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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 268, Issue 7

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Livingontheland Digest, Vol 268, Issue 7
  • Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 03:58:59 -0700 (PDT)

I have to admit that I’m writing this in complete ignorance of the subject
because I couldn’t bring myself to read passed the sales hype of that guy. I
find that very off-putting.

And CSAs too, I only know from hearsay, but I do find this an attractive
model that could prove useful under some conditions with the proviso that it
ought not to be judged on purely economic grounds. After all, we are talking
here about scenarios in which current economic models reach their limits.
Humans cannot help looking towards the future but in a rear-view mirror;
nevertheless, it would be self-defeating to use present economic criteria to
overcome exactly these same economic conditions.

To the point, what I mean is that there is a strong element of “dedication”
that has to go into the making of a successful CSA both on the grower and on
the consumer side. I think the same applies in different degrees to
organics, the local food movement, the fair trade movement and the like. I
was just reading a Japanese Natural Farming mailing list. Consumers of
Natural Food there are willing to pay 2, 3 up to 10 times the market price
for fruits, vegetables or even rice from Natural Farms because they are
convinced that it is worth it for health and/or environmental reasons. From
the many years I lived in Japan, I can confirm that this represents an
accurate picture. I also know that people there are capable of a dedication
that is hard to imagine in most other places. I have known people who have
come together for years or even decades in their spare time to dedicate their
time and effort to such things as studying a foreign language,
reading literature or doing manual labor on a Natural Farm without expecting
any material benefits in return.

Even if that degree of dedication may be rare in other places, I think that,
ultimately, the success of alternatives to the present food system will
depend on whether people believe it is worth it or not. After all, economics
is not everything. And there is no reason why food ought to be cheap. If I
don’t grow something myself, I will buy only the very best quality. When we
grow older we realize that health is the most precious thing we can have. In
the past, people spent the greatest part of their income on food. Now most
money goes to such things as electronic gadgetry that ends up on the jump
heap after a few years, and people live on junk food instead. People need to
learn to look at food as something more than a mere commodity, and social
inequities ought to be addressed on the local level. Globalization of the
food market has meant that the farmer Jones next-door has to compete with a
farmer in the South of China who lives under radically
different conditions and that local food production in Africa is destroyed
because of subsidized food exports from the US and the EU. It is the
inequities in the global market that cause poverty and starvation.

Dieter Brand
Portugal

PS: I don’t understand why CSAs should always have to be paid a whole year in
advance. I think what is important is that the members of a CSA will commit
for the long term to give the grower a degree of economic security no matter
if payments are made on a yearly, monthly, weekly or pay-as-you-receive
basis. Perhaps the problem of defaulting members could be solved by a
deposit that is big enough to dissuade defaults.


--- On Mon, 10/18/10, Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:
> Just a note - I'm not against any CSAs that can succeed in
> the right places....







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