Post by olhillbilly on Jan 13, 2009 3:50:07 GMT -6
This is a copy of a letter thats goin to be in the Springfield News Leader paper sumtime this month. Mite be of interest to some of ya. >> Hb
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LETTER
Soon, cheery little green flags will begin popping up in lawns all over town. The 1,000 Organic Gardens Project represents one element of a strategic plan to regain food security in the Queen City metro area- indeed, for the entire Ozarks region.
Research has shown that some $1,200 of veggies can be grown on a modest 4x30 foot strip. Even a blanket-sized patch of ground can produce good amounts of wholesome food. Why is this important? Because the music has stopped in the US economy. During past hard times we hunkered down and held on, but this reflex may not work this time around. We need a plan “B” right now.
Why should this matter? A prolonged experiment in corporate collectivism has shipped millions of jobs overseas, debased our currency, and rendered the quality of American life stagnant. Entire ind ustries have been dismantled and vital know-how has all but disappeared. We are astonishingly vulnerable, and given the distances most food items travel, we might as well be living in the Sahara Desert. When did Missourians last envision a peaceful, prosperous, and broadly happy future? When did we last have the capacity to feed, clothe and house ourselves without outside help? Here are five things you can do right now that will make a difference.
1) Plan to put in an organic kitchen garden this spring, or expand the one you have.
Check out info@ wellfedneighbor.com if you need help.
2) Start a compost pile for you table scraps.
3) Plant fruit and pecan trees, American/Chinese Chestnuts, and English Walnuts.
4) Get your kids and grandkids into 4H and scouting programs. Help put gardening into the schools.
5) Buy local. Buy from the farmer’s markets.
Until 1914 Missouri was a garden that produced fruits, grains, nuts, vegetables, dairy products, leather products, shoes, livestock and timber in massive quantities. East coast cities were directly linked to our farms and industries through an elaborate network of westward-branching rail lines. We fed millions of people in those days, and the typical Missourian derived his or her income from the sale of eggs, fruit, hogs, sheep, firewood, cream, beef, herbs, vegetables, corn, wheat, and oats.
During the “Golden A ge of Missouri Agriculture” our dairy farm production ranked among the top four states. By the end of WWII, there were as many as one million dairy cows. By 2007, this number had plummeted to 112,000 cows. Where Missourians once exported up to 1.9 billion pounds of milk products a year, we now must import 1.7 billion pounds to feed ourselves.
Webster County once led in apple production at a time when Missouri topped the entire nation in the number of apple trees. The reasons for decline are varied but by 1950 there were still some 60,000 orchards. Now we have less than 1,000 orchards to supply an estimated population of 6.2 million.
In 1899, Stone County produced 10,221 acres of wheat. The last recorded figure, submitted in 1985, lists wheat production at 100 acres. The grain elevators that tower over Chestnut Expressway no longer represent American prosperity but mock it. These structures, now gutted of equipment, could no longer store grain even if we still knew how to grow it.
The collapse of our local food supply has followed the economics of our regional decline in both diversity and value. A hundred years ago, 40 cents of a food dollar went to the farmer, the rest was inputs and marketing. That was a time when growers made a decent living and could own their farms and tools outright. There was parity for the products produced by the labor of one’s hands. Today, 7 cents goes to the farmer, 71 cents to the global transport20system, refrigeration, packaging, middle people and distribution.
With less than 2% of our population engaged in growing food, a just-on-time, transport-based global economy has undermined the local and regional economies of the Ozarks to the extent that our people are no longer wholly or even partially self-sufficient. The need for sustained organized action can hardly be overstated. We are faced with some big problems that demand big answers.
What are we going to do if our neighbor or family member is kicked out of the home or their job? Ignore them? How can we respond to each other’s needs, not just as individuals, but as a community of neighbors? The 1,000 Gardens Project aims to serve the city’s Neighborhood Associations and help foster neighbor-to-neighbor cooperation at every level.
We must secure our food supply, relocalize our job base, and come up with an energy descent plan that weans us from our addiction to fossil fuels. That’s what any logical “plan B” might include. Citizen activists must do this because our politicians are bereft of a peaceful, sustainable and inclusive vision of the future. Neither party has a vision, only an agenda of “Growth,” which is an extrapolation of the present.
Without romanticizing the past, we can form a baseline assessment to learn what sustainable prosperity once looked like in Missouri. Economic re-localization entails big-picture thinking, and a clear timetable for achieving sustainable20abundance. The goal is to get our elected officials to orient all laws, ordinances and governance policy around genuine regional sustainability by next Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, you can:
6) Start a Transition’09 circle. Start an interfaith discussion of how people of faith can unite to best achieve a sustainable future.
7) Get your community involved in rolling classes on canning, heirloom seed saving, composting, greenhouses, cold frames and food storage.
8) Start a garden books and tools lending library in your Neighborhood Association.
9 Volunteer a few hours a week working the 1,000 garden phone bank and e-mails.
10) Do a vulnerability audit for your business’s supply chain; plan for a robust investment in local resources, products and labor.
The time to celebrate the unity behind our diversity has come. For more information, or to find our how you can help, please contact our volunteers at info@ wellfedneighbor.com.
Galen Chadwick
To Newsleader Voices, Editorial section Jan 12th, 2009
From Galen Chadwick
Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LETTER
Soon, cheery little green flags will begin popping up in lawns all over town. The 1,000 Organic Gardens Project represents one element of a strategic plan to regain food security in the Queen City metro area- indeed, for the entire Ozarks region.
Research has shown that some $1,200 of veggies can be grown on a modest 4x30 foot strip. Even a blanket-sized patch of ground can produce good amounts of wholesome food. Why is this important? Because the music has stopped in the US economy. During past hard times we hunkered down and held on, but this reflex may not work this time around. We need a plan “B” right now.
Why should this matter? A prolonged experiment in corporate collectivism has shipped millions of jobs overseas, debased our currency, and rendered the quality of American life stagnant. Entire ind ustries have been dismantled and vital know-how has all but disappeared. We are astonishingly vulnerable, and given the distances most food items travel, we might as well be living in the Sahara Desert. When did Missourians last envision a peaceful, prosperous, and broadly happy future? When did we last have the capacity to feed, clothe and house ourselves without outside help? Here are five things you can do right now that will make a difference.
1) Plan to put in an organic kitchen garden this spring, or expand the one you have.
Check out info@ wellfedneighbor.com if you need help.
2) Start a compost pile for you table scraps.
3) Plant fruit and pecan trees, American/Chinese Chestnuts, and English Walnuts.
4) Get your kids and grandkids into 4H and scouting programs. Help put gardening into the schools.
5) Buy local. Buy from the farmer’s markets.
Until 1914 Missouri was a garden that produced fruits, grains, nuts, vegetables, dairy products, leather products, shoes, livestock and timber in massive quantities. East coast cities were directly linked to our farms and industries through an elaborate network of westward-branching rail lines. We fed millions of people in those days, and the typical Missourian derived his or her income from the sale of eggs, fruit, hogs, sheep, firewood, cream, beef, herbs, vegetables, corn, wheat, and oats.
During the “Golden A ge of Missouri Agriculture” our dairy farm production ranked among the top four states. By the end of WWII, there were as many as one million dairy cows. By 2007, this number had plummeted to 112,000 cows. Where Missourians once exported up to 1.9 billion pounds of milk products a year, we now must import 1.7 billion pounds to feed ourselves.
Webster County once led in apple production at a time when Missouri topped the entire nation in the number of apple trees. The reasons for decline are varied but by 1950 there were still some 60,000 orchards. Now we have less than 1,000 orchards to supply an estimated population of 6.2 million.
In 1899, Stone County produced 10,221 acres of wheat. The last recorded figure, submitted in 1985, lists wheat production at 100 acres. The grain elevators that tower over Chestnut Expressway no longer represent American prosperity but mock it. These structures, now gutted of equipment, could no longer store grain even if we still knew how to grow it.
The collapse of our local food supply has followed the economics of our regional decline in both diversity and value. A hundred years ago, 40 cents of a food dollar went to the farmer, the rest was inputs and marketing. That was a time when growers made a decent living and could own their farms and tools outright. There was parity for the products produced by the labor of one’s hands. Today, 7 cents goes to the farmer, 71 cents to the global transport20system, refrigeration, packaging, middle people and distribution.
With less than 2% of our population engaged in growing food, a just-on-time, transport-based global economy has undermined the local and regional economies of the Ozarks to the extent that our people are no longer wholly or even partially self-sufficient. The need for sustained organized action can hardly be overstated. We are faced with some big problems that demand big answers.
What are we going to do if our neighbor or family member is kicked out of the home or their job? Ignore them? How can we respond to each other’s needs, not just as individuals, but as a community of neighbors? The 1,000 Gardens Project aims to serve the city’s Neighborhood Associations and help foster neighbor-to-neighbor cooperation at every level.
We must secure our food supply, relocalize our job base, and come up with an energy descent plan that weans us from our addiction to fossil fuels. That’s what any logical “plan B” might include. Citizen activists must do this because our politicians are bereft of a peaceful, sustainable and inclusive vision of the future. Neither party has a vision, only an agenda of “Growth,” which is an extrapolation of the present.
Without romanticizing the past, we can form a baseline assessment to learn what sustainable prosperity once looked like in Missouri. Economic re-localization entails big-picture thinking, and a clear timetable for achieving sustainable20abundance. The goal is to get our elected officials to orient all laws, ordinances and governance policy around genuine regional sustainability by next Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, you can:
6) Start a Transition’09 circle. Start an interfaith discussion of how people of faith can unite to best achieve a sustainable future.
7) Get your community involved in rolling classes on canning, heirloom seed saving, composting, greenhouses, cold frames and food storage.
8) Start a garden books and tools lending library in your Neighborhood Association.
9 Volunteer a few hours a week working the 1,000 garden phone bank and e-mails.
10) Do a vulnerability audit for your business’s supply chain; plan for a robust investment in local resources, products and labor.
The time to celebrate the unity behind our diversity has come. For more information, or to find our how you can help, please contact our volunteers at info@ wellfedneighbor.com.
Galen Chadwick
To Newsleader Voices, Editorial section Jan 12th, 2009
From Galen Chadwick
Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance
I'll havta go see what I did send ya. Shudda been the same as it is on here. 
She might be good lookin and not only tend gardens but can clean all dem lil fishies 
