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["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

John Schinnerer wrote:

> Information for my one particular "case in point" illustration is from 
> the essay
>
> "Amish Economics," by Gene Logsdon
>
> In a book called
>
> "Mindfulness and Meaninful Work," Claude Whitmyer, Editor.
>
> Mr. Logsdon is, as best I can discern from his work and writings and 
> what others of apparent good reputation have to say about him, quite 
> well informed about all the things I know little or nothing about and do 
> not now nor have ever done, etc..  Perhaps some of you have even heard 
> of him or read some of his writings.

You're preaching to the choir regarding the Amish, John. I know about them and
the great things they have done. We even have a small community of them here 
in Orange County
where they run a country store. Great because the county wants to control 
development and wants
landowners to find alternative uses for privately-owned large tracts of open 
land, agricultural uses such
as small and rare breed livestock operations (they set up a goat meat coop 
for producers), vineyards,
striped bass, table grapes, truffle farms, market farms and gardens, various 
diversified operations,
country stores, bed and breakfast inns with kitchen gardens and/or market 
gardens and more. I am working with
a friend who runs a micro-busines incubator to set up a marketing coop for 
vegetable and fruit growers in the area
. This would provide a convenient outlet for their products and stabilize 
their income, keeping them in business.
I am one of those growers with a 6 acre farm and 3 acres that can be put into 
production. I have innovative tractor
implements used to create large permanent notill raised beds from which I get 
a bounty of delicious produce.
A marketing coop is what I need to ensure that I will have adequate farm 
income for the future.
This area is becoming a mini-Los Angeles, beautiful farmland sacrificed for 
crackerbox housing developments and stip malls.
We need to start yesterday encouraging people to keep their land and find 
sensible uses for it.

Logsdon has been writing books since the sixties and they are some of the 
best on small farming and homesteading.

> This particular essay is, however, passing a decade old, and so predates 
> at least some of the recent resurgence in farmer's markets, the regional 
> and niche and co-op and value-added marketing, the rapid increase in 
> CSAs and so on that have enabled some non-Amish small farmers to make a 
> decent living farming again.

His books are inspirational. Nowadays its a battle with the developers for 
farmland around cities.
There are many good things going on these days to benefit backyard, small and 
medium-sized growers;
niche, value-added, csa, farmers markets, direct sales to restaurants and 
groceries and coops are indeed some of them.
I like to think in terms of local and regional food production networks and 
marketing coops servicing them. These coops
can market just about any product or service that local communities, There is 
also barter and alternative currencies.

Thanks for your inspiring input about Logsdon and the AMish.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech