Facing The (Horrible) Future

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kmaher wrote:
the answer is to start an Agroforestry project that aims to produce perennial staple food crops with livestock and annuals in a manner that improves the resource base, sequesters carbon, increases biodiversity and improves water resilience.
YAY! You da man, Kevin!
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We're doing it by planning to acheive the scale necessary to make it work by partnering with investors through an equity rather than debt model.
Being in the same boat, I would be very interested in hearing more details. How long have you been at it? How many land partners do you have? Are your equity partners expecting a financial return?
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I'm hoping to leave a legacy for my kids and their kids of a productive perennial agriculture of chesnuts, hazels, fruits and livestock that once established will persist for generations. The inputs on these systems will drop largely to harvest with periodic disturbance. Let's use the fossil fuels that are readily available now to establish systems that can thrive without them later!
Worth repeating! Keep up the good work!
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Thanks Bytesmiths, I’ve been nodding my head here while reading your posts.
We are going to be working to provide a return over the long term. If you look at the economics of chestnuts for example, the long term cash flow has a lot of potential but you must commit for 15-20 yrs to realize that potential. Livestock and annuals with earlier bearing perennials can provide early cashflow but there are still expenses up front. Partnering with the investors who are looking at the long term potential is how we are attempting to get through that early bottleneck without the farmers bearing all the risk.
We are just embarking on our venture. My partners have lots of experience on the ground. I’m coming from a completely different background.
I actually was not planning on talking about this publicly at this stage but found this post by Chris to be inspiring. PM me and I’d love to speak more about what we’re doing and here about your efforts. I’ll be speaking more about what we’re doing shortly.
Kevin

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westcoastjan wrote:
That does not however solve the issue of general ignorance as to why we need to be food self-sufficient.
Agreed. We have a summer student here, 21 years old, planning her life. She said she wants to still be skiing when she is 100. She said she read somewhere that, the way things are going, her generation would be the first where most people can expect to live to 100. I then started explaining why it is perhaps the baby boomers who will reach "peak old-age," with later generations not being so lucky. I gave her a copy of Limits to Growth, so she'll have some balance to the things that she's been reading that have graphs progressing steadily upward and to the right forever. When she's done with Limits to Growth, I'll give her Catton's Overshoot. No sense scaring the bejesus out of her right away.
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at the end of the day there is simply no sense of urgency or feeling that there is an imminent crisis.
Like in the movie, The Sixth Sense, I see dead people. They look sorta like boiling frogs.
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try as we might, I really do not believe anymore that there is a damn thing we can do about it.
We can help those who are open to it, and avoid annoying the rest, I guess. We're lucky here in that we get young people for an extended period of time. They often leave us with an altered perspective. Some come back, year after year, perhaps envisioning us as some sort of haven or lifeboat. We'll see.
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worry less about that outside of my sphere of influence which I cannot control.
Now you're talking. Wayne Dyer taught us that "Worry is the useless emotion." Every time you catch yourself worrying, go out and do something to change the situation you are worried about. It might not change a thing, but it may improve your attitude enough that you end up changing things.
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We can help those who are open to it, and avoid annoying the rest, I guess.
That is me, although I have to confess I am failing at not annoying the rest blush All emotions, worry included, are a form of energy. How we use that energy is up to each of us, depending on our circumstances. Some people can manage to harness it in productive ways, as you are so admirably doing in your sphere of influence. Others are unable to do as well in that regard, for various reasons, some of which are beyond their control. Things like health issues come to mind. Not everyone is of sound body and mind, able to do what is needed to be self-sufficient, in spite of a desire to do so. I admire what you are doing greatly because you are one of the few who is actually putting the talking into action. You are a change leader. I hope that you find the success you envision/want, and that many more will benefit from you having done so. Jan
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I had some friends vacationing in the Yucatan. A class 5 hurricane was heading right for them. They decided to stay. They decided to stay because they wanted to help the victims of the hurricane. No matter how much I tried to explain it to them , they never got that they were about to be victims of the hurricane. At the last moment the track of the hurricane turned and it went 100 miles south.

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Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss both had Michael Pollan on their podcasts recently to talk about the book. Interesting stuff.

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westcoastjan wrote:
actually putting the talking into action
It is incredibly tough, and I feel like a fraud much of the time. "We should be doing THIS! We could be doing THAT!" We find ourself hopelessly enmeshed in the greater zeitgeist. We have to pay taxes, mortgage, insurance, etc., which means we have to go out and make money, which we are doing from the land in a sustainable manner, with no passive investment income. We keep trying to further disengage, but the system keeps us engaged in various ways not of our choosing. I certainly don't criticize others for not doing enough. We each do what we can, and hopefully, improve it a step at a time. I'm currently reading Deep Green Resistance. It is incredibly thought provoking, terrifying, inspiring, hopeful, hopeless — all in one book. Highly recommended!
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Not arguing against you on that one. It is quite hard to get down the proces of prepare-plant-harvest-process-store.
Yet each stage, if not done correctly, can make the previous stages worthless.
So no, I don’t figure it is an excuse to not do it right; but I DO think that in the presence of agricultural-warlike govenments, empowered by banking, the disaster is likely to be as universal as it can be… unless we find out how to deal rightly with them.
I thrnk our failure with regard towards them might have to do with us not installing courts of justice, perhaps with us not enacting justice.

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Farmers need to speak up to get The Massachusetts Pollinator Protection Act (H.4041) out of House Ways and Means. It is stuck there and needs to get unstuck to meet July 2018 deadline for passage. Check NOFA website for more information. There will be a rally at the state house and people are asked to sign petitions.
House Speaker, Robert DeLeo, is the one who could do this. He is said to be holding it up.
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/ask-your-legislators-to-cosponsor-the-…
http://www.bit.ly/mapollenaction

This bill has the support of 135 out of 200 legislators. It was passed unanimously from the House Agriculture and Environment Committee in 2017. This bill also directs the Dept of Transportation to identify opportunities for the introduction of pollinator habitats along highways and on department property.
We may not be able to ban neonics yet and we may not be able to get the EPA to do its job. But we CAN get this limited bill past the legislature in a rich state where local food is said to be important.
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Reply to Chris.
Perhaps (in-fact) the only Australian of any prominence I can think of who recognises population as the root of our problems, and tries to spread that politically unsavory message is Dick Smith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Smith_(entrepreneur)
Perhaps he is someone worth contacting for an Australin get together.

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But what Trump is much nearer to becoming is a Tyrant. He already believes he is ‘above the law’. He even says it publicly. And a politician ‘above the law’ is the classical definition of Tyranny!! Of a Tyrant. Trump is a tyrant in the making. Tyranny is being installed before our very eyes. So what has this to do with the Trump-Justice Kennedy connection?
https://jackrasmus.com/2018/06/30/is-there-a-trump-justice-kennedy-resig…