permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Here is a potential advocate, when he finishes school, a very impressive
gentleman:
4 with Virginia ties named 2014 Rhodes Scholars
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/4-with-virginia-ties-named-2014-rhodes-scholars/2013/11/24/88af577e-5526-11e3-bdbf-097ab2a3dc2b_story.html

McGrail, who has been studying political economy and history, has
volunteered to help low-income people prepare their taxes, interned on
Elizabeth Warren’s U.S. Senate campaign and is president of the Williams
College Democrats. In an interview, McGrail said he was inspired to study
taxation and income inequality after the Occupy Wall Street movement.
“Really there is almost a moral outrage over income inequality these days,”
he said. “When you look at the practical side ... it’s about how people at
the top of the income distribution respond to tax rates.”At Oxford, McGrail
plans to study comparative social policy and research how other countries
have found solutions to policy problems. He would eventually like to work
on political campaigns, advise elected leaders and develop public policy,
he said. “The way I look at it is Oxford is about putting more tools in
your tool box,” McGrail said. Last summer, he worked with Jon Bakija, an
economics professor, to research federal and state tax policy. “Brian is
committed to a career in public service and is well-suited for this due to
his rare combination of beautiful writing ability, strong technical skills,
passionate interest in and extensive understanding of economics and public
policy as potential forces for improving people’s well-being,” Bakija said
in a statement.
<>

Maybe he will become interested in exploring federal government regulatory
processes with an eye toward "improving people’s well-being".


On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Pete Gasper, Gasper Family Farm <
farmer1@gasperfarm.com> wrote:

> Bob's idea won't work. This sort of hyper regution happened before back in
> the 60's with the introduction of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance and then
> again in the 90's with HACCP regulations of butchers. In both cases it
> resulted in the mass loss of dairy farmers and small butchers as regulators
> used their new found uncheckable powers to drive them out of business.
>
> The moment you become subject to the whim of a regulator to stay open it is
> game over. The only question is how long you'll be able to hold out. There
> is no logic or right thinking being involved here. FSMA is just a hammer to
> be used by BigAg to prevent the upstart competition.
>
> The ONLY solution here is resistance.
>
> And its not just the compost thing. The costs for bringing up to standard
> will wipe out most operations and those that survive will be whittled away
> by year on year compliance costs.
>

A big thumbs up for this statement!
What is to be done?
I invested $150000 in 6 acres of farmland, intending to provide myself with
guaranteed production
for income generation over the long haul, assure myself that I would have
crops to harvest from vastly improved soil quality in my systems of market
gardens.

It is beyond preposterous that external forces totally unrelated to us
might seek to rob us of our right to grow and market farm crops locally to
our chosen customer base.
Preposterous hardly begins to describe it.

One thing I can offer beyond this list (other lists have stifled and
otherwise censored discussion of this topic) is to offer a different
mailing list for private, non public discussion amongst those of us
affected by these new regulations in order for us to network, offer support
and ideas and solutions so we can still make a living farming and gardening.
I have two; if interested pick the one with the name you like best:
orangegrapevine
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/orangegrapevineand
soilecology
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/soilecology

If interested let me know and I will subscribe only those who let me know
they want to participate.

LL


>
> On 11/22/2013 12:56 PM, Lawrence London wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Bob Waldrop<bob@bobwaldrop.net>
>  wrote:
> >
> >> There will likely be a number of adaptations and this could be one of
> >> them.  In fact, I'm thinking we should be collecting a set of "best
> >> practices for adapting to screwball federal bureaucrats who have never
> >> farmed and don't have a clue but are trying to close down local ag at
> >> the behest of their big ag money people."
> >>
> > You know what this is like? After WWII, Russia's imposition of pro Soviet
> > Stalin/Lenin-type Communist totalitarian dictatorship (still that way in
> > Belarus) governments
> > in Eastern Bloc countries within the greater USSR. That was a version of
> > what Stalin did in the Ukraine
> > and especially to the non communist free enterprise affluent farming
> class
> > called the Kulaks
> > The Communists controlled the production and distribution of all goods
> > ultimately benefiting the party elite,
> > insiders and chosen trading partners. Everyone else waited in woefully
> > inadequate  bread lines.
> > The Yugoslavs, Slovakians and Czechs may have fared better. Romania still
> > has some of those former Communist leaders running that country.
> >
> > See any similarities to the present state of affairs? It doesn't matter
> > whether it is capitalism or communism, its still the same old crowd
> > of greedy scheming freeloaders dominating the economy and eliminating
> > competition, in our case using ethically and morally corrupt means,
> > essentiallly fascist corporations corrupting government while taking
> > advantage of weaknesses in and polarization of our society (bread and
> > circus syndrome).
> > and erosion of the fabric of our culture. ("we don't need all those
> > subsistence gardeners, homesteaders and small farmers using natural
> methods
> > and materials,
> > earning their livelihoods in economies local to them, contributing to
> local
> > sustainability and environmental stabilization; don't want to have to
> > compete with them anyway;
> > they can shop at supermarkets and buy mass produced goods, no need to
> grow
> > their own or provide for others who don't or can't").
> >
> > I have no idea how people in the USA will deal with this new FSMA (first
> > major revision in 70 years) but Bob's suggestion is a good one and maybe
> > the best so far. How to we get that going?
> >
> > China's economy is failing; read this article: "The End Of The Chinese
> > Economic Miracle" - Forbes
> >
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2013/07/23/the-end-of-the-chinese-economic-miracle/
> > Comments in a forum:
> > "The canary in the coal mine is China's physical gold imports. Why would
> > any country import so much, except as insurance against economic
> downturn?
> > After all, gold is a bad investment. It doesn't generate any returns."
> > "The canary in the coal mine is China's physical gold imports. Why would
> > any country import so much, except as insurance against economic
> downturn?
> > After all, gold is a bad investment. It doesn't generate any returns."
> >
> > *"China’s Transformation * The Chinese are not going to completely
> collapse
> > economically any more than the Japanese or South Koreans did. What will
> > happen is that China will behave differently than before. With no choices
> > that don’t frighten them, the Chinese will focus on containing the social
> > and political fallout, both by trying to target benefits to politically
> > sensitive groups and by using their excellent security apparatus to
> > suppress and deter unrest. The Chinese economic performance will degrade,
> > but crisis will be avoided and political interests protected. Since much
> of
> > China never benefited from the boom, there is a massive force that has
> felt
> > marginalized and victimized by coastal elites. That is not a bad
> foundation
> > for the Communist Party to rely on."
> >
> > LL
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-- 
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
http://www.avantgeared.com
https://plus.google.com/+Avantgeared
Skype: lawrence.f.london