Made in 1951, this short film produced by the Farm Journal reminds us how different agriculture was just 50 years ago. It shows the bias of its time: that electricity would solve all our problems when in fact gas is much more efficient for heating. Bigger was presumed to be better. And I’m amazed at [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Farming’
Farm Blessings
(Cindy47452 photo.) (Robert Bloomfield, Good Tidings, or News from the Farm, 1804.)
My wife’s “new” rifle
(Wiki photo.) Living where we do, we need to have a rifle behind the door. One day, a pack of wild dogs showed up, headed for our goats. And coyotes occasionally come too close. These are real threats we never had to deal with when we lived in the city. If we’re going to keep [...]
Guide for Beginning Farmers
(LEISA Network photo.). “At the outset, then, its often best to ‘borrow’ land, to steward the land of some holiday home owners, to gently lease some pastures from an extensive land-owner, ‘beg borrow or steal’ if you have to, or do it as a sideline.” This is just one pearl of wisdom from the Greenhorns [...]
Ken Meter – Part 2
Ken Meter discusses the dilemma of high land prices preventing new farnmers from entering the industry.
Farm Economics Statistics
According to one source, in 2003 Americans bought $450 billion in retail food. Of this, $40 billion (less than 9%) went to the farmers that grew the food. Compare that with the portion that Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club (the two largest food retailers) got: $80 billion. The average retail sales per retail employee was $127,000. [...]
Ken Meter on Building a Local Food Economy
“In my mind, what a food system ought to do and what a strong one would accomplish is to really give us very healthy food that we know the source of. And it should help us build wealth in our communities. It should also help us connect with each other, as people who learn what [...]
Time Gets Real
(Euclid Van der Kroew photo: Farm equipment burried by the dust bowl, c. 1935.) “Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food, they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, higher health costs — and bland taste. Sustainable food has an élitist reputation, but each of us depends on [...]
If You Eat Meat, Know Its Source
(Detail of a photo by VirtualErn.) The Reverent Eater reminds us that most store-bought (and restaurant) meat comes from CAFOs in which the animals are kept in appalling conditions— and fed food that they have no business eating. Cows are often fed corn (which they don’t digest well) and feather meal, the waste from chicken [...]
