We are a nation of doers- we exceed goals thrive on challenge and have the most incredible rescources in our selves, resources that far outshine our prodigious lands. It is not enough that
we know this, without acting upon this knowledge we are lost.
Even when we were a young struggling family we always had food, canning and weeding were a de facto part of the life in a small new england town. On two acres my grandfather grew enough for us the neighbors friends and sold on the roadside and in local markets and believe me that cellar was full wall to wall each winter. Many a memory of grandpa includes me in the plants eagerly stuffing myself with strawberries while he would smile and down a PBR making sure I got a few weeds out of the way while I was at it.
There are 452 million industrial agriculture acreages here in the usa (*from Rodale institute) and most of it wasted (more subsidised soy bean and corn anyone? What no seconds?) and destroying the land by heavy chemical moderations. but our urban landscape is even more plentiful and though more often than not just as chemically abused it holds the potential to change our society. Ever look at someone and think " I wish that person could hit their potential"? Well as a landscape designer that is exactly what I think when I look at your medieval practice of growing a lawn. That still clung to perception of maintaing a clear expanse around the manor so that your knights and archers can have a decent shot at the enemy is passe' by about 1600 years. Scotts and others sell you the precept it is needed and signifying your status (green up or your not worthwhile breeding stock,seems to be the implied message.) Scotts etc. reaps the profit, while you and your lawn are now chemically dependant now that you have leached the nutrients out of the soil via petro chemically
saturating it, you pay more for groceries (loss of local produce is loss of supply which raises demand and bingo more money for the food) and the water table is polluted. Don't forget to look at the rivers and lakes clogged with huge algae growths fed by heavily overly fertilized lawns and rain runoff. How's that lawn looking now? Yep these are the things i gnash my teeth over when I drive around. My simple head spins.
Yet it is in this landscape that we possess that holds the answer. Yes, I am suggesting that you learn to grow food in a heavy use manner as well as hold the job raise the kids and have a life. 5000sq feet will feed three to four people year round if managed intelligently. Get even crafty about it and you will hardly have to look after it like you think you would. For example passive rain collection - the average roof in the average rainstorm sheds 1459 gallons of rain. some simple cisterns and a 20 dollar solar pump and you have the foundation of a drip irrigation system that will water you plants for damned near a month or two. Certainly not everybody has the space or the soil but it can be found or nurtured with a little effort. If we can find the time to obsess over NBA drafts Fantasy Football Leagues and wether or not this skirt makes my ass look big we can find the time and energy to radically change the industrial agro system by standing it on it's head, just by making a consistent modest effort of our own on our own land.
Let us not overlook roof top gardens a solution to not only food shortages locally but offering tremendous reduction in heating and cooling costs and helping to improve to overall air temperature. (a roof can exceed 120 degrees in the summer helping to not only heat the air around it but on s large scale all of those heat islands combine to produce drier air disrupting the buildup of moisture in the air that would assist in locally rain production. Here in central Florida you could of set your watch by the daily rainfall four forty five that rain came down. Now two decades of tree removal and everglades being filled in and you have a tarmac that stretches from Tampa to West Palm Beach and guess what? It no longer rains here, the moisture is evaporated and we are in the largest longest drought in a damned long time. Get rid of the heat island re-grow shade canopies and the local environment improves dramatically.)
The book How to Grow More Vegetables, by John Jeavons is not only invaluable to us in these times but the techniques have been replicated around the world in poverty stricken malnourished nations. It is vital that you reconnect to your environment and this is the best most practical way to do it, that you can vastly improve the holdings of the food banks is the pinnacle of the effort. As well anything by the Rodale institute is clear guidance from THE authority on sustainable local agriculture. Learn about wildcrafting your garden. When I was privileged to own my grandparents land (before passing it on to my cousin to raise his family) I had all five acres full of annuals, vegetables, herbs rock gardens and perenials all working together to produce healthy soil which in turn gave me amazing gardens. What lawn there was consisted of pathways. All that while maintaing 80 hour work weeks with my own business. If I can do it anyone can trust me on that.
Think of guerilla gardening too, seeding up abandoned land for a few tomatoes or squash that can go to a food bank is that much more to help people.here
Look globally, there are food riots, a HUGE rise in the price of wheat and totally unrealistic subsidising of crops. The Government wont be the answer because if it were this would not have happened and help wont be coming from Monsanto and the like unles it serves them and and frankly they dont serve the people. We are the answer. Remember Victory Gardens back in WWII ? Back then there were enough of us who still had decent agrarian knowledge. Now with a few generations raised on fast food and take out that knowledge is concentrated in smaller circles yet it is there and accessible.. We can bridge that information gap easily.
We have started to wake up I believe, we are seeing that our lifestyle is not sustainable it lacks pragmatic practice and condemns our fellow beings to live in a degraded environment. This must prompt the change to reasonable practices, local food production over mass agronomic philosophies that have only benefited the few at the top at the expense of the many. This is modern day Feudalism - Lords and Monarchs of seemingly infinite wealth and power using the lands of our nation to engorge themselves under the pretense of feeding the world. While I can see the need and the business sense of some food production being shipped around of course I can not say that being paid to grow and store wheat till the price is outrageous while people in this land go hungry daily is a for the people by the people practice. Any causal glance at the practices of say ConAg with its insane chemical and genetic practices can clearly illustrate the point and hint at more needed changes in our food production values and practices. You can be the cog in the machine or you can be the monkey wrench, the blue pill or the red, Neo.
Go to seedsofchange.com to get a sense of what is available to you, read about the absolutely amazing people out there in our land who are doing something about this situation and what you can do to help, support or replicate the efforts and results. Email me if you need direction or solutions, i will gladly help. See the magic of a few beans off the bush in your hand or a head of lettuce sitting there so fresh it seems that light glows around it. Find out how just amazing it really is to just give some squash to folks a few minutes after picking it. It is more than just being able to fundamentally help our fellow human beings it is our heritage and our birth right.