suggested the White House develop five south acres for growing fruits and vegetables for the First Family and staff. Farmer in Chief was an open letter to the then President-Elect, published in the New York Times Magazine.
There is no way that I can do justice to the article by writing a synopsis, so I will include a very small exerpt…..
“After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.”
I was just reading my friend Anita’s great post, Off Grid, Part-Time at Prairie Dreams about a family who is going off the grid and eating locally for a one month trial.
When I began thinking about eating locally or growing my own food, I found inspiration at Path to Freedom with their 100 Foot Diet Challenge. My garden is small and actually looking like it may never produce ANYTHING, so I feel a bit defeated at the moment.
Here are the specs for the Urban Homesteader/Path to Freedom 100 Foot Diet Challenge….
If not from BACKYARD, then Locally produced (PTF’s addition) If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.
In the past, Anita and I have shared our concerns over not being able to find much locally grown produce available for purchase. We hope that soon the Farmer’s Market will be able to assist with this dilemma, but I began thinking about an alternative for future seasons after I left a comment on her post. What if Anita and I cooperated with each other…with a backyard C.S.A.? We live within 20 miles of each other, so that would certainly meet the 100 Mile Diet requirements. What if we found just two more backyard farmers who were interested in the same?
I don’t quite have the logistics of how this might work, but it is definitely something to think about for when Anita is moved into her house and has her garden growing. Do you think I should have asked Anita first, before putting her garden up for barter?
Before today, I had no idea that this event existed. I know that August 24 is a few months in coming, but I thought I would post this interesting video about the need for turning our lawns into vegetable gardens. The gentleman in the video discusses the many reasons why everyone should dedicate at least some portion of their lawn to a productive garden, but his mention of $3 gasoline dates it slightly. Oh wait…$3 wasn’t that long ago….the fear of $4 gas is becoming more and more real.
I am so excited! We go to choose our butchering pig tonight. We are purchasing it from a local farmer, who will take it to the butcher for us. While his farm is not organically certified, he does not use chemicals on his produce or animals. In the past we have purchased beef from local farmers, but this will be our first ham.
We have discussed participating in the 100 mile diet, and are trying to move a bit into that direction, but realize that it would be so difficult to give up some of the fruits and vegetables that we so love. All citrus would be sorely missed, as would avacodo and grapes. I suppose we could grow some grapes here, but our cold winters keep us from growing many items.
