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  • From: KAKerby AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] good mottos
  • Date: Wed, 12 May 2010 09:30:14 EDT

Guess I need to go kiss my cows and horses, not only for their potential power supply, but also for their poop supply! 
Kathryn Kerby, who woke up today looking forward to market
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
 
In a message dated 5/12/2010 5:17:55 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, wshoemak AT illinois.edu writes:
The worrisome part of it is that oil is a false economy. Our country and
it's economy (and now the globe's economy) is built on the premise of cheap
oil. It is cheap energy that is not renewable. It is already diminishing as
our global appetite for it is becoming insatiable. So every economic
enterprise that depends on it, including conventional ag, will change. And
it won't be comfortable. When oil prices rise, so do the prices of
everything else, including our food. And no one will like it. But those who
can grow food inexpensively without depending on oil and its products will
always have a market and a loyal following.

Bill
William H. Shoemaker
Sr. Research Specialist, Food Crops
University of Illinois - Crop Sciences
St Charles Horticulture Research Center
535 Randall Road, St Charles, IL, 60174
630-584-7254, FAX-584-4610
wshoemak AT illinois.edu

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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