Food production - Local is better than centralised

Date:   5/27/2007 2:09:33 PM ( 17 y ago)

The 100 Mile Diet is all about eating foods that come from within one hundred miles of your home. One aspect is the carbon dioxide emissions reductions that come from not eating food that is transported over long distances, usually by truck. Another is the 'local economy' that improves when people switch over to local produce.

Also, they found it to be MUCH HEALTHIER. No soda pops are made within 100 miles, and no Mars Bars, and additives are almost unlikely in local foods [it is the huge amount of sugar and chemicals that have caused so much suffering where diet is concerned].

One other major factor is at play with the 100 Mile Diet - it goes against the economic model that has been force-fed to us since the 1950s. Not local, but "central" production, where goods are processed and mass produced in factory line settings, was the "model of progress" touted across all industries.

It was not about helping the masses to prosper, as we were told it was, but rather it was all about MAKING A FEW PEOPLE VERY WEALTHY. [This is my favorite theme, if you have been reading my blog lately.] Imagine of all those goods over the past 50 years that have been imported were instead made locally - more local employment, better health, less global warming, and SUSTAINABLE ECOMOMICS.

"UN-sustainable economics" is what we have now - it could all; collapse like it did in the Great Depression of the 1930s, but if we had local food production there would be no threat to our food supply. Also, the pollution is a factor in non-sustainable economies - not just the health affects, but also when it comes time to reduce that pollution the corporations would then have added costs, making the goods produced too expensive for most people to buy - we can see that happening now.

SUSTAINABLE economies have an unending cycle of replenishment and production, not just production. Where food is concerned, the soils will not be depleted but allowed to recover ; the water will be pure and not getting more polluted by the same chemicals needed for depleted soils ; the air will remain pure by avoiding the use of transportation and heavy equiptment. Energy needed for farm operations will come from local and non-depleting resources like the sun and wind. All these sound like a futuristic scenario, but in fact they were the direction we were headed before the corporate model caught on.

The people - average people, the masses - would have done better in many ways to have kept going with LOCAL food production. It turns out that the energy industry is the same thing - if we had LOCAL ENERGY PRODUCTION we would not be using fossil fuels for our energy source, but the less expensive, non-polluting solar and wind energy sources [yes, less expensive - see my previous blog posting]. Maybe most importantly, LOCAL GOVERNMENT would have served us better than centralised government [the Dali Lama said].

Now you see the theme here... "local" is better for people, "centralised" is better for the elites. It is not a stretch to see that point - wealth is concentrated whenever production is concentrated. Local production leads to locals with more money, but nobody has become Elite Wealthy Billionaires due to these 'centralised concentrating of wealth tactics'. Less concentration of wealth, in turn, leads to less poverty [of course it does] , and therefore less crime, less despair, and more sustainability.

Eat local - you breath local





 

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