01-05-2007, 06:05 AM
quote:
Since the farmers can basically take care of them selves by what they grow, raise or trade at the market, the real questions are how many more people should they be planning to feed?...
...There aren’t enough farmers markets to even get fresh stuff out to all neighborhoods on a regular basis. There aren’t enough marketing opportunities (co-operatives?) to make a comfortable living off of all the hard work, and time investments.
The two fundamental problems are access to land and price of food.
In the USA we pay the smallest percentage of our incomes for food of pretty much any people in the world. Yes, the whole world, first, second and third.
We expect - demand in fact - that food to be cheap.
We are not aware of the massive subsidies we pay in various ways that make it so seemingly "cheap."
And, we are not (yet) willing to pay what it actually costs for people to make a decent and regenerative living growing food (or fiber etc.) locally for us.
Also, we have no legal means or tools - and so far no cultural will - to actually make land necessary for feeding, clothing and housing ourselves - in perpetuity and outside our speculative resort/housing "real estate" market - available in our communities.
So land is priced for the speculative resort/housing market and is not affordable for local ag/forestry uses.
Combine our addiction to offshore "cheap" with our land speculation for external markets ("selling the farm," literally) and it seems pretty obvious why localized food/fiber production is not presently economically viable.