Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Gwen Giffen" <ggiffen@1st.net>]

I read on BBC's website last night that a great draught 70,000 years ago is 
believed to be what caused the human race to leave Africa and populate the 
earth. I have an article clipped from the Columbus Dispatch about 15 years 
ago that tells of a Tsunami that once flooded all of the area Seattle is in. 
What Art is talking about has already happened here due to a hurricane in 
New Orleans.

My mother has occaisionally said that it is important to build community 
despite our differences, because it is when community falls apart that 
people go to war over their resources. She says it is important to find 
common ground; to find activities we can do together and relate in a 
positive way over, rather than focusing on our differences. Our local Farm 
Bureau group has members about as opposite in political viewpoints as you 
can get, but we don't fight over it. Some are military families; others are 
in the local peace group. Some of us like Bush; others of us can't stand 
him. I don't know about you, but I've avoided people I have different 
political views from; and to sit in the same room with them and discuss 
politics and farming is meaningful. To swap antique farm equipment with them 
is precious. Some probably are collecting homeland security information on 
the others, but they're working together!!! We are able to and do find 
common ground. Forces that cause us to see our differences rather than our 
commonalities are the forces that are the most dangerous of all. 
Suburbanites are just like us. Many of them descended from farming families, 
and still have an interest in knowing farm skills. It is not necessarily a 
sin to live a modern life. They may look "down the nose" at farmers, but I 
personally have seen several thoroughly enjoy putting up hay when I've 
invited them to help.

What concerns me is that our country is in the process of making supporting 
ourselves in small communities virtually impossible, if not illegal. It is 
true that most of us can't exist alone. We are a complex society, and have 
become very interdependent. That interdependence has reached a 
corporate/national level, and those who want to make money, or just can't 
see, are in danger of making our ability to feed ourselves in the event of 
disaster impossible. If we can set aside power struggles and greediness, 
that complexity doesn't need to change, especially not in the event of a 
disaster. We can't sell milk to our neighbors. We may not be permitted to 
save our own seed. The government can keep track of how we raise our animals 
via satellite - even some of our neighbors have access to technology where 
they can watch us via satellite. I had a patient in the hospital tell me 
that he and his friends check out properties on the internet before going 
4-wheeling on them, for example.

If we don't build a positive community with our neighbors where we are 
interdependent and support each other - if we work hard and keep the fruits 
of our labor to ourselves, then yes, those who are starving will point their 
guns and make us hand it over. If we do build community, now, and make it in 
vogue to grow your own tomatoes, and know our neighbors and work things out 
with them in whatever way we can, then when disaster hits, we will be there 
for each other. We also need to keep the country's laws in a place where it 
isn't illegal to do what is necessary to survive and eat in the event of a 
disaster!

Not long ago, before all this discussion on "commune way of living" began, I 
posted a link to Raven Rocks in southeastern Ohio. It is an intentional 
community. I know most of the members, but I have never lived there, and 
most likely never will. I like to visit the rock shelters there, however, 
and see the spring wildflowers, and I try to buy my Christmas tree from them 
every year where they set up at a local farm market. They are a successful 
community, but I don't think they qualify as a "commune." They are very 
involved in the larger community. They use the means to stay off grid in 
their daily lives, and educate others about how to do so. The people in that 
community have inspired me to try harder. That is the way we should all be.

Living in this manner might not stop a disaster that happens in the suburbs 
and the city, but it would go a long way to helping in the event of one, if 
we in our small rural farming communities stuck together locally, and 
nationally stood up for our ability to produce and profit from it; and kept 
an open, positive relationship with those who may someday need us.

Gwen



> You are exactly correct. In the 30's a lot of people were still producing
> most of what they consumed and most had enough extra to share it with
> others. Just the difference in population in the 30's and now will make 
> all
> the difference. If our food supply is cut off for any length of time the
> whole nation will go absolutely crazy.


> For one thing the people in the 30's has a lot more security for they
> depended more on their own efforts. Most of what they had they and they
> alone controlled if they would have it or not. They didn't panic when
> everything fell apart. They just tightened their belts and rode it out. 
> That
> would not be the case now. We don't have anything to ride it out with.
>
> I have no idea what will actually happen but something will and you can 
> bet
> your sweet bippy on that. There are a number of things that could happen
> that would bring the production of everything in this nation to a 
> screeching
> halt. Run-away-inflation is always a possibility. A wrong move by the 
> wrong
> people at the wrong could put everything into a tailspin like you wouldn't
> believe. Raising the price on fuel is one of those wrong moves. Price
> increases of everything caused by the increase in higher fuel prices has
> just started and will continue. That one stupid act alone can very easily
> start a domino effect that will bring a lot of things down right around 
> our
> ears.
>
> I am hoping it will come on slow as you suggest but it may not.
>
> Art in Arkansas