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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] World Hunger Best Cured by Small-Scale Agriculture

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  • From: Pego Rice <firekeeper38@yahoo.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] World Hunger Best Cured by Small-Scale Agriculture
  • Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:40:20 -0800 (PST)

Have a care, TP Paul
 
Your testiness and prejudice about the nasty hydroponics (not the same as aquaponics at all) has made you rude to those who share your interest and general mind-set.  I've been out to Skeptic's place more than once and he and Glo are doers, not talk-about-doers.  And share as much as do, having also started food programs and community gardens in their local townships, hosted gatherings for people to coach each other through new skill sets for us back-to-landers and more. 
 
Even pretty big farmers find themselves working, as we all have mentioned, so growing what we need and earning the cash part elsewhere becomes less a point than simply a factor of 'How much work".  I've mentioned to you before that my uncle could not get anyone to take over the farm from him for this very reason.  When I knew him, he had taken on as many acres as he could, leased more, like all the rest.  He worked from before dawn to dusk on the farm and then cam home to sit and listen to the farm reports on the radio.  That's a heck of a work schedule 6 days a week and adding onto it is a bit too much.  My cousins had no interest in having a similar 40 years of grind. 
 
Better, it seems to me, to have a small farm or truck garden that covers the family and if the excess does not fill the cash needs, then what of it?  The labor for small multi-cropped places are pretty casual and a side job would only need to cover mortgage and bills, not food and not major equipage and not leases for extra acres.  Then what time we spend is to feed those we care for and our own spirits, not to mention bragging rights at our favorite watering hole, since bragging is it's own pleasure.  Being outside and feeding our family is also it's own pleasure and a medicine for what ails us.
 
I only have my little garden, but when months of this year brought a loss of work due to a combo of economy and equipment failure for my business, I was able to simply feed my family, including a friend's family (she didn't have garden space and I've turned so much of mine to garden that there was plenty of room for her, a private "community garden" as it were, tho she mostly injected seed and materials) and an unexpected extra mouth of our own until things were back in order, and still not have to pay food bills long enough to get our family reunion done.  I do normally get processed foods at the store, cereal and the like, and meat from the ranch (My HOA doesn't allow chickens or much, so the grass-fed people provide this) but I keep stocked so there was no imposition.  I'm pretty lazy but even my own lackadaisical nature did not stop a regular meal.
 
I seem to be getting chunks of my 'ponics system only when they are cheap enough for my tight-wad self, and then only work on it when nothing else is in the way, so I cannot attest to a complete system as yet, tho I can say that putting the tanks and troughs together for a pretty big set can be gotten very cheaply, if you keep a sharp eye out.  We've finally gotten the last big item so only pipes, pumps and gravel now.  I've even thrown some fish into the tanks.  I suppose my continuing fault is in thinking bigger than I am able to do, quickly, but somehow, it all seems to eventually get done.
 
Yours, Pego

<<Well Mr. Skeptic, since I don't have a PhD I disagree (B.A., post grad, TX A&M), and I'm not talking about the grand things I'm going to do but the modest things I'm already doing>>




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