permaculture

["Marjory Glowka" <forestgarden@gvtc.com>]

Hello Everyone,

Well Toby, you are certainly demonstrating optimism.  Let me correct a few 
mistakes in your previous post.  The current situaition is much worse than 
your post indicated.

Any intelligent person knows that grain reserves are cyclical, and the 57 
days of consumption are based on end-of-harvest reserves.  Please see: 
http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/2006.htm for the full report. 
Chicken and cattle feed in my area has gone up between 50% and 100% since 
last year.

The US became a NET IMPORTER of food in 2005.  Please see 
http://www.agonist.org/node/10568/print for the full article.

There have been studies done for the local Austin area which indicated that 
providing the caloric needs for that city will be very, very, very, very 
difficult.  Aside from land, seeds, and experience requirements (which are 
all in very short supply) the limiting factor was compost material.

To quote Steve Bridges, the president of TOFGA (Texas Organic Farmers and 
Gardenes Assoc), in the Summer 2006 newsletter "there are not enough farmers 
in the entire DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) area to meet the needs of even one 
elementary school cafeteria".

We've just gone through a lengthy discussion where I think we all agreed 
that implementing food systems is a long hard development process.  The time 
to start working at the food situaion is right now - not in another five 
years.  And while there is defiantely some progress in the development of 
local food sources in this area...  I am deeply concerned that without 
enough lead time, the transition will not be smooth.  I know how difficult 
it is to learn to grow food under the current conditions which are 
excellent.  Yes, people do rally and come up with amazing innovations in 
hard times.  They also revert to crime.  There is also a whole lot of guns, 
ammunition, and a generation raised on action movies and violent video games 
(unlike the depression era).  Please visit this link for an eye-opening 
insiders perspective at what happened during the Argentinian economic 
collapse which occured in 2001 
http://www.buildanark.net/survival_stories.html

I consider myself a realist, which may come across as  gloom and doom.  My 
motto is: Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst.  Our current 
situation is very dire.  Hopefully the market demand for locally grown food 
will force an easier transition before any major calamity occurs. 
Persoanlly, I cannot stake my life, and the lives of my family, on hoping 
the market will come through.  I am doing what I can to get my family and 
community ready now.