and peace.”
There were two panel discussions at the event, corresponding to the themes. The religion and peace panel featured Albuquerque religious leaders, while the food and peace panel featured Keith McHenry, founder of Food Not Bombs, and Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino.

Ortiz y Pino said one of the most important issues regarding food in New Mexico is the availability of food stamps.
“People, because of the economic recession, have had to find alternate ways of feeding their families — especially using what used to be called food stamps — and now we call it SNAP,” he said. “If we could get participation levels (of SNAP) up to where they need to be, that would be a huge step to reducing hunger.”
Ortiz y Pino said a challenge facing the food stamp program is how to make more people aware of the benefits of it.
“A lot of it has to do with getting information to people,” he said. “We’ve stigmatized the use of food stamps, so people are reluctant to use them.”
Travis McKenzie, a student

working to start community gardens at UNM, also spoke on the panel. He said a major problem with the food-supply chain is the use of petroleum products in food production.

“We’re being attacked by a petroleum-based food-production system,” he said. “I feel that food production is different than agriculture. … Agriculture is community-based. Our food-production system is not community-based at all.”

McKenzie said the best way to promote peace is to hold events like the Peace Fair.

“I feel like we’re the response. This is the response. This circle, coming together, talking,” he said.
Robert Staszewski, co-organizer of the fair, said food issues are important to New Mexico because we have a lot of available land that could be used for farming.
“New Mexico has the ability to be a fully sustainable agricultural state. We can feed everybody,” he said. “Food is a weapon, for or against peace. And we have the ability to use that weapon in New Mexico.”

McHenry said food is important to peace because people will fight if they don’t have it. He said the U.S. throws out much of the food it produces, and many of the world’s problems could be solved if that food were redistributed instead.

“Forty-five percent of the food raised in our country is thrown away. Studies have shown that if all the food that was thrown away in the world was redistributed to people who needed it, there would be no more hunger,” he said.

McHenry said the U.S. is dangerously low on stored food supplies.

“The Department of Agriculture claims we only have 53 days of food stored at any given time in this country. We are standing on the edge of a precipice,” he said.
Desi Brown, Peace Studies program adviser, said the event was a success, but he wished it could have been held outside.
“We’ve been wanting to do it outdoors for several years, and we actually did it this year, but there was a snowstorm,” he said. “I think we would’ve had a lot of students hanging out in the sun.”