Before we give thanks, some food for thought!

The sun is shining. Temperatures are mild for this time of year. Snow is melting. Breeze is calm, not howling. It feels as if we've been transported to somewhere other than Minnesota and some time other than 2020. Meanwhile, in our inbox and timeline today we've come across these reads:

• Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway (Why Is It So Hard for Democrats to Act Like They Actually Won?)


• Joel Salatin’s Unsustainable Myth (His go-it-alone message made him a star of the food movement. Then a young Black farmer dug into what he was really saying.)

The former largely confirms that our observations about Democrats, and many liberals, are correct. The latter has validated many of our concerns about how to create a viable "local food" economy that's also affordable. We had hoped that the basic framework had been worked out to the point that we could move on and research other interests. It's not to be.

Solnit does conclude with a worthwhile and helpful observation:

Now is an excellent time to stand on principle and defend what we value, and I believe it’s a winning strategy too, or at least brings us closer to winning than surrender does. Also, it’s worth repeating, we won, and being gracious in victory is still being victorious.

The Salatin piece points US in a direction of more cooperation:

“When you see all these collective movements and cooperatives coming out of communities of color, it’s really not surprising, because people of color who want to get on the landscape don’t usually have the opportunity to go it alone.” 

 

will the future family farm look like this?

Photo by J. Harrington

We're members of a couple of food co-ops and, over the years, have had shares in several community supported agriculture farms. We believe each could be a bigger part of the food system than they are  at present. We're also aware of some very large agricultural co-ops that appear to have many of the downsides of "industrial ag." The question of appropriate scale appears to be relevant to individual farms, farms organized into coops, processor co-ops and retail co-ops. We're not sure where in that mix food hubs may or may not have a role. All of this is also going to affect how much and when and how agriculture plays a role in climate change solutions too, we suspect. Sigh!

Ox Cart Man

By Donald Hall

In October of the year,

he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,   

counting the seed, counting   

the cellar’s portion out,   

and bags the rest on the cart’s floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey

in combs, linen, leather   

tanned from deerhide,   

and vinegar in a barrel

hooped by hand at the forge’s fire.

He walks by his ox’s head, ten days

to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,   

and the bag that carried potatoes,

flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose   

feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.   

When the cart is sold he sells the ox,   

harness and yoke, and walks

home, his pockets heavy

with the year’s coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire’s light in November cold   

stitches new harness

for next year’s ox in the barn,

and carves the yoke, and saws planks   

building the cart again.

 

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