Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
Hi Robert More on what I said about Japan below - more later. snip Tea also came from Turkey at first, much the same way, then from India, and eventually from China. I suppose when Americans think of the history of tea they think of the Boston tea party, as well they might. That's about the extent of our education in matters relating to tea. But it's interesting, worth thinking about. Most Americans don't drink tea, but I prefer it over coffee. In particular, I relish the gentle muscatel flavor of a good tea from Darjeeling. My sweetheart likes the bold, rich flavor of Sumatran shade grown coffee. I admit that the aroma of her morning coffee has become pleasant to my senses. I tend to think of gunboat diplomacy, protectionism, cotton, slavery, opium and so on. Wall Street would love it (so would the CIA) - what protectionism means is that the markets of poor and weak countries must be forced open for free trade while the rich and powerful markets are protected and production subsidised. Apart from the Opium War and quite a few others, you could say it was the major factor in forcing Japan into WW2. But hey, never mind the collateral. Sigh . . . It's hard to see the Japanese perspective on World War II through their my eyes. Like so many other issues, Keith, I'm a product of my culture and it takes effort to step out of the imprinting and simplistic thinking I've been raised to believe. I'm learning that a lot of conflict is rooted in fear that the OTHER SIDE intends harm. The scriptures say it this way: Two kings, their hearts bent on evil, will sit at the same table and lie to each other, but to no avail . . . So while we may talk of trade equity, as long as we're worried that the OTHER SIDE will wind up with greater benefit, we remain duplicitous in our trade dealings. Ultimately, one insult leads to another and eventually out come the gunboats. Perhaps we are wrong to call it free trade when it is neither free nor trade, but in reality, an imposition by the strong on the weak. Quite so. It's a fine term free trade, the average hack sees the word free, which must be good, and thinks no further. Not to be confused with fair trade. Actually that wasn't the Japanese perspective. I wrote this article below about protectionism for a business magazine, about 20 years before I ever came to Japan. These days I have to qualify it - as I said, not all trade barriers are the same, and some are necessary. The article is about what you're talking of, rich-country protectionism against poor-country exports. How little ever changes... The cotton aspect is interesting - a competition between peasant farming and small-scale local production in India on one side and something more akin to global corporatism on the other, with plantations and slave-labour in America's South and the value added in industrialised factories across the ocean. The corporatist side only wins by bullying, as usual (following the usual demands for a level playing-field). And this was 200 years ago. Re this: My saintly father-in-law and I had a discussion today about opium in Afghanistan. He wonders why the farmers there can't grow cereal crops, The CIA wouldn't like that - how could they be expected to fund their black ops so you can all sleep safely in your beds at night? With wheat money? so I asked him: How can a peasant farmer compete with Cargill and Archer-Daniels Midland? How can an Afghan compete with subsidized grain from the US, Australia or Europe? Rich-country subsidies and the way they're used is the other side of protectionism. Anyway... The ultimate beneficiaries of trade barriers are arms manufacturers The economically moribund British still do not recognise the futility of trade barriers but there is a glimmer of hope that their EEC partners have learned the lessons of history. Keith Addison reports Throughout the eighteenth century cotton goods produced in Bengal sold well in Britain, being much cheaper than locally produced cotton. Towards the end of the century Manchester cotton industry bosses formed a lobby and petitioned parliament to ban cotton imports from Bengal on the grounds that the low standard of living in India enabled employers there to undercut British prices. Later the lobby abandoned this line since the growing use of child labour had enabled the Manchester factories to reduce their own costs. Instead, they began to clamour for special trading rights in India. Now they wanted to provide the people of India with 'the means of putting on the appearance of respectability by being decently clad at a small cost,' according to a new petition. They were duly granted the right to have their goods sold in India duty free and also secured a ban on the export of machinery which would enable the Indian manufacturers to compete with them. As a result the Bengal cotton industry collapsed and competitive Bengali
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
Hi Robert Keith Addison wrote: Feeding People Is Easy by Colin Tudge Published in the UK in April 2007, not yet been released in the US. The book argues that it is possible to feed the world, forever, without damaging the environment or cruelty to animals. The book shows how governments and the food industry have created the major problems so much of the world faces today. It proposes a new global food chain based on principles of sound biology and justice. This was a fascinating article, if a bit repetitious at times. Probably because I had to include the boxes in the text, sorry. There are a few things that nag me about it, though. While I clearly see the connection between home grown food and good cooking (my sweetheart is an excellent cook!), a lot of what I really enjoy eating simply doesn't grow where I live. But it doesn't require self-sufficiency. I don't think self-suffiency plays much of a part in this old-new game we have to play now. You don't have to provide everything for yourself, nor does your local community. Self-reliance, yes, definitely (self-dependence, autonomy), for folks and for their communities, but that allows for trade. The closer the resource, the more it's traded, but that doesn't preclude trade in distant resources. I think in practice locavore will turn out to mean something similar, unless we're going to be cultish and dogmatic about it. The locavore trend isn't as new and sudden as it seems, and it comes with a context. The growth in demand for local food has exploded in the last couple of years, worldwide, mainly since the birth of the Slow Food movement in Italy a few years back, but good people have been working hard laying the foundations for that since the birth of the organic growing movement. Organic food is local, with exceptions. Aside from tea (which I get from India) and coffee (which my sweetheart buys from Sumatra) which we have no hope of obtaining locally, staples like rice, black beans and wheat come here from very far away. I eat far more rice and wheat than corn or potatoes. Part of this is cultural, as I have a palate preference for rice over potatoes that stems from growing up eating rice and beans every day, and part of it relates to the consumerist tendency to buy whatever is available at the supermarket simply because it IS available Interesting examples you choose. I wonder what's unsustainable about a tea clipper? I mean the thing itself, not the system it was a part of. The Cutty Sark, for instance. High-tech gear, those ships. Could we build such a thing today, and sail it? Without all those lost crafts and skills, for one thing. (Similar to the lost crafts and skills that were the heritage of every farming village.) Quite a lot of work has been done in the last 30 years on developing modern sailing ships or sail-assisted ships that could replace oil-guzzling freighters, a major effort with real resources put into it could achieve that. There's been talk of shoals of large submersible cargo blimps, unmanned, plying the ocean currents between continents. There's no end of possibilities. But Wall Street would object, It's too slow. So sod Wall Street, and slow down a little, about time too. What does it leave out? Refrigerated food, airfreighted food (which Britain's Soil Association is considering denying the organic label to). We can survive very well without them. Seasonal diet, re-learn how to preserve the harvest for the winter, no big problem. Coming back to your examples, I'm sure Wall Street would approve of what was achieved by the early trade in coffee and tea, albeit by slow though sustainable methods. Unlike her neighbours in Europe, English Queen Elizabeth I established good trading relations with the Ottoman empire and Morocco, as well as a sea-faring agreement. Coffee duly arrived from Turkey, and soon after that the first London coffee-shop was opened. Coffee-shops were soon the major feature of London life and affairs. The Penny Universities, as the coffee-shops were called (that's what it cost to get in), had a profound effect on the arts and literature, on politics, free speech, journalism and the press, on economics - Adam Smith went through his Wealth of Nations chapter by chapter in coffee-house discussions with his friends before finalising them (and he said two merchants could not sit down for coffee together without conspiring against the public good). Indeed, the British Empire might not have happened at all without the London coffee-shops to precede it. Fuelled by all that imported coffee, and no container ships. Tea also came from Turkey at first, much the same way, then from India, and eventually from China. I suppose when Americans think of the history of tea they think of the Boston tea party, as well they might. I tend to think of gunboat diplomacy, protectionism, cotton, slavery, opium and so on. Wall Street would love it (so would the
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
Keith Addison wrote: (a fascinating article, if a bit repetitious) Probably because I had to include the boxes in the text, sorry. That explains it. I consider myself a pretty good reader, but I kept wondering if I'd been losing my place! (Eating what doesn't grow here) But it doesn't require self-sufficiency. I don't think self-suffiency plays much of a part in this old-new game we have to play now. You don't have to provide everything for yourself, nor does your local community. I think that your perspective on this is important, and I really appreciated you outlining it. The food miles issue has really bothered me since we lived in Terrace 12 years ago and I learned that when Safeway came into town, the supermarket chain effectively destroyed the regional market garden economy by importing cheap produce from California and refusing to sell locally-grown fruit and vegetables. Self-reliance, yes, definitely (self-dependence, autonomy), for folks and for their communities, but that allows for trade. The closer the resource, the more it's traded, but that doesn't preclude trade in distant resources. I think in practice locavore will turn out to mean something similar, unless we're going to be cultish and dogmatic about it. The locavore trend isn't as new and sudden as it seems, and it comes with a context. The growth in demand for local food has exploded in the last couple of years, worldwide, mainly since the birth of the Slow Food movement in Italy a few years back, but good people have been working hard laying the foundations for that since the birth of the organic growing movement. Organic food is local, with exceptions. There's a fine line, however, between what is self-reliant and what is self-sufficient. I am seeing more and more clearly that it's impossible to feed a family on the output of a single garden WITHOUT animals. (This is something I've learned only in the past couple of years, and with great reluctance because vegetarian dogma inspired resistance to this concept.) I have longed for the ability to sustain my family apart from reliance on the factory farm system for many years, and while we've made progress, there are certain areas in which we run up against illegalities, or the overwhelming surge of industrial agriculture that keeps our food prices so low it's ridiculously cheap to buy what someone else has produced. For example, though it's effectively illegal to distill fuel ethanol in Canada as an individual because the law doesn't contemplate people producing their own fuel to run machinery. We wouldn't need much to run a rototiller and shredder, given that our lawnmower and weed trimmer are both electric. It certainly WOULD give us something to do with surplus fruit production, and friends who recently cut down one of their trees because they simply couldn't handle its abundance might have been able to benefit from that tree's output, shade and beauty for years to come. Likewise, certain things that we enjoy eating (like cabbage--a marvelous plant that I'd never consumed prior to my arrival in Canada) are so cheap in the market (or at Wisbey's, our favorite farm outlet) it seems hardly worth the effort to grow them. We're trying to buy as much of our food locally as is possible. It's interesting, however, that we can buy local maize for fifty cents per cob, but where my saintly in-laws live (about an hour west of here) the exact same corn from our area is selling for thirty-eight cents per cob. That's a pretty bizarre market distortion! (tea and coffee) Interesting examples you choose. I wonder what's unsustainable about a tea clipper? I mean the thing itself, not the system it was a part of. The Cutty Sark, for instance. High-tech gear, those ships. Could we build such a thing today, and sail it? Without all those lost crafts and skills, for one thing. (Similar to the lost crafts and skills that were the heritage of every farming village.) That would be a start. I don't think the skills are lost completely, as many wealthy people still enjoy sailing, and navies may preserve that knowledge as part of their heritage. (My eldest son took a brief voyage on one such Canadian vessel a few years ago.) Also, the golden age of sail occurred recently enough that we have written records of how it was done. Yet in my parent's lifetime, perfectly seaworthy sailing ships were being burned at Wreck Beach in the Puget Sound. What a waste! I'm confident that we could build BETTER, faster and more reliable sailing ships now that was the case years ago. These wouldn't compete with subsidized oil burners, but would enable us to retain the grand maritime tradition of overseas trade. Quite a lot of work has been done in the last 30 years on developing modern sailing ships or sail-assisted ships that could replace oil-guzzling freighters, a major effort with real
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
Why do you think I choose to farm? Honestly, I think the potential for real cultural change is limited. Between the monster of globalization and the dog and pony show we call congress. You know it's bad when the anarchists shut up and lay low for fear of going to prison. . . While it is an exceptional rural economy in the us that is thriving (usually due to a honda plant or whatever), the financial reality of small scale farming for a living is slim. That your income will be low enough that you'll have to make significant lifestyle changes. I've enjoyed many of the changes we've made, but many people would only long for the convienience of industrial servitude. One of the biggest drawbacks is that we're so busy with our hands that affecting change (outside of just farming) is impossible. Terry, How expensive is land in Canada? What's the exchange rate right now? john But John, you're operating within a false and distorted economy with degenerate values. It won't last. Either it will change or we're all doomed anyway. Best Keith ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
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Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
John Ferree wrote: Why do you think I choose to farm? Honestly, I think the potential for real cultural change is limited. Between the monster of globalization and the dog and pony show we call congress. You know it's bad when the anarchists shut up and lay low for fear of going to prison. . . This is a trend that has been going on for several years now. My saintly mother-in-law has told me that I need to be careful about what I say, and for a woman who remembers Germany in the 1930's, that's a chilling remark. While it is an exceptional rural economy in the us that is thriving (usually due to a honda plant or whatever), the financial reality of small scale farming for a living is slim. The crux of the matter! We might be able to subsist, but can we thrive? In a place where property values are increasing rapidly, the economics of subsistence look like they lead to poverty. I have children who need to be fed, clothed and educated so that they can, one day, live as independent citizens. We know of a family who grow boutique and heritage organic vegetables (it's not an organic system in my view--merely substitution of one kind of input for another) in our area, and BOTH parents have jobs outside their farm. It's virtually impossible to earn a living as a small farmer in this area. That your income will be low enough that you'll have to make significant lifestyle changes. I've enjoyed many of the changes we've made, but many people would only long for the convienience of industrial servitude. Another good point! My sweetheart sees the concept of rural living as a path to continually falling behind, with no hope of recovery. When we tour the interior of British Columbia we witness a LOT of despair. One of the biggest drawbacks is that we're so busy with our hands that affecting change (outside of just farming) is impossible. Indeed! How expensive is land in Canada? It depends on where the land is located. The lot where we built our house in 2002 cost us $78 000. There is NOTHING available for building in this area now that's under $200 000. Rural land, especially if it's arable and has access to water, is ridiculously expensive. Where inexpensive land is available no jobs exist, and moving to such a place would pretty well ensure that we'd never go anywhere else. What's the exchange rate right now? The Canadian dollar has been slightly above the US dollar for several weeks. robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice The Long Journey New Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
From Fred Oliff: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20071005/e2d87674/attachment.html No attachments Fred, no html code either. Switch your emailer to plain text, ASCII, and please send again. Best Keith ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
Keith Addison wrote: Feeding People Is Easy by Colin Tudge Published in the UK in April 2007, not yet been released in the US. The book argues that it is possible to feed the world, forever, without damaging the environment or cruelty to animals. The book shows how governments and the food industry have created the major problems so much of the world faces today. It proposes a new global food chain based on principles of sound biology and justice. This was a fascinating article, if a bit repetitious at times. There are a few things that nag me about it, though. While I clearly see the connection between home grown food and good cooking (my sweetheart is an excellent cook!), a lot of what I really enjoy eating simply doesn't grow where I live. Aside from tea (which I get from India) and coffee (which my sweetheart buys from Sumatra) which we have no hope of obtaining locally, staples like rice, black beans and wheat come here from very far away. I eat far more rice and wheat than corn or potatoes. Part of this is cultural, as I have a palate preference for rice over potatoes that stems from growing up eating rice and beans every day, and part of it relates to the consumerist tendency to buy whatever is available at the supermarket simply because it IS available . . . (We've talked about growing rice before, but my sweetheart is adamantly opposed to it because she thinks it's not worth the effort for the amount of grain we'd grow. Food is very cheap for we who are affluent.) We had a horrid summer this year. The weather was primarily cool and wet. We got a LOT of rain, yet most of our garden did extraordinarily well. We had better maize this year than I've ever grown before. (It was a bit chewy, but that's because we left it on the stalks too long!) We've had green beans in abundance. Our jalapeno peppers did remarkably well for surviving such a soggy summer, and they were wonderfully HOT! Our problem this year involved EXCESS production. There is simply no way we can eat all the food we've grown, we've given so much away that our neighbors are shunning us, and our freezer is STUFFED full! My teaching clients have gone home laden with squash, pumpkins, dill (which went wild while we were on holidays), strawberries, blackberries and potatoes. A lot of what we've grown, however, has simply rotted on the ground, and it's become clear to me that we need to re-evaluate our gardening to actually REDUCE the amount of food we're growing to a more reasonable level. If we can produce such an astonishing volume of food on this little property, with NO inputs other than barn litter and my own compost, how can anyone say that we can't grow enough food to feed people? It's really not THAT much work, either . . . Even our plum trees, despite the aphid infestation, produced SO MUCH FRUIT that we couldn't possibly eat it all. Benita's been making plum desserts like mad! So while it's clear that high production doesn't have to involve machines, fossil inputs and vast tracks of land it DOES depend on nutrient recycling and soil husbandry. It's more labor intensive, certainly, but in Canada I can't pay my mortgage (or the car payment, or school tuition) in potatoes or beets--both of which seem to grow extraordinarily well here. It seems to me that we need a fundamental restructuring of our society. The more I think about these things, the more I'm reminded that the issues of sprawl, food miles, energy use, resource warfare, consumerism, corporatism, crime, climate change and other woes we face are all inter-related and revolve around decisions human beings make that are really NOT as immutable as we are led to think, or perhaps, that we like to think. My father-in-law grew up on a farm and didn't like it. He's convinced that most people nowadays wouldn't tolerate the kind of hard labor necessary to survive on the land, but my experience with gardening makes me question how hard this labor really is . . . Yes, I've used a rotovator and I have a shredder that speeds up the composting process, but these things COULD be done by hand if I really had to do them, and the exercise wouldn't hurt, either. But getting to a place where I can sustain my family on a piece of land, while a worthy goal, exists somewhere on a path I can't find. Or is it, perhaps, that I'm so accustomed to my comforts that I can't SEE the path that's evident before me? Hmm . . . Something to think about! robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice The Long Journey New Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Ranger Supercharger Project Page http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
I think you hit the problem squarely. It is somewhat labor intensive. But two related things are at work ( IMHO ). Firstly, most people have moved away from the more labor intensive regime, and over generations the skills have shifted. Now the general populace is more than willing to work at something else and pay to have their food grown for them. Secondly, and closely related to the first point, big business is willing to be even bigger because these people are willing to pay. To do the production levels they need to for the demand, they use scads of fossil derivitives (fuel, fertilizer, etc.). If everyone spent just enough time growing their own food, they would all have to move to slightly more spacious land (apartment dwellers can NOT grow enough of their own without a decent sized plot). In the end, everyone would need to manage their soil husbandry (compost, et-al), may require livestock. So now they have to feed them as well. Okay, so maybe your neighbor does the livestock and you do the vegetables. So we start heading down the same road where people specialize and trade for what they want. I think it is a vicious cycle that we are doomed to repeat once the fossil fuel craze ends. 4/5 of the population will dwindle out and those that can feed themselves will. Eventually specialization and trade will again start. Sorry if I am repeating what everyone already knows. Cheers. John. ---Original Message--- From: robert and benita Date: 10/4/2007 4:26:27 PM To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles snip So while it's clear that high production doesn't have to involve machines, fossil inputs and vast tracks of land it DOES depend on nutrient recycling and soil husbandry. It's more labor intensive, certainly, .. The more I think about these things, the more I'm reminded that the issues of sprawl, food miles, energy use, Resource warfare, consumerism, corporatism, crime, climate change and other woes we face are all inter-related and revolve around decisions human beings make that are really NOT as immutable as we are led to think, or perhaps, that we like to think. snip -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20071004/db837582/attachment.html -- next part -- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 1458 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/attachments/20071004/db837582/attachment.jpe -- next part -- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 33792 bytes Desc: not available Url : /pipermail/attachments/20071004/db837582/attachment.gif ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
My father-in-law grew up on a farm and didn't like it. He's convinced that most people nowadays wouldn't tolerate the kind of hard labor necessary to survive on the land, but my experience with gardening makes me question how hard this labor really is . . . Yes, I've used a rotovator and I have a shredder that speeds up the composting process, but these things COULD be done by hand if I really had to do them, and the exercise wouldn't hurt, either. The difference is one of income vs labor. In most white collar jobs you are not paid based stictly on what you produce, or your 'production' is not tangible. Farming. . . you only make what you work for. And many times something gets in the way. . . weather, equipment problems, bugs, fertility problems. Without charging wild oats prices it is *very* hard to make a living growing produce without relying on minimum wage/slave labor. Even if you are making a living, it will be modest by american standards (40k household income would be an outstanding year). Yet there are many perks. . . no commute. . . getting to watch your neighbors line up for a 1.5 hr commute. . . and various intangibles. It can be a good life for the right person, but I agree that most of my generation, ~30, are not willing. Or they jump in half baked, throwing money at problems that just need creativity and grease. You'll know it when you find it--just do your homework. John ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
My father-in-law grew up on a farm and didn't like it. He's convinced that most people nowadays wouldn't tolerate the kind of hard labor necessary to survive on the land, but my experience with gardening makes me question how hard this labor really is . . . Yes, I've used a rotovator and I have a shredder that speeds up the composting process, but these things COULD be done by hand if I really had to do them, and the exercise wouldn't hurt, either. The difference is one of income vs labor. In most white collar jobs you are not paid based stictly on what you produce, or your 'production' is not tangible. Farming. . . you only make what you work for. And many times something gets in the way. . . weather, equipment problems, bugs, fertility problems. Without charging wild oats prices it is *very* hard to make a living growing produce without relying on minimum wage/slave labor. Even if you are making a living, it will be modest by american standards (40k household income would be an outstanding year). Yet there are many perks. . . no commute. . . getting to watch your neighbors line up for a 1.5 hr commute. . . and various intangibles. It can be a good life for the right person, but I agree that most of my generation, ~30, are not willing. Or they jump in half baked, throwing money at problems that just need creativity and grease. You'll know it when you find it--just do your homework. John But John, you're operating within a false and distorted economy with degenerate values. It won't last. Either it will change or we're all doomed anyway. Best Keith ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles
Hi John, In Canada its the price of land that is the stumbling block. Terry Dyck Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 20:33:31 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Feeding people is easy: but we have to re-think the world from first principles My father-in-law grew up on a farm and didn't like it. He's convinced that most people nowadays wouldn't tolerate the kind of hard labor necessary to survive on the land, but my experience with gardening makes me question how hard this labor really is . . . Yes, I've used a rotovator and I have a shredder that speeds up the composting process, but these things COULD be done by hand if I really had to do them, and the exercise wouldn't hurt, either.The difference is one of income vs labor. In most white collar jobs you are not paid based stictly on what you produce, or your 'production' is not tangible. Farming. . . you only make what you work for. And many times something gets in the way. . . weather, equipment problems, bugs, fertility problems. Without charging wild oats prices it is *very* hard to make a living growing produce without relying on minimum wage/slave labor. Even if you are making a living, it will be modest by american standards (40k household income would be an outstanding year). Yet there are many perks. . . no commute. . . getting to watch your neighbors line up for a 1.5 hr commute. . . and various intangibles. It can be a good life for the right person, but I agree that most of my generation, ~30, are not willing. Or they jump in half baked, throwing money at problems that just need creativity and grease. You'll know it when you find it--just do your homework. John ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ _ Be seen when you can't be heard! Discover how today! http://www.freemessengeremoticons.ca/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20071005/60b56480/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
