Farmers Tali, John and Jim grew the food I've eaten today. I know who they are and I live near their farms.
Today, I decided to go the the local farmer's market. It's basically a collection of simple booths or tables on a un-used school's lot or at the local grange, where local growers can offer what they've grown direct to the public.
Bucks County's local, Wrightstown Farmers Market
Arriving at shortly before noon, I missed the item I was most looking for, fresh, locally grown strawberries. These are amazing. I know because I get them from the local CSA where I am a member, Anchor Run Farm. Matter of fact, I was out in the field picking strawberries, with my 26 year old daughter last Wednesday. (You might want to consider it my alternate office, since I took a call booking me to be on the Ed Schultz Show the next day, with Tony Trupiano.)
My daughter and I picking strawberries on the Anchor Run CSA farm
Anyway, I know how sweet and delicious locally grown strawberries taste. There is no comparison between them and the kinds you buy in grocery stores-- the ones that are grown to survive travelling thousands of miles by train. There's no gasoline in them.
That's right. When you buy local, you buy food that does not have a lot of fuel energy invested in transporting it. Every time you buy food that has been transported to your grocery store by train, plane, boat or truck, there's a lot of extra energy that's gone into it. Buying local is a great way to cut down on the use of energy and maybe even on greenhouse gases.
This is my second year as a member of Anchor Run Farm and it has been a pleasant surprise to describe how much more fun and pleasure it's given me, not just because of the healthier organic food at reasonable prices, or the new kinds of food I've never tried before, but also because it's been fun to go out in the fields to pick my own food-- garlic, hot peppers, tomatos, beans, herbs, berries. But don't bother trying to sign up with Anchor Run this year, they sold out their memberships before the season even started.
The farmer's market I visited is not very, nor very busy, but it's only in its second week. That made it easy to park, and the drive to the market was even shorter than the drive to the nearest grocery store.
My first booth was selling home-made whole wheat raisin nut bread made with organic flour. Yum. Got me a loaf.
I walked past a booth selling greens. My weekly pick-up at Anchor Run had filled our fridge with all kinds of lettuce, greens, etc., so I figured we had all we need.
Next, I came to Solebury Orchards. I've bought their apple cider in local stores, but here, they were selling, in addition to the cider, apple butter and pear butter. I'd never tried pear butter, so I bought a jar of it.
Next, I checked out a table selling organic chicken and duck eggs. The duck eggs were a little bit bigger than the chicken eggs. Pricey, at $4.50 a dozen. The signs at the table showed pictures of field where the birds graze, with a caption, stating that it's all about what they graze on.
Next stop, a table selling locally grown and butchered beef and free range chicken. The chicken was all sold out. The beef was a little bit pricey, but not bad-- $4.00 for ground beef, about $9 and up for steak. I didn't buy any.
There was another table without an food on it, with a poster. I asked the woman manning it what it was about. She explained that this was a project of a county-wide organization the Bucks County Foodshed Alliance.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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Growing your own food and the coming food/fuel crop crisis
Urban folk must learn to become as self-sufficient as possible, including growing some of their own food in their own gardens. When fresh veggies are so high at the supermarket, people can't afford fresh and go to canned, over-salted, preserved, poison in a can, our collective health suffers.
The current alleged scandal with food ingredients from China is only the tip of the iceberg.
There is a great deal of satisfaction in gardening, especially if you have small children; the wonder and joy they find in growing things is good for this cynical ole soul
a martian muckracker--Oh, I finally finished my book: had to give up on some contributors, but, I had a deadline and dem dat snoozes loozes.
by
M. Davis (43 articles, 2 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 149 comments)
on Saturday, June 2, 2007 at 8:21:43 PM
Speaking of which, that's the name of a farm stand that sells the produce on an organic farm of a family I know. My brother married into that family, which has been on that land since the 1600s. (The family members look like what you imagine Pilgrims look like.)
They don't really make money from it, it's more of a lifestyle. But it's located in Long Island New York's "fabulous Hamptons" and they're well off, in part, I guess, because they sell off pieces of their land.
I've urged them to resist selling it all off if their kids aren't interested in the farm. With the advent of Peak Oil and the importance locally grown produce will assume, they're perfectly positioned.
But I don't think they heard me. The siren song of the realtor calls. . .
by
Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments)
on Sunday, June 3, 2007 at 1:59:03 AM
Rob, please note that there is an internationally-linked organization dedicated to relocalization called the Post Carbon Institute (http://www.postcarbon.org )
From their website:
HISTORY OF POST CARBON INSTITUTE
Post Carbon Institute was established in 2003 as an initiative of MetaFoundation, an organization created in the year 2000 by Julian Darley and Celine Rich. The purpose of MetaFoundation was to serve as an umbrella or parent organization, to help develop and support new organizations focused on innovative and unique methods of providing environmental solutions. The creation of MetaFoundation stemmed from an interest in- and concern for how difficult it is to cover complex environmental issues in current affairs. It was decided that new methods of discussing and addressing the complexity of environmental issues needed to be developed, and MetaFoundation was born.
The first initiative of Meta-Foundation was GlobalPublicMedia, an internet broadcasting station streaming long format audio and video interviews. This media service was established in 2001 in response to the tendency of mainstream news media to primarily focus on making a profit, increasing ratings and developing news as entertainment. Alternatively, the goal of Global Public Media is to offers news and analysis on complex environmental issues provided by world experts from a wide variety of different fields.
During the time GlobalPublicMedia was being developed, Julian was advised by a local bookseller to read Jeremy Rifkin's book entitled 'The Hydrogen Economy'. The last chapter of this book introduced the concept of 'Peak Oil' to Julian, leading to a profound shift in the focus and work of MetaFoundation.
After visiting Colin Campbell, a prominent petroleum geologist and founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) in Cork County Ireland, Julian and Celine embarked on a process of information gathering about Peak Oil. The expertise and comprehensive knowledge they attained during this time led them to establish the Post Carbon Institute, an environmental organization focusing on Peak Oil related issues.
With a keen interest base and their base of support coming out of the United States, it was decided that Meta-Foundation would be established as a nonprofit entity operating out of Eugene, Oregon. MetaFoundation was incorporated in 2003 with GlobalPubicMedia and Post Carbon Institute operating as affiliated initiatives, under the umbrella organizational format of MetaFoundation.
Over the next few years, with a growing public interest in the initiatives of Meta-Foundation, Post Carbon Institute was successful in establishing a reputable board of directors, featuring the most prominent experts working in the field of Peak Oil. With this new board with an increase in public interest, it was decided that Post Carbon Institute would replace MetaFoundation as the main umbrella organization. Today, Post Carbon Institute serves as the parent organization to many other initiatives and ideas, while MetaFoundation now operates as a legal entity only.
Please follow the links on the menu bar for a complete description of all of the ideas and initiatives of Post Carbon Institute.
OUR MISSION
The mission of Post Carbon Institute is to assist communities in the effort to Relocalize and adapt to an energy constrained world.
Post Carbon Institute is a think, action and education tank offering research, project tools, education and information to implement proactive strategies to adapt to an energy constrained world. The development of Post Carbon Institute came out of concern for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on cheap energy.
Our main response to these concerns is the strategy of Relocalization, which aims to rebuild societies based on the local production of food and energy, and the Relocalization of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of Relocalization are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity.
by
Mac McKinney (42 articles, 67 quicklinks, 164 diaries, 1060 comments)
on Sunday, June 3, 2007 at 12:15:26 PM
Everything you wrote about was great. I really enjoyed the talk of organic, locally grown food. Let me, however, make a suggestion about mousetraps. There are green(literally) traps that can be purchased from PETA that are much more humane. You might also get a kick out of seeing these small cute creatures up close as you release them away from your home. I've converted several people that way. I asked a friend of mine to release a small mouse for me. He came back and said,"they're cute". Yes, they are.
by
Caronome (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 219 comments)
on Sunday, June 3, 2007 at 12:17:54 PM
My wife, who this year qualified as a Master Gardener, and I volunteer at a local organic farm operation, helping out with seeding and transplanting, and with the distribution of the crop to our CSA members. It's hard work but pleasant conditions and we are learning a lot. With the energy crisis looming ever closer, the need to have the capacity to feed ourselves much closer to home is a life/death issue, or will be before long. I am pleased to see the "go local" concept catching on, but the vast bulk of the population have no idea and, absent the onset of a real crisis, won't do anything. When the crisis hits, it will be far too late to do anything meaningful to soften the blow. And the national government is worse than useless, since practically everything they do is counterproductive. Most of their actions are designed to put in place the police state that will oppress the population when the crisis hits, protecting the super-rich who are their sole constituents.
I watched the film Crude Awakening last night, which lays out the dimensions of the problem about as well as you can state it. We are living in a fools paradise of a hollowed-out economy propelled by the inertia of a formerly productive society and fiat currency that is crashing about our ears even as I type. Mainstream media is part of the problem, serving mainly to calm the sheople as they get closer to the edge of the cliff.
by
Maturin42 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments)
on Sunday, June 3, 2007 at 1:59:07 PM
7 comments
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