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  • From: Nan Hildreth <NanHildreth AT riseup.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>, market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] good mottos
  • Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 03:56:02 -0500

Kathryn,

I believe more folks like you will go into market farming as unemployment rises from our failing economy. My Texas oil pro pals say things like "declining oil production will end economic growth". The good news is when the price of oil goes up a bit, the price of food goes up a lot. Every calorie of factory food requires maybe ten calories of oil. www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915

Most amazing is the oil guys tone of voice: sincere, distressed. Pushed out of their comfort zone. Corporate lords called to be prophets, to witness for radical changes. Weird. For example, Matt Simmons, Houstonian, energy investor, advisor to President Bush, has retired to focus on being a Paul Revere. His speeches are published here. http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches For background, google "peak oil".

The peak oil guys say the price of oil will go up and up. Raising prices of oil products. Like chemical fertilizers. Don't some here spend a fortune on them? Are big conventional farmers in for more trouble while new little organic market-gardeners manage to show a profit after a few years? Then thrive.

I'm beginning to feel we can make our market farm succeed. Has it taken me a year to relax with our customers enough to listen to them? And to realize that even we can grow great-tasting food?

Our customers ask "How do I eat that veggie? What do I DO with chard?" I don't know. ?Barely cooked with butter?

Kathy, maybe you're right, "save the world one veggie at a time". Save a market leftover from rot by figuring out how to eat it instead of that candy, teach new eating to your customers, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Learning. There's been a ton to learn about organic gardening. Sometimes I realize that my teachers don't know the answer to my questions so I have to just experiment. The lead organic teacher here says to start an organic farm requires an intellectual teamed up with a grunt. Must organic farms be set up by little newbies, outsiders, corporate refugees? Maybe I wasn't silly to take this on?

The solution to big system problems like foreign oil dependence draining our economy and climate disruption is a paradigm shift. Changes in values, habits, worldviews, etc. Paradigm shift means learning lots of new ways. And, without a crisis, would we do the hard work of learning?

Nan, racing the bacteria to eat market leftovers in the Oil Capital of the World

At 12:23 AM 5/12/2010, KAKerby AT aol.com wrote:
Bean meaning to tell you, Nan, that I love your motto at the bottom of each email. Action really is the antidote to dispair. We're at three markets a week now, and some days I wonder what I was thinking to sign up for this much work. But both myself and my booth helper (aka best friend aka soul-sister) were corporate refugees not so long ago, wondering why no one would hire us and no one saw worth in our experience and life knowledge and skillset. Then I said "heck, if no one will hire me, I'll go plant a bunch of veggies and sell 'em somewhere and make money that way!" Well, as we all know it's a tad more complicated than that. But there really is something empowering about growing something in beds that I built with my own hands, and then selling it to a group of folks who value that effort enough to pay me more than I'd ever think it was worth. And my booth partner recently confided to me that my hiring her to help me in the market booth has given her a sense of purpose again, which she didn't know she had been missing until she found it again. Now she's talking about planting enough next year to set up her own booth and having her own name out there on those veggies she knows she can grow. Wow, now that's cool. Maybe action is more than the antidote to despair. Maybe it's a recipe for how to save the world. One veggie at a time.

Happy dreams, folks, and happy farming. Whatever you're growing and wherever you're selling it, and despite whatever issues we're each facing (and we all have at least a few), I'm glad to be amongst folks out there being part of the solution, rather than sitting around whining about the problem. :)
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA

In a message dated 5/11/2010 10:08:32 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, NanHildreth AT riseup.net writes:
Action is the antidote to despair....
Joan Baez

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Nan Hildreth NanHildreth AT riseup.net
Houston 713-842-6643

"An authentic movement is not a play for power - it is teaching and learning writ large." "Now the world becomes our classroom, and the potential to teach and learn is found everywhere. We need only be in the world as our true selves, with open hearts and minds."

"the simple choice to live with integrity can have far-reaching effects."

Palker Palmer in Yes! Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=796




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