[FLPERMACULTURE] Local grain

[Lyn Gerry]

Meyer farm in ovid grows organic wheat, as well as soy and black beans. 
Tony Potenza in tburg grows a variety of organic grains. We've got one or teo 
people in schuyler who are growing buckwheat. 


On 25 Aug 2007 at 10:32, Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> Jeff Schreiber wrote:
> > But what about those grains, Joel? They throw a wrench
> > into the whole eat local debate. No urban area,
> > regardless of how many urban gardens it has, will ever
> > have the space to grow enough local grains to meet its
> > needs. What to do?
> 
> I'm not sure I see the crisis in that, except perhaps for the few
> people 
> who really want to insist on a hundred-mile limit.
> 
> Grains are fairly unique in their ability to travel and be stored. 
> The 
> Erie Canal made it possible for New York City to grow rapidly, first
> letting them get grains from upstate (Rochester-Buffalo especially)
> and 
> then the midwest.
> 
> Unlike produce or many forms of meat, they don't need much special
> handling.  Boxcars can carry bags of grain, though the industry
> prefers 
> to ship bulk.  There's no refrigeration needed, just clean dry
> storage, 
> and shippers certainly could return to the Erie Canal if energy
> costs 
> limited trucks and rail.
> 
> Christian Peters gave a great presentation at Cornell last year on
> New 
> York State foodsheds, looking at whether New York State could feed
> its 
> cities.  The big problem - unsurprisingly - was New York City,
> though I 
> suspect even that could be substantially eased by including New
> Jersey 
> and Connecticut in the mapping.  Upstate cities had little trouble
> finding appropriate food from their surrounding areas.
> 
> I was delighted to find wheat that's actually grown in the Town of
> Dryden, but I'm not really expecting that 30 acre plot to feed the
> 13,000 people here.  It works well for my experiment now, but
> everything 
> about grains suggest that they're the food least in need of
> localization 
> to create sustainable systems.
> 
> If we could make everything else local or at least regional, and
> still 
> have grain moving from place to place, we'd be way ahead of the
> current 
> situation.  (Except, perhaps, in the places that currently export
> food.)
> 
> >>From what I can tell from the literature,
> > permaculturalists have attempted to wrestle with this
> > specific problem for awhile now. Some, such as Mark
> > Shepherd of Wisconsin, have developed large, complex
> > agroforestry systems of fruit and nut trees designed
> > to  be an attractive replacement to the rural "corn
> > and bean" farms of today. Others, like Dave Jacke,
> > have focused more on small, suburban plots.
> 
> In my reading, I haven't found much sign of permaculturalists being
> opposed to grain per se and looking for alternatives. Instead, I see
> them worrying about the problem of monoculture.
> 
> You certainly can grow grains within a permaculture system - the
> corn in 
> the three sisters is a pretty classic example.  There are also 
> definitely alternatives to growing grain in the pure monocultures
> we've 
> developed today, as anyone who explores farming in the 1800s will
> find.
> 
> > Guess I'm wondering if anyone has any other take on
> > this issue, as the "either/or" way I'm thinking about
> > it seems too simplistic. Urban parkways of wheat
> > fields? Nutritional substitutions for grains? Take
> > down "civilization" to destroy the rural-urban
> > dichotomy, as Derrick Jensen would have it? 
> 
> You asked, so I'll say that the "either/or" you're proposing
> definitely 
> seems far too simplistic to me.
> 
> I think those of us interested in local eating are pushing hard to
> make 
> people aware of where their food comes from, how, and why, and to 
> understand what we've all given up in pursuit of convenience.  I
> don't 
> see a lot of people engraving "THOU SHALT EAT ONLY FOOD FROM WITHIN
> 100 
> MILES" on stone tablets.
> 
> There's a lot that cities could do to reduce the impact of their
> food 
> demands, from planting fruit trees in public places to working on 
> regional planning to help keep truck farms from turning into
> subdivisions.
> 
> I don't think, though, that we're heading to a world where city-folk
> eat 
> sci-fi yeast products just because all of their food has to come
> from 
> their immediate environment.
> 
> Thanks,
> Simon St.Laurent
> http://livingindryden.org/
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