I live in an area where I am surrounded by family farming operations -- and
all of our families have known each other for more than a hundred years
(probably much more if you consider that our immigrant ancestors settled
around people who they knew). Part of my motivation for being engaged in
sustainable agriculture is that I would like to help these people who are
my neighbors, friends and, in many cases, relatives.
Read my earlier post again ... and try to drop your ideological baggage
before assessing my motives, okay? There are farms and farmplaces and
farmland everywhere I look. I cannot see or hear evidence of a city from
my farm except for the distant grain elevator about seven miles away. I
KNOW exactly what the outcome of attempting to market produce locally is in
this region ... my knowledge of the market is based on over ten years in
the market. It is not based on what I've read in my favorite magazine or
bullshit I've heard about from friends down at the campus coffeehouse or
what I'd really like to believe or even what I know works in a very
different economic / social / cultural environments.
My customers were not affluent enough to be able to afford any price
premium and I certainly didn't ask for it. (Most of them were widows
living in small rural towns on a Social Security check.) They also simply
did not care about whether or not something was organic or not (but they
definitely didn't like even one thistle in "their" asparagus patch and
didn't much care about my explanations that a few weeds were going to be
part of an organic operation ... because they knew that "you could use a
little squirt of that Ortho WeedBeGone to kill those things." You can be
as judgmental as you want, but you just gotta smile and bear it when even
your great aunt's friends tell you something like that.) Change in
attitudes takes a long time ... but in the mean time, you gotta pay the
bills.
CSAs will not work here until the economy is more diversified and vibrant
than it already is. Industry, commerce, and trade will need to raise the
levels of economic affluence to the point where people can afford to be
much more concerned and educated about issues like nutrition and
environment. The point is to do what you can do to ensure that economic
growth is done in an ecologically sustainable fashion. To do that, you
need to work with what you have ... not with what you would like to have.
Wes Jackson writes about becoming "native to this place." I think I am
finally beginning to understand what that involves. It has very little to
do with preachiness and ideology -- but it has a lot to do with principles
and values and faith. Ideology is more about making excuses for failures
and judging what others are doing (i.e., big supermarkets are evil, large
farms are evil, the USDA is evil, global trade is evil). Principles,
values, and faith are more about action, forgiveness, healing, and solutions.
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