Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dan Conine <dconine@bertramwireless.com>]

I'm with you on this, Paul:

>   I'm only one and I'm not well known enough to make the lecture circuit. Or 
> inclined to try. People are afraid of Work.
But...I think they are also afraid of the unknown. Many don't realize that 
they are spending most of their value and money and time just setting 
themselves up to be ABLE to be employed (car, house in town, insurance, gas, 
clothes, fast foods, daycare, etc). They are TOLD that farming is nasty work, 
while they may be spending 14 hours a day cleaning offices with toxic 
chemicals or breathing all of the synthetic outgassing molecules of an office 
itself, not to mention the toxic wage slave mentality.
 
As for trying, you already do some of it by hosting this newsletter. Every farmer that I've worked with at the markets puts out some flyers and information. It's the little bits that 'stick' that will do the most good, but we have to keep throwing spitballs at the billboards. Those lecture tours and TED talks are great showmanship, but there's always an animated cartoon or a soft porn show on prime time TV to follow anything that looks like "knowledge."

It's the neighbors talking to neighbors that will have the only real effect, 
I think. More market farmers, more farm stands and signs on the side of the 
road seem to help a lot to get people interested (because they are always 
driving: cars ARE the dominant species), but up here in the snow, it only 
works for a few months of the year. I think that may be also why CSA is more 
active up here. It helps get people involved in the whole calendar. 
Otherwise, they're just tourists when the market is open.

That said, there are more winter markets popping up around here. Many of them 
are focusing on food and trying to avoid the craft-fair atmosphere, and 
working with food pantries to spread the knowledge to people who otherwise 
wouldn't get it.

Dan C.
Belgium, WI

P.S. I'm in favor of more trains so that there can be more seasonal migration 
of people without cars from north to south. Perhaps following herds of 
grazing animals.....


On 1/22/2014 11:00 AM, livingontheland-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:14:01 -0700
> From: tradingpost<tradingpost@lobo.net>
> Subject: [Livingontheland] eat healthy - how?
> To:livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Message-ID:<52DF0D49.8040503@lobo.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>
> We keep seeing articles and food experts urging everyone to eat healthy,
> focus on your veggies, provide good food to "food deserts", farm to
> school, and so on. But something's missing and nobody here talks about
> it. It's the fact that there isn't enough of the healthy food being
> grown to supply all these people. We've seen farmers markets multiply
> across the US, yet from what I've seen, most can't even meet demand in
> the local neighborhood - much less a town or large institution. We've
> checked in on several around this state and only a handful out of dozens
> seem to have enough growers to justify even having a market. The problem
> with that is it takes a certain critical mass of growers to attract the
> buyers, and enough buyers to justify the growers' showing up. A lot of
> talk and not enough growing. I know the main reason for it and what it
> takes to change that, but I'm only one and I'm not well known enough to
> make the lecture circuit. Or inclined to try. People are afraid of Work.
>
> paultradingpost@lobo.net