Farmer’s market prices for organics

Some are brought in in Bushel crates from US or abroad.

At our retail food coop (~ +40-60% stocking markup):

Oberlin Market, Oberlin OH

All Local in Oberlin (George Jones Farmers Market! 6/11 Sat):

Big Kale: $2.50
Baby Kale: $5
Leaf Lettuce: $8/pound
Potted Basil: $2/each
Potted Strawberries: $3/each
Green Onions (bunches of 6): $3
Spinach: $2.5
Cattail Shoots: $.50
Beet Greens: $8
Mint, Thyme: $2/bunch
Kohlrabi: $3.00
Horseradish: $4/1.5lbs
Asparagus
Cilantro

ORGANIC (Produce Buying Club Saturday 11th June)

Gala apples .51 ea
mangoes 1.60
lemons .45
Packham pears .65
flame seedless grapes 3.90 lb.
strawberries 3.94 lb
blueberries 2.70 1/2 pt.
cantaloupe 3.00 ea
avocados 1.21 ea
broccoli 2.40
cucumber 1.49
Roma tomatoes 2.00 lb
asparagus 4.50 lb.
celery 2.97 ea
zucchini 2.25 lb.
yellow squash 2.25 lb.
red beets 1.50 lb.
green kale 2.99
collard greens 1.94
yellow onions 2.90 3# bag
shiitake mushrooms 9.10 lb.
cremini mushrooms 4.40 lb
garlic .40 each
sunflower sprouts 4.00 3 oz.

Prices change with the market! And some availability by season. -E

How to start Sheep

From the Rural Living Handbook, Published by Mother Earth News. 115-116

It hardly pays to buy young lambs and feed them to adulthood for strong-flavored mutton. The trick, instead, is to raise your first lambs into adult breeders, then slaughter their offspring as fat, tender lambs. With an acre or two of pasture, a shade tree, a third of a ton of hay for winter and a handful of grain a day, a ewe lamb will mature in a year and, if bred, produce a lamb or two of her own, plus five to eight pounds of wool. After maturing on its mother’s milk and a little grain and graze, each of your new lambs will provide you with a wonderful fleece hide and around 50 pounds of delicious meat.

#Foodchat 419, comments and a link to the archives.

Topic: Food price #Foodchat:
Free trade drives agri-culture out of business.
Policy imperative should not only encourage low food price — it should ensure resilience.
Farmers, we can still feed everyone, can’t we? See @Cityfresh.
Industrial food price regimen has no place on my farm.
Export competition cannot keep up. We are one of the only countries that still subsidizes, violating trade laws.
In local foods, we try to make it affordable even for low-income families to eat well.
It’s tough to compete when McDonald’s is subsidized.
We can’t undercut other farmer’s prices and call it moral.
Let’s not do it to our own local farmers and young farmers and organic farmers who want to start out.
Now, we’ve become one of Mexico’s biggest corn exporters. Which puts them out of business unless they’re buying our corn.
Costa Rica didn’t want CAFTA because it would hurt their small producers. Neither did France.
Ron Paul: not that he would be good for America in short term, but it would all make sense.

My work in agriculture has officially invaded inbox, twitter, facebook and everything!
Link to the archives: Agchat and Foodchat Archives

Liberal and Conservative Values

It’s so funny that Conservatives and liberals have different values that they express in Congress vs. what they would do at home..
Example:
A conservative, would discipline his kids in order to be a good parent and teach them what they should and shouldn’t do. At the same time, many Conservatives in Congress will not regulate companies no matter how out of line they get, and be a good parent for their own good.
A liberal, would trust that his kids will develop to be the best that they themselves can be and make their own right decisions, even if it’s not in line with the parent’s own values. This does not comply with a standard of regulation.

A point of agreement: More importantly than the decision to regulate or not regulate is whether a company or person has the capacity to look out for future generations in the bigger-picture impact of what they DO. Let’s get past this discussion on whether to regulate or not regulate, and encourage solutions that work to get our society and our economy off of oil, and preserve our planet for future generations. In a micro scale, it is part of everyone’s “work” right now (hate that term) to care for the well-being of future generations as well (even if your company doesn’t have to).

http://www.transitionus.org/
http://eddiemill.tumblr.com/
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

Going to be maintaining my WordPress blog today and publishing some drafts that I’m writing and finishing up. -EM

A Systems Perspective 3: Nature and Econ

Post! Executive Outline:

Economics as a guide to policy|discipline|business|development typically undervalues Marginal Cost.
1. Resources *Natural capital to make manufactured stuff*
2. Oil is artificially low
3. Other environmental inputs= services
4. The commons

An increase in Marginal Cost would universally better off society.
1. Reduce | Reuse | Conserve –> Lessen material dependence
2. Reduce Energy/person –> Secure our country from Middle East
3. Focus on efficiency –> Reduce waste which hurts services
4. Produce less corn.

Finally, a policy solution without silly cap-and-trade or clean energy, which generates revenues by being harsher on unsustainable businesses.Increase the marginal cost of resources, to decrease their use. Read on, dear reader. But be prepared to comment if you finish it all.
-EM

A Systems Perspective 2: Oil, Energy, and Recessions

A recession is defined as “a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” (New Bureau of Economic Research) It’s a little vague, and I remember Bush not wanting to announce an official “recession” back in 2008. Well, it was (is) one, and here’s the related chart:

For some of my background on recession writing, view:

• http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/economic-recessions/
• http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/food-and-climate-change/

This will be a post about oil and energy: what I used to write about optimistically (MaPSblog) but now see the extent of our fucked-ness. Read on, dear reader. As promised, a new economics post will be up Friday. This is post 2/3 of “A Systems Perspective”: Environmental Implications of America today.

What’s different?

Economic Recessions

Economic Recessions Post 12/22/09
With the failure of Copenhagen (my MAPSBLOG post), it’s time to start thinking about serious depression, causes and strategies for when it gets worse. Click on, if you want. This may be my last post of this certain style as I’m considering changing the blog to be more real-time deadline appropriate. Hopefully a well-researched and justified account of the times we are living in as Americans right now, click:

A million little pieces: and building the art of perfection.

OH, BOSTON!

For those who can’t tell from the blog post history, I’m just about getting grounded here. Adjusting to Boston is hard, and adjusting to being [anonymous] again after a long sojourn in [Costa Rica] proved even harder. I came in lagging behind technology and friendships, which lost me the competitive edge at [Small Planet]. Most of my files for [Massachusetts Power Shift] are [lost in Panama], my [paid radio advertisements] there never returned results. But: despite technology, work, and communications failure, this has been one of my best semesters yet.

How? A hundred little failures means another year out of personal recession; another year avoided the mainstream dullness of small talk and classes, and a new resiliency that proceeds with the confidence of experience. Confidence, and decision making. Upon personal failure, one learns a perspective of infinite possibility and creativity. (as anyone who’s been [searching for a job] can attest.) Join me, for a post that is both revelatory and informing, revolutionary in a word and inspiring in its clarity.. What’s wrong and powerful reframes.

350 for the Economy

Hello folks, so here’s how we need to tell politicians, businesspeople, and the American public about Change.

350 does primarily refer to the environment. It’s what prevents a 2 degree rise and the majority of bad effects worldwide. But what’s more important is that it refers to an inspiration to the economy. Get to 350, for the economy. The struggle is be a productive force, like going to the moon, or development and change. Here’s the breakdown of how jobs work:
Jobs in the clean energy economy were distributed among the following sectors in 2008:
–– Conservation and pollution mitigation: 65.0 percent
–– Environmentally friendly production: 7.0 percent
–– Training and support: 6.8 percent
–– Energy efficiency: 9.5 percent
–– Clean energy: 11.6 percent

Worldwide, it’s largely up to America’s economy to make these things. Most are process innovations and services assistance. But the clean energy sector? Fire up the steel mills, get drafters going to work, and the construction crew of new young people with “only” college degrees. These people are going to require jobs. Hundreds of thousands of them. Enough to Repower America with new work.

View and share a fantastic factsheet from the Energy Hub Project: here (.pdf)

“Anda tranquilo”: Nicaragua and World Growth

Hello all,
Just finished a week of traveling and studying the case of the brilliant but under-represented Nicaragua, just North of Costa Rica. During my time there I read Nicaragua: What Difference Could a Revolution Make? by the good people at FoodFirst Institute for Food and Development Policy, and The Open Veins of Latin America, a very incendiary telling of Latin America’s abusive colonial history. This, with my experiences on the field, lead to the main content and recommendations of this post.

Nicaragua has taken its toll in the eyes of this woman.

How to develop a country?