10 Reasons to Buy Local Food

 This list came from Julia and Andy's Website. I discovered them last year during the spinach and e coli problem. Andy wrote an article about why he took himself out of the packaged greens distribution network. I liked the way he wrote and signed up for their newsletter. These are headings from the list, if you are interested in the body of each topic, use the link at the end.

10 Reasons to Buy Local Food

  1. Locally grown food tastes better.
  2. Local produce is better for you.
  3. Local food preserves genetic diversity.
  4. Local food is GMO-free. 
  5. Local food supports local farm families.
  6. Local food builds community.
  7. Local food preserves open space.
  8. Local food keeps your taxes in check.
  9. Local food supports a clean environment and benefits wildlife.
  10. Local food is about the future.

©2001 Growing for Market. Permission to print and photocopy is granted.

Source: Ten Reasons to Buy Local Food

Sustainable Forestry?

 I have been following Fred's posts on sustainable forestry (links here and here)the past week or so, so when I say a link to the following on The Appalachian Voice Front Porch Blog it forced me to follow the story...to Greensboro, North Carolina. Eric Schaefer wrote the story for the News & Record there.

"Why not selectively cut?" I asked, "That way you leave the canopy at least partially intact and preserve some of the integrity of the forest as well as its beauty. There is not too much uglier than a fresh clear-cut."
They explained to me that the problem was twofold: First, to a timber company, selective cutting means taking out the most desirable trees and leaving behind crooked trees or species that aren't marketable. If you go that route, what you're going to have left is a forest that is never going to produce marketable trees. Second, it is expensive and sometimes impossible to find someone to selectively cut.
Part of the job of the Forest Service is to produce forest management plans for private land owners, and Tate and Gibson told me they would gladly come up with any kind of plan the land owner wanted. If a land owner wanted forest that would be attractive to warblers and not cowbirds, woodpeckers and not starlings, trout lilies and not dandelions, they could do that, but if you want to have your land assessed as forest you have to have a timber production plan. And since they can't recommend selective cutting because of the consequences for the future timber production, you must clear-cut to get a forest assessment.
A forest assessment, similar to an agricultural assessment, means that the land in question is assessed differently than residential property and can mean big tax savings. If farmers were assessed the same as other land owners, many of them would go out of business. So to ensure we don't lose our farms, farmland is assessed differently and the same is true for forest land. However, you must be actively engaged in farming or forestry to get these assessments, and what that essentially means for forest land is periodic clear-cutting.

As you can read from the story, it's easier for the lumber companies therefore

  • the Forest Service won't recommend any other form of timber management.
  • without the Forest Service timber management you don't get a forest assessment.
  • without the forest assessment you don't get the lower tax rate.

What's wrong with this picture? Essentially, the Forest Service is forcing landowners to have their forest clearcut. Go read the article...From here it looks like another holdover from the turn of the past century is still making it easy to strip the resources off the earth... This whole story reinforces what the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation is trying to do.

To first take out the injured and dying trees, the introduced species making room for the more valued trees to grow. And doing it in a way that doesn't destroy what you leave is the very essence of sustainable. It just takes time and above all patience.

Source: News-Record.com - Greensboro, North Carolina: Sports: Clear-cutting question really isn't clear cut

TGIF - 2772

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes..
I am sitting here looking at a blank screen and finding I have no ideas this morning. I have made my way through my emails and other than the White House slowly burning to the ground, nothing causes me to jump out here with a comment.

Random Reading Links

  • Marie has posted a new spring photo at Blue Ridge Blog.
  • Fred has been battling armies(?) of mice marching through the night at Fragments From Floyd
  • "The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by 'naturalness'. " Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind from Beyond the Fields We Know
Check back later maybe I'll find my muse...

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