The End of Fair Share Week

This week was tremendously enlightening on the challenges faced by our societies and how we successfully transition through some difficult times ahead; peak oil is a major contributor to many of the challenges we face. How will small to medium sized organic farmers be able to make a living if they cannot sell produce at a price that allows them to stay in business?

The time we spent with Pam & Nick up on their farm was a wonderful experience, and that experience for EVT participants might not be able to survive if things do not change, with the downturn of the world economies the more costly organic produce is being left in the fields due to lack of available customers, whom are buying from the multinational chains, products that are grown using petro-chemicals (oil-based fertilizers and insecticides) and not buying local organic produce (no fertilizers or insecticides and ono long distance transportation). The large multinationals are also creating monoculture agriculture, where only one type of crop is grown in a region, we must have diversity in our ecologies and farms to allow for long-term health of the earth, animals, plants, and human beings.

Buying Local produce is really something that we all must start doing, the less we transport our foods the better we are in the long run. My friends Ann & Richard in Carmine are starting up a Community Supported Agriculture scene, this is what we need to do, positive actions like theirs, I hope that I will be able to assist them in their success.

We just need to take notice of where the products we consume are produced and be aware of all the steps that required to produce, package, and ship the product.

How much water does it take to produce a liter of Bottled water? think about the process of making plastic, etc.

The Pacific Institute estimates that in 2006:

* Producing the bottles for American consumption required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, not including the energy for transportation
* Bottling water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide
* It took 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water

We need to protect our water resources, especially in Texas. Thanks to friends like Vicki Blachman, whom is totally engaged in rain harvesting and getting the rain-harvesting message out in to the communities, actions are being taken. And more can be done, in protecting our water quality.