Market Farming

["GlobalCirclenet" <webmaster AT globalcircle.net>]

Rick, I'd like to agree more, but whether we call it democracy or slavery
or whatever the evidence tells us modern industrial agriculture can't
survive much longer the way it's going, with ever higher fossil fuel
inputs, pesticide poisoning, and the destruction of stable rural society.
And closer to home, too many individual farm families are reaching a dead
end with costs and prices what they are, as many on this list surely
realize all too well. There are alternatives and that's where the current
boom is in research and experimentation, including market farming.

  "10 Reasons to Buy Local Foods" from Center for Sustainable Environments,
Flagstaff, AZ
http://environment.nau.edu/farmersmarket/10Reasons.htm
  12 Reasons to Eat Local and Organic Ohio
http://www.oeffa.org/12.html
  Stopping the great food swap - Relocalising Europe’s food supply
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/reports/2001/globalisation/greatfoodswap.html

Extension offices, USDA, and universities are going full throttle now with
information about more profitable alternative crops and methods, and I can
post more links on that if someone wants them. A lot of it is about cutting
out the middleman and gearing up for value-added processing for local
consumption. Some are on my page at
http://globalcircle.net/foodlife.htm#Alternative . There are also dairies
moving that direction because they can't survive in direct competition with
corporate middlemen and chains. Pastured beef and dairy is a growing niche
market as you know.

As always I'm eager to find and promote more information along that line.

   "People are trying to find ways to shorten the distance between
producers and consumers, to make the connections between the two more
direct, and to make this local economic activity a benefit to the local
community. They are trying to learn to use the consumer economies of local
towns and cities to preserve the livelihoods of local farm families and
farm communities. They want to use the local economy to give consumers an
influence over the kind and quality of their food, and to preserve and
enhance the local landscapes. They want to give everybody in the local
community a direct, long-term interest in the prosperity, health, and
beauty of their homeland."
   -- Wendell Berry full article The Idea of a Local Economy
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/archive_om/Berry/Local_Economy.html

paul & barb - on the continental divide
http://globalcircle.net

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On 10/1/2002 at 7:53 PM Rick Williams wrote: