[FLPERMACULTURE] Local grain

[Joel and Sarah Gagnon]

This is good information, and can be useful by way of illustration of how 
far we have to go, and what is missing.

How and where are these farm products marketed? If they are milled, where 
is that happening, and are the products marketed locally? Some of my 
friends have grain mills, but I don't think everyone having grain mills is 
the way to address the need for milling, nor is everyone driving to the 
producers the way to address distribution. The milling should be local or 
at minimum regional, and the distribution via local stores or cooperative 
buying clubs (which is how Greenstar got started). The local mills will 
happen once more grain is produced in this area and transportation costs 
rise enough to justify relocalization. Ditto with the distribution. The 
local stores will reappear as the cost of driving to centralized grocery 
stores increases and as the cost of goods in those stores also rises 
because of transportation costs. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the 
corner grocery to return, but I do expect a gradual reduction in store size 
and a concomitant increase in local goods in those stores.

So what do we do in the meantime? We should support local production 
whenever we can, buying in bulk to minimize the environmental cost. 
Greenstar needs to do even more to support local production, and Wegmans 
and others can be leaned on to do the same. Perhaps local buying clubs 
would be a good interim effort to procure and distribute bulk goods. The 
driving force for most buying clubs is to save participants money. It would 
be interesting to see if buying local is enough of an additional factor to 
expand the effort. Community Councils and similar neighborhood groups could 
conceivably facilitate local distribution. Many of these groups already run 
community centers, and some of them already distribute food to low-income 
people. Why not expand the distribution to include everyone, with the free 
stuff going to those who really need it?

Joel

At 01:52 PM 8/26/07 -0400, you wrote:
>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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