RADICAL GARDENING AND LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION

Here is a paragraph from a blog called Anarchocyclist, I found via Patrick, at Bifurcated Carrots. He(?) has blended all the various aspects of the argument so well, it is well worth reading the whole post.

....."A big intersection of political/economic power and environmental destruction is industrial agriculture. In pre-industrial societies, the ratio of energy out of food compared to the energy put in to produce the food was around 100:1. That is, for every 1 calorie put into making food, we got 100 calories from eating the food. In the past century, that ratio went down to 1:1 and then drastically further down to 1:100. For example, when the UK imports asparagus from Chile, 97 calories of energy are used in transportation for every 1 calorie of asparagus received. The whole industrial agriculture system — from the tractors to the pesticides to the transportation and refrigeration — is all running on oil. Now that we’ve hit the peak of oil production and the amount produced will slowly decrease forever, we’ll start to feel the pinch because we’ll no longer have a huge artificial energy subsidy. We’ll no longer be able to “eat oil”..."

So many people, my self included, have this desire to spread a form of food self-reliance at as fast a pace as we can. But, I tell you what, it is hard to get many people together who want to be helped! If you want to read more in the vein of the post above, check out 'Food for Thought', from the labels list on this blog. If you after something lighter, go to Anecdotes or choose a label from the list and have a lucky-dip!

It is so interesting to see where the visitors to this blog come from (via the Feedjit map) and what brought them here (via Feedjit live traffic feed). At 11am today, the last 100 visitors came from: Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Philippines, India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Armenia, Netherlands, UK, France, Ireland, Brazil, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy, Czech Republic, Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala. Hello and welcome to our gardens.