With the high gas prices, the poor and other classes are having a difficult
time in the USA. I hope from the titles of your thread and your
story-web-link, people do not emigrate to USA to be on food stamps.
Difficult situations make people innovative. In our town, "Good Hope" that
provides food to the poor, this year is giving them a potted tomato plant. I
think this is a great idea. It teaches the poor the skill of growing, and they
stand to indiviudally benefit from, and the benefit is directly propotinal to,
their own efforts. Likely these people (mostly unemployed and mentally
handicapped) have all the time on their hands to take good care to make a
productive tomato plant.
However, growing ones own food should not be a hobby for only the poor. Over
the weekend, a Filipino physician friend told us how her father, now retired in
Florida, has on a small plot of land, grown most to the fruit plants of the
Philippines (similar to the ones we grow in Goa and more).
Regards, GL
------------ Gabe Menezes
It seems that the Middle class in the USA are really equivalent to 'the poor in
Western Europe'
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/nyregion/22food.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin