[SustainableTompkins] food processing unit/certified kitchen/cannery

Tue May 27 05:22:56 PDT 2008

hi,
i'd be interested in this as well.  my family cans and stores, but  
what we know is limited and i'd love to learn from others.  there is  
also a dearth of larger-scale processors that can/process for resale  
in the area.  i'd like to try to do some simple things to encourage  
that as well.
-marlo
On May 27, 2008, at 8:12 AM, Ryan Hottle wrote:

> Here, here!  Thanks Jon (without the "h") and Katie.
>
> Let's talk about making a Food Processing Unit/Certified/Kitchen/ 
> Cannery a
> reality.
>
> What is the procedure for setting up a meeting on a topic through
> Sustainable Tompkins?
> If we are unable to get ST to take on the meeting theme at their  
> monthly
> meeting might there be a way to set up a meeting in coordination  
> with ST and
> TCLocal?
> What introductory research should be conducted prior to the meeting?
> Who wants to take it on?  (I volunteer to do some introductory  
> research)
> Are there any guest lecturers who may be appropriate for such a  
> meeting?
> (Perhaps Chris Peters would be willing to speak about his research  
> thus
> far.)
> Are there any excellent resources for this subject matter?
>
> What else should we be thinking about in regard to setting up this  
> most
> important meeting?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Ryan D. Hottle
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Katie Quinn-Jacobs <kqj at quinn- 
> jacobs.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for posting the article, Jon.   And great local to-do list,  
>> Ryan.
>>
>> Anyone interested in food preparedness can go to our local site  
>> focusing
>> on this issue:  http://www.PreparedTompkins.org<http:// 
>> www.preparedtompkins.org/>
>>
>> Also, it's time to have the Food Processing Unit/Certified
>> Kitchen/Cannery become a reality here.  A few of us are  
>> researching the
>> possibilities while also building a grassroots network of home food
>> preservers.  Once we've grown the food, we'll have to know how to  
>> put it
>> away for the 8 months when there are killing frosts. There is a  
>> growing
>> (no pun intended) public interest in learning food preservation
>> techniques.  Perhaps this would make a good topic for a monthly ST  
>> meeting?
>>
>> -- Katie Quinn-Jacobs
>>
>>
>>
>> Ryan Hottle wrote:
>>> Thank you John for posting this attention demanding article.
>>>
>>> I would like to highlight one particilarly important paragraph:
>>>
>>> *So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we'll
>>> have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of
>>> American life. We'll have to grow our food closer to home, in a
>>> manner that will require more human attention. In fact,
>>> agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We'll
>>> have to restore local economic networks -- the very networks that
>>> the big-box stores systematically destroyed -- made of
>>> fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.*
>>> *We'll also have to occupy the landscape differently, in
>>> traditional towns, villages and small cities. Our giant
>>> metroplexes are not going to make it, and the successful places
>>> will be ones that encourage local farming.
>>> *
>>> How can we stress this enough..."The successful places will be  
>>> ones that
>>> encourage local farming."
>>>
>>> What policies can be advanced and resources made available to
>> dramatically
>>> increase local growing?
>>>
>>>       Local and Bioregionally Suitable Seed Bank
>>>       Certified Community Kitchens and Emergency Food Preparedness
>>>       No Local Taxes on Farmers and Tax Breaks for Folks buying  
>>> local
>> food
>>>       Purchasing land for joint Renewable Energy / Sustainable
>> Agriculture
>>> development
>>>       Free Tree Project for giving away edible landscaping  
>>> species such
>> as
>>> fruit, nut, and berry for homeowners
>>>       Heifer-style promotion of small animals such as rabits,  
>>> chickens,
>>> turkeys, pigs, goats, etc.
>>>
>>> I am interested to know if anybody has done the arithmetic to  
>>> calculate
>> how
>>> much food is grown locally (i.e. within 20 miles, within 50  
>>> miles, within
>>> 100 miles, within 200 miles) and what percentage of local  
>>> consumption
>> that
>>> represents.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Ryan D. Hottle
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Jon Bosak <bosak at ibiblio.org>  
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Nothing new in Kunstler's message, but it's great to see the
>>>> exposure (the Sunday Washington Post).  Maybe someone in the
>>>> government will start to pay attention.
>>>>
>>>> Jon
>>>>
>>>> ==================================================================
>>>>
>>>> washingtonpost.com
>>>> Wake Up, America. We're Driving Toward Disaster.
>>>> By James Howard Kunstler
>>>> Sunday, May 25, 2008; B03
>>>>
>>>> Everywhere I go these days, talking about the global energy
>>>> predicament on the college lecture circuit or at environmental
>>>> conferences, I hear an increasingly shrill cry for "solutions."
>>>> This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now
>>>> grips the nation, especially among the educated and
>>>> well-intentioned.
>>>>
>>>> I say this because I detect in this strident plea the desperate
>>>> wish to keep our "Happy Motoring" utopia running by means other
>>>> than oil and its byproducts. But the truth is that no combination
>>>> of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands
>>>> and used French-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney
>>>> World and the interstate highway system -- or even a fraction of
>>>> these things -- in the future. We have to make other arrangements.
>>>>
>>>> The public, and especially the mainstream media, misunderstands
>>>> the "peak oil" story. It's not about running out of oil. It's
>>>> about the instabilities that will shake the complex systems of
>>>> daily life as soon as the global demand for oil exceeds the global
>>>> supply. These systems can be listed concisely:
>>>>
>>>> The way we produce food
>>>>
>>>> The way we conduct commerce and trade
>>>>
>>>> The way we travel
>>>>
>>>> The way we occupy the land
>>>>
>>>> The way we acquire and spend capital
>>>>
>>>> And there are others: governance, health care, education and more.
>>>>
>>>> As the world passes the all-time oil production high and watches
>>>> as the price of a barrel of oil busts another record, as it did
>>>> last week, these systems will run into trouble. Instability in one
>>>> sector will bleed into another. Shocks to the oil markets will
>>>> hurt trucking, which will slow commerce and food distribution,
>>>> manufacturing and the tourist industry in a chain of cascading
>>>> effects. Problems in finance will squeeze any enterprise that
>>>> requires capital, including oil exploration and production, as
>>>> well as government spending. These systems are all
>>>> interrelated. They all face a crisis. What's more, the stress
>>>> induced by the failure of these systems will only increase the
>>>> wishful thinking across our nation.
>>>>
>>>> And that's the worst part of our quandary: the American public's
>>>> narrow focus on keeping all our cars running at any cost. Even the
>>>> environmental community is hung up on this. The Rocky Mountain
>>>> Institute has been pushing for the development of a "Hypercar" for
>>>> years -- inadvertently promoting the idea that we really don't
>>>> need to change.
>>>>
>>>> Years ago, U.S. negotiators at a U.N. environmental conference
>>>> told their interlocutors that the American lifestyle is "not up
>>>> for negotiation." This stance is, unfortunately, related to two
>>>> pernicious beliefs that have become common in the United States in
>>>> recent decades. The first is the idea that when you wish upon a
>>>> star, your dreams come true. (Oprah Winfrey advanced this notion
>>>> last year with her promotion of a pop book called "The Secret,"
>>>> which said, in effect, that if you wish hard enough for something,
>>>> it will come to you.) One of the basic differences between a child
>>>> and an adult is the ability to know the difference between wishing
>>>> for things and actually making them happen through earnest effort.
>>>>
>>>> The companion belief to "wishing upon a star" is the idea that one
>>>> can get something for nothing. This derives from America's new
>>>> favorite religion: not evangelical Christianity but the worship of
>>>> unearned riches. (The holy shrine to this tragic belief is Las
>>>> Vegas.) When you combine these two beliefs, the result is the
>>>> notion that when you wish upon a star, you'll get something for
>>>> nothing. This is what underlies our current fantasy, as well as
>>>> our inability to respond intelligently to the energy crisis.
>>>>
>>>> These beliefs also explain why the presidential campaign is devoid
>>>> of meaningful discussion about our energy predicament and its
>>>> implications. The idea that we can become "energy independent" and
>>>> maintain our current lifestyle is absurd. So is the gas-tax
>>>> holiday. (Which politician wants to tell voters on Labor Day that
>>>> the holiday is over?) The pie-in-the-sky plan to turn grain into
>>>> fuel came to grief, too, when we saw its disruptive effect on
>>>> global grain prices and the food shortages around the world, even
>>>> in the United States. In recent weeks, the rice and cooking-oil
>>>> shelves in my upstate New York supermarket have been stripped
>>>> clean.
>>>>
>>>> So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we'll
>>>> have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of
>>>> American life. We'll have to grow our food closer to home, in a
>>>> manner that will require more human attention. In fact,
>>>> agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We'll
>>>> have to restore local economic networks -- the very networks that
>>>> the big-box stores systematically destroyed -- made of
>>>> fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.
>>>>
>>>> We'll also have to occupy the landscape differently, in
>>>> traditional towns, villages and small cities. Our giant
>>>> metroplexes are not going to make it, and the successful places
>>>> will be ones that encourage local farming.
>>>>
>>>> Fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system is probably the one
>>>> project we could undertake right away that would have the greatest
>>>> impact on the country's oil consumption. The fact that we're not
>>>> talking about it -- especially in the presidential campaign --
>>>> shows how confused we are. The airline industry is disintegrating
>>>> under the enormous pressure of fuel costs. Airlines cannot fire
>>>> any more employees and have already offloaded their pension
>>>> obligations and outsourced their repairs. At least five small
>>>> airlines have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past two
>>>> months. If we don't get the passenger trains running again,
>>>> Americans will be going nowhere five years from now.
>>>>
>>>> We don't have time to be crybabies about this. The talk on the
>>>> presidential campaign trail about "hope" has its purpose. We
>>>> cannot afford to remain befuddled and demoralized. But we must
>>>> understand that hope is not something applied externally. Real
>>>> hope resides within us. We generate it -- by proving that we are
>>>> competent, earnest individuals who can discern between wishing and
>>>> doing, who don't figure on getting something for nothing and who
>>>> can be honest about the way the universe really works.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> James Howard Kunstler is the author, most recently, of "World Made
>>>> by Hand," a novel about America's post-oil future.
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County  
>>>> area,
>>>> please visit:  http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
>>>>
>>>> RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
>>>> SustainableTompkins at lists.mutualaid.org
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>>>> free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> _______________________________________________
>> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County  
>> area,
>> please visit:  http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
>>
>> RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
>> SustainableTompkins at lists.mutualaid.org
>> http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
>> free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Ryan Darrell Hottle,
> Climate Change Solutions Thinker
>
> Performance Systems Contracting,
> Building Performance Analyst
>
> Global Climate Solutions
> www.GlobalClimateSolutions.org
> (coming soon!)
>
> Ohio Peak Oil Action (OPOA)
> Co-Founder, Director
> www.ohiopeakoilaction.org
>
> 803 Coddington Road,
> Ithaca, New York 14850
>
> (740) 258 8450
> _______________________________________________
> For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County  
> area, please visit:  http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
>
> RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
> SustainableTompkins at lists.mutualaid.org
> http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
> free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org

Marlo Capoccia
Garden Gate
www.gardengatedelivery.com