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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] this time we don't have the family farms to fall back on
  • Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:53:44 -0600


You got it. And Emilia said it well.

Now it seems the decline of freshwater and cheap oil, along with topsoil loss
and climate disruptions are about to be upstaged by economic catastrophes
here and worldwide. So the more urgent question comes down to this: how fast
can local food producers ramp up production to help feed our own communities?
And do it sustainably without all the energy hog machinery and fossil fuel
inputs? Never mind the waving wheat across the fruited plain - it'll never
make it to market the way we're going, and the starving nations will bid up
the price if it does. Growing local and eating local is no longer an option;
it's urgent. Buying organic from far off climes is not an option; it's a dead
end.

Now that big agribusiness has cheapened the organic label, we have more
market customers asking us simply, where is your farm? We're an hour's drive
east of here. Of course no chemicals, but now they're more concerned with
fresh and local. I also remind folks that the organic label is no guarantee
stuff tastes good. Storebought organic is usually so tasteless it isn't even
worth the price of non-organic. So our plan is to keep on growing only the
best tasting varieties we can find, and charge what the market will bear -
long as people can buy food. We're both retired on a fixed income here, and
not asking for a handout. At least we're providing something great in return
for the money we get.


paul, tradingpost@lobo.net

"The ignorance of mainstream America only makes it easier for the well
informed to rise above the masses and make some serious changes for the
better. "
-- Mike Adams

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 9/21/2008 at 2:22 PM Harvey Ussery wrote:

>>
>> "As James H. Kunstler has reminded us lately, in that last great
>greed-induced deflationary spiral, called the Great Depression, the US had
>not yet squandered its vast oil and gas reserves, its productive
>industrial base, demeaned and vanquished its proud and self-conscious
>working class, depopulated its agricultural landscape, emptied and
>beggared its great cities." ~quoted by Paul
>
>And this disconcerting litany could go on and on: This time we have a
>vastly increased population to feed. This time only a minuscule fraction
>of that population has a clue about where food comes from or what's
>required to grow and preserve it. This time the food system is not
>locally or even regionally based--it is an anonymous, centralized global
>system increasingly subject to disruption of its abundant, just-in-time
>wonders. This time the natural systems on which agriculture
>depends--soils, water systems, climate, species diversity--are in much
>more critical decline than in 1929.
>
>Could be a doozie.
>
>~Harvey
>
>--
>Harvey in northern Va
>www.themodernhomestead.us
>
>I truly believe that as long as we have not found peace with the soil, we
>won't find peace above the ground. That as long as we justify the
>exploitation of any organism, other exploitations will follow and we will
>remain parasites, consuming more than participating, and spiralling into
>entropy until we commit mass suicide. ~Emilia Hazelip
>
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