A MUSING

 

We have been enjoying a heatwave these last three days. It didn't even freeze last night and it is now 40F. I could be enjoying it more if I stayed in bed longer. I went to bed after midnight and got up at 6:30. Just not enough sleep to be in top form. I am on my fourth or fifth cup of coffee, that might help.

Jamie and I were talking this Morning about how much of our food comes from all over the globe, shipped by container ships, trucks and rail [much less from rail]. Container ships use a very low grade petroleum and give off an immense amount of pollution. It is interesting that when there is talk about pollution [carbon and other], shipping in this new global economy is not mentioned. Hmmmm..... I wonder why. Look it up you will be surprised by the percentage of global pollution given off by container ships.

As everything from safety pins to tractors are made somewhere else, the goods need to come over the ocean. Most folks are aware of our manufacturing going over seas. How about our food production?

When I was in my early teens, the Twin Cities Metro area was surrounded by truck farms. I have personal knowledge of the ones in Hennepin and Anoka counties. I planted onions and potatoes for a dollar a day. We were paid a dollar to three dollars a day according to tasks and probably age. I never got above the dollar a day category. A dollar was a lot more money in those days; no, I didn't feel exploited.

Most of the basic vegetables; onions, potatoes, carrots, turnips, anything that could be stored were grown in these fields. The perishable vegetables were grown Southeast of the metro area, Le Seur area, perhaps. The only thing imported, that I know of, were citrus fruits and fruits and vegetables in the off-season. But the off-season, was really the off-season. There were no melons in the Winter.

I think all metro areas in the U.S. were surrounded by vegetable farms. I remember reading about the vegetable farms in New Jersey and Long Island that supplied New York City.

Some people ascribe urban sprawl as the death knell of these farms. But I remember them going out of business before the suburban tracks moved in; besides the plots in Hennepin and Anoka counties were largely peat lands not suitable for housing. I drive by the old farms in Anoka county, they are not farmed or housed.

I think the demise of the local farming was more likely some cost/profit ratio. The vegetable farming in California really cranked up after the invention of refrigerator cars and with the unlimited cheap labor, buyers could buy imported vegetables cheaper than the local ones.

We have very little connection with the food we eat. We don't see it growing. We don't know what kind of chemicals are used. We don't see who is being exploited to perform the labor. How can we get nutrition from something we have no connection with? Well, the subject of connectivity and oneness, is a subject, for another blog.

Imagine the reduction of pollutants [carbon and others] that would occur if we grew the food in the area where it was consumed. And then there are clothes, shoes, tools, all the other stuff. Huh........... have you we heard the establishment discuss this?

Well, it is going to happen. I am going to stick my head in the sand for a few hours.

Hey! But we have to celebrate! It is Friday and there is bright World shining through the gloom. I can see it. I can feel the Love. The sand is only a temporary fix.

Love and Peace, Gregg