permaculture

[seaseal <seaseal@got.net>]

Dear Dr. Howard,

RE The food system involves all of
the steps required to produce food
and get it to our plates–from farming and
processing to distribution and consumption.

The food system does not--or should not--end on our plates.

I hope you can draw on past experience, especially at UCSC, to note  
this. The food system--to be a system--must not end but continue. The  
process goes through when the food in back to a non-food elemental  
state via composting or other decomposition processes so it is once  
again available as food to the soil food web.

I have a small business taking that linear food "system" you describe  
and extending it to its true circular form.

I support a process where people gather uneaten but harvested food,  
more deliver it to a local soup kitchen, others help prepare food for  
the hungry, and then I take food scraps and waste from the plate home  
to the compost pile and the chickens.

In this way, I complete the circle, returning the nutrients, elements,  
gases, and other materials back into the soil. I hope to enlarge this  
project and begin returning compost to the farmers.

Cecile Mills
Revival Alliance
revivalalliance@gmail.com