TheSMARTSeed

For shits and giggles, let’s say that I, hypothetically of course, lived on a farm, a peach farm to be exact. I’ve picked all of my peaches and counted out the ones that I would need for canning. After I’ve done my counting I have two bushels of peaches left that I do not need. Therefore, I need to complete a trade. My two bushels of peaches for something of equal value. Now, my neighbour down the road grows pluots, a hybrid fruit that is derived from a plum and an apricot. In our world pluots and peaches are worth the same. She says, “Leanne, I’ll give you two bushels of pluots for your two bushels of peaches.” It is a simple trade, but most importantly it is a fair and mutually beneficial trade, which is essential.

Our society relies on mutually beneficial trade. From an exchange between neighbours, corporations, and countries every economic act is an act in trade. Every time we buy something or sell something we are participating in a trade. As Canadians, we are reminded over and over that we are a “trading nation” and that “trade” is essential to our success. Last year, our Canadian Prime Minister was in China scrounging up an agreement to just start the talks on a free trade agreement between China and Canada. Before that, he was in Vietnam restarting the Trans Pacific Partnership. In 2017 alone, trade and investment agreements have been concluded between Canada and the European Union, Guinea, Mongolia, and Ukraine. To put it plainly, Canada is going trade gangbusters and has been for awhile and there is probably one big fat reason why--the United States. Canada is and has always been overly dependent on our neighbours to the south as they count for about 77% of our trade. With Trump in the White House and the renegotiation of NAFTA not going so well, to say the least, Canada is best to diversify and diversity fast.

Now, this mutually beneficial part can get pretty sticky. It’s not just making sure that all countries benefit from a trade deal, but making sure that enough people within those countries benefit to make the deal a good one. It’s the danger of creating trade agreements around the needs of multinational corporations and not around the needs and desires of people. For, if the people don’t benefit then what is the result? Trump? Maybe. Protectionism? Perhaps. War? It’s possible. It’s definitely happened before. Which brings us to this week’s episode: China, Britain, & the Poppy.

When I was a kid I remember watching an episode of Seinfeld with my dad. In the episode, Elaine was invited to go on a work trip to Kenya, but one requirement was that she had to take and pass a drug test. Well, two tests later, Mr. Peterman gave Elaine the news that she had failed both tests, due to traces of opium in her system, and because of the failed tests she not only wouldn’t be allowed to go on the trip, but she would also lose her job. Flummoxed. Elaine sat at the diner, chomping down on a poppyseed muffin, and sharing her exasperation over the situation with the waiter. Only to have a noisy fellow diner bring up the fact that she was eating a poppy seed muffin and pose the question, “Well, you know what opium is made from?” “Poppies!!!” Elaine yells as the light bulb flashes in her brain. At the time I remember thinking, “Jeez Louise, who would have thought they were from the same plant?” Well, I guess certainly not a twelve year old me.

Plants are often multifaceted--they give what we decide to take from it and they are an object to what we decide to impose on it. The poppy can be our nourishment. It can be a remedy to our pain. It can be a tool for our vices and our addictions. It can be a symbol of loss, violence, and remembrance written in song and poetry. In most ways, how we use plants is much more a reflection of us and our own history rather than a reflection of the plant itself.

In China, in the 19th century,

I’m indifferent. I guess that is the best word I have, and, surely, it can be argued that this is the worst type of being. To have no passion, no hate, no love, no opinion of one thing or another. To simply be uninterested, so much so, that you care not to know. Actually, there is no “care”--it just is what it is. I am rarely indifferent. Throw a topic out there and some type of emotion will wither its way out of me: Climate Change, United States Foreign Policy, NAFTA negotiations, Tax Reform, the supply-management system, French only signs in Quebec’s National Parks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Oh, yes, there is deep hatred for that one. If you name it I can definitely sort out an opinion.

I can state, ever so matter of factly, that there is no greater indifference than the indifference that U.S Sports broadcasters on ESPN or TNT have towards the Toronto Raptors. To be up front, NBA Basketball and the Toronto Raptors is my primary form of escapism. For a year now, I have fully committed myself to being a true and knowledgeable fan. Last year, I rarely missed watching a game. I kept the computer on while they went through that dreadful stretch from February to March. I learned to appreciate as they fell behind by twenty points and then pushed out the young guys to try to provide a spark. Sure there’s Kyle Lowry and Demar Derozan, but I was interested in the folks on the bench like Delon Wright, Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, and Fred VanVleet. Instead of paying the exorbitant prices to watch a Raptors game we hung around young families and watched a D-League Game in Mississauga. I started watching interviews with the players, the general manager, Masai Ujiri, and the coach, Dwane Casey. I stayed up to date during the offseason keeping track of who was being traded to whom and the implications those trades and others had on the league itself. Through all this time I realized one thing--the US was indifferent to the Raptors.

I would watch Inside the NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson, and Shaquille O’Neal. Whether it be through the regular or post-season the Raptors were just a footnote--an obligatory mention. They would spend more time, much more time, talking about teams who weren’t nearly as good or consequential to the season itself. And, when they did mention the Raptors they only ever talked about Derozan and Lowry, as if they were the only two on the team. Frankly, I think if you asked them to name the Raptor’s roster, they would only know perhaps four or five players. Yesterday, I listened to an in-depth conversation with Masai Ujiri on the US based Bill Simmon’s Podcast.  Simmons spent most of the interview asking the Raptor’s General Manager to comment on players outside of the Raptor’s franchise, and then near the end Masai asked, “Have you ever visited Toronto?” Simmon’s responded, “Ah, no, I haven’t.” And, perhaps, that is at the crux of the indifference. Sports teams are so often wrapped up in the cultural identity of the city. What is Regina without the Roughriders or Montreal without the Canadians? If you do not know the city then perhaps it’s harder to care about the team. If we do not attempt to create a relationship if we do not ask the question, “Why should we care?” then what are we missing by choosing to not know. Which brings us to this week’s episode, “The indifference to an always has been, but shouldn’t be, humble liquid.”              

When it’s use is often so industrial and so woven in the fabric of our everyday we can often take it for granted. Even more so it can be denigrated; it’s value no longer appreciated, because we do not know what it was like to not have it. I believe that this is such a case. So much so, that I wish not to even say the word, because that alone would make it appear unworthy of our time and attention. So, let’s not say what it is we are talking about. Instead,

Once upon a time there was a farmer whose name was Rod. Rod was a pilot who also happened to be an organic farmer. He grew 100% grass fed beef, pastured pork, chickens and eggs, greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers, and basil. Oh, and satisfying delicious flax cookies. At the Regina Farmer’s Market, which during the...

I had once gone to a wedding in upstate New York. After the ceremony, a dance, and the presentation of food, it was time for the speeches. The best man stood up and went to the microphone to say a little something about the groom,his brother. What he said, which I thought was poignant at...

If you’ve ever had the pleasure or misfortune of getting stuck in a conversation with me, you might notice one thing. I most always say, “Well, I think.” or “Well, I’m pretty sure.” I don’t tend to talk in certainties. It may be because I am more concerned about being wrong rather than being right. My belief system is a perfect example of my ambivalence.  “Is there a God? Maybe?” I wouldn’t want to completely discount it. Either way, the day I finally find out the answer to that question no one will be able to say that I was entirely wrong. I just hedged my bets. And then in one scenario I will definitely be sent to purgatory.

This maybe surprising, but working in the food industry has pushed me to double down on my “Well, I think” and “Well, I’m pretty sure.” It is an intentional pushback against all of those fellow co-workers and customers who over the years have talked in absolutes. GMOS. Bad. Vaccines. More Bad. Bone Broth heals everything. Reishi Mushrooms cures cancer. Absolutes that always seem to be based on anecdotes and not scientific consensus. Perhaps, for those of us who are not doctors or scientists should be a bit more humble in our certainties when it comes to areas where we have no expertise. For sure, I am not completely immune to the random moment of righteousness. A couple of years ago, after I moved back to my home province of Ontario and started a new job I found myself on the wrong side of a pesky, yet not an inconsequential debate. What is a sweet potato? And, what is a yam? For my new co-worker, the orange skin and orange flesh elongated root was a sweet potato. For me, it was a yam. I explained that I was a produce queen. I had spent the last three years knee deep in organic produce splendor. Sunchokes, kiwi berries, burdock, broccoli leaves, passion fruit, persimmon, you name it I’ve tried it. With a few caveats.  I gently explained, perhaps, with a bit of a condescending tone that I had already had the yam / sweet potato conversation with a produce distributor, and that they explained that the yam was the orange skin and orange flesh root, and that the sweet potato was the purple skin white flesh root. So, yeah, my apologies, but I’m right. Well, I was wrong. Which brings us to this week’s episode: The Unfortunate Case of the Sweet Potato and Yam Debacle.

You know once in awhile I wonder if the time and money I put into my English Degree was worth it, and then more often than you would think as I do research on my next podcast a book will come up, and I say to myself, “Wait a minute. I’ve read that book. I have that book. That book is upstairs.” This was one of those times. The book is called, “Things Fall Apart” and the author is Chinua Achebe. Now, let’s be clear I remember precious little about this book other than the fact that I liked it. That goes with pretty much every single novel I read throughout my university career. Robertson Davies was my favourite author. Why? I don’t remember. In “Things Fall Apart,” which is set in Nigeria, there is a chapter that describes “The Feast of the New Yam.” In the book, the festival is held every year prior to the harvest, to honour the earth goddess and the ancestral spirits of the clan. The festival marked the season of plenty and a new year. Old, shriveled up, fibrous yams would be disposed of, for the new year must begin with new, fresh yams. Needless to say, spiritually and culturally, the yam is interwoven into West African culture. A variant of the word “yam” in some tribes actually means “to eat.” So, yeah, if it’s synonymous with the act of eating then it must be important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHS4CpLMddY

The yam is a tuber, similar to a potato. And, a tuber, is basically a storage vessel that grows from the root system to then create another plant. A sweet potato is a root. They are not related.  The yam originated in West Africa and Asia,

If you’ve ever had the pleasure or misfortune of getting stuck in a conversation with me, you might notice one thing. I most always say, “Well, I think.” or “Well, I’m pretty sure.” I don’t tend to talk in certainties. It may be because I am more concerned about being wrong rather than being right....

My all time favourite political show is Power & Politics with Rosemary Barton on CBC. I’ve been watching the show, on and off, for the past ten years all the way back to a time when Power & Politics was just called “Politics” and Don Newman was the host and Rosie was an up and coming, scrapper, of a political journalist. Don would open the show with his famous “Welcome to the Broadcast” line. His last show prior to his retirement was full of sniffles and awes as he told Rosie that her success in being a journalist relied on her “just being herself.” Well, Don was right, eventually. It was just pure silly oversight on Don’s part, but he forgot about gender inequities in the workplace. First, Evan Soloman took over Don’s job despite the fact that I’m pretty sure he didn’t do much political reporting prior to (think Sunday morning show host) and from one puff interview after another I stopped watching. Then Evan Soloman decided to partake in a few improprieties using his CBC job to sell some expensive artwork to some fancy people, and BOOM it was Rosie’s time to shine. Well, not quite yet. The CBC named Rosie the temporary host of Power & Politics, because we all know ladies we need to earn our way. It was only after a truly slaying interview with Conservative MP Chris Alexander on the Conservatives inaction on the Syrian Refugee Crisis that Rosemary finally proved her chops to the CBC brass and got the job! Since then, Rosie has solidified herself as “my type of oprah” weaving good-hearted fun with hard-hitting interviews. It’s certainly the best way to consume Canadian Politics.

So, there I was, last week watching my favourite political show. Rosie was interviewing a fella by the name of Dominic Barton (no relation) who is on the government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. By the sounds of it, it’s a group of people in suits, pretty sure the suits part is a requirement, and they brainstorm ways the federal government can improve the economic growth of the country. Pretty dry stuff. Indeed! The main substance of the interview was how does the Trump administration affect a trade dependent country like Canada, and Dominic’s response was two-fold--it’s a challenge and it’s an opportunity. Dominic believes that the challenges the Trump administration poses could, in a way, jolt the Canadian economy to a new level of growth. As the USA is pulling in on itself, we can take advantage of their absence and build new relationships with other countries and enter a new era of Canadian economic wealth. Sounds divine, in a twisted sort of way, to take advantage of what is essentially a horrible and chaotic situation for our neighbours to the south. Yet, to think that the Canadian government and Canadian companies wouldn’t try to make the most out of a bad situation would be a bit naive. Case in Point. At the end of January, a group of Canadian tech companies sent an open letter to the Canadian Government to ask for an “immediate and targeted visa” to those people affected by the United State’s Muslim Ban. Was it a political stand against government overreach and Islamophobia? Or, were they ceasing the opportunity to recruit top talent to their companies. The later, maybe, yes, definitely. Which brings us to this week’s episode, as we delve into the cashew industry and look at a few countries taking advantage of a bad situation. This week’s episode is Cashews: When Opportunity Strikes.

First off, before we continue, I would like you do something. If you wouldn’t mind, bring up your internet browser and search Cashew Apple.

Photo Credit: Greenthaicurry.com Flickr via Compfight cc

Do you see what I’m seeing? I have a feeling the last time you were eating a bowl of roasted cashews you didn’t have this in mind. It looks like an apple is midway through a bowel movement, and it reminds me that, at some point, I really need to get down to the equator so I can try this cashew apple out.

My all time favourite political show is Power & Politics with Rosemary Barton on CBC. I’ve been watching the show, on and off, for the past ten years all the way back to a time when Power & Politics was just called “Politics” and Don Newman was the host and Rosie was an up and...

Our fears reveal quite a lot about us. It reveals our biases, our phobias, weaknesses, and our privilege. What we fear sheds a light on the worst part of us. The really ugly part. There are conversations that I have had that come to mind. However, if I am too ashamed to share the worst part of myself then I certainly have no right to share the worst part of others. Suffice it to say at the end of these conversations I had one thought. Perhaps, what we fear says a lot about our station in life and our inherent privilege. What a privilege it must be that your worries and fears are not about what you don’t have, but what you do have and what you are worried will be taken away from you. There may be no logic or reason for this fear, but there it lies. Those who have the most in our society are perhaps those who fear the most. Building walls around their money, their families, and their power. How this contrasts with the fears of those who have nothing I am not too sure. I know what it feels to have not a lot, but “not a lot” is a far cry from nothing and “not a lot” is highly relative. Perhaps, if one has nothing, one goes beyond a state of fear. Fear is a luxury and one’s actions move in a direction that is motivated solely by getting to a place in which you have something rather than nothing.

If we were to consider individuals who have nothing, perhaps the most appropriate indicators of nothingness is whether or not that individual lives under a government that acknowledges and respects their inalienable rights. If you have no right to vote, no right to hold office, no right to own land, no right to own property, no right to worship, and no right to your own language then in reality you are living under conditions in which nothing is really yours. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century this was the reality for Irish Catholics. After a series of failed Irish uprisings against British rule, the British government imposed, what is called, the Penal Laws which quickly stripped the Irish Catholics of their rights. These laws were devastating to the Irish Catholic community. In 1640, over 50% of land in Ireland was owned by Catholics, by the mid 18th century this number decreased to just 7%. The intention of the Penal Laws was to push Irish Catholics into a permanent state of subjectification, and in turn remove a perceived threat to British Rule and the English homeland. You see, that’s the funny thing. Over the centuries, Irish Catholics had fought against the English for the sole purpose of regaining autonomy and control over their own land and their own country. However, the English did not see it that way. The English saw Irish rebellion as an existential threat to England’s power. How the English could confuse a fight for freedom with a fight to invade is curious. At the very least it takes an absolute lack of empathy and complete self-involvement for the English to see themselves as the threatened ones in this situation. They were the colonialists and yet they were worried about being colonized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb11KxSGQpk

After two centuries of living under the punishment of the Penal Laws Irish Catholics made a strange bedfellow with Irish Presbyterians, who also felt that they were being unduly treated by their British overlords. Together they formed the United Irishmen to fight for emancipation under the Penal Laws and for a free Irish Republic. With their diplomatic efforts squashed in 1798 the Irish turned to violent Rebellion once more. There is a poem written about the 1798 Rebellion titled “The Wind That Shakes The Barley”, and it reminds me of why I’ve never really been much of a fan of a lot of poetry. Essentially this is how the poem goes. Boy loves Girl. Boy loves Country. Boy hates the British. Boy decides to fight for country, but boy doesn’t want to leave girl. Girl gets shot. Girl dies. Boy fights for country. Boy dies. The end.

Our fears reveal quite a lot about us. It reveals our biases, our phobias, weaknesses, and our privilege. What we fear sheds a light on the worst part of us. The really ugly part. There are conversations that I have had that come to mind. However, if I am too ashamed to share the worst...