- The latest "crisis"
spreading throughout the world, the food crisis, may
actually backfire on the giant capitalists reaping great
profits from all they have sown without mercy for nearly a
century. The US food crisis is in part being experienced
because during the past 80 years, our government slowly
formed partnerships with huge, profit-seeking
corporations. Local food production was taken away from
small family farmers who could not compete with big
industry. The critical responsibility of providing food for
the masses then fell into the profit-seeking hands of
conglomerates that were heavily armed with chemicals,
plastics, pesticides, fossil fuels, and topsoil-destroying
machinery.
-
- Like a microcosm of
what would eventually occur throughout most of the world,
people in the US became increasingly dependent upon the
agricultural, chemical, and petroleum industries for the
production and delivery of "food." Diets that were once
healthy became unnatural and based largely upon processed,
powdered, light-weight, (easily shipped and stored) grains
instead of locally grown, nutrient-dense, fresh organic
vegetables and fruits. This dependency began in earnest
around the 1930s, the years referred to by some as "the
Dirty Thirties." Those were years when corporate profits at
all costs seemed to take precedence and business became more
important than people. They were years when extraordinary
examples of cause and effect occurred, as though a profound
message was being offered to us if we would only stop and
take notice.
-
- Some feel the Wall
Street crash of 1929 was caused by speculation over the
exorbitant import taxes the Smoot-Hawley act was about to
bring. This business protection act became law in 1930, and
humans paid the price. The Great Depression grew and
properties were confiscated. Other countries retaliated
against the US, passing similar laws causing severe trade
restrictions. The US State Department reported that world
trade declined by "66% between 1929 and 1934." The market
for our surplus grains disappeared. Farmers lost their
farms when they could not repay loans taken out for
machinery, but the machinery did more than cause
homelessness. The machinery had damaged the topsoil of
the Great Plains. The damage was so great, the topsoil
turned to dust and was carried eastward by winds. Black
clouds sent a roiling message from the new Dust Bowl to New
York and beyond, New York being the very home of Wall
Street. The Dirty Thirties marked the birth of the
synthetic, plastic kingdom.
-
- According to the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in the 1900s
a full 41% of the US workforce was employed in the important
task of growing our food. By 1945, following the
elimination of the small farmers this percentage fell to
16%. In 2000, the percentage of humans employed as food
growers was a mere 1.9% of the workforce, because as the
small farmers lost their farms and their jobs, commercial
farming conglomerates took over. Industrialization meant
commercial fertilizers would be used to force crops from the
damaged earth. According to the USDA, commercial fertilizer
use more than doubled after the Dirty Thirties. By the
1980s, nearly 50,000,000 tons of commercial fertilizers were
being used yearly.
-
- In a statement
given to me by my friend, Dr. Luise Light, former USDA
nutrition expert, we were "brainwashed by media publicity
into thinking that industrially produced food is more
scientific, safer and healthier than old-fashioned locally
grown food. This is a lie." Dr. Light was the creator of
the true Food Pyramid, which suggested we consume a diet
based primarily on fresh vegetables and fruits. Her pyramid
was drastically altered by the grain lobby, falsely leading
people to think that our diets needed to be grain-based.
-
- The grain foods
created by synthetic practices, are clearly not
natural. After foods are processed with pesticides,
chemicals, plastics and fossil fuels, they become, in part,
synthetic, many with additives to hide or enhance taste or
appearance and to "extend shelf life." Throughout these
years of dependency on "agro-giants," the health of
Americans has steadily declined until we have become the top
consumers of pharmaceuticals on earth. We who live in this
plastic, synthetic kingdom that was born in the 1930s are
now a nation completely dependent not only upon synthetic
foods, but are now seeking relief from our toxic symptoms
via expensive, synthetic drugs.
-
- With the food
supply lying in the hands of a few corporations,
manipulation and price gouging have apparently been made
easy, but these tactics would have little impact on any of
us if we began independently growing our food locally as it
should be grown. According to the Washington Post, global
food prices rose 83% during the last three years, partly due
to the rising costs of fuel for shipping. We have paid the
price in many ways, poisoning ourselves with synthetic
chemicals, then waiting unknown days or weeks while products
are shipped over the hemispheres, or stored indefinitely
thus losing more nutrients with each passing moment. This
food crisis could turn out to be a godsend for the world if
the situation is addressed individually and quickly.
-
- For those of us who
have grown tired (sick and tired) of supporting the pseudo
and synthetic food industry, there is a simple way out of
this giant mess. Anyone who has access to a little dirt can
reclaim the responsibility of growing at least a portion of
our foods right in our own yards, and we can begin today and
start out very simply.
-
- One of the easiest
and most nutritious homegrown foods is the potato. The
potato has long been the victim of curious false
advertising. The truth is that fresh, organically grown
potatoes can be viewed as one of the top three most
nutrient-dense foods in the green kingdom. Freshly
harvested potatoes taste great and have generous amounts of
natural vitamin C, B complex vitamins (the real ones rather
than dubious synthetic Bs), amino acids, and outstanding
mineral and trace nutrients, including iodine. They are so
"complete" in nutrition that humans living on diets
consisting primarily of potatoes appear to have an excellent
state of health that surpasses American health at this time.
-
- The potato has more
potassium than a banana, and comes in a delicious rainbow of
different colors and types, offering a wide variety of
nutrients from a natural, fresh, whole and very satisfying
food. It now appears that the lowly spud, long ignored or
completely dismissed as a joke or a mere starch bomb, is far
superior in nutrients to the cheap powdered grains,
chemicals, and plastics found in many industrialized breads,
cereals, pastas and other processed foods that form the sad
bulk of Americans' diet at this time. In addition, while
grain foods tend to create an extremely high acid pH residue
in the human body, it appears that potatoes do not.
-
- There are many
websites available giving detailed instructions in how to
grow potatoes. The Google search engine leads us first to
its favorite, albeit opinionated and frequently biased giver
of information: "wikipedia." According to this site (and
others), it seems that one must first have a degree in
botany, several acres of land, heavy-duty harrowing
equipment, or at the very least a water buffalo in order to
prepare the earth for potato production.
-
- "Correct potato
husbandry is an arduous task in the best of circumstances,"
the wikipedia writer grimly warns any potential new backyard
potato farmer, and then adds, "Good ground preparation,
harrowing, plowing, and rolling are always needed, along
with a little grace from the weather and a good source of
water. Three successive plowings, with associated harrowing
and rolling, are desirable before planting." (2)
-
- The word, "harrow,"
is described by Webster's as to "pillage, plunder, torment,
vex." It seems to sum up the entire suggested planting
schedule rather well. One might come away from this
exhausting description thinking we should leave potato
growing to the harrowing "experts." The truth, however, is
that the above techniques are completely unnecessary and are
the very techniques that have badly damaged our topsoils.
-
- The whole truth is
that growing our food - - and especially growing the top
three nutrient-dense foods addressed in this paper - - is
not only easy, but can also be done in a way that the
topsoil is renewed, nurtured and fed while it in turn
produces our food. The potato is easy to grow due to the
fact that most potatoes, unlike a loaf of bread or a bowl of
corn flakes, are alive. Being so, they will strive to
remain alive while also striving to bring forth more
potatoes. They have been doing so on their own for
countless millennia, long before humans discovered they were
good to eat and could be grown next to the kitchen door
instead of being hunted and gathered in the wild.
-
- Potatoes, in fact,
seem to happily attempt to grow under just about any
conditions as long as they have not been killed by radiation
or chemicals. One does not even need a yard in order to grow
potatoes. They can be easily grown in containers and
started by using old potatoes in the fridge or pantry that
have sprouted "eyes." Each of the eyes will eagerly grow
into a new plant if given half a chance.
-
- After selecting
organic potatoes that have sprouted eyes, you can cut the
potato into halves, thirds or quarters, making sure there
are at least a couple of eyes on each section. These
sections should be allowed to sit on a windowsill for a day
or so, until the areas that were cut can "heal," and
dry. The alternative to sectioning is to just plant the
whole potato that has sprouted eyes. I have done both, and
the result has always been the same: more potatoes. One
need not dig a hole, "work the ground," or commit any
harrowing acts when planting potatoes. The seed potatoes
can be placed upon the ground surface and covered with
compost, leaves, hay, straw, etc. They are not
particular. I have known folks who have simply tossed an
old potato onto a compost pile, resulting in its taking root
and establishing itself.
-
- If planting in a
container, fill the lower third of the container with soil,
and throw some seed potatoes onto it, or push them down
under the dirt. Once they have sprouted, they will grow in
height very quickly. When the sprouted plants are about ten
inches tall, some growers advocate adding more dirt,
compost, leaves, etc., until the bottom portion of the
growing plants are completely covered by the soil, leaving
only about three inches of the topmost greenery
uncovered. As the plants continue to grow in height, the
advice by some is to continue adding more dirt until the
container is filled. Potatoes will be formed throughout the
container.
-
- Others growers,
such as organic farmer, Jim Gerritsen, of Wood Prairie Farm
in Maine, state that the leaves should never be covered, but
only the stems covered. In an email he stated to me, "Our
potato leaves are solar factories manufacturing plant
food. More leaves equal more food," and this, he wrote,
equals better conditions for tuber bulking and higher
yields.
-
- Whichever method
you choose, when growing potatoes in the yard add straw,
hay, leaves, dirt and compost or a mixture of all to form a
mound covering either the emerging plants or stems. This
helps keep the developing tubers hidden from sunlight which
might cause them to turn green. (Green potatoes may contain
a substance, solanine, which should not be consumed.) I
also incorporate various seaweeds and ocean nutrients into
my gardens.
-
- These mounds of
organic materials will eventually decompose into rich
composted soil, but long before this occurs, the potato
plants will create their tubers, some types producing tubers
in as early as a few weeks. You can "rob" the mounds early
by carefully reaching in and removing tubers before the
actual harvest time comes when the plants die back. Gently
boiling the fresh potatoes whole, skin intact rather than
cutting them up or puncturing them and then nuking them in
the microwave, is said to result in less loss of nutrients.
-
- At this time in our
synthetic, nutrient-starved world, I feel Mr. Potato shares
his spotlight with two other nutritious friends, the first
of which is the sweet potato. Many people associate sweet
potatoes with Thanksgiving or Christmas, and therefore
consume this wonderful food only once or twice a year. The
sweet potato is a root rather then a tuber, and is more
closely related to the morning glory than to the spud. It
is another extraordinarily nutrient-dense food created in
the green kingdom of Mother Nature.
-
- Sweet potatoes can
be easily grown by first obtaining "slips" or green shoots
from a sweet potato suspended by toothpicks in a glass of
water, something many of us remember doing as kids. Each
green shoot or vine that forms can be pulled off the sweet
potato and planted in the ground or in containers. Or,
slips can be ordered from farmers if specific varieties are
desired.
-
- This year, because
of my concerns for my family and friends regarding this
"food crisis," and also in an effort to help support and
encourage small family farmers, I ordered a variety of seed
potatoes and sweet potato slips as well as other organic
seeds from various farmers, including Jim Gerritsen. A
rainbow of seed potatoes - - reds, yellows, purples, blues,
fingerlings, pinks and whites - - are lined up on my
windowsill now growing their "eyes" and looking very much
like a lineup of small, round (some tall and thin) soldiers
preparing to bravely go forth and do what they like to do
best, thus addressing in this front yard, "the global food
crisis." I would suggest that everyone begin growing
potatoes, immediately.
-
- The importance of
taking our food back and establishing organic gardening
practices can perhaps best be observed by noting two other
microcosms in our world that are right now showing us again
extraordinary examples of cause and effect, as though
another profound message is desperately being offered to us
if we would only stop and notice. As though to make this
message as clear as possible, these two opposing microcosms
are a mere 50 miles from one another. They are Haiti,
and Cuba.
-
- According to David
Montgomery's book, "Dirt," Cuba was the site of a unique
cause and effect revolution that resulted in something
rather exceptional. Before the 1959 revolution, four-fifths
of Cuba's agricultural lands were controlled by a handful of
people primarily engaged in the exporting business,
and Cuba produced less than half of its own
food. Machinery, fertilizers, pesticides and fossil fuels
were all imported, but with the collapse of the Soviet
Union, trading ended, and an ongoing US trade embargo
"plunged Cuba into a food crisis."
-
- "Unable to import
food or fertilizer, Cuba saw the calories and protein in the
average diet drop by almost a third, from 3,000 calories a
day to 1,900 calories between 1989 and 1994." Out of
desperation then, "Cuba began a remarkable agricultural
experiment." Industrialized state farms were divided up
into small farms and thousands of gardens. Government
programs encouraged organic agriculture out of
necessity: there was no longer ready access to chemicals,
fertilizers, fossil fuels or industrialized
machinery. Vacant lots were turned into organic vegetable
gardens. People grew their own food and sold it
locally. The end result is that Cuba is now entirely
self-sufficient and will remain unaffected by the "global
food crises" the rest of us are intended to feel.
-
- A mere 50 miles
away from Cuba, is Haiti. Haiti, once covered with lush
forests of magnificent hardwoods, has suffered from severe
poverty that resulted in nearly total deforestation. The
deforestation has in turn, led to the washing away
of Haiti's topsoil so that now it is very difficult to grow
food there. It is said that even the children know hunger
daily in Haiti, and out of sad desperation, some of the
people are now making flat cakes made of dirt and clay
mud. In a poignant irony, having lost the topsoil they
needed to provide them food, they are now eating dirt and
clay as food.
-
- But there is
something hopeful that Haiti might do to help turn all of
this around, which brings me to the third most
nutrient-dense source of food to be covered in this
paper. This is a plant that is easily grown even on poor
soils. In fact, growing this plant actually helps to
control soil erosion and it helps enrich the topsoil.
-
- Easily grown, and
unlike Haiti's lost trees which will take generations to
mature if replanted, this is a plant that takes only 120
days to mature. It requires no pesticides and its seeds
provide one of the most uniquely nutritious foods in the
entire green kingdom. Its fibers create a better paper than
tree pulp, without damaging forests. It also creates
superior clothing to that of cotton without requiring the
excessive pesticides that cotton requires. This plant has
been repeatedly shown to heal even advanced cancers as well
as treat a variety of other illnesses. The fact that this
plant creates products superior to cotton, might provide
Haiti with a new economic opportunity, via producing quality
clothing, textiles, building goods, and paper
products. Finally, as though the green kingdom proved its
intelligence to us by producing for us a simple plant that
could help provide us with all of our basic needs, this
plant also produces an abundance of clean-burning,
renewable, sustainable, edible, nontoxic oil. Humanity had
been depending upon this useful plant for at least 10,000
years, until it was outlawed.
-
- This plant,
maligned even worse in the press than the potato, is the
hemp plant (cannabis). Hemp was outlawed during the Dirty
Thirties as the plastic, synthetic kingdom was being
established. All forms of hemp, including industrial hemp,
had to be outlawed, because if hemp were allowed to continue
providing us with its many superior, nontoxic products, we
would never have developed a need and then a dependency upon
the synthetics and plastics/fossil fuel products.
-
- If we all planted
hemp from sea to shining sea, in 120 days we could harvest
all of the above mentioned superior, health-giving hemp
products, and in addition we would also suddenly have a
reliable new source of oil, superior and more easily grown
than the corn biofuels. We would no longer have the need to
harrow other countries in the endless and deadly search for
fossil fuels. Lunacy, crises and greed, however, dictate
that it is forbidden for us to grow hemp. In fact, lunacy,
crises and greed appear to be the primary sources that fuel
that keep the synthetic kingdom in operation. While we can
legally purchase and enjoy a nice, nutritious bowl of hemp
seeds for any meal, it remains illegal to grow hemp here in
the U.S.
-
- For those of us
throughout the world who are tired of paying the price for,
and helping fuel the synthetic kingdom, it is time for each
of us to arm ourselves with potatoes and join together in a
global revolution that will remove food production from the
synthetic kingdom and return it locally to the green kingdom
and to the people who are born with an inalienable right to
have decent food. Think of Cuba. Pray for Haiti. Join the
revolution.
-
- ###
-
-
----------------------
-
- Mary's son is a
2008 Candidate running for the Florida House of
Representatives on the platform of legalizing
hemp. Mary Sparrowdancer is an independent journalist
and author of a bestselling book, The Love Song. www.sparrowdancer.com She
wishes to thank her friends, Luise, Don and Doug for
their help with this article.
-
-
---------------------
-
- References:
-
- US Department of
State- Trading down.
-
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/id/17606.htm
-
- Smoot-Hawley.
-
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/id/17606.htm
-
- Cornell history
-
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/facts/mod-ag-grw85.html
-
- Agricultural
collapse in the 1930s
-
http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/ag_trade.htm
-
- Fertilizer history
-
http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farm_tech.htm
-
- Food prices.
-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041901601.html
-
- Potato facts.
-
http://www.all-creatures.org/mfz/health-potatoes.html
-
- Wikipedia (how to
succeed in never growing a potato)
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato
-
- "Dirt," by David
Montgomery
-
http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=6782
-
- Haiti 3rd most
dependent country in the world.
-
http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2004/HeinlTestimony040310.pdf
-
- Haiti toxic dump
of American sludge from Philadelphia.
-
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/259.html
-
- Haiti The hungry
are eating mud pies.
-
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin_2.html
-
- Video: Healing
cancer with marijuana: "Run from the cure The Rick Simpson
Story." (Part 1 of 7).
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjhT9282-Tw&feature=related
http://www.rense.com/general81/pota.htm
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