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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Is Local Food Better?

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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] Is Local Food Better?
  • Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:13:02 -0600

The problem with most of these types of analysis is that they treat everything as though it is a one-way production line (As we all have been trained since kindergarten in the U.S.) which feeds us from the 'bounty of the earth' and that's it..

The reality is that in most of the things we do, we are ignoring our individual physical usefulness to our lands or excluding it from the thought process. For example: Eating local vs. mass-production at a distance seems like a no-brainer when we think in terms of food as part of our life, but when we think of it as a purchased 'thing' from someplace, then the 'most efficient' means of production is easily 'the best' in terms of resource use.

But it isn't just immediate physical resources we need to be concerned about. It's the responsiveness of people to each other and to the needs of the environment (especially the soil) and the education of people from person to person. If dairy farming produces too much methane, and we want to change, it is much more positively done when people who use dairy products can go to their farmer and ask him (or volunteer) to change what is produced on the farm. It is nearly impossible to end a 5000 cow farm system with a few concerned consumers. The milk would simply be shifted to schools or welfare programs because the dairy industry would lobby congress. OTOH, the local farmer would probably be glad to stop getting kicked and crapped on if you promise to buy veggies and help with the labor.

THAT's the importance of local vs. long distance and small vs. large farms. It isn't always about money or science, but relationships do matter.

All of those 'efficient' transportation systems require large investments of money. Any use of money instead of direct barter creates a demand for banks, government, security, etc. Only recently have we become so accustomed to the easy flow of electronic money that we don't question who benefits just from that flow rather than actual useful activities by human muscles and minds. Also gone is any real feel for how much money should be applied to useful value. The 'free market' system has never really worked: recent governments simply inflate away the errors in the system by printing enough money or allowing enough debt for the problems to be shifted into the future. It's all about promises to pay promises to pay promises, but nobody stops and recounts the needs and the available usefulness vs. the floating electronic dollar bills.


Dan C
Nature Creek Farm





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