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Joanne Rigutto
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Joanne commented on the article |When you're poor you have to be more creative than just going to the farmers market. As nice as it would be to obtain all of one's food solely through purchase at a market or store, that's more of a moneyed person's way of doing things. If you're poor enough to be on food stamps, you probably also qualify for a box from the food bank, more and more of which are getting produce from farms and which get donations from stores of produce, store baked bread, etc. There are also the gleaners, yard sharing, etc.
It can be done, there is no reason that it can't. Unfortunately, if you are poor and working more than one job, you don't have the luxury of sleeping in, or relaxing. I know, I did it for years.
Also, I absolutely understand the trade off between buying sustainable, organics and the ability to purchase a larger quantity of less expensive conventional food. If you have a choice between organic foods and starving, or conventionaly produced foods and surviving, I think the organics are going to loose out.
That's why I think the gleaners, yard sharing, etc. are so important to low income people. If you can trade labor, even if it's on your one day a week off, for fresh, organic foods that you grew yourself for pennies in actual money, would that be worth more than sleeping in? Time spent with the family could also be time spent growing, gleaning, foraging. There are ways to to it if you stop thinking like a rich person. -
Joanne commented on the article |Thank you for writing this Jill. It's high time that USDA, the states and the public realized that there are indeed two very different commercial food systems in the US, and then there is a third, the big national/international (commercial), the local (commercial), and the personal (private).
It's also time that international, national, state, and local regulators recognized this. Its also time that they recognized that what works well for one system as far as regulations, won't necessarily work for one of the other systems. -
Joanne commented on the article |' "The organic households became more food-secure due to higher incomes." ...'
So, if they're farming, why aren't they using a small portion of their land to grow their own staples? Meat, vegetables, etc.? I can understand having extra money to buy the things they absolutely can't grow/make themselves, but I've always found it odd that people in administrations always assume that if I'm a farmer I would only ever buy my food from the store or another farmer.
Goes right back to the industrial mindset. Don't be self sufficient or independant, become dependant on intrastate/interstate/international trade so that someone turning your farm produce into a value added product can make money. Also, for every aspect of your life you're not self sufficient in, you will be forced to buy our products. Nice captive, docile market.
I understand that no one can be completely self sufficient, that's why we live in groups called families, clans, societies, etc.. But to say that farmers could grow organic produce so that they will have more money to buy food from someone else is kind of odd. That'd be like me selling all of the eggs that my own hens produce, then going to the store to buy eggs to eat myself. Makes no sense.... -
Joanne commented on the article |Paula, you know what the real remedy to that is? Educate everyone you know about basic biology. That's all we need to do, but, unless we are all ready to do that, things are going to keep going in the direction they have been going in for the past 60 years.
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Joanne commented on the article |
Thank you for writing this. People so often forget that we live in a dynamic world, especially where biological systems are concerned. The law of the universe is adapt or die. Quite often when the environment is altered, either by us or some other species, geological activity, climate, etc. an evolutionary response is forced in plant, animal, fungal systems. It makes no difference to the organism that we may view as a pest that its environment has been changed by us, by the plant itself, or for some other reason. The only important thing is that the environment has changed and them that don't die will live to reproduce and pass on the genes that enabled them to survive in the first place. I think that was actually the point Darwin was trying to make when he came up, along with others, with the theory of evolution. Evolution isn't about organisms trying to move closer to some imagined ideal, it's just adapting to survive in what ever environment that species finds itself in. And, actually, evolution isn't about individual organisms, it's about the species as a whole.I remember when feed through deworming medication first came onto the market for horses. I asked a vet about the possibility that the parasites would become resistant over time. "Oh no, that could never happen", ya right. Now what do we see? Veterinarians recomending that wormers be rotated and don't over use them. Why? Because nothing is 100%, I have to wonder, when I hear that this or that spray will kill 99% of germs, what happens to the other 1% that reproduce?People need to remember - being at the top of the food chain doesn't necessarily make you a master of the universe.....One concept that Michael Pollan posed in his book, The Omnivore's Dilema, was about the plants we cultivate, especially corn. Are we the master of the corn that we cultivate in such great numbers and variety? Or is the corn the master of us? What other species has been more sucessful to the spread and sucess of corn than Homo sapiens? So, who owns whom? I know that it's a symbiotic relationship, but it's still an interesting questions to ponder.
Joanne Rigutto -
Joanne commented on the article |In addition to what Judith said, Joel Salatin and family has done remarkable work on his Polyface Farm in Swope, Virginia, as far as restoring dammaged land, both for grass and forest.http://www.polyfacefarms.com/story.aspx
So many times I hear people say that animal ag is bad, and it can be, just as plant ag can. Holistic management, including both plants and animals can produce not only large quantities of high quality foods, but restore and maintain lands in a healthy, sustainable environment. -
Joanne commented on the article |Is anyone working on a vaccine? If not, why not? Are there too many serotypes/subtypes? Is it not cost effective?
Something else I'd worry about is that if the mosquito's life was cut in half, then there's the serious possibility of the virus altering to adapt.
Are mosquitos, or specific types of mosquitos, primary vectors for this virus? Are they the natural reservoir for the virus? If so, any change in the virus' natural habitat will probably force an evolutionary response. Perhaps it might even find another vector if the mosquitos aren't suitable or available anymore.
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