Food

If backyard homesteaders are getting it wrong with their backyard meat production efforts, is the solution more outsourcing to the “experts?” Or is it community-based re-skilling to get it right more of the time as we work toward greater food security and sovereignty? A response to James McWilliams article “The Locavore Movement’s Mistake: Deregulating Animal Slaughter” posted on September 13, 2011 at The Atlantic Monthly.

All the ways being proposed to increase jobs right now are the same old methods that do not face the real cause of the dilemma. The awful truth is that we have created an economy that can’t afford people to do the work and so every year there are fewer meaningful jobs and more pretend jobs. Pretend jobs require pretend money. We are capitalizing costs on money interest not on human interest.

I see that in the comments to my post August Glut, Russ observed a “phenomenon” (how I love that word when I want to sound important) that we noticed too. Our first string beans just never did grow quite like usual and although the foliage looked as healthy as normal, much fewer beans set on. Had to be the weather, as Russ says, very wet and coolish early on, but since the vines were quite robust and there seemed to be only a few leaf hoppers and other infernal creatures of the bean jungle, we were mystified and Carol almost frantic.

I have something to share in this post which I think is hugely exciting and which I think you are going to enjoy. A while ago I was sent a book called ‘SPIN farming basics: how to grow commercially on under an acre’ by Wally Satzewich and Roxanne Christensen. The book describes itself as a “step-by-step learning guide to the sub-acre production system that makes it possible to gross $50,000+ from a half-acre”. SPIN, which stands for Small Plot Intensive’ (their website is here), has the feel of an important, big, and timely idea, and it is one that fits into Transition beautifully. So what is it?

When autumn begins, I want to cook – and eat – again. I also want to read cookbooks again – during the summer I might pick up a cookbook to remind myself of an ingredient, but I don’t read them the way one reads a novel or a how-to book, dreaming and seeking inspiration and to be swept away. Once it cools off, though, cookbooks come home. I thought y’all might like to know what I’ve been reading.

I just read a speech given by Prince Charles at Georgetown University this past May. I’m normally not a follower of Royalty, but he did a great job of simply connecting global trends to the importance of building local food systems through the application of permaculture (though he didn’t call it permaculture).