Comments on: Food Preservation and Democracy

By: Christina

Christina — Tue, 08 May 2007 17:36:00 +0000

Great post! Here we are struggling, day by day, to grow more of our own food and putting it up for winter (we live in Sweden – short growing season!). Not there yet, but it’s a wonderful feeling of freedom to go down to the food cellar and get something for dinner instead of driving to the store.

I agree with Geoff about the importance of reciprocity and a “gift economy” – it’s really important!! I don’t think we will be able to grow ALL our food – but today we had lamb sausage for dinner – made from lamb, raised by a friend of ours! And last year when we had a lot of parsnips we could give some to a parsnip-loving neighbour whose crop failed and who had gifted us with tomato seedlings earlier. I like that sort of exchange and I think it will be even more important as energy prices get higher and food more expensive.

Christina (in Sweden)
btw I have linked to your blog from my own

By: Geoff Trowbridge

Geoff Trowbridge — Mon, 07 May 2007 03:46:00 +0000

You’re right, Sharon, there definitely does need to be both A) a minimal degree of self-sufficiency and ability for skillsthat were just about 100% commonplace a century ago and are now dwindling to disturbingly low numbers and B) a VAST reduction in consumption. For some people, REALLY REALLY FRIGGIN VAST, for others, just vast.
I keep on hearing about this book “Stone Age Economics” and haven’t yet found the time to read it, but it seems like it might be really relevant enough to finally check out. I’ve heard some of those statistics about various tribal peoples before, and I think they are quite telling; they certainly reverse our concept of them as ‘primitive’ people. I’ve said for a while now that my Four basic requirements in life, in order to satisfy myself, would be 1. Food 2. Clothing 3. Shelter and 4. Community. I think this would be a pretty fair list for all of us, if we could really manage to achieve it. Once we’ve secured a dependable supply of food, clothing, and a steady shelter, we really should stop on the material needs at that point- and ask, WAIT! What’s missing here? Ah, the most important ingredient, Community! Other people. Neighbors. People who love us and whom we can love. With a few adendums here and there, perhaps the Beatles were right all along- Love IS all we need.
Note: Have you ever had a chance to see a PBS series, made in the early 1990s, called “Millenium: Tribal Wisdom for the Modern World”, either the series itself or its companion book? I haven’t seen the series yet, but I have the book, and besides having an unbelievable amount of gorgeous photos and images from all around the world, it has a lot of text and descriptions of what life has been and is like for indeginious peoples; their culture, their spirituality, their way of looking at the world. It really is quite remarkable a lot of the time. You look at the high level of stability and true happiness they seem to have been able to achieve, and you think “Damn! Why haven’t we gotten that down yet, with all our high-falutin technology?” I’m not a complete luddite, and indeed I am quite conflicted about the appropiate use of technology, but our energy return of happiness on the energy investment of technology is definitely pretty low.

By: anna in canada

anna in canada — Sun, 06 May 2007 16:19:00 +0000

All I can say is “Amen.”

And I’m still looking into urban chickens and beekeeping! If you can keep us posted about anything you find out re: how much land it takes to feed a chicken (or a bunny, or a bee!) I’m sure there’s more than me who would be grateful for it . . .

By: frogmaureen

frogmaureen — Sun, 06 May 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Thanks, Sharon, for this wonderful blog piece. My friend in NH sent it to me here in NC, and I’ll link to it for my blog. Despite corporate pressures to group-think, I think we’re seeing a mass movement toward better health and local sustainability. Not sure we can pull it off in time, but growing food locally and sustainably is the most politically-active thing I can think to do!

By: jewishfarmer

jewishfarmer — Sat, 05 May 2007 22:20:00 +0000

Geoff – I’m very flattered by your kind words. Comparing me to Wendell Berry is one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received.

I do agree with you that the “head for the hills” mentality is the wrong one, and that we need interdependence at least as much as independance. I agree with just about everything you say (and am pleased to see a reference to the gift economy).

I guess the only thing I’d say is this – I think there’s a certain degree of minimal self-sufficiency that maybe we should strive for within a reciprocal economy. Because, after all, the notion of economic specialization is part of what got us into this mess to begin with. So even though I don’t think that’s what you mean, I’m a little wary of any model that gets us back to doing just the one thing we do best for 8 hours a day again.

To me, producing and preserving at least part of your diet seems like a minimal expectation for every reasonably able bodied person. I’m all for one person growing paw paws and the other growing kale and trading, but I think it is important that if the gift, barter or public economy breaks down that you can meet your most basic needs for food and shelter on some level.

Plus, I think there are some things that it is just salutary to do – I think everyone, even urbanites with windowboxes, should touch dirt and get dinner from it once in a while. I do tend to think the world would be a better place if kings and presidents had to clean their own toilets and carry their own manures out to compost.

Or maybe it is just the question of being able to do these things – I want to be able to make myself a sweater, even if someone else does it much better, because if they go away, or I don’t have anything to barter, then I’ll still have a sweater.

But none of that should take away from the emphasis that your rightly place on community and reciprocity. It is an interesting question – how do we balance specialization and generalization.

My own answer, for me alone, is that I bored easily , and so I like doing a lot of different things. I find learning to do all this stuff fun. But that said, I don’t do it all, and I am grateful that there are other people out there to do things for us.

The one other point I would note is that how much drudgery self-sufficiency is to a large degree depends on what your standard of living is. The !Kung people were able to meet all of their needs with 3-4 hours of daily labor. The Ladakhis worked intensively 4 months a year and celebrated all winter long. 11th century British serfs had more days off than on, when you added up all the saints days and the sabbaths.

I often note to myself that self-sufficiency would be a lot easier if I didn’t insist on having so much stuff, eating so much stuff, keeping so clean, etc…

Again, none of that is to say you aren’t right. But I do think maybe we need to be careful about how much generalization and specialization we advocate.

Sharon

By: Geoff Trowbridge

Geoff Trowbridge — Sat, 05 May 2007 21:34:00 +0000

Hey Sharon- I’m a very big fan of many of your essays, and have found a number of them quite inspirational. If there’s a female reincarnation (even though he’s still alive) of Wendell Berry, you just might be it!
But, and this may seem like just a semantics thing, I think your concept of ‘Independence Day’ should be changed to ‘Interdependence Day’. There is an element, and I’m sure you’ve run into this even more than I have, in the Peak Oil community, that seems to think that we should all move to our cabin in the hills, set up our Permaculture garden, and stay away from all other people, who of course will turn into blood-thirsty zombies the second Oil prices get really high. As you’ve noted, these people are almost always men.
People talk an awful lot about Energy independence or ‘self-sufficiency’, but I think those terms are mistaken. NOBODY is ever really self-sufficient, not should they be. People depend on each other, we all need one another, not just for our physical but for our spiritual survival. Me and my family are growing an increasing amount of our food, and have the land to do it in. But honestly the idea of depending JUST on ourselves, and spend most of our waking hours toiling to be completely ‘self-sufficient’, sounds pretty miserable. I think a lot of the attitudes and philosophies all too common in our current mainstream culture, attitudes of ‘go it alone’ and ‘the lone cowboy’, are not really that far off from the ‘Survivalist’, ‘independent’ streak of responses to Peak Oil. So I think that the idea of ‘Interdependence’ is a more appropiate and positive idea. The idea of an economy where everybody contributes their own little part- Bob grows paw-paw trees, Janet makes soap, Sharon grows vegetables, Lucy knits clothing out of sheep’s wool, Chris raises the sheep for that wool, etc.- sounds pretty wonderful. I think an economy based on Reciprocity, rather than ‘self-sufficency’, is really the message we should be sending. I’ve also heard this referred to as ‘The Gift Economy’. I think no matter how skilled and profient you are at growing and storing and preserving your food (all VERY necessary and noble tasks), if you don’t have good neighborly relationships, and you don’t have a community to work with, you are truly in an impoverished state, even if your larder is currently packed with tomatoes and squashes and whatnot.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:00:00 +0000

Yet another excellent post that focuses on things that are important. Thank you, Sharon.

By: PeakEngineer

PeakEngineer — Sat, 05 May 2007 16:19:00 +0000

Great post, Sharon! We can’t declare ourselves free yet still remain dependent on others to provide our freedom.