Agriculture in Transition- sort of a rant

[helwen]

First, I'd like to say that this post is shorter than either this week's The Archdruid Report, today's Casaubon's Book, or this article by Jamey Lionette who helps "run a family-owned and operated neighborhood market and café that buys and sells predominantly local, clean, and sustainable food" in Boston, MA.

The first is about the transition in agriculture as cost of fossil fuels/products go up, etc. and one direction things may go in, what to expect, etc. The second is in response to the first (or rather, the view presented in the first, some of which has also been presented other places). The third is a discussion of where our food comes from, the effects of mass production food on us and the environment.

They all are talking about agriculture, even the small-scale type, happening on a large scale. Because, well, they're talking about a lot of people -- whole nations. Sharon Astyk brings up the costs of large-scale agriculture and how it could cost as much or more than small-scale, if you include the costs that are paid by the government subsidies, etc. And there's also the cost to the environment, and to people's health (if we had healthier foods to eat, there would be less illness, so health costs would be lower). And transport costs of course.

The problem with convincing people that they should grow their own, eat locally, etc., is that when you're on a limited food budget (something that's happened as part of the mass production/current way of life), it's hard to be convinced that you should change your diet to eating what's local. It will cost more, directly out of your pocket. When you don't have a lot of money, it can be impossible to eat 100% local. When you don't have access to a garden, how can you offset the cost of what you must buy with what you can grow?

What is the situation of many folks reading this? And how about the folks who don't have computer access? Here are some of my thoughts on what they might come up with as questions or thoughts (partly Massachusetts-oriented):

Planting seeds in May doesn't help me to eat in May. How can I can/freeze/dry enough food in the summer/fall to get me through to the next crops, if I can't afford the jars/bags/dryer? Or the fuel to process the food? Just how possible is it to switch over to an essentially grain-free diet? Because around here you can only get corn -- something I don't actually eat that much of, except when it's in season, or the rare bag of chips (extremely not-local!). Of course if corn is all I can get, then I suppose I could dry and grind it -- if I had a grinder -- and make muffins and cornbread. Potatoes are a good starch substitute -- but remember we have to grow more than one type, or risk blight wiping out the entire crop. If I go 100% local, that means I can't get pepper, most soy products (goodbye teriyaki), oranges/lemons/grapefruit, cinnamon, chocolate... okay, so most of the tropical stuff isn't life critical (um, how many people here know that those red pods from the sumac are filled with Vitamin C?).

I'd like to eat more local meat, what we have of it, but it's expensive because the states make it hard for small farmers to butcher inexpensively -- and it got harder this year in MA after the butchery in Athol burned down (will be rebuilt, but not for a couple of years). So, go mostly/all vegetarian, with some eggs thrown in -- and maybe some fish, if you know how to fish, have the equipment and the license, and live somewhere near a safe river/pond...

***
Let's see, let's go back 20+ years, to when I lived in a basement studio apartment and had $10/week to spend on food. No access to gardening space. No friends who were gardening or who had access to gardening space. I lived on cheap hot dogs (summertime), boxed mac&cheese (5/$1!), some ramen, a little pasta, some rice, and veggies. Yes, I did get veggies although not local ones -- the local Stop & Shop had a rack for old veggies that you could get more cheaply. I'd save up to buy milk now and then, which definitely made for tastier mac & cheese. I didn't buy bread because good bread didn't exist back then unless you made it yourself -- at least not where I lived. I made a lot of stir fry too, that summer... luckily when I hit this tight spot in my life I had a few amenities still, like soy sauce and pepper. And, sometimes I got to take the bus to visit some friends and get a meal there -- they were pretty good with a tight budget too, but were doing better than I was. I wasn't in that situation for long, just a few months -- long enough to consider what belongings I needed/wanted most, if I had to give up the apartment and ask for space with one of my friends.

Oh, and no computer of course. And no phone for a couple of months, as I tried to get someone to come and check the wiring in-person (hardware problem, not software). And I'm pretty sure I blew one of my job interviews because my living situation was depressing and I somehow telegraphed it. I'm actually very good at interviews -- that summer was the only summer where I haven't been able to get a job of any kind.
***

That was just a taste of what things are like for a lot of people today. Gardens are a great thing, and we need to encourage as many people to grow some of their own food as possible, I agree. It will help tremendously with keeping food affordable, plus be better for people. But unless our towns/cities/states/feds/legal governing bodies can pull it together and heavily promote gardening like they did during WWII... and by promoting, I mean put it in the papers, tv, pamphlets, provide community land, free classes, some free seeds (of types appropriate to your area) -- it has to be aggressive promotion.

When people don't have a lot to start with, it's asking a lot to have people gamble on the unknown. Do we have the means to promote small gardens, successfully and on a large scale, without the governing bodies?

I don't think there's a question that personal veggie/fruit gardens will increase, whether for monetary, fossil fuel, or health reasons. The question seems to be, can it be done so that if there's a disaster of some sort or if food and fuel prices go too high, so that people don't suffer too much?

Comments

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Admittedly a seasonal improvement, but some farmers markets have arrangements to take food stamps (which independent farm stands mostly don't, at least partly because the food stamps are actually modernly debit cards, and you have to have a card reader). Last week, the USDA announced that the WIC program is expanding to include produce, and they also plan to work with farmers' markets. It's something, anyway.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's something indeed. And of course we'll keep doing our little bit, and so will everyone else... it's just... thinking about this stuff on a large scale can be somewhat discouraging.

Thanks for that bit of good news :)

[druidharper.livejournal.com]

I rather thought those articles and some of the posts of the day would get you started. Good post.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

You know me well ;) Still feisty after all these years (getting feistier, actually, in some ways). Thanks!

[earthwomyn06.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on this... and this is becoming one of my pet peeves with the local food movement here in my area..its geared toward folks who have enough money to eat local 100% of the time..
It is exp. to eat local hands down.. I try to buy as much as I can but when push comes to shove I will pass on the local stuff just get food on our table .
I've been a single mom with two kids working a full time job and a part time job cleaning houses... still barely making rent.. what do you think I'm going to choose as far as food?

It is getting better tho.. WIC program is letting folks buy veggie and fruits at the farmer's mkt.. thats a start..

But why not give WIC vouchers for folks to sign up for CSA's? .
That way you can help the folks and the farmers too..
Maybe in return the CSA farmers can maybe hold a workshop (s) for folks to learn how to can/cook/freeze this stuff..
Maybe a local grant for those that qualify to buy canning stuff / seeds / basic garden supplies..

Do I think all of this is going to happen? No..not really.. if anything its going have to come from the prvt. sector of our community.
There is a gentleman here in Nashville that does set up a small farmer's mkt in the poorer
part of town and sells conv. and organic fruits and veggies for a very good price.
But its him doing it.. with no help from the gov't at all..

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's up to the individuals and small groups to take action at this point. Although sometimes when there is enough grassroots action, the gov't finally notices and pitches in... we can only hope, and keep working in the meantime.

Good on that gentleman from Nashville!

CSAs vary a lot in what they can or choose to do. A couple of our local ones got together to provide food to seniors (in our area many are on a fixed income that hasn't been keeping up. In the winter they have to choose between food and heat). There's even an arrangement for some of the seniors to come out to the CSAs to help out a little -- makes them feel useful and gives them interaction with the community. One of the great things about living at the farm finally is that L and I are learning more about the way things used to be done around the farm from his folks -- it'll come in handy both now and down the road.

Maybe if someone approached the CSAs about WIC and such, one of them might be willing to do something with people.

Classes seem to be lacking in most areas -- not much point in giving someone a bunch of pumpkins and squash without at least some instructions on how to cook the things. I'll have to see what's planned for next year in our town -- they have classes for adults here sometimes, so the framework is already in place.

btw, I forget if you can have a garden or not, since you're a renter?

[earthwomyn06.livejournal.com]

I think one of the things that CSA may shy away from something like the WIC program is they might be afraid that the government may have control over what they grow... you can grow this but you can't grow that.. you know how the Gov't is ..

I have a LARGE fenced in front yard but ALOT of shade .. and my back yard is average size but most of it is up a hill..which kind of bites ..I only have a small area that I can grow anything..
This year its going to be mostly container garden..

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, gov't can be more a hindrance than a help sometimes...

I have a LARGE fenced in front yard but ALOT of shade .. and my back yard is average size but most of it is up a hill..which kind of bites ..I only have a small area that I can grow anything..
This year its going to be mostly container garden..

There may be edible plants that can grow in your front yard, but they may be more the type of thing you'd find in a wild/semi-wild landscape. Check out http://www.ediblelandscaping.com, which has all kinds of stuff. I believe some of it may be able to handle shade. Also see if you can find anything on Forest Gardens.

Hills can be a nuisance, for sure. Container gardens are good (especially in drought-prone places). Maybe you could terrace some of the hill? Make a couple of level rows, one uphill from the next? Or even just one level row for this next year, and then add to it as time goes on. You could grow kale and potatoes -- good returns on those. Although potatoes supposedly don't like being where grass has been.... but if you can week the ground really well where the potatoes go in. Plus, as the potato plants get taller you throw more dirt/straw/stuff on top of it and it'll add more potatoes on top of the first ones. Kale aren't too fussy, and are chockful of vitamins and iron and stuff.

Or, depending on your time available, since you're a busy person, maybe you could level spaces on the hill, sort of in a row, but just enough for each pot -- expanding on the container gardening without as much digging. Potatoes can be grown in containers too -- you start with only 8 inches of soil, planting the eyes 4" down and covering them with a few inches of soil. Then as they grow you add more. They like acid soil, so throwing in some pine needles from time to time is good -- keeps down scab. This past summer was my first time growing them, so I only got my pile up about 1 to 1-1/2 feet high, but I've heard of people using barrels for this and getting a whole barrelful -- good use of space! They need sun though, so definitely a hillside thing. Ooo, I was just thinking, if you could get/build a box that has slats that slide down in the front face, you could build it up high over the summer, and then when it's time to harvest, you can pull out the slats, letting the dirt and the potatoes come out (instead of reaching down into a barrel).

Anyway, just a couple of thoughts on possibilities.

[earthwomyn06.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link and gardening stuff to chew on!!!!

[oakmouse]

About 25 years ago JM and I had a situation for some months (I think nearly a year IIRC) where our budget only allowed $10/week for groceries --- including such non-food items as TP, shampoo, kitty litter, and cat food. Thank the gods, my parents had set me up in that apartment (my first place of my own) with a shopping trip for staples, so I had 100# of rice, a gallon can of soy sauce, flour, cornmeal, and all the standard herbs and spices.

So we lived on rice, soy sauce, homemade cornbread, and gravy; one apple per day, shared between us; some eggs and cheese (a package of either had to last 2 weeks because we couldn't afford both in one week); and onions, celery, and carrots for our only veggies. Oh, and sometimes potatoes when they were on sale cheap. About every two months my parents sent a box of cheap canned tuna bought on sale, and canned bacon from Armenia (seriously --- and it was wonderfully good stuff, not very salty and mostly meat); that was our meat.

It was doable for the time we spent on it, but I shudder to think what would have happened to our health had it continued like that. And yet so many people can't even afford that much!


I don't think it's possible to eat 100% local, I really don't. Not any more. The food distribution system has encouraged too much loss of locally produced foods in a wide range of categories. Like you, I would have to give up all grains, plus field (dry) corn, potatoes, and dry beans. Also poultry; none is grown locally. My vegetables would include some sweet corn, but no crucifers; broccoli and cauliflower, for instance, grow very poorly here, and beets don't do well either. Fruit would be limited to pears, apples, some berries, and plums.

The days when every locality grew a wide range of foods for its residents are gone. We may be able to bring them back but it won't happen overnight --- and bringing them back still doesn't address the real and growing issue of poverty and food prices. Here in an orchard belt, local apples are $2/lb in the stores, while imported apples from the next state over are about $1/lb and imported apples from China are 69 cents/lb. At that we're better off than areas away from the fruit belts. How do poor people afford fruit and vegetables? As a recent Oregon newspaper series pointed out, most of them around here don't. And Oregon is a state with a lot of truck farms that grow produce for local markets. If our poor can't afford produce, what about the poor people in regions that don't have truck farms?

It's not an easy issue, and there are no easy answers...

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you two and I were lucky, in that tough as our situations were, we had at least some support structure. Lots of other folks aren't that lucky.

It's ironic isn't it that local costs more than imports from the other side of the world? It works that way in China too, for some products. They have products they make for export that cost 2-3 times more for the local people to buy.

In western MA probably the biggest gap in local food is grains. I also personally have trouble growing spinach (a fussy and demanding plant) and have given up on it. Tomatoes are a medium-level fussiness plant, but I've been growing those since I was a kid, so I've pretty much got those figured out. Altho' the horn worm was pretty scary this summer.... ew

My FIL William is good with the squash family, so I finally don't have to worry so much about getting the hang of that... maybe it was just where I was trying to grow them... anyway, we have decent enough soil to grow a wide variety of veggies, if you know where to look for them -- the state web site helps, but not everyone's listed there. Oh, and some local fruit (apples of course, also pears, strawberries, blueberries. Peaches grow here but I don't think anyone does it commercially). Concord grapes, raspberries, blackberries... cranberries out east (altho' there used to be cranberries here in Ashfield, oddly enough).

Again, as you say, just because something is grown in an area doesn't meant everyone living there has access to it.

I was a bit aggravated in fact, by the fact that Hadley, known for its asparagus, has all of it under future contracts with places like France. Pretty much all the asparagus available here is from Mexico or Holland or something.... that's in the third article somewhere (5 page article, but with lots of good points/info).

But then you get weird stuff, like the local fiddleheads that showed up at the Stop & Shop near us in Holyoke. They just had this big clear plastic bag of them with a price sign, and not even a label or anything. We bought those a few times, while they were in season. Anyway, things out of the blue like that I take as a good sign that the food market is trying to grow here. And the more we can grow it, the better chance we have of getting programs like WIC being accepted in more places -- some farmers markets apparently. Not the one we had in Holyoke though -- but maybe they're working on it (very small market). But some other markets do. Still, Holyoke has that great community garden project, and more and more people are joining it. So... sigh.

Hard to find all the pieces to the picture. There's good stuff and bad stuff.

[jimboboz.livejournal.com]

And just to add fuel to the fire, here's my take on the shape of food to come (http://greenwithagun.blogspot.com/2007/12/shape-of-food-to-come.html). I talk less about what I fear will happen (as Archdruid did) or what I hope will happen (as Sharon did) and more on what I think will happen.

What happened in WWII, both by government order in Allied countries and by public initiative in the rest, and what happened in Cuba (Soviet collapse, no more oil or food imports) and Argentina (economic collapse) and so on, is that public spaces became food plots. So the people living in poky little apartments would grow food in that lawn between the apartment buildings, in the parks and on nature strips, and so on.

The actual history of great collapses - both economic and social - shows that in general people often go hungry, but they rarely starve to death. They grow, trade or buy enough food to survive. Actual famine requires a deliberate effort in the form of civil war (hard to grow food if people shoot at you until you leave your land) or brutal dictatorship. Almost everything else is survivable.

My take on things is that with the depletion of fossil fuels, food prices will rise because of labour costs, but they won't rise any more after that. At the point where labour is cheaper than fossil fuels, that'll be the maximum food price. But the food price mightn't hit that maximum, because as fossil fuels deplete the economies of the West will slow down, jobs will be lost and so on. And again history shows that in those bad economic times, people start growing their own food again.

Some will advance the US in the Great Depression as a counter-example to this, with farmers leaving their land then. But they left it not because of the Depression, but because of the dustbowl. That is, they only left the land when it stopped producing anything.

Consider the example you gave of your hard summer. If your whole town were living like that (as they would be in a general economic and/or social collapse), then someone would say, "let's grow stuff in that common area between our apartments." Someone else would say, "well I'm old and can't garden well, but I can look after your kids while you do it." Someone else again would say, "look, the water suply has failed, but I used to be a plumber so if we take that old water tank and that mains pipe, I can hook it up, but you have to get me some diesel for this electric pump." Things would start to happen. That's exactly what's happened with the collapse of the Soviet Union, with Cuba and Argentina and so on.

And so I say that absent civil war or brutal dictatorship, people may go hungry, but won't actually starve to death. And given 5-10 years, things will settle down and people will be alright. 5-10 years appears to be the time it takes for new kinds of economies to arise.

People have a hard time, that's absolutely so. But they get by, and after a bit things settle down into a new and more comfortable equilibrium.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I expect that one reason JMG wrote the way he did is that looking at (at least) the US's current way of doing business, if we don't pay attention to wakeup calls like his post, then there could indeed be some very hard times in places. Sharon has some great ideas, but my question is how many of them can be actualized?

I also reckon, like you, that things will fall somewhere in between, and that "absent civil war or brutal dictatorship", everything will eventually work out.

I disagree with Sharon that people will figure things out in all parts of the world and/or on the smaller scale, in all parts of any given country. If the US cannot get enough water to some cities NOW, then how will they do it in the future? They are counting on the drought being short-term, and I think that might be naive.

If they completely re-do the way agriculture and gardening (esp. decorative gardening) is done, that would certainly help. But with idiot companies trying to do things like open a waterpark in Phoenix AZ (so what if they're using greywater -- they only get 8" of rain/year!), well, pardon me if I have my doubts. _Somebody_ will have to move, at the rate things are currently going. Not entire cities, but some of the population.

I rather imagine Australia has some similar issues with their cities currently, that would be eased by a combination of changing water and garden practices, and also by some people moving out of the biggest cities.

I personally feel that I'm in a good situation, one of the better ones in the U.S. But you can be sure I'm working on getting to know more people in the area, becoming a part of the community. A little insurance against the worst case (militaristic/mob) scenarios, and even more insurance for everyone that we have a better idea of who can do what, to share in producing needs stuffs and in repairing things.

Just the other day I found out that a neighbor down the road usually has one of my brothers-in-law or one of my nephews fix his snowmobile. I've been meaning to call this guy and his wife because they're interested in green initiatives in Ashfield, and I'd like to see what they're interested in doing, and who else is participating. Ashfield has had a lot of experiments happen in it over the years, so as long as you aren't too annoying about it, folks are willing to give new things a try.

[jimboboz.livejournal.com]

I think JMG genuinely believes what he wrote, I don't think he was turning the volume up to 11 to get noticed, so to speak.

Sharon's ideas are like those of many greenish thinkers, or social thinkers - they're physically possible or even easy, but politically, socially and psychologically difficult. "Everyone can just grow food in their backyards!" is the agricultural equivalent of "why can't we all just get along?" It can be physically done, nothing physically prevents it - but then people are people, so...

Nonetheless, necessity being the mother of invention and all that, in a time of trouble people will get along, or grow food, and so on. here (http://greenwithagun.blogspot.com/2007/08/they-had-it-comin.html) I talk about how people anticipate The Coming Doom sometimes with relish, but then I talk about what's actually happened in history, for example in New Orleans, what broke down was not community but government.

People manage, they get by. But the way they live their lives changes. 8" of rain on the average-sized suburban house is, if you capture and store 90% of it from runoff on your roof, 33 gallons a day. As a couple in a unit half that area, that's about how much water we actually use. If we were a family, then thigns are harder, but it's enough for drinking water, cooking, a brief shower or sponge bath every day, and a small vegetable garden if well-cared for. Laundry would have to be in bulk and more community-oriented.

Absolutely Australia has water issues. Our moronic state government is trying to deal with it by a desalination plant - which will require enormous amounts of electricity, and the electricity comes from hydroelectric and coal-fired generators which... use water to make electricity. Domestic use is only 10% of the state's use, 25% goes to dairy alone - 660 gallons of water for each gallon of milk. There's a lot of waste, but rather than reducing waste and saving money, we encourage waste and spend money on more machinery. It's not very bright.

The theme in both cases is reducing obvious waste to match the available resources. I grew u with a water tank, friends of mine grew up with town water; I find it easy to conserve, and they find it difficult or don't even see why we should. Being able to physically see the available resources rather than just have them appear at the turn of a tap or flick of a switch is important, I think. If I were running Phoenix, I'd start installing water tanks and limiting town water flow to households to (say) 5 gallons a day per person living in it. I would of course be tossed out at the next election, but I'd have done some good in the meantime ;)

Absolutely community is an important thing. It's what I've always said. And this is why Sharon can be confident that people everywhere will get by. As in my example, each person will, simply by virtue of being hungry, figure out something of value, some skill or work they can offer their neighbours.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Sorry to take so long to respond. Upped my PT last several days so I've been avoiding anything that requires too much thought (like looking at numbers/math).

People manage, they get by. But the way they live their lives changes. 8" of rain on the average-sized suburban house is, if you capture and store 90% of it from runoff on your roof, 33 gallons a day. As a couple in a unit half that area, that's about how much water we actually use. [snip stuff on water use]

I agree that 33 gal/day is manageable -- might even be able to include some occasional laundry in that, depending on how you do it -- the small stuff anyway. But that's in the suburbs. So, parts of Phoenix could do this. The main part of the city doesn't have enough roof area per person though, so it would be less than 33 gal/day. The big cities have their work cut out.

Overall, I think communities, true communities, will work things out.