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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Additional pressure on food availability

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  • From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Additional pressure on food availability
  • Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:56:41 -0500

At 11:35 AM 12/12/2007, you wrote:

I lived in your area when I was little in the late '40s. One would think
that the rural poor in the Appalachians would still carry on the self
sufficient traditions of their forebears. Many would still be living on the
same land. Perhaps it's the food stamps etc. that have weaned so many away
from growing what they can. How did they get by a hundred years ago, and
why not now?

Many of them were desperately poor a hundred years ago too. They got by, but they certainly weren't well-nourished. And they didn't have some of the pressures on their income that people have now. If you couldn't afford the things that weren't absolutely necessary, you just did without. Now if you don't have electricity and running water and inside plumbing, your house can be declared unfit for habitation and your kids can be taken away from you. And if you don't have a car in rural areas, you can forget about getting a job. There is no public transportation, period, and unless you live close to town, it can be impossible to get to work. The weather is another problem for people getting to work even if they have cars. The one big industry in my country wouldn't hire anyone who lived "on the mountain" because they knew those people wouldn't be able to get to work if the roads were icy. We have some of the best snow removal in the state, but you don't go down a 9% grade covered with ice unless you're crazy.

As far as living on the same land is concerned, yes, in some cases, but a couple of generations of kids have grown up and left the land their parents and grandparents lived on, and never came back. Many of the remaining elderly were indeed farmers, or at least had sizable gardens, but are now too old to maintain a garden any more, and because the younger people left, they don't have extended families in the vicinity to help them. If not for food stamps and a local store, many of them would be in nursing homes (on the taxpayer's nickel) because they could not afford to buy grocery store food, or even to get to a supermarket. You hear about the elderly eating dog food because it's cheaper, or having to decide between buying food and buying medications. Those stories aren't made up--it happens all the time in poverty stricken places.

The topography is another element. Where I live, just on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge, the land is reasonably fertile, and though there are rolling hills, it's not so mountainous that you can't grow crops or graze cattle on it. When you get out into the coalfields, most of the communities are located along river channels. There is often just barely enough room on one side of the river for the highway and on the other side for a single line of houses or mobile homes. In fact, in many cases, people have to park on the highway side of the river and walk across a pedestrian bridge to get to their houses. Steep hillsides rise up on both sides of the river, leaving almost no level place to grow anything, and the land is very rocky anyway. There is also much less sunshine, because of the high hills. There was never a tradition of subsistence farming here--the men worked in the mines, and the women--if they worked outside the home at all--did domestic work or other kinds of unskilled labor. Their food came from company-owned grocery stores. Probably many families had small gardens (and some still do), but those wouldn't have been sufficient to provide all or even most of their food. The coal towns were artificial environments created by the coal companies, not places where people settled to farm.

So to answer your question finally--yes, no doubt in some places people have been brought up to be dependent on the government. But that doesn't account for all of the poor, many of whom grew up fiercely independent and self-sufficient. Other factors have contributed to make many of them dependent now on someone or something. Food stamps at least let some of them stay in their homes and take care of themselves without having to eat dog food.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com




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