After reading what Adam Turtle wrote in the Progressive Populist, I was blown away. Here’s a clip from his piece:
“Radical as it may seem, a possible solution that I believe (with modifications) could potentially address this and other current and future problems would be to recruit around 15 million peasant farm families from refugees and provisionally grant each family five acres and a modest startup loan. If “seeded” around the country, these small farms could help re-regionalize food production, reduce both erosion and chemical pollution while improving food quality and availability as they revitalize rural communities. All the carbon sequestration would be a major bonus. Also it would be easier to require compliance with regenerative practices. Fewer trucks on the roads would be OK too!”
Here’s a link to Adam’s piece:
Adapt or Die: This is the Lesson of Both Evolution and History
Here’s Adam’s website:
http://www.earthadvocatesresearchfarm.com
Adam’s idea is the best I’ve read for what’s happening at the border.
Give refugees and immigrants a small parcel of land (5 acres) and a start up loan. The land would be farmed using permaculture techniques. Using permaculture practices, Adam is saying that the land can yield a yearly profit of $30k to $50k per acre.
The land would produce herbs, fruits, and vegetables. The farmer feeds their family and sells their food to their community. Carbon is being sequestered – big time.
There’s an even bigger picture. Dig this.
Imagine refugees, people of color providing food to a town that’s 99% white. Yah sure, at first there’d be some weird vibes. But I think the food would take over. The town of white people would be buying food from the people of color. People of mixed race would be eating together. How cool is that? Think about how far that’d go, towards helping with race relations.
All those refugees at the border right now are our friends. They could help us – if we let them. They’d be super stoked to do farming, it’s what they know for crissake! Why aren’t we letting them help us rebuild soil??? Instead millions of people, led by Trump and his gang of Troglodytic Louts, want to demonize them.
Adam has barely an 8th grade education. But you talk to him, you’ll hear a smart man.
Please stop saying climate change, start saying climate crisis. If we want to create a better world for the next 7 generations, we need to focus on the soil. Know farmers, know food.
Liberal mumbo jumbo? Phooey. Call Jim Van Der Pol, Jim’s a farmer. Talk to him.
Here’s his website:
http://www.pasturesaplenty.com
Jim wrote a book, “Conversations With The Land”. Here’s the link:
http://www.grazeonline.com/books.html
40% of the land in our country is commercial farming and agriculture. Big AG is polluting the land with pesticides. In doing so they’re sending rockets of poison into the air, all day every day. They’re poisoning the land and the water. Their practices amount to making the planet – and us people – sick. They’re killing us. If terrorists were doing this to us we’d declare war.
Jim’s idea is to stop farming this way. To start farming using regenerative techniques that builds clean and pure soil. It sequesters lots of carbon. It works. Farming this way yields up to 40% more crops and is lower cost.
Have you read “Winners Take All – The Elite Charade Of Changing The World”, by Anand Giridharadas? Here’s the link:
https://www.anand.ly
Anand is right on. The idea that people from Harvard know what’s best isn’t right. Not all the time. Right now, I’m thinking not most of the time.
Electric cars, solar panels, and alternative energy is great. But they’re only part of the solution. The voters needed to beat Trump have no connection to these ideas.
HRC ignored them. Trump lied to them.
Adam and Jim’s ideas bring people back to the small towns they left. They bring new people to small towns. Their ideas start making America’s heartland strong again. Their ideas bring out the Agrarian in people in Manhattan, Pittsburgh, and every other city.
I talk to young people all the time. They know they have no security. They know their company is always looking to find someone cheaper. They get that AI will supplant them. They’re seeing now, that social media is making us less free.
I’ll bet you a cup of coffee that if we made grants available for “peasant farming”, as Adam writes, young people would be all over it. Those people at the border would be forever grateful if we helped them start anew, doing what they know best.
Remember the great line from the movie Field Of Dreams?
“Is this Heaven? It’s Iowa”.
The payback is outstanding. The land sucks the carbon out of the air while growing food that’s healthy. The startup loans get paid back with interest. Businesses are built. Small farming towns collect more sales tax. More federal tax revenue. People are getting healthier because food is health. We’re doing what Jesus said, help the poor. BTW. The #1 indexed phrase in the Bible is “help the poor”.
Are you familiar with what’s happening in Detroit? They’re building gardens.
http://detroitagriculture.net
Are any of the Democratic candidates talking about focusing on the land, rebuilding middle America? Are they talking about Jim and Adam’s ideas? No. They’re talking in mumbo jumbo – “We need to rebuild the middle class, blah, blah, blah”. That message goes nowhere with the voters needed to beat Trump and save Mother Earth. Nowhere. You need to tell those people, specifically, what you’re going to do to make their lives better.
The Green New Deal is the right message – only in that we have big problems. But telling people they can’t fly, they have to take the train to work, they can’t have a burger, or shaming farmers because their cows fart ain’t gonna cut it. It’ll backfire. 4 more years of the Trump Crime Family.
I get it, the Democrats don’t want to take away planes, cars, burgers, or kill cows. But that’s what people think they’re saying. And if that’s what people think, then that’s what people think. Hello? Fox News is #1. Trump won in 016 with lies.
Read the Progressive Populist – www.populist.com. Even better, call and talk to the people who’re writing articles. Farmers are losing their farms to Big AG. 80% of all meat production is controlled by 4 companies. Small towns are dying. Suicide rates among farmers are what they were in the early 80’s. People in Iowa abhor pesticides. It’s abhorrent to them that Big AG is taking over. But they’re powerless. Why? Because we made them powerless in our quest for cheap and free. An all-hands-on-deck effort is needed to give them back their mojo. Regenerative farming is where it starts.
Clicktivism goes nowhere. We need to get our hands dirty. Uber wealthy who want to save the planet should turn their attention to what Adam and Jim are about, towards rebuilding America’s farming towns.
I’m reminded of the Frederick Douglas quote:
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”
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