Food Activism Is Hot At Kalamazoo Campus

Baby boomers like to moan about how sweet times past were, when the kids (like themselves) were trying to save the world. It's easy to buy their nostalgic line - until you look at the real facts. When I was in university on the west coast, the big thing was trying to save the trees. Tens of thousands flocked to the blockades of Clayoquot Sound, hoping to protect some of the last of the temperate rainforests. Eight hundred people were arrested, making it the biggest mass arrest in Canadian history. Too bad the history books tend to overlook such things.

Then there was the Battle-in-Seattle, N0-Logo college kids, who tried to save us from the scourge of consumerism. They did make a difference, and still are; while our society publicly embraces this glitzy vice, more and more individuals are rejecting it. But I admit that I'm far enough from college days now that I was beginning to worry about the state of youth today. Do they all just go around yelling "Yo dawg" and "You my bitch", acting all ghetto-tastic and buying as much "bling" as they can?

When we did our first-ever campus event last night, at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, James and I learned the answer to this question. We were actually a little afraid - we wondered how resoundingly empty our venue, described as a "recital hall", could be. It was the first day of classes after all. Who would want to go to a serious talk about local food politics when there were pals to catch up with, and plenty of time to shirk? Then, at one minute to eight o'clock, the hall magically filled with students. The seats were taken and then they were standing in the aisles, sitting on the floor. James and I looked at each other with amazement and grinned. Wow, the energy in that room! And they all looked so...normal. That alone gave me hope; this was no fringe movement. These students will be the ones who carry forward the Good Food ideals that James and I stumbled into so haplessly. There is already a farms-to-college program on campus, and the local-food revolution is definitely simmering in Kalamazoo. And while the word "Kalamazoo" is quite unique, I don't believe there's something topsy-turvy in the water just here. Such political momentum must exist at schools across North America.

So no offence, former hippies, but more than one generation has shaped the activist culture. Thanks for fighting the good fight, but watch out for some real social change in this generation. Even if their haircuts aren't so funny.