By Cassie
Britton sent me the link to an article with that title, so of course I had to read it. (And Isaac sent it to me after I sent him the Michael Pollan video – bk)

http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Salatin_Sept03.pdf

El Jibaro

I thought it summed up a lot of what Britton and I have talked about before. The “system” -the impersonal “they”- make it very difficult to get OUT of the system that was built by them. “9/11 fueled renewed acceleration to
eliminate freedom from the countryside,” said the author of the article, Joel Salatin. It is interesting to think about 9/11 as a conspiracy or a launching pad for a way to control people even more than before. The Patriot Act seems so finely tuned to remove personal freedoms including privacy, it is scary that everyone went along with it without much of a peep. All in the name of fighting “terrorism”. These are policies that revolve around fear. If we turned it around and another country were doing what we do daily, they would be on our Enemy Number 1 list (torture, spying, weapons proliferation).

The article goes into detail of all the things that a farmer today cannot do including: processing his own food to sell, using the farm as an educational outlet, collaborative marketing and selling other farm goods at his farm, employing youth and interns, and building a small house. He also discusses why the big companies want eradiation (basically x-raying and killing all living material in food for fear of food-pathogens), genetic altering of food (this questionable process stands to earn Monsanto, Dow, and the other chemical companies hoards of money in patents), and to not allow people to even visit farms for fear of infecting all the immune-compromised animals (this is already true). They want to require GPS on all farm animals (this is already happening, but not feasibly working), and to remove firearms from farmers who may need them to defend the farm against predators, or to cull a downed animal. All of these have been proposed and/or are in the works as part of our national food policies.

Goat Farming

When we were in Puerto Rico talking with Awilda about the finca (farm) we asked her about regulations, permits, water rights, etc. She said, “This is el campo (country), no one comes up here, but if you want all that trouble, you go to Arecibo.” She makes pasteles out of the food grown on the land and sells it to local health food stores and had to get food labels made. “If they could, they would attach a box to your back and charge you every time you breathe.” I think I like this lady.

I hope to see a lot of these down there

I understand regulations and their need in our society, but sometimes we need common sense and incentives to make it easier to live green and sustainably, not disincentives. The roads on the way to work have no sidewalks or bike lanes, for instance, so my incentive seems to be to drive, not bike. It is much easier to fill out paperwork and work for someone else than to start your own business. It takes a lot more motivation, but that is the only way to fight the system. Going along with everything just further entrenches us. Live and work in the little boxes we created for you, you can’t go far without us, the system seems to hum at us, like a concrete and metal bee hive.

Also, I found this great website: www.ted.com There are so many great discussions on here. This is one from Michael Pollan, and he actually compares us to bees as well. Joel Salatin is one of his mentors and is highlighted in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Presentation by Michael Pollan