How secure is our food supply?

[menageriemama]

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I love Seed Savers

 

[Wildsky]

Fantastic reading

 

[kstaven]

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Ruby, I am telling you - people from Georgia say we can't grow peaches, mine are AWESOME, apples, almonds, cherries, plums, sunflowers (good protein), lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, I mean the list goes on and on. This sandy dirt here is very fertile and will grow just about anything. Plant it and watch. The dirt we have here can grow ANYTHING.

Soil in many areas is more fertile than many would have you believe. Just remember in order to keep it that way it needs compost application.

 

[debilorrah]

That is what we do with our chicken waste, straw, hay, trimmings, etc....

 

[greyfields]

I didn't read any of his work until I was well on my way to farming; but he seriously has his finger on the pulse.

Our food system is systematically borked, our food culture depraved and we're a nation of people in bad health eating crap food from an industrialized system. I mean, really. The further and further you look into it, the harder to believe it is. People want cheap food, but don't realize the social, economic and environmental cost of always selecting the cheapest option available to them.

I could go on and on all night of things I wouldn't have believed unless I saw them with my own eyes. So, I'll just say his points #2 and #3 are particularly astute. Those of us who are raising our own food, making our own processed foods, and then enjoying it with our friends and customers are truly living as we ought.

 

[kstaven]

Overall making the cheapest choices takes money out of the country and pushes the standard of living for a good part of the population down even further, which in the end impacts us all.

In the end we can point fingers at big agribusiness and the government, but it is our very own buying choices that perpetuate the downward spiral and until the consumer comes to understand that it will continue.

As a bonus there is the satisfaction in knowing you have produced the best you can and provided that which you know will truly nourish others.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

This is the key flaw in the free market theories.

The totally free market works as described, but it is, by its very nature, short sighted; and cannot, and will not, truly plan for the long haul. Its amazing if corporations plan for the next fiscal year let alone 20 to 30 years down the road.

Most governments problems with trying to fix free markets come from an even worse problem in that they try too hard to prevent the public from ever feeling any pain at all.

The trick is in balancing. A free market will cause pain some times as it fails to account for things and depletes supplies or resources. A governed market will cause pain by forcing business to do what is in other people's interest and not the immediate interest of the business.

The environment and the market combined are delivering us a good ole spanking for our ways. Those of us who change will survive to eat another day.

 

[English Chick]

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NOT in the UK they are not, we have some of the highest stringency rules any where else in the world....cement yak!!!! shame on those feeding to livestock....darn shame on you! (But are your farmers aware of whats being fed to their animals amongst their feed?)....... food for thought methinks

 

[greyfields]

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It's with great irony I see news reports interviewing people standing outside Wal*Mart complaining they don't have jobs or money. Unfortunatly, it's lost on most people that they caused the problem to begin with.

 

[hypnofrogstevie]

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NOT in the UK they are not, we have some of the highest stringency rules any where else in the world....cement yak!!!! shame on those feeding to livestock....darn shame on you! (But are your farmers aware of whats being fed to their animals amongst their feed?)....... food for thought methinks

It gets worse then that. I saw on the news that dead or dying/weak cows get slaughtered. One farm was shut down because they where slaughtering 3 day old decaying cows. I believe the reason why most places dont get shut down is because we are so dependant on meat. supermarkets, butchers, fast food restaurants. We have so many KFC, McD's and BK's. I know that some states are limiting fast food restaurants to open. I am so happy to buy my meat local and not from a store.