When the power of loaf overcomes the loaf of power, the world will know peace.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to distance ourselves from the important foundations of humanness - our own health and the bread that supports it, the very real soil, a tradition of land stewardship, and actual people in our community with whom we bust crust. Markets are infinitely alluring, especially for people running large operations who want guaranteed supplies and/or want to cook up demand. It doesn’t take much more than a metaphor to believe wheat fields, milled flour and bags of bread are resources. That is, an economic outlook causes their primary value to be monetary.
And it’s a vicious world in the marketplace. Supermarket conglomerates would have your mill bid against itself to get the best price, then almost arbitrarily reduce your payment when the invoice comes. Organic grain futures can be bought and sold like currency is, and you don’t know nor care where it comes from or who buys it.
Flour that is a raw resource is demanded with the highest possible gluten content by bakers in stainless steel factories, who don’t give their yeast time to breathe. The bran is removed and sold back to us as vitamin tablets (largely inaccessible nutrients) and the agro-chemical inflated gluten causes allergic reactions in many. The yeast is produced in a chemical-intensive process. The bread, perfectly engineered to be maximally indigestible, will stay fresh-looking on grocery shelves for eons.
Bread can be food and medicine. Bread can link us to our ancestors and our intestines (and through the soil, our ancestors’ intestines). At this point it is unrealistic to expect everyone to grow their own grains, or even bake their own bread. But we do need to make those practices closer to everyone. We need many more people baking with sourdoughs and grains they are close to. We need many more growing unique varieties of wheat, spelt, rye. We need the bakers, brewers, and picklers banging out tunes together on the same corner. When bread matters more than money, values that support such loaves will be allowed to flourish regardless of the market’s movement.
And how about these organic grain markets? Internationally traded grains that comply with organic standards. Is it benign, perhaps even helpful to the cause?
I’m reminded of the notion of ‘dismantling the master’s house with the master’s own tools.’ However, the tools of the master are whips and chains, and if we use them will become the master ourselves. Our tools are different. They are the scythe, rolling pin, and oven. If we use them with all of our strength we will be free.