permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

Mitch says:

"Oil shortages and fear of shortages will cause significant transportation 
cost increases. At some point, some transportation services, including for 
food, 
will cut back or go out of business. I believe that, within our current 
financial system, transportation and distribution will be affected sooner and 
more 
dramatically than agricultural production. Thus our supermarket system will 
face dramatic change. It seems likely that farmers will, for a while, have 
food 
that can't get to market. Without an outlet for their products, and without 
income, the farmers will have to cut back on production. Then what? Will our 
financial system provide some interim methods?"

The supermarket shelves are stacked mostly with the products of corporately 
owned factory farms, not products of small family farms. And even when the 
primary producer is a small farmer, that person sells to a corporation. So I 
think 
we need not worry about a time when producers produce less due to market 
economics. These people are not accustomed to taking a loss or going out of 
business. The only thing that will happen is that food prices will increase.

There is opportunity in this for small farmers. As it becomes less feasible 
to ship strawberries from California or grapes from Chile up to 
Massachusetts, 
small local farmers will be courted by the major distributors. It has been my 
observation here in NC that there is much pressure on the chains to stock 
local produce, both from the farmers and from the customers. But there has 
been 
strong resistance because it's just too much trouble for them. That is likely 
to 
change in an environment of expensive imports relative to locally grown 
goods.

In the extreme, if people return to eating the major portion of their diets 
from sources within a hundred miles of their homes, northerners should 
anticipate a return to a winter diet of beets, pickles, cabbage, turnips, 
carrots and 
potatos. No kiwis.

M. Elvin