Chiron Communiqué

Author's Occasional Newsletter

from Steven McFadden

Vol. 8 No. 1

© - Copyright - January, 2003

Your Food, Your Family, Your Planet:
Environmental and Economic Renewal

"Much is at stake, and we are the keepers of the Earth."
- Lincoln Geiger, from Farms of Tomorrow Revisited

The human race has only one or perhaps two generations to rescue itself, according to the 2003 State of the World report by Worldwatch Institute.

In its 20th annual report, Worldwatch emphasizes that the longer we delay wholehearted action to remedy the massive environmental and social problems we have created for ourselves, then the deeper the impoverishment and misery that humankind must bear.

Life on planet Earth is now unmistakably and imminently threatened by overuse of resources, massive pollution and wholesale destruction of natural areas. Our life-support conditions are deteriorating rapidly. In most cases, nothing is being done. The political will to make changes is lacking.

In a preface to the 2003 State of the World Report, Harvard scientist E. O. Wilson writes: "If we are going to reverse biodiversity loss, dampen the effects of global warming, and eliminate the scourge of persistent poverty, we need to reinvent ourselves — as individuals, as societies, as corporations, and as governments."

While individuals may feel powerless to reinvent or to change the actions of governments and multinational corporations, there is one certain step that they and their household can take: joining and supporting a community farm (CSA). That’s because every dollar we spend on food is a direct vote not just on our personal health, but also on the kind of environment we and our families live in.

Most food dollars vote – albeit unconsciously – for pesticides, herbicides, synthetic hormones, preservatives, irradiation, and genetically mutated crops and farm animals. Before the year is out, we will likely also have cloned farm animals making their way along the food chain to our kitchen tables.

This unappetizing reality — and the harsh economic consequences that follow from it — is not something most people have chosen out of informed free will. Rather, via an unconscious process stimulated by convenience and advertising, people have come to automatically support this system with their food dollars, unaware of the full chain of effects.

As documented in the 1998 book I wrote with Trauger Groh, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited, CSA farms offer a range of clear, practical and enormously helpful alternatives in the realms of diet, open local space, work for local farmers, general economics, and specific environmental health. With a CSA the farmer can become a family’s Ambassador to the Earth, and the land she or he tills in the community can become an Ecological Oasis of thriving health.

A CSA farm is a community-based organization involving consumer households and growers. The households live independently but agree to provide direct, up-front support for the local growers by investing in a share of the harvest. The growers in turn agree to do their best to provide sufficient quantity and quality of food to meet the household needs and expectations of the shareholders.

CSA farms typically produce a sizeable share of a family's fresh vegetables and fruits; many CSAs also offer shares of milk, butter, eggs, meat, and flowers; some also have formal links with consumer coops, giving shareholders access to a wide variety of goods.

Within this web of economic relationships, the farms and families form a network of mutual support, whether the community is based in an urban neighborhood, a suburb, a church, a school, or some other social constellation. CSA has wide latitude for variation, depending on the resources and desires of the participants. No two community farms are entirely alike.

As CSA pioneers conceived of it -- and as it is being practiced at many farms -- CSA is not just another new and clever approach to marketing. Rather, community farming is about the necessary renewal of agriculture through its healthy linkage with the human community that depends on farming for survival. It's also about the necessary stewardship of soil, plants, and animals: the essential capital of human cultures.

For those with an interest in learning more about this alternative and the benefits it can bring to them, their families, and their communities, I offer links to two essays I have written on the subject, and links to resources and information.

Essay 1 - Farms of Tomorrow Revisited:
Community Supported Farms, Farm Supported Communities

Essay 2 - Community Farms in the 21st Century:
Outside the Box, But Inside the Hoop

RESOURCES
State of the World 2003 – Worldwatch Institute
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/sow/2003/

Status of our food chain – from the farm to your kitchen table
www.organicconsumers.org

CSA Farms and Families
Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Assoc.
http://www.biodynamics.com/csa.html

Alternative Farming Systems Information Center
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/

Robyn Van En Center for Community Supported Agriculture
http://www.csacenter.org/

Emergency Help for Buffalo Herd
(A letter from Brooke Medicine Eagle)

Dear Friends and Family,
Because of the critical winter situation, our buffalo herd has broken out of their high pasture, where the only, scarce winter feed exists, and are standing at our door facing starvation. We do not have the resources to feed them.

These buffalo are very special beings. We love them as our great friends, and want to help them. They embody the need to heal the drought-ridden and overgrazed lands that they inhabit, and are an integral part of the process of this healing. They and their companion horse herd provide a powerful part of the beauty experienced by those who come to Sacred Ground for healing retreat.

We need to act now. It will cost $5000 to purchase a feeder and enough hay to ensure the herd makes it through the winter. That breaks down to $100 per buffalo.

Our hope is that you will sponsor 5 or more buffalo by making a tax-deductible contribution to Sacred Ground International. Your $500 will guarantee the survival of a bull, 2 cows and their beautiful calves.

If you cannot sponsor five, then four or three...even one, would be a wonderful gift. One calf is a $50 donation. Smaller contributions of course are also welcome.

Send your contribution to:
Sacred Ground International
The Buffalo Fund
PO Box 78
Pryor, MT 59066
Tax ID# 81-052-1256

More to come...

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Chiron Communiqué

Your Food, Your Family, Your Planet: Environmental and Economic Renewal

Your Food, Your Family, Your Planet:
Environmental and Economic Renewal