Relocalize your money

05/29/2012

Some activists claim the “American Spring” has begun with the resurgence of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I hope so. But for those of us who are not likely to march in the streets, there is something we can do – relocalize our money – now!

Wall Street has rebounded quite nicely from the economic crisis it helped to create. Its recovery was achieved with assistance from a federal government that continues to support a “big corporation” economic policy. Want proof? Just follow the money.

According to Neil Barofsky, inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the financial assistance provided to corporations exceeded $3 trillion.

The U.S. federal government Small Business Jobs Acts created a fund to spur local bank lending to small businesses, releasing just 10 percent of the amount provided to the big banks through TARP.

According to Amy Cortese’s new book, “Locavesting: The Revolution in Local Investing and How to Profit From It,” there are fundamental flaws in how the federal government (both Republicans and Democrats) have dealt with the financial recovery. The feds continue to underwrite big investment banks that play roulette with our money.

They have bailed out financial institutions and corporations deemed “too big to fail” and then allowed them to get even bigger. And they subsidize multinational corporations that continue to move jobs offshore.

Federal deregulation has made our financial system a casino for the rich, and they are playing with our money. When Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, the relatively conservative banking culture changed radically and became a free-for-all of risky speculation culminating in the collapse of 2008.

According to Cortese, the financial system supports “a massive misallocation of capital away from its most productive uses and toward unproductive, even harmful, ones, such as speculative trading, subprime mortgages, and the latest bubble du jour.”

Our trade, tax and bank policies create a business environment in which exploitative and speculative practices are the norm. Given the financial power of Wall Street, efforts to regulate this dangerous behavior have proven difficult. Politicians that try are labeled “socialist” and marginalized by the electorate.

What can the ordinary person do? Occupy Wall Street is one response. Another is to keep your money close to home. We need to relocalize our money.

Here are some ways to do it:

· Move your savings to a local bank or credit union (for help see www.moveyourmoneyproject.org [1]).

· Invest 5 to 20 percent of your funds in a Community Development Finance Institution.

· Invest in and buy from local co-cooperatively managed businesses (see www.valleyworker.org [2] for information).

· And of course buy local.

Our corrupt financial system must be reformed, but we can’t wait for the federal government to make the changes necessary. Federal politicians run for election full time and depend on corporate money to stay in office. Wall Street has too much money and power to be reformed by government.

We must take action ourselves and reclaim the power to make the economy work for people, rather than allowing the 1 percent to manipulate the financial system to serve short-term greed.

Impossible, you say? I say believe it.

Begin with small actions like those listed above. Small actions taken by enough people will create a reinforcing feedback loop that can develop into a tidal wave of change. If we start a parade, eventually politicians will want to jump up front and carry our flag. One of the major barriers to change is that too many people just don’t believe it is possible to create real change. I say believe it.

To quote a classic#

“‘I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the White Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again. Draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Believe it. And then relocalize your money – today.

John M. Gerber is a professor in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture and teaches a course in sustainable living at the University of Massachusetts. His writings may be found at www.johnmgerber.com [3] and www.justfoodnow.org [4].

Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011 All rights reserved

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Source URL: http://www.gazettenet.com/2012/05/29/relocalize-your-money

Links:
[1] http://www.moveyourmoneyproject.org
[2] http://www.valleyworker.org
[3] http://www.johnmgerber.com
[4] http://www.justfoodnow.org

Don’t miss the Wednesday Farmers Market in Amherst

Fresh vegetables and friendly vendors…

I finally got over to the Wednesday Farmers Market in Amherst at Kendrick Park today.  What a nice little, easily accessible and friendly market.  Fresh vegetables, locally made bread, grass-fed meat products, music and coffee too!

Western Woods coffee is brewed with intention…

Click here for a map to Kendrick Park

The prepared foods from Harvest Market are to die for…

Be sure and stop by next Wednesday between 2:00-6:00pm!

SNAP/EBT friendly!

We need 100,000 farmers!

FROM:  Holistic Management International Blog

Why we need 100,000 new farmers/ranchers

Published on April 30, 2012 by Peter Holter

The why:  People are hungry – they need food and they need jobs

1. Globally, We need to double total food production by 2050 to meet the world’s needs – farmers and farm rangeland are needed to grow that food – in the world, hunger kills more people than aids, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
2. In the U.S., 49 million Americans live in food insecure households – meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from – New Mexico  is dead last on that list. One in six Americans struggle with hunger. 36% of households defined as food insecure have at least one working adult, and only 10% of food insecure households are homeless.
3. Rural counties are disproportionately high in food  insecurity and hunger
4. In New Mexico, only about 3% of food grown in state reaches the mouths of in-state consumers.
5. Of the $2.5 billion received by New Mexican farmers each year, 80% is earned either from exports of dairy products and cattle or from sales of the grains to support these  animals.  Most of the remaining agricultural products in the state, such as pecans, onions, and chile, are exported as well.
6. Food localization means New Mexicans, while continuing their food-export industries, would consume more of the raw foodstuffs grown or raised in the state.

Residents also would purchase more processed foods from local manufacturer, buy more of all kinds of food from local grocery stores, and eat out more selectively in local restaurants.

Why does that matter? It’s the ripple effect – and there are extensive studies- One simple example.  New Mexicans spend $124 million on fresh vegetables, but well over 90% of all vegetables grown in the state are exported.  Expanding the vegetable sector by 90% to meet local demand, while continuing to produce for export, would create 700 additional jobs.

I’m not here today to argue food localization vs. large, so called “industrialized” agriculture – although many people question the sustainability of that industrialized food system — pointing to:

•  It consumes vast quantities of natural resources

• It is heavily dependent on fossil fuel to produce synthetic fertilizer and process  package and transport food

•  It consumes huge volumes of water

•   It degrades soil

Many of my best friends are big ranchers and farmers, currently enjoying record farm/ranch  income and one of the strongest agriculture markets in decades. The Big farming and ranching folks are happy right now — and they are nervous.

Talking to a big rancher just yesterday he feels the “bubble” – the money won’t last, the drought is driving people out business, mad cow, pink slime, tagging and and other regulations make it challenging – in addition to the cost of transport to feedlots — the challenges of a beef diet – it goes on and on.

That said — realistically — big production is not going away anytime soon. It may change and adapt – but it will be there as part of the agricultural landscape, in one form or another.

With the smaller and medium sized guys, however  —- The question is one of sustainability, not just of the land or cattle – but of the people.

The average American farmer is 58 years old. The average cattleman is 61 years old.

And, oh, by the way —- according to Beef USA, 90% of all U.S. cow herds have less than 100 cows. So there is a declining population of people, with small herds, with growing challenges – and despite the current bubble — a disincentive to carry the ranch forward another generation, in the face of hunger and a growing demand for food.

That is why Secretary Vilsack says we need 100,000 new farmers and ranchers in the next 5 years.

We have a shrinking supply of  production , that is farmers/ranchers – with a growing demand for output – that is, food.

The good news is there is a new generation coming on that wants to farm and ranch and they are exploring new paradigms – problem is they often can’t afford the land, and there are programs with land trusts, USDA and others to assist — and they desperately want training — not only in production but management to run a smaller, efficient, profitable healthy enterprise. And interestingly many are doing it. Many of them are women – 30% of the 3 million farms are operated by women – today, women are twice as likely to take over an existing enterprise or starting a new one than men.

Greenfield Recorder Article on Changes at “Mass Aggie”

By RICHIE DAVIS
Recorder Staff

AMHERST — Students are getting back to the Earth — literally.  When a group of University of Massachusetts students hatched an idea to create a permaculture garden, they convinced administrators to let them convert a quarter-acre parcel near Franklin Dining Commons into a garden that would help produce a half-ton of produce to feed the dining halls.

More than 1,000 students were involved in preparing and managing the new garden, which could be seen as something of a return of UMass to its 149-year roots as Massachusetts Agricultural College (Mass Aggie).

Now, much bigger changes are under way at UMass, as some faculty point to a renewed interest in the earth that rivals the “back to the land movement” they saw in the 1970s. The Stockbridge School of Agriculture is being recast as the home of four-year as well as two-year degrees, in cooperation with a newly created Center for Agriculture that reflects the resurgence of interest among students of all stripes.

“There’s such an incredible interest in agriculture, not so much from students who want to be dairy farmers, but who want to have a house and who want to learn to grow this or that or to have land to milk some goats,” said Stockbridge School Dean William Mitchell, who’s seen the Sustainable Food and Farming program expand from 10 to 15 students when he arrived 3½ years ago to about 70 today. “We’ve got students in political science who want to learn about agriculture. It’s like the ’70s, when I was a student, and it was ‘back to the earth.’ This is almost the same movement; just a different generation.”

Stockbridge, which was authorized by the Legislature to offer a two-year course in practical agriculture in 1918, hasn’t had its own faculty or its own students since other disciplines at what grew to be the university become dominant.  “Even though agriculture has always been here, it’s fluctuated up and down in terms of importance,” said Mitchell, who directs Stockbridge, which he said has an impressive national reputation.

Academic programs at Stockbridge will come under the College of Natural Sciences and partner with the Center for Agriculture. The center will bring together research and Extension Service outreach programs, according to the center’s director, Stephen J. Herbert. But a symbol of its renewed support will be a new “agricultural learning center” being created as a hands-on training laboratory on a roughly 100-acre site within walking distance of the UMass campus.

The center will feature a restored 1894 barn that was once a showplace for Massachusetts Agricultural College, but has been boarded up since its last use as stables for UMass police horses. The barn, which Herbert and others hope to move to the new, undisclosed site with funds pledged by the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation and others, would become a visitors center, with classrooms and meeting space.

“As soon as we can get the barn up there and people realize we’re serious about this, I think you’ll find the community as a whole pitching in,” said Mitchell, who said the hope is to get financial donors from various agricultural sectors in the state to support “learning nodes” at the new center. There might even be a cranberry bog created, a small dairy herd or a golf green where students could try planting or maintaining different kinds of turf.
Coordinating fundraising and clearing hurdles for moving the barn and creating the new learning center — which Herbert said could be as large as 150 to 200 acres if it includes forestry — is Sandra Thomas of Greenfield, who over the past couple of years has helped Greenfield Community College create its Farm and Food Systems Program.

UMass already has agronomy and turf research farms in South Deerfield, but those facilities are strictly for research, not for the kinds of practical experience that will be available to farming and non-farming students alike at the proposed center, said Herbert.
“Students go visit the South Deerfield research farm but they can’t play in it, they can only look at it,” Herbert said. “Here it doesn’t matter if anybody screws something up. Then we try to correct it. It’s real-world agriculture.”

Stockbridge will have a new major — Sustainable Food and Farming — which is being reorganized from the program Plant, Soil and Insect Science professor John Gerber introduced  about 10 years ago, which as grown from five students in 2004 to 60 today.

Gerber’s Sustainable Living course has also grown from just 35 students in 2004 to over 300 today, said Gerber. “There’s a huge student awareness and upsurge in interest in the bigger questions — like how do we live more sustainably? That’s mirrored more in specialized interest in energy, green buildings, food and farming.”

But he added, “If you’re in agriculture, you have to learn with your hands as well as your head.”  A new agricultural learning center, he said, should expand possibilities for students, who now have a 2-acre plot at South Deerfield, where no more than a dozen students can raise vegetables with which they operate a small farmers market and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation on campus.

“I hope this will open farming up to a much broader group of students,” said Gerber, who thinks hands-on learning with livestock would also be a valuable experience. “I think a larger percentage of the student body in general is interested learning how to grow their own food.”  The proposed center, he said, could even be made available to the public to learn sustainable farming techniques to practice in their own backyards.

The UMass Faculty Senate is scheduled to take up changing the status of Stockbridge on May 3.  Mitchell said he’s spoken with veteran Stockbridge alumni who have been enthused about the planned changes to create a four-year Stockbridge degree and give the agricultural school a little more control of its programs.

“They comment, ‘It’s about time,’” said Mitchell, who said the school would have 200 students in its two-year and four-year programs when it launches in the fall. The goal is to have 500 students in five years, he added.  And having all of its agricultural-related programs under a single umbrella should help with recruitment.

The surge of renewed interest in farming — and in making the UMass agricultural programs more resilient — comes at a key time, says Mitchell, who entices potential supporting organizations with the direct question, “Who’s the next generation that’s going to take over your farm?”

Herbert adds, “We know that average age of farmers is 56 or 57. We need to train students as we lose older, experienced people from farming operations – as they retire. The world is getting more complex, with more hungry people all the time, so we need to have students well trained.”

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Links and photos were added and a few minor corrections (with permission of the author) were made to this article published by The Recorder.  You can reach Richie Davis at:|rdavis@recorder.com|or 413-772-0261 Ext. 269

Sustainable Food and Farming Social Media Links

I”ve updated my list of web links related to Sustainable Food and Farming.  I hope you find these useful.

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Web Pages

Just Food Now

John M. Gerber

SFF Bachelor of Science Degree

15-Credit Certificate Program

Blogs

UMass Sustainable Food and Farming Program

Just Food Now in Western Massachusetts

SFF  at World.edu

Sustainable Agriculture Class Blog

Facebook and Twitter

UMass Sustainable Food and Farming Program on Facebook

Just Food Now Facebook Group

Just Food Now Twitter

 Program Related Video

Sustainable Food and Farming

SFF Student Presentations

Marketing Local Food

Animal Agriculture

Botany for Gardeners

Raising Backyard Hens

Thanks to everyone who came to our

Backyard Hens Workshop

David Tepfer and Katie McDermott shared their experience raising hens including information on getting started, housing, feed and health care, chicken biology and anatomy, harvesting eggs, and protection from predators.

For resources on raising chickens, please check out the following links:

Backyard Hen Resources

Pioneer Valley Backyard Chicken Association

The City Chicken

with

Simple Hen Houses

and

Nicer Hen Houses

Description of how to raise hens

Photos of a backyard henhouse  in Amherst

For a video on raising hens, see:

Raising Chickens in Your Backyard

For information contact John M. Gerber at (413)549-6949 or jgerber@psis.umass.edu

Co-Sponsored by the North Amherst Community Farm and Simple Gifts

Join NACF

Simple Gifts CSA

Amherst Cooperative Market – Community Interest Meeting; April 21

You are invited to join with a group of local people who want to start a cooperatively managed market in Amherst.   Please share your thoughts and comments in the box below.

 

April 21, 2012

2:00pm – 5:00pm

Food for Thought Bookstore

Amherst, MA

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Do you live in Amherst? Are you frustrated by the lack of a grocery store downtown? Those of you without access to a vehicle, are you tired of taking buses to Hadley to do your grocery shopping? Are you passionate about locally grown, healthy food?

We invite you to attend a community interest meeting about the Amherst Community Market, a food cooperative for our town. A cooperative business is one that is owned and operated by and for the community it serves. As the Steering Committee for the development of this potential food co-op in Amherst, we’d like to have your input as we move forward with this project!

Please arrive with eager minds full of questions and ideas. What is important to you in a grocery store? What would you like to see in a community cooperative?

The meeting will be held at Food For Thought Books, located at 106 North Pleasant Street in downtown Amherst. Ken, Laura, and Nora will be facilitating the meeting, and refreshments will be provided!

In addition to the discussion, representatives from the Valley Alliance for Worker Cooperatives and the Neighboring Food Coop Association will be there to share their insights about the cooperative movement and why a food coop would benefit Amherst.

The original Facebook invitation may be found here: Amherst Market Meeting.