8/24/10

Locavore / The New Farmers / Keeping it Real




It is time to take it back. And, by it, I mean our right to fully grow and harvest food. The factory farming and corporate produce is out of control. Two percent of the richest people in the United States own and control almost everything. Why? Are we not able to take back our right to produce food?

If you live in a city the Locavore book listed above, by Sarah Elton, is really great. I am reading it now. There is always a way, even it is a pot of basil growing in your home.

I hope community, rooftop, private home gardens, and farmer's markets continue to grow and set forth a new flavor of employment. Do you really want your lettuce to travel hundreds of miles? Everything to be pasteurized? Or, leave out the local bread maker, baker, or farmer? Instead of buying ketchup, mustard, or any other condiment, make it. If not, maybe try to visit the local Cooperative Market. We cannot keep up the corporate pace. Not to mention all the water these industries use to make these products. Our freshwater is being depleted faster than we want to admit. All of this produce, meat, packaging, etc., needs water to be produced, especially the meat, cattle being the largest water consumer -- (refer to the Green Blue book for facts on how much water is used for everything, and I mean everything down to toothpaste).

As my yoga teacher Dharma Mittra says, "the greatest of all impurities is ignorance of the true self". Realizing how much compassionate power we really have will breed and support the new farmers. The harvesters using ethical practices to nurture all beings and the environment with least or no harm. It is happening but it a slow movement. I really hope we see glorious farms again on the roadside with plentiful crops and market stands.