WHEN saying grace before meals, we join our palms and express our most heartfelt gratitude to the blessing we are about to partake. “This food is the gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings and much hard and loving work,” goes the first contemplation before eating in Plum Village, a spiritual community I practice with.
In the heart of this contemplation is the deep awareness that our food was served to us not only from our own efforts to earn money for the ingredients to be bought and cooked. Each piece of the meal – from the vegetables chopped several times, down to the smallest grain of rice – has an origin story.
The sun, rain, air, soil, countless nutrients and hands nurtured what we eat. These causes and conditions come together from the cycles and interconnectedness of ecology. After harvest, the circle of beings involved in food production expands to include the people transporting and trading the produce – from every truck driver, kargador, and vendor who wake up early everyday to make a living.
Every one of these people are also nurtured by the same food, and the sun, rain, air, soil, countless nutrients and hands. This beautifully complex web of life is expressed by what’s on our plate.
True gratitude for a meal is acknowledging each and every cause and condition that made food possible. True gratitude for the food that sustains us – is recognizing what sustains our food.
This is why a lot of people who care make sure what they eat comes from a process that respects ecological cycles and interconnectedness. They double-check ingredients and sources of what they buy. People who are truly grateful prefer locally grown, ethically sourced, organic or natural food.
Some even trace where their fish was caught (a business practice now being done by major hotels), some do not buy imported products, and some even go as far as sticking to a plant-based diet, knowing a lot of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change come from the meat industry.
If there was any form of exploitation (may it be of animals, natural resources, or labor) in the supply chain for a recipe, mindful eaters will think twice about that dish.
There are also people who practice food justice (not wasting anything that was produced), and also zero-waste lifestyles to lessen their impact to the resources needed for food security. Going deeper, we know that in our prayers we often mention those who are not able find something to eat, and so we must act and help build societies rising from poverty and hunger.
We still have a lot to work on, to make agriculture and food production, distribution and consumption, more sustainable.
May our prayer gesture – putting our palms together, bowing to our food and smiling before eating – be authentic thanksgiving to ALL that feed us. May it be an expression of our understanding of and commitment to sustainability.
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Celebrating the hands that feed us is the 5th Agri-Trade Fair from February 21 to February 23, 2018 at the University of Saint La Salle Gate 1 Parking Lot in Bacolod City.
The Agri-Trade Fair promotes the agriculture industry with a showcase of the agribusiness profession and the different produce of the USLS Agribusiness Farm and other exhibitors. You can buy fruits and vegetables from the fair, and learn more about other agriculture-related enterprises. There is a seminar on Duck-Raising and trends in agribusiness on Thursday, February 22, from 2 to 4 p.m., at the USLS Room 10.
The three-day event is open to all and is organized by Green Ranchers Club, the academic organization of USLS Agribusiness Management, with government and private partners such as the major sponsors for this year’s fair, the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and New Panay Agri-Ventures (Love Feeds).
The USLS Agribusiness Management Department, commemorating their “Voyage: The Five-Year Journey” with the Agri-Trade Fair, has its own farm at Barangay Granada in Bacolod, where they hold classes and laboratory exercises, and where they grow livestock as well as rice, other crops, fruits and vegetables. Produce from this farm will be available at the fair.
The deparment chair, Mrs. Diane Mae Peña, heads the USLS Agribusiness “Cultivators of the Future,” with Dr. Edmundo Raul Casing as farm manager, Bea Emma Bachinela as Green Ranchers Club moderator, and Gab Jaime Ciron, John Paul Canada and Nathaniel Acha as faculty. Green Ranchers Club may be the club with the fewest members in USLS, but continues to perform and persevere for the sometimes underappreciated agribusiness industry and despite the decline of numbers in youth studying agribusiness.
This year, the fair welcomes the following exhibitors: Tatak Felisanhon, Tin’s Organic Kitchen, Menubox Eatery, Arendo Co-Working Space, Jarvis Gourmet Foods, PicsBox Photo booth, SIM Ornamental Fishes, Shannon’s Aviary and Rabbitry, D’Flora Gardens of Don Salvador Benedicto, and Fudifufu Handmade Collections.
For inquiries, the Green Ranchers Club president Christine Pabillo can be contacted at (0905)4316671.