Tuesday, May 24, 2005

is this a bill yet?

Time is ripe for urban agriculture
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and the man who founded Congress' Livability Caucus, argues that with half of federal farm subsidies currently "flowing to six states to produce 13 commodities that in the main we don't need, like corn, wheat, cotton, and rice," there's a dramatically superior alternative.

We should, says Blumenauer, "use that money to build sustainable agriculture, create a farmer's market in every community, help farmers protect our land and water, preserve our viewsheds, foster land banks and control erosion."

What a good idea. Rely on self-perpetuating nano-scaled solar powered bio-reactors and a passel of enthuastic technicians to service them tomatos.

(ie, food grown by local farmers)

This is a very timely and useful policy position - Here is Blumenauers policy page from his web site - He is also a supporter of Amtrak and the like, but of course he is from Oregon, so he might be an anarchist. (Beware!)

While I would only rarely suggest that writing your congressperson might have an effect, this would be one of the times.

For the want of a Carter, the conservation war was lost, but we can still win some battles.

4 Comments:

At 5:16 AM, May 24, 2005, Blogger Big Gav said...

I quite like anarchists.

When I realised Chomsky was an anarchist it made sense suddenly - the difference between right wing anarchists (libertarians) and left wing anarchists like Chomsky is a lot less than the difference between libertarians and the toxic feudalist / fascist / theocrat brew that make up the republican party these days...

 
At 10:14 PM, May 24, 2005, Blogger JMS said...

Oh, I like anarchists too. Oregon is the closest thing we have to Europe in the USA, so they have a bit of a leftist rep.

 
At 11:13 PM, May 24, 2005, Blogger Big Gav said...

Hmmm - I should have paid more attention last time I drove through there - I have no memories of Oregon other than some Kunstlerian suburbia, a nice bridge in Portland, staying in some weird little town and a great photo taken on the coast somewhere late in the afternoon...

Damn brain.

 
At 1:25 AM, May 25, 2005, Blogger JMS said...

yeah, it is easy to miss! Doesn't compare size wise to say, LA.

Portland has really good light rail and urban planning.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home