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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 134, Issue 4

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 134, Issue 4
  • Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:02:08 -0500

I was looking at it from a different perspective. They said "economically not feasible" because they think that the 'norm' is the cheap food we currently see in stores. The current system of cheap food (yes, organic food is cheap, too) is based on a lot of externalities that aren't accounted for, and is basically borrowing from the future Peter to pay the present Paul at ADM. Before our lives were filled with junk, people used to spend about 40% of their budget on food, while also growing gardens. If we assume (for a moment) that that pre-consumerism amount was based on a natural reality, then the current average cost of food should be compared to the average income of people. Let's say it's $40,000, so that the average working person should be spending $10,000 on food every year (and I don't mean going out to eat). In that light, the value of a sustainable garden or a window box starts to look much better in relation to the time spent on it.

If you think my numbers are ridiculous, just consider the rate at which wheat and corn and soybeans are rising right now, and project that out to a time when trucking becomes unavailabe due to bad roads (Re: "The Long Emergency" by Kunstler), and you might agree that my numbers are actually conservative.
Here's an interesting page. I don't know how it affects the future, and I'd like to see the current year, but it does put food prices in perspective:

http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2007/021707.htm

Dan C.
Belgium,WI

From: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>

Take a look at this blog - it appears that our concerns are seeping into more
segments of the society.

http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/cows-grazing-in-the-rumpus-room/index.html?th&emc=th

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:31:01 -0600
From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Interesting blog
To: emitch@att.net, livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <200803200831010186.02BC12EE@mail.lobo.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"


Excellent. Question it leaves unasked is how much of this trend helps
people who can least afford it. Now let's take a look at one of the
comments on that page:

"I have a friend who has been growing organic vegetables in his backyard
and in a local community garden plot. He has the time and enjoys it, but
even he admits that the time and money he has to put into it probably
isn?t worth it in economic terms. The growing season in New Hampshire,
where we live, is very short, and his overall yield was not great enough to
cut significantly into his grocery bill except for during a few peak weeks
of production. .. If I were in search of a new hobby, I suppose gardening
would be a much better one than say, skiiing or snowmobiling, but I daresay
there are many Americans like me who would find it hard to figure out how
to fit a garden into their already overburdened lives."

There's an answer to that but let's hear others first.
paul tradingpost@lobo.net






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