I do understand how many can get trapped by the health insurance thing. The hospitals and Drs. here treat you like dirt without it. When I point out that the health insurance will become a mandate that you have to pay for they get all quiet and stare blankly. They don’t have it to pay. Still out of luck.

Frankly this area never recovered from the first George B. A second hit will probably finish the middle class in this immediate area. I have never had so many people asking about eggs and meat as I have had in the last few months. Problem is they don’t understand why I can’t match Wally world’s prices. The eggs they understand, they will venture the $3.50 and taste the difference. I can’t keep up with the demand. Chicken and turkey meat on the other hand costs me a whole lot more to raise than .39 cents a lb. While I can give eggs to the hardcore skeptic I can’t afford to give away a bird. Too much time and work and feed. I’m a little soft and even allow my meat mutant chickens to live the warm season and be birds. Processing isn’t an easy thing. I can’t do the killing, my husband can but I can see it weighs on him a bit too. My muscles ache after getting 30 or so birds into the freezer. Some of it I know is just plain old tension, I don’t take a life lightly. Lot of it is just plain old hard and not very nice work. So the only birds that have left here have been given away to those who really had a need for food. Ok, one was given to an old Russian lady who so completely looks like my Grandmother….She got so dreamy eyed talking about being able to eat a real fresh hen once again. Something she hadn’t tasted since she came to this country. Next visit got her a bird. I used to do some of her heavy work when she was around in the summer. Her kids didn’t help. Miss her. She really looks and sounds like my Baba.

I ramble…

I’m really beginning to think like a lot of the old timers here who think a depression would be the best thing for this country. Reset the clock and start everybody off on the same footing. Harsh. I know it is. I probably can’t begin to imagine being born in the baby boomer heydays but I’ve got to wonder what is going to be left to my kid. Something is very broken.

On the bottom of every ballot is a blank line where you can write in somebody. If I have to I will keep writing in Dr. Paul. If nothing else this was the first time in ages where I actually felt good about going to vote.

He’s getting a lot more air time, too.

I do believe Fox News has heard the Ron Paul supporters! yeah.

Any time you see a “Local” label on a product you KNOW can’t be grown locally, whether it be for reasons of climate or season, challenge the produce manager. Tell him you want the sign changed. Do this each and every time you are in any store that sells fresh food.

We have our Shaw’s produce manager watching for us. Funny how the signs are accurately reflecting the products now. We once did have to go over the managers head to get some correction for some fruit labeled “local” on the big sign, when each and every apple was labeled from “Washington State”. Go figure.

Sally

My solution is to buy local. That also puts more money in the pockes of the farmer and it often saves me money while I get better quality to.

Why is the governmnt even defining words????? I thought that was the province of dictionaries. Governments job is to make war, not words. This is all so absurd. First organic becomes polluted. Now naturally raised becomes confinement fed. Luvelly.

What all this says to me is buy locally from farmers you know who are in our community. That way we keep our dollars locally rather than sending them to Cargill, Smithfield, Tyson and their friends.

By the way. I love your label Walt. I just wish you lived closer so I could buy from you. I saw you dont ship. Why?

[We don’t ship most of all because we aren’t able to meet the local demand within our own 100 mile or so radius for our pastured pork. I’m not sure what the regulations are for shipping meat or how to go about doing so. I imagine it would have to be overnighted and packed with dry ice or something. The cost seems prohibitive. Another important issue is I would like you, and everyone, to buy locally and support the farms in your area, especially the small farmers. By doing so you help keep money, jobs and open land in your community. That is of great value. Cheers, -WalterJ]

As much as I like the “Certified Naturally Grown” ethos and label, it has been largely meaningless for some time. When Agricorps sell everything as “All Natural” or “Made with Natural Ingredients” and you know they are full of industrial synthesized components the term “Natural” has been washed-out.

I fear “Locally Grown” will be another washout soon. In fact, I’ve already seen it in some large supermarkets where products have been so labeled which were in fact not even close to local.

We have to gain the edge some how. Give the consumer something the USDA and Agribusinesses cannot–an experience. We have to become relationship marketers. Selling ourselves first, before our product. What the consumer is looking for is trust–something the government and food industry hasn’t been able to deliver much of.

If you don’t have the time, skills, or ability to forge alliances with consumers, than form a cooperative and get it done that way. By banding together into Food Security Coalitions–or some such thing in a given area–you can market your products directly to the public in an arena of trust and knowledge on a local scale. The best way for consumers to trust farmers, how they farm and their products is to visit their farm–an experience. Not all consumers want to do that.

We have to make it happen as much as possible. You don’t need a label on your food if people are beating a path to your door because you have a welcoming attitude, a great product and honesty on your side. I know this all sounds like work. Work that takes us away from growing or tending livestock. If that’s the case, then we’re defeated.

We need to forge a new paradigm. We are paving the way for the collapse of global food distribution–we have to, it’s going to collapse anyway in one form or another. Granted, having a CNG label on your latest hot dogs or prize winning beans helps draw consumers to your product, helps educate them. But the rules are changing we have to play the game differently. We have to educate the consumer as farmers, growers, chefs about local, sustainable, healthy foods which help support us and the community. We have to teach consumers that labels are what faceless corporations and governments put on foods, that the words are largely meaningless and empty.

Provenance is spread by word of mouth and relationships. As a child, when I went with mum to the butchers we didn’t need to ask WHERE the meat came from, but you might as WHO grew which. You went to a certain butcher because they dealt with so and so or made their own sausages. That was Hartford, CT in the 70’s–where a huge farmer’s market was held in the center of the city every week: not that long ago.

So, we can devise all the new terms we want, design all kinds of new labels to use–there’s nothing to say Agri-industry and the USDA won’t steal those too or negate them in some way. It would be better to pool our money together for a full page add in the Wall Street Journal, or regular ad in the local rag to educate consumers, and sel the most important product we raise–ourselves. Everything after that is easy.

If you favor another candidate
ask them to come out PUBLICLY against NAIS. (You may have to educate them) Ask them their opinion when they are campaigning in front of crowds…You may want to ask them first if they support the Constitution…If any of you are campaigning explain to your co-workers WHY this must be defeated. Print out NONAIS
FLYERS, highlight the relevant sound bite parts and hand them out to the crowds. If you learn your candidate isn’t against NAIS or starts talking in circles about “protecting American people blah blah…
get another candidate.

Call the campaign headquarters and ask for the candidates position on NAIS, report back here…
Approach media cameras with NONAIS placards, get on TV, give the reporters nonais flyers.

We still face a lack of awareness from the general population…many people will dismiss this as a “farmer issue” and do not see it as a civil liberties issue…educate them now or lose your rights.

I’ve had enough of the USDA. I will simply sell to those that know me and let my reputation do the rest.

[Your comment is up on the Chicago Tribune. People, do post comments both to the Tribune, to the USDA and also note that the Ethicurean made mention of this as well. The last is a good read and very pro-small farmer. Eating SOLE food as they put it. -WJ]