Re: Farming as a ecomonic community endeavor
From: balaji (balajiouraynet.com)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 19:13:36 -0700 (PDT)
The Utah Valley Commons does not intend to support itself from farming,
only to incorporate agriculture (on some scale) as part of its sustainable
food program.  In the short run, we may work the land ourselves -- on a
scale hardly bigger than gardening -- or lease the land to an organic
producer to operate as a CSA.  No one is giving up his or her job in the
city.  In the longer run, I define our productive land as a fall-back
position in the event large-scale economic systems decline.  The
out-of-work softare engineers among us, and even the anthropology
professors (like me), will be able to pick up a hoe and help out with food
production, no matter what happens.  This is why I define our community as
resiliant.  The question for folks on this list is simply this:  have you
prepared structures of resiliance within your community plan?

Best regards,

Charles W. Nuckolls
Utah Valley Commons
www.utahvalleycommons.com


>
>
>  Utah valley commons is setting up a community farm as part of their
> community design.  What I would be interested to know is the scale of the
> farming vs. the actual mortgage cost of housing. Most communities that try
> and set up agricultural elements find that the income from agriculture is
> far too low to support the costs of living for more than one or two
> members
> of a community, and that seems only work if you have substantial
> agricultural facilities, or very low overhead housing and living
> conditions.
> For example, there is a thriving small farm business down the road from
> me,
> intensively farming 15 acres and the family which owns it works 16 hour
> days
> growing and filling vegetable subscriptions and they take home less than
> $2,000 a month from two full time plus one part time child worker. They
> have
> no health insurance, and a growing debt.  I would love to see farming
> actually financially work but, having been in that business as a youth I
> know that one bad season can take a decade to recover from.  This is not
> to
> say that growing food is in any way a bad idea, but depending upon income
> from farming is pretty difficult in most places.
>
> Rob Sandelin
> Former FFA member
> Sharingwood Cohousing
> Snohomish County, WA
>
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