The Avalon Organic Gardens, Farm, and Ranch Report

The Issue of Food Security in an Increasingly Greed-Controlled World Market.
There I was harvesting beets with our WWOOFER Lynda and another community member, Ah’Nuit. We have so much to eat in the category of “greens” that we pulled the tops and gave them to the rabbits. A lot of people out there would have grabbed them up in a second for their empty bellies.
You’d think that we could take care of this problem of hunger by now. The so-called “green revolution” in agriculture, which many have deemed one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century, has played its role in the world-wide food crisis occurring. I’m thinking about this these days, as it weighs on my heart and mind. Here’s the opening line in a recent article: “The first food crisis to topple a national government in the 21st century occurred last weekend in one of the world’s most desperate countries.”… “Demonstrations and food riots have now occurred in Austria, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Cameroon, Mozambique, Senegal, Mexico, China, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Italy, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Guinea and Burkina Faso. Russia and Pakistan have imposed selective food rationing. India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have placed controls on rice exports. In Vietnam, armed guards protect paddies from rice thieves. In South Korea, a food panic stripped supermarket shelves.” Just search the net under “food crisis”. See for yourself.
What I feel is sobriety, and my own personal responsibility to do what I can to not only speak up, but also to take continual action here on the land we’ve been led to. We’re all gonna have to get back to growing our own food, not only by growing our own little back yard plots, but by also supporting the local/bioregional gardeners and farmers however we can. When a person becomes hungry and has little or no ability to do something about that due to the circumstances they find themselves in, this is a grave problem. Most of us have little idea what that feels like. It is not the same hunger feeling as a voluntary cleansing fast.
Once I had my food taken (I won’t say stolen) by a man I was living with, and after my initial reaction of “what the..!?” I immediately remembered he was a Kurd Iraqi refugee who had nothing, and was hungry, desperate, and meant me no harm. Do I really understand what it’s like to be in a starving person’s shoes? Not really.
I do think about it though: on the ranch we are blessed with an abundance of healthy food grown by our own hands. We are blessed to have wholesome meals every day, to have clean, abundant water, fresh air, and shelter from the elements. When I forget and am reminded, I feel ashamed: there are millions of people who would gladly work the soil in the hot Arizona sun all day, every day, simply for a good meal.