Saturday at the Bloomington, IN Farmers Market we met Mandy Corry, co-owner with her husband Matt of Schacht Fleece Farm, and bought one of their free-range chickens. Their farm is located on the south side of Bloomington and their land and animals are managed naturally without the use of chemicals. The Bloomington Farmers Market is outstanding and we look forward to buying a lot of our food from there now that we have moved to town.
Production chains that no longer make sense include that of Tesla's electric-powered cars, whose 1,000-pound battery packs were made in Thailand, shipped to Britain for installation, with the partially-assembled cars shipped to the U.S. Now they'll be entirely made in California.
"Globe-spanning supply chains — Brazilian iron ore turned into Chinese steel used to make washing machines shipped to Long Beach, Calif., and then trucked to appliance stores in Chicago — make less sense today than they did a few years ago....The cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Shanghai to the United States has risen to $8,000, compared with $3,000 early in the decade, according to a recent study of transportation costs. Big container ships, the pack mules of the 21st-century economy, have shaved their top speed by nearly 20 percent to save on fuel costs, substantially slowing shipping times." --The New York Times
Other signs of the "neighborhood effect":
- Ikea opened a factory in the U.S. and more furniture is being made in America
- Electronics companies who moved to China from Mexico are moving back
- Chinese steel exports to the U.S. are falling while U.S. production rises
- Avocadoes in Chicago in January and bananas all year round will make less and less sense
Okay, so maybe this IS about green building; if Sam's Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in its coolers in the same space that used to hold 80, then its building can be used more efficiently.
And yet, in scanning the media coverage of this -- even blogger coverage -- the message focus is that (the Horror) the new jug requires new pouring skills and that big bad Wal-Mart is just thinking of itself. Well I'm no fan of Wal-Mart but it doesn't take a genius to see that in this case, what's good for Wal-Mart is good for us.
“This is a key strategy as a path forward,” said Anne Johnson, the director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a project of the nonprofit group GreenBlue. “Re-examining, ‘What are the materials we are using? How are we using them? And where do they go ultimately?’ ”
Image Credit: David Maxwell for The New York Times
The 5th Annual Green Earth Fair is scheduled for Sunday, May 4, 2008 from 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
at the Green Earth Institute's organic vegetable farm at 10S404 Knoch
Knolls Road, Naperville, Illinois. Bring the family: activities, entertainment and education centered on earth-friendly practices in gardening and farming, tours of the organic farm and organic vegetable seedlings and native prairie plants will be available for sale. Plus musicians! exhibits! A free event. The organic farm endures due to the generous donation of Mrs. Lenore McDonald, "the stubborn farm owner on the south side of Naperville who—in the face of suburban development on all sides—declared that her land would remain in
agriculture." Thank God for stubborn landowners.
The above is a photo taken June 2002 in SE Manitoba (Hog Alley) after heavy rainfall. It represents a saturated manure field draining into Rouseau River. Source at this link.
Sunday's Chicago Tribune featured an article about a proposed giant factory farm that will produce milk. The article was a typical example of journalism by a writer who has not done homework on the damage that these farms do to the cows and the environment. Thus we get this vapid headline: "Plan for the state's largest dairy irks neighbors but could help the economy." Always, always, when something is inherently bad, we hear that it "will help the economy", though the number of jobs the dairy would create was not shared in the article, and the harm that it would do the local area was brushed off as follows:
"[Neighbors] worry about stench from vast manure ponds, potential groundwater pollution and the prospect of even larger dairies blotting the tranquil countryside."
Oh those silly neighbors. To present mega-stench and vast manure ponds as trivial concerns nearly makes my head explode. Here is an excerpt from the editorial written by one of the affected neighbors that followed the next day:
"..People residing in its vicinity will have to live with the constant, choking stench of its football field-sized manure lagoons, as well as risk contamination of their water supply from potential lagoon breaches and manure run-off. Additionally, large-scale, industrialized farms, such as the proposed A.J. Bos facility, pollute surrounding air and adversely affect property values.
Furthermore, given the apparent lack of U.S.D.A. oversight, as we have seen from the Humane Society of the United States' recent expose of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., industrialized animal farms are repositories for appalling animal cruelty. Construction of the facility proposed by A.J. Bos will undoubtedly establish new ground for abuse of downer cows spent dairy cows too sick or injured to stand. Even if we fooled ourselves into thinking that there would be no incidence of downer abuse at A.J. Bos' facility, there would still be the reality that a 11,000-head dairy factory would involve cruel, intensive confinement of cattle."
Let's hope the neighbors prevail.
Continue reading "Picky Neighbors Oppose Vast Manure Pond" »
FARM Restaurant has opened in Bloomington, Indiana, bringing to this delightful college town another outpost in the movement to eat local. Daniel Orr, the chef/owner, was born in Columbus, Indiana, but lived and worked all around the world, finally becoming the Executive Chef at La Grenouille, New York City's famed French restaurant where he earned a three-star review from the New York Times. But the best reason to go the Farm is for its food, which will
" focus on the local and fresh ingredients that Orr will incorporate
into his menu items. The fusion of island cuisine and Midwest American
cooking will be the prime focus at FARM." Can't wait to eat there next time we're in Bloomington.
