Comments on: Arrested for feeding the poor & contempt for the peasant http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/ Making the Connections Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:52:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Elaina http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-207287 Elaina Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:18:14 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-207287 Woo hoo! Go Orlando!!!!! Woo hoo! Go Orlando!!!!!

]]> By: peggy http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-206573 peggy Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:14:50 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-206573 Waldow, that's an amazing story. I certainly don't think you're alone. In the 1980s, there were a bunch of different families from different places that all decided independently of each other to settle around Branchport, New York, build our own houses and "live off the land." This bunch was part of a larger bunch in the central New York region centered around Ithaca. Many Mennonites have farms in that area, too. Needless to say, the Mennonites were vastly more successful than us. But still, a few of us were moderately capable of creating productive organic gardens. The produce was sold in the local farmer's market, but the money from that was not enough to sustain a family that wants its kids to grow up healthy and happy with many options ahead of them. So ... as children were born and grew up, people made compromises, and slowly our little group of urban expatriates dissolved. But quite a few families whose founders were working class people from the region still stayed in their exact same places and ultimately had wonderful grandchildren running all around. The adults hold a range of interesting jobs. Their favorite pastime is hunting. Bow-hunting takes unusual skill and strength, and a girl I know who was a teenager at the time took tremendous pride in killing her first deer with a bow. Some are dishonest and mean and others are quite the opposite. Some more educated people refer to them as hillbillies, but for others, a few of these hillbillies are lifelong dear friends. Waldow, that’s an amazing story. I certainly don’t think you’re alone. In the 1980s, there were a bunch of different families from different places that all decided independently of each other to settle around Branchport, New York, build our own houses and “live off the land.” This bunch was part of a larger bunch in the central New York region centered around Ithaca. Many Mennonites have farms in that area, too. Needless to say, the Mennonites were vastly more successful than us. But still, a few of us were moderately capable of creating productive organic gardens. The produce was sold in the local farmer’s market, but the money from that was not enough to sustain a family that wants its kids to grow up healthy and happy with many options ahead of them. So … as children were born and grew up, people made compromises, and slowly our little group of urban expatriates dissolved.
But quite a few families whose founders were working class people from the region still stayed in their exact same places and ultimately had wonderful grandchildren running all around. The adults hold a range of interesting jobs. Their favorite pastime is hunting. Bow-hunting takes unusual skill and strength, and a girl I know who was a teenager at the time took tremendous pride in killing her first deer with a bow. Some are dishonest and mean and others are quite the opposite. Some more educated people refer to them as hillbillies, but for others, a few of these hillbillies are lifelong dear friends.

]]> By: Waldow http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-206486 Waldow Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:26:49 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-206486 My wife found us good south slope land to lease under the "farm and garden" section where people often post "pasture for rent" notices, and by posting "wanted ads" there. She weeded through ads and email, and then I went out an visited a few land owners. Many of these people were thinking of somebody with horses, calling a few turned some people who did't mind some pigs, goats, or veggies instead. We settled on working with a kind and reasonable old repair-man with a walrus mustache sitting on 28 acres. He traded a couple year's lease in exchange for my labor to fence the 7 acres we're using. He needed his Doug Fir's thinned, so minus the cost of some creosote, we got posts cash free too. We need the luck. We'll be needing the food. My little carpentry contracting company is deep in debt cause I stupidly did fine work for shit prices (Oh well, it was more fun and exercise than my dot com job... each boom is a little smaller than the next, and each dip... yaw pitch we're up to our hips...) We read USDA articles about the advantages of farming leased land for years, but wrote them off as state propaganda to encourage some kinda' serfdom. Why this isn't "serfdom" is because my contract doesn't give anybody a share of my crop, and no bank will hold a note on the farm either, because we're being deliberate and crazy cheap. And who's to say where it is? Why I've forgotten the street address myself?! I hope somebody reading this gets another project like this going soon. You could get the rights to an acre for a few bucks a day, get some exercise with your food security. You might get to be one of the last to starve in your neighborhood! You're garenteed to meet some real characters too. My wife found us good south slope land to lease under the “farm and garden” section where people often post “pasture for rent” notices, and by posting “wanted ads” there. She weeded through ads and email, and then I went out an visited a few land owners. Many of these people were thinking of somebody with horses, calling a few turned some people who did’t mind some pigs, goats, or veggies instead. We settled on working with a kind and reasonable old repair-man with a walrus mustache sitting on 28 acres. He traded a couple year’s lease in exchange for my labor to fence the 7 acres we’re using. He needed his Doug Fir’s thinned, so minus the cost of some creosote, we got posts cash free too. We need the luck.

We’ll be needing the food. My little carpentry contracting company is deep in debt cause I stupidly did fine work for shit prices (Oh well, it was more fun and exercise than my dot com job… each boom is a little smaller than the next, and each dip… yaw pitch we’re up to our hips…)

We read USDA articles about the advantages of farming leased land for years, but wrote them off as state propaganda to encourage some kinda’ serfdom. Why this isn’t “serfdom” is because my contract doesn’t give anybody a share of my crop, and no bank will hold a note on the farm either, because we’re being deliberate and crazy cheap. And who’s to say where it is? Why I’ve forgotten the street address myself?!

I hope somebody reading this gets another project like this going soon. You could get the rights to an acre for a few bucks a day, get some exercise with your food security. You might get to be one of the last to starve in your neighborhood! You’re garenteed to meet some real characters too.

]]> By: Stan http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-203971 Stan Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:59:36 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-203971 Waldow, I don't see a category on Craigslist that gets this specific. How would you bird-dog leaseable land on CL. Services? Housing? Maybe we just don't have it here. Great idea though. Waldow, I don’t see a category on Craigslist that gets this specific. How would you bird-dog leaseable land on CL. Services? Housing? Maybe we just don’t have it here. Great idea though.

]]> By: Waldow http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-203932 Waldow Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:26:30 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-203932 Responding to the Monbiot piece: Want to produce food in the US? Try Craig's List. Lease land for $100-$200 an acre per year and go to it. At least here in Oregon it works for us. Responding to the Monbiot piece:

Want to produce food in the US? Try Craig’s List. Lease land for $100-$200 an acre per year and go to it. At least here in Oregon it works for us.

]]> By: Ryan http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-203809 Ryan Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:28:46 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-203809 YK: I am familiar with SRI - system of rice intensification - and was in attendance at a symposium in Kathmandu, Nepal, where Norman Uphoff, gave an explanation of how the system works and the results of field tests in various countries. Very promising work, especially for the farmers with small land holdings. I had dinner with Norman (who's daughter used to be my docter when I was a kid in Ithaca) that evening and got more of the full story about his effort to actually get this research funded and taken seriously. Since he is a professor of political science he is having a lot of trouble getting the "ag-engineers" at cornell (and probably other places) to take the research seriously. Regardless it seems that the method of growing rice is successful, and that will ultimately bring it to greater use. It takes more intense labor than rice paddy methods, but that is something that poorer farmers often have more of than space. He talked about some tests on millet and other grains, and I did some test plots of my own here in Vermont last year. I tried some upland himalayan rice that is normally grown dry (not in patties) and it tillered like crazy - unfortunately the season is just too short and I got started to late (I started the seed in the greenhouse in Late May early June). With another month I would have had a pretty good crop I think. . . I also tried some wheat with this method, with a lot less tillering, and even some widely spaced corn that also tillered well, though the number of ears wasn't increased very much. Anyway, great postings again Stan. Keep feeding the roots!! YK:

I am familiar with SRI – system of rice intensification – and was in attendance at a symposium in Kathmandu, Nepal, where Norman Uphoff, gave an explanation of how the system works and the results of field tests in various countries. Very promising work, especially for the farmers with small land holdings. I had dinner with Norman (who’s daughter used to be my docter when I was a kid in Ithaca) that evening and got more of the full story about his effort to actually get this research funded and taken seriously. Since he is a professor of political science he is having a lot of trouble getting the “ag-engineers” at cornell (and probably other places) to take the research seriously. Regardless it seems that the method of growing rice is successful, and that will ultimately bring it to greater use. It takes more intense labor than rice paddy methods, but that is something that poorer farmers often have more of than space.

He talked about some tests on millet and other grains, and I did some test plots of my own here in Vermont last year. I tried some upland himalayan rice that is normally grown dry (not in patties) and it tillered like crazy – unfortunately the season is just too short and I got started to late (I started the seed in the greenhouse in Late May early June). With another month I would have had a pretty good crop I think. . . I also tried some wheat with this method, with a lot less tillering, and even some widely spaced corn that also tillered well, though the number of ears wasn’t increased very much.

Anyway, great postings again Stan. Keep feeding the roots!!

]]> By: Y.K. http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-201673 Y.K. Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:58:20 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-201673 Anyone know about this method? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17rice.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all The question here may still be ownership because the farmer may require more land (but less water). Anyone know about this method?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17rice.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

The question here may still be ownership because the farmer may require more land (but less water).

]]> By: Legume Sam http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-201295 Legume Sam Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:05:42 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-201295 Pomona CA FNB... Pomona CA FNB…

]]> By: badri http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-199801 badri Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:10:32 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-199801 legumesam . curious where is this one person FNB ! i am in san francisco . we typically have several person each day but have now and then done it alone on my days . so true DeAnander . legumesam . curious where is this one person FNB !
i am in san francisco . we typically have several person each day but have now and then done it alone on my days .
so true DeAnander .

]]> By: DeAnander http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-199184 DeAnander Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:20:54 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/06/12/arrested-for-feeding-the-poor/#comment-199184 Hmmm, well, the whole point of industrialised farming was not to improve productivity per hectare -- despite all the propaganda to that effect. It was to reduce the number of people paid to work on farms -- "downsizing" so as to reduce salaries, food, etc. paid to farm workers; to force those displaced farm workers into cities as cheap factory labour; and to replace those workers with fossil fuelled equipment, whose manufacture and feeding (unlike simply paying or feeding workers) concentrated still more wealth in the hands of industrialists... Industrialised farming is not about producing food; it is pure dogwaggery, focussed on creating a market for chemicals, equipment, patented seeds and fossil fuel. Producing food is not the point; and these days, the food produced is (as M Pollan has pointed out at length) barely recognisable as such -- it is really feedstock for <i>further</i> profit-generating, fossil-fuel-burning industrial processing. The dysfunction is so complete it's staggering. The problem of feeding people is actually fairly simple (so long as population doesn't expand beyond the ultimate carrying capacity of available arable land): small farms and local markets, combined with a national/regional system of emergency food transport in case of local disasters such as drought, flood, or massive pest swarms, make for a robust and secure food system... but <i>not a maximally profitable one.</i>. The industrial food system is geared to maximise money profit, not to maximise productivity per hectare or food security or health. Food shortages are not, in the last analysis, really due to a scarcity of fossil fuels; they are due to a deliberate wrongheadedness and a perversion of the very purpose and meaning of farming... Hmmm, well, the whole point of industrialised farming was not to improve productivity per hectare — despite all the propaganda to that effect. It was to reduce the number of people paid to work on farms — “downsizing” so as to reduce salaries, food, etc. paid to farm workers; to force those displaced farm workers into cities as cheap factory labour; and to replace those workers with fossil fuelled equipment, whose manufacture and feeding (unlike simply paying or feeding workers) concentrated still more wealth in the hands of industrialists… Industrialised farming is not about producing food; it is pure dogwaggery, focussed on creating a market for chemicals, equipment, patented seeds and fossil fuel. Producing food is not the point; and these days, the food produced is (as M Pollan has pointed out at length) barely recognisable as such — it is really feedstock for further profit-generating, fossil-fuel-burning industrial processing. The dysfunction is so complete it’s staggering.

The problem of feeding people is actually fairly simple (so long as population doesn’t expand beyond the ultimate carrying capacity of available arable land): small farms and local markets, combined with a national/regional system of emergency food transport in case of local disasters such as drought, flood, or massive pest swarms, make for a robust and secure food system… but not a maximally profitable one.. The industrial food system is geared to maximise money profit, not to maximise productivity per hectare or food security or health. Food shortages are not, in the last analysis, really due to a scarcity of fossil fuels; they are due to a deliberate wrongheadedness and a perversion of the very purpose and meaning of farming…

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