Local Victory Edition 1

Rebecca Shelly

 

Artist Statement 2008

(Reworked from "Local Victory" essay for Johnny's Selected Seeds)

 

            Why is growing your own vegetables popular again? Why would more people start to question their food supply?  Gas prices are increasing and also everything with that. Our country has been fighting a ridiculous war and we are in the midst of a change of leadership. There is going to be a change, and people are getting nervous that it will be towards the worst. Our economy is failing and people are getting nervous about another depression. What I see happening though is that people are starting to wake up from a sleepy American brainwashed existence and wanting something more. They are starting to see that maybe they can do something even if it is a small action.

            Today, with the advent of Genetically Modified seeds, people are nervous even about their own vegetables. How did we come to fear even our food? When corporations only worry about money, were does the human being fall? What people are doing now is saying, “I can do something myself.”  By growing their own organic vegetables, they are physically making an action against a money hungry entity. In a way then, by planting a seed in your garden, you are in fact protesting. It is such a simple action, but it can also be literally filling, nutritious, relaxing, and even bring communities together.

In World War II, our country created “Victory Garden” posters to market the idea of growing home gardens to help with the food supply shortage.  They proclaimed that people could fight for the war in their own gardens. Once again, we might be faced with this dilemma. Today, these posters instead of growing vegetables to help fight a war would support a local economic structure. Instead of the term, “Victory Garden” I feel that “Local Victory” would be more fitting today.  It is similar to the slogan, “Think Globally, Act Locally.”

Our seeds are also disappearing. My parents grew organic vegetables all throughout my childhood. Each year, they would choose specific varieties to grow based off of what worked or didn’t work the years before. It is hard to find some of these vegetables today. Varieties are being bought out so that they are no longer a competition for some genetically modified seed. With cross pollination there is also a question of whether or not organic seed will remain pure.

I am not someone who usually protests and starting my own garden has really influenced my feelings on the subject. I know that I am not alone in feeling this way. A simple action can potentially yield a great crop in more ways than one.