Kirk McLoren wrote: > (cpm wrote) -SNIP > No. Food outside the corporate stranglehold isn't cheaper, it's > more expensive, it's also higher quality, better tasting and > considerably healthier. > --------------- > 65 cents for Fuji apples and FRESH beats the heck out of corporate > distribution in my book > ------------------------------ -SNIP > Heck, you could grow some of it yourself. > ----------- > Sure, plant corn in front of your condo. Most people have little or no land > ------------------ > > Sheesh, if you are a meat eater, you can actually go source your > meat from CSAs, see how the animals live, meet your butcher, see > how it's prepared. you don't have to eat downer cows if you don't want > to. It'll cost more. The folks providing that food have to live too. > ------------ > we have cows - and sheep and turkeys and chickens to name a few. Not my > first rodeo. > Used to live on 3000 acres. And I know what obstacles the corporations > placed in the little guys way. My uncle ran a small abator and freezer > plant. No ecoli in his meat thankyou.
Well said; Given these salient points, then you know quite well how much work and effort goes into putting food on the table. You know, much better than most how hard 'everyday' folks would have to work in order to feed themselves and their own, and how much time they would have left over to pursue their 'normal' vocation. If valuation were calculated accordingly, I think the argument that food should be a great deal more expensive than it is, is a pretty easy conclusion to reach, were this a given. As to the snipe about growing corn in front of a condo, you know quite well that there are community gardens all over the US, that urban farming is quite real, and that most if not all condo complexes have common areas, and not just a few of them allow gardening. If folks wanted it, they could have it. I say that statement is a straw man. You know better, and you know you know better. The free market aspects of agricultural economics in the US started to sunset back in the 1930s as 'large scale corporate interests' began moving the laws around to favor their agendas. Sure, it's funny to see folks yelling about free market economics where there is no free market, sad really. On the other hand, there is a burgeoning free market agriculture (not new really, but certainly a new growing awareness) in small farms engaged in pursuing sustainability at local economic scales. Are corporate 'interests' doing stuff to counter this? Oh sure. Working hard at it. Starting up astroturf outfits like American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology AFACT (http://www.itisafact.org) to promote rBST, getting their pals in government to cut funding to research sustainable agricutural approaches while increasing funding to the more and more privatized government labs where the gene and pharma work is being done to further their product lines and market agendas. Sure, this is happening, and many more things besides. No argument. But I still flatly reject that food needs to be cheaper, as it implies those bringing it to market should be earning less (and you know very well how little they earn as it is) I also flatly reject that the work that needs to be done, needs to be done 'breaking the stranglehold of corporate food distribution (paraphrase)' I say opting out of corporate food distribution as far as one is able achieves a lot of benefit for not a lot of effort. Keith said something a long time back, and to me it rang quite true; that being -in a nutshell- that the future is communities sustained by immediate local small scale agriculture. This can happen on the scale of multiple billions, or a few million, but it is the future. Are things bad? sure. It is also true that some things are good, and I dare say, some things are even getting better. You know all of this, I know you do. Why are we arguing? _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
