By Zardusht Chet Van Wert
I work in the heart of New York City, at a business school no less, and yet I think of the work I do there as a form of Ziraat. My work focuses on finding ways to improve the accessibility and affordability of fresh and healthy food to communities that are currently not well served. Could we consider this a form of Ziraat?
Looking for the definition of Ziraat on the Ruhaniat website, this one from Murshida Darvesha speaks to me: “By force of circumstance, the arena of Ziraat has evolved from a metaphor for the cultivation of spiritual development into an essential, compelling practical concern for the continuity of the planet, upon which the sustainability of all inner and outer paths is dependent.”
The project I work on at New York University’s Center for Sustainable Business aims to attract investment to innovative new enterprises that are building a sustainable economy in New York City – an economy that nurtures the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
I focus on food systems. We all know the failings of our food system. They hit close to home for all of us when the Covid pandemic disrupted food supply chains in 2020. To change the system, we have to understand how it works, what it does well, how it fails us and, most exciting, what experiments are underway to correct those failings.
The truth is that the food system is actually very good at delivering what we ask for. Think back 75 years to when our modern food system emerged from the ashes of the Great Depression and World War II. Following 15 years of gut-wrenching global hunger and suffering on a colossal scale, what our society most wanted was a plentiful supply of affordable calories. And our food system delivered super cheap calories in stunning quantities. The food budget of a typical working-class family fell from 33% of their monthly budget to 10% – so, the amount of food a dollar bought before the Depression could be purchased for just about 30 cents in the 1980s (adjusted for inflation) – and the selection of food was much better.
Then we discovered that the system was overachieving – enough with the cheap calories, they are killing us! We needed to rethink the goal and recalibrate the system. But the system isn’t the problem. It’s just a tool. Our job is to learn how to use it more skillfully.
My colleagues and I are studying some wonderful experiments with alternative forms of food production and distribution. Our goal is to make the case for change and secure the resources needed to make that change a reality.
Invited by the former mayor’s chief climate advisor, I developed a business plan for a vertical farm complex on Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail complex in the East River between the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan. The jail complex is scheduled to be demolished over the next four years. New Yorkers are now debating what the island will be used for in the future. Our proposal showed that if we could devote 32 acres, less than 10% of the 413-acre island, to state-of-the-art urban farming, we could produce 490,000 pounds of leafy greens and vining crops and 45,000 pounds of salmon or trout every week, 52 weeks per year. Not incidentally, this project would create 1,500 good jobs in a place that has experienced incredible suffering and badly needs a redemption plan. (An important focus of our project is the green workforce of the future. In the not-too-distant future, will New York City have a small but essential category of workers called “farmers”?)
Could we consider that Ziraat?
Growing food is half the problem. Getting it to everyone affordably is the less-sexy but equally important half of the problem. Our sisters and brothers who live in food deserts, where fresh and healthy foods are either not available or not affordable, struggle with incredibly high rates of diet-related diseases – including diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. These communities, which are so poorly served by our food system, exist in both cities and in rural America.
Studying how this came to be, we found that the system developed by following the easy money. If you sell to Walmart, Costco and Safeway, you can prosper. Unfortunately for communities that are not served by Walmart, Costco, or Safeway – including both lower-income urban neighborhoods and rural towns upstate – their small grocery stores have to get by with less access, especially less fresh and perishable foods, and higher prices. In fact, the super-sized food distribution system actually undermines the supply chain for smaller food stores. It actually creates food swamps, where the only food available is highly processed and unhealthy.
But the easy-money folks overlooked the purchasing power of these communities. For example, in New York City, where 750,000 citizens or more have inadequate access to healthy, affordable food, there are at least 8,000 corner grocery stores, or bodegas. These stores don’t typically sell much fresh produce or unprocessed food, because the food distribution system doesn’t make perishable food easily accessible and affordable to them. But with average annual sales of $1 million each, NYC’s bodegas represent an $8 BILLION economy all by themselves! It doesn’t take an MBA to realize that this is plenty of buying power to work with.
My colleagues and I are working with bodega owners and health organizations in the Bronx to develop a pilot project to show how a new, alternative food distribution system could bring fresh produce and healthy meals, snacks and sandwiches to NYC’s bodegas. The system that serves Walmart won’t work here in the Bronx, but we can easily imagine a new system that will put fresh and healthy food items affordably on 8,000 NYC corners. In the process, this new system will also support 8,000 small business owners who mostly have roots in the neighborhoods they serve – building wealth in the community rather than sending it to Walmart HQ.
Could this be Ziraat?
In his Bowl of Saki commentary for May 4, Murshid Sam says, “Now mind is an instrument, an agent, not an actor, and if treated as a servant it can become most powerful,” a message he repeated many times. The same is true of business/capitalism. It’s a tool – a very powerful tool – but not inherently good or evil. The results of its use reflect the intentions and skill of the user. It can be used selfishly or it can serve the common good. A growing movement of more than 6,700 companies have been certified as B Corporations, companies that prove through their actions that “businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all” and should “act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations.” Why is this a new idea?
Food systems are something I am only learning about late in life, but I feel fortunate that skills I developed in entirely different businesses are relevant to this work, as are spiritual practices. Finding and implementing solutions calls for groundedness, clarity, and compassion – clearly envisioning the goal, embracing it, and then continuing to see it as a developing reality with love and compassion.
Humanity recently passed the 8 billion population milestone. One challenge we face is to feed and educate all 8 billion of our sisters and brothers sustainably.
I like Murshida Darvesha’s description: “Ziraat means holding in our hearts the harmony, sustainability and balance of the whole planet and bringing this awareness actively into our everyday lives in whatever way we are called upon to do so.” This resonates for me as I practice a hara-centered walk through Washington Square Park in NYC, envisioning healthy food affordably available on every street corner, feeling the power that could make it happen (Ya Qadir!) and imagining solutions that might actually work (Ya Muqtadir!).
Could we call that Ziraat?