[microfarmer] Re: Ideas, please

  • From: lynn grossutti <secheltlynn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <microfarmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:42:31 -0800

Greetings to you,
 
Your  experience and observations are appreciated. Thanks for taking the 
conversation up a notch.
 
In my opinion, now, real food security is a well thought out, community plan 
based on market research, nutritional data and the execution of that plan. It's 
not a romance. I'd like to know how many of us have even 10 lbs of dried beans 
and 50 lbs of rice kikking around with some miso and tahini, dried fruits and 
veggies, dried milk powder and nuts to feed us for a couple of months.  For 
vegans, this would be paramount and for the flexitarians (everyone else) it 
would provide base line nutrition. How many of us have tried the 100 mile diet? 
 How long would our food supply last without the ferries and the products they 
carry over for us? Apparently about 3 days and then 'survivor' would kikk in.
 
The First Nations fished, hunted and grew corn, beans and squash (the 3 
sisters) and they thrived.  The Sechelt Nation was affluent.  It seems to me 
that they didn't fabricate reality; they honoured it and respected it.
 
Could you say more about "the EU CB injected another 60B into the markets 
today!" and
what you would priorize in the next year for those of us seeking solutions 
geared to food security?
 
The thing is, we are a group of people who make up a small percentage of the 
population that would even consider asking these questions and searching  for 
solutions.We are living and bringing up our children in a vibrant, enthusiastic 
and positive community.  Everything we need is right here and now.  Looking 
forward to future forums.
 
Ciao for now,
Lynn Grossutti
 


Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:47:30 -0500From: phytomphalosfarm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: 
[microfarmer] Re: Ideas, pleaseTo: microfarmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:   After 
some thought (8 years worth now, here) I've concluded for myself that this is 
not an area to farm in.  Permaculture yes, farm no.  By this I mean that I will 
never spend time growing annuals for market.  I've enough experience to know 
that for real food security, you must provide for you and yours above all else. 
 Expecting even this amount of return from the poor soils on the coast is 
almost laughable.  Looking at my extended families food needs for one year 
makes me lean far more towards mariculture than agriculture.   This is simply 
not a 'farming' locale.  Sure there was enough small fruit production to have a 
jam factory, and I'm sure that those who contributed also had home gardens, but 
the wealth that westerners extracted from here was not soil based, it was 
ocean/forestry based.  Looking at boosting production of low-use annuals 
(almost most of them!) seems rather weird to me.  If anything, we should be 
focusing on small scale meat raising, because vegetarianism/veganism as a 
lifestyle would be impossible in a time of real crisis.  Which is what I tend 
to think is coming.  Growing more lettuce, peppers, corn, basil or other 
marginal crops seems a waste of time.  Sure they may be slightly marketable but 
they do not answer to food self security what-so-ever.   The only solution I 
have come up with is to utilize the dead spaces as foraging tools.  Roadsides, 
empty lots, marginal land, clearcuts.  These places could all be utilized as 
massive food production areas, if our main food source was the sea.  As it was 
for the past millennia.  We should learn from the Sechelt, not try and garden 
in and around them.  Sure, have a huge home garden, but what need is there for 
specialty lettuce's?  Focus on 20, very hardy (do to Solar Based Climate 
Change), very useful plants.  As a money earner, we could, since there not very 
many of us really... become nurserypeople. Having a fully functional fedge 
filled with fabulous fruits and nuts is going to be de rigeur in the not so 
distant future (the EU CB injected another 60 B into the markets today!).  The 
plain and simple fact is, we can not live by soil alone, nor anywhere near so, 
on the Sunshine Coast (my apologies to the non-coasters here).  We must focus 
in on how we CAN live, not on the whims of marketability, but in clear concise 
garden-wise ways that may need more marketing than the easier to see products.  
We need to be proactive in helping mariculture renew itself.  We need to think 
along different lines.  Sure, grow blueberries, but grow 20 types of them!  
Harder to market since they don't ripen at the same time, but holding down 
different genepools in the face uncertain climate/political/banking backdrops 
seems wise.   Have a specialty!  But don't specialize (specialization is for 
insects).  If this list is the new wave of budding farmers, we need to do a lot 
of thinking and planning for what is to come.  I disdain of typing really, so 
I'm hoping to chat more with everyone at the next gathering.  Growing 
perennials is more time consuming, but more fruitful in the future.  And if my 
sources are correct, we are going to need a lot of food security in the not so 
distant future.Ciao Fer NowlanceA consensus means that everyone agrees to say 
collectively what no one believes individually. Abba Eban""We already have the 
means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black 
projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit 
humanity...Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do."Ben Rich, 
Stealth Bomber Designer 


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