permaculture

[John Schinnerer <John-Schinnerer@data-dimensions.com>]

Aloha,

To clarify, I am saying that the USDA is functionally an extension of
agribusiness in the co-opting of "organic."  They supported GMOs,
irradiation, sludge, etc. to be included in "organic" - I know that.  I was
taking my hat off to you and all the other small growers, non-governmental
organizations, grassroots activists, protesters, etc. etc. who kept that
from happening.  I responded to the survey myself in protest of these sorts
of issues.

Thanks for the details from the bureaucratic paragraphs showing how the
burden falls on the growers, and of course heaviest on the smaller growers.
Again, the patterns that exist elsewhere in "business as usual" are clear -
self-perpetuating bureaucracies and related private contractors make two to
twenty times an actual worker's income to grant the worker the privilege of
surviving (perhaps) within the existing system.  

I suggest that designing "business not as usual" is one way to address these
issues.  Rather than "fighting the system" or "working from within the
system," one can design another system (isn't this fundamental to the
origins and practice of permaculture?).  

"I must create my own system, or be enslaved by another man's.
I will not reason and compare - my business is to create!"

- William Blake 

John Schinnerer