The British Can Admit It - Will We?

Major food price rises are all but inevitable. Philip Clarke, the chief executive of Britain's biggest supermarket chain Tesco, has admitted as much to the British press. Tesco, was heavily implicated in the recent horse-meat scandal, has said that rising global demand means the historic low prices to which British consumers have become used are now unsustainable. This is tantamount to the CEO of WalMart or Kroger admitting that they can no longer commit to keeping prices low for all Americans.

Any one who has been shopping lately can attest to the fact that the “invisible grocery shrink ray” is at work in our local markets. The packages may be rising slowly in price but the quantity in the package is smaller over all. The organics and locally grown stuff is characterized as for the elite and other who want to be upper class.

Is Kentucky (or America) that far behind this time? A recent poll, commissioned by the Prince's Countryside Fund to mark National Countryside Week, reveals that a majority of British consumers would be prepared to pay more for food if they knew the extra was going to farmers rather than to supermarket shareholders. With the recent introduction of the “Udderly Kentucky” milk program by the Secretary of Agriculture, James Comer, is he seeing the same sentiment from Kentucky shoppers?

The “Buy Local First” movement seems to be making headway and local farmers markets are establishing themselves in more locations every year. Still, the primary comments are that they are out of the reach of many residents. Sadly, such costs are reflective of the unsubsidized production costs for local entrepreneurs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization forecast last month that global food prices could rise by as much as 40% over the next decade. Much of this as a result of a growing middle class in countries such as China and India. With the prospects of America's middle class waning and poverty moving to our once booming suburbs, this global rise will hit Americans very hard.

Usually, supermarket bosses (British and American) have proved extremely resistant to admitting economic pressures would affect the cost of groceries. WalMart has recently committed to its sourcing more locally produced fruits and vegetables without discussing whether price differences will be kept to a minimum. One way the WalMart has kept their prices low is to require the producer (or middleman) to do more preparatory work so that their “associates” don't have to.

What comes to mind next is WalMart's (and possibly the federal governments) definition of locally produced. Generally, the range of 500 miles is sufficient for most programs and for Lexington that means as far away as Central Michigan or the Gulf Coast. Local could them mean about 2/3^rds of the Eastern U.S. National brands and the monoculture farming of agri-business can still dominate our food choices at that rate.

I can see that a growing number of Kentuckians (and Americans) are awakening to the reality that many of our corporations are (and have been) leading us astray with phrases like “supermarket to the world” while importing more and more under “trade” treaties. With all of our corporate farming debacles, many countries will not accept our exports for reasons like GMO's or processing concerns.

America's food system has become unsustainable and there is more than enough blame to cast in all directions. The big question is, can it be turned around in time to prevent it from crashing like a house of cards?

Larger stores and bigger selections may have helped get us to where we are but simply reversing those trends will not be a solution. Our seasonal treats of yesteryear have become the culinary mainstays of the declining middle class. Farmers who took great pride in their goods on the farm now see disease and pestilence introduced in the processing and packaging plants. Corporate marketing gurus have persuaded us that only the perfect looking fruit or vegetable is worthy of purchase. These trends also need to be altered.

The way it is major food price rises are all but inevitable, which leaves us with only one good option – to change the way it is.

A Sustainable Food Policy For Lexington?

I was recently caught by a tweet from Mary Newsom, an urban aficionado and writer from Charlotte, North Carolina, about a local government's support for local food production. Mary does not know this but she has had a great influence on what and how I write on my topics.

The link that Mary supplied led me to a new and different take on local, sustainable agricultural development. I don't understand why many other local communities are not looking at following a similar path.

To begin with, this NC county wanted to re-evaluate its economic development efforts, which it and most others have followed for years with mixed results. These efforts are usually characterized by luring (or poaching) the jobs from some other community through wage and tax incentives. It does not “grow” the local economy with new jobs without paring down some other community's economy in the process. How often will some other desperate community come along and “raise the ante” just as he “exemption” periods expire.

As an alternative, they began viewing the development of local food production for the growing farmer's market movement and an eye on making it a sustainable process.

Some of the alternative strategies to be employed included;

• Hiring a local food system program coordinator.
• Establishing a Food Policy Council.
• Hiring a sustainable local economy project manager.
• Establishing a Council for a Sustainable Local Economy.
• Commissioning a consultant to study the local economy and recommend ways to bolster local entrepreneurship.
• Paying to build a slaughterhouse to allow local farmers to harvest livestock close to home.
• Starting an incubator farm to cultivate a new generation of farmers.
  

In a county of 178,000 people and considerable tillable land, does this sound too far fetched to work? I think not, because given time I believe that it will work and will grow. The natural foods movement, which I think that we can trace back to the '70s and probably the Foxfire book series, has started to gather a good head of steam and become a bit more mainstream of late. Farmers markets add locations and growers every year to the point that the larger agribusiness folks want a piece of the action.

But will something similar work for Lexington and surrounding counties?

Take a look at the Homegrown Kentucky project being started down in Owsley County, The county high school has an extra 10 acres of rich bottom land, much better suited to teaching sustainable agricultural practices than other education functions. When they pair the student and community gardens developed there with the relocated farmers market on the school grounds and the school cafeteria needs, it looks to be a winning situation all around.

I feel that some of the results of activities like those list above could fall in line with the motives and efforts of existing organizations such as the Fayette Alliance and the PDR program without mentioning the mayor's support of the Local First movement. Are the thoughts behind the Locust Trace AgriScience Farm, which the Fayette County Public Schools is developing, not working toward sustainable, entrepreneurial graduates to enter the local employment scene? This latter sounds like an incubator farm to me.

I have watched the growth of local food programs like the Good Foods Co-op and the various farmers markets and they seem to each have a separate, yet similar, food policy. No one is attempting to establish a coordinated policy for our city or region, even as a guard against an economic disaster. If the ongoing debate and wrangling on the subject of food trucks is any indication, I am not sure that our current council could come up with a valid local food policy in less than the time it would take to starve to death.

The attraction of high paying jobs and the expansion of local organic farming are topics which the media seems to trumpet from time to time but we must not lose sight of those on the other end of the economic spectrum. All cannot make it to a farmers market on a regular basis, either on a scheduled day or due to distance/transportation issues. Some families cannot get to a grocery nor afford the meals which use ingredients on minimum processing. What if there was a coordinated way of guaranteeing access to some community farm/garden plots for anyone who wished to participate? Not someone to do it for them, but access or transportation to the plot.

From what I understand, most residents of Lexington do not realize that we have probably the largest stockyard operation in the state if not the region. But there is no local slaughterhouse in town. We have a number of beef producers in our county who raise grass finished stock and sell to the more finicky buyers at the farmers market. The Good Foods Co-op buys whole meat carcasses and trims out cuts for their members. So, where is the closest slaughterhouse for these dedicated folks? The answer is, either in Garrard Co. or in Bardstown. This a great deal better than Chicago or elsewhere in the mid-west, but it still adds to the transportation cost of supplying it.

Do, or could, any of our myriad of new restaurants downtown plan to raise their own herbs and savories in close proximity to the kitchen? Some of them have planned for rooftop patios or could bargain for the seldom used roof space in our parking garages. It amazes me the amount of wasted solar energy that we allow to escape each and every day.

I do not think for one minute that CommerceLex will pick this up as a possible economic development tool but as I have pointed out, it seems to have a decent foothold in Cabarrus Co. in North Carolina. At least some people are looking toward food sustainability and somehow a balance can be struck. The above ideas may be well worth trying and Charlotte is not that far to go to check it out.

Energy Security Or Food Security, A Choice?

Here is an interesting item from The National, a daily newspaper from Abu Dhabi. 

The Arab states are becoming concerned about food security, since the region imports more than 50% of their food needs. Some of their poorer countries import even higher amounts. While the Gulf states can afford to pay the cost of importation, the others cannot.

America has just begun to really worry about oil security and how we would cope should supplies be really cut off. Could we live within the limitations of what we drill and pump? Can we be energy independent? Some think that we can, but it would be a tremendous change for us all.  And it would include food security too.

Food security exists when a nation, state or region can feed itself with local agriculture and not need the imports of the global market. Food insecurity will begin, for many of us, when the price of oil reaches such a point that transporting food cost more than raising it. For many in America that means reverting to the seasonal occurrences of fresh fruits and many vegetables. Many of our large agri-businesses will have to decentralize and maybe depend on local farmers a little more. The distance between the farm and the table will have to become shorter.

Oil and energy security have become reason for war. Our leaders don't come right out and say so, but we all realize it anyway. We fabricate alternate stated reasons but we don't involve ourselves too much if there is no oil in the picture. How long will it be until our (or somebody else's ) food security is the real reason that we are fighting? Will we fight for fresh fruit shipped in from Argentina or Chile? How about fish from off the coast of Russia? Will we defend our lobsters in the Grand Banks?

I believe that most of us civilized folks will say that food should not be used as a weapon in an economic battle and great famines are rare in this country, but if an oil starved/food rich America can fight for oil then an oil rich/food starved Arab region can fight for food.

Situations are bleak in multiple parts of Africa and portions of Australia are suffering drought conditions as well. Could we be closer to the brink than we realize? Should we plan for better food security as well as energy security? 

My answer is yes but what do you say?

Raw Milk Could Become Legal In Kentucky

In my interest concerning the availability of good local foods and my passion toward raw milk, I have learned that one of the pre-filed bill for the next legislative session is about the legal sales of raw milk. I know that not everybody shares my love of raw milk but I and my family have come to believe that drinking it has kept us healthier and for those lovers of local foods, it just makes sense.

Local foods is a mantra which has been taken up by many, as is sustainable farming and food security on the local level. That may be what is behind this bill in tis initial form.

The bill, 12RS BR 294, is labeled as “AN ACT relating to milk.” and amends KRS 217C.030 which deals with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the part of state government that has control over the production and sale of milk. I have no idea why this is not dealt with in an agricultural department but it is not.

The bill is simple enough, it just adds a new section talking about the legal sales of raw milk and its “permitted" producers. It sounds like something that I have been hoping for for some time now. But, there are always one of those around, anytime you have a simple allowance of something, government bureaucracy will find some way to foul the initial intent.

The first place that convolution can begin to rear its ugly head is the definition of “permitted” producer.

The normal producer of raw milk is, of course, the cow and I don't think that they need a permit but the dairy where the cow lives and the dairyman who milks her probably will. A dairyman is normally also called a farmer and farmers have been the backbone of American agriculture since colonial days. Farmers have supplied their families and the local villages with milk since Medieval times if not before. I believe that it is only since the middle of the last century, when large industrial dairies began to “produce” dairy products and relegated the farmer to the role of “supplier” that permitting became an issue.

The local farmer today, really wishes to grow and sell a good product and allowing an inferior product to leave the farm or potentially harm the consumer is the last situation that they want. Industrial farmers just need to move as much inventory as they can, because it is all about filling the contract and not feeding your friends and neighbors.

Under this new bill, any permitted producer may legally sell raw milk to the end consumer as long as it is at the farm where it is produced. That sounds good but I doubt that many of the industrial dairies would like for the average shopper to see the conditions in which the cows live. It is sometimes vastly different from the bucolic images shown of happy cows and verdant pastures. Some cows never see the light of day or green fields.

On the other hand, the permitting requirements placed upon the local farmer(dairyman) may be so onerous that attempting to comply would entail a full time staff of dozens. This is far from the concept of a small time farm family that conquered the wilderness of America.. Farmers with small or medium sized herds may not be able to meet these currently unwritten regulations.

Given the history of the inspectors of the Cabinet of Health and Family Services and their past demonstrated dislike of the dairymen with cowshare programs, the possible new regulations could surely create problems for the small dairyman.

The proposed new law also requires that all packaging be labeled in such a way that could subtly imply, through wording and “warnings”, that raw milk is inferior to the usual commercial offerings. It has been the experience of those of us who like raw milk, that we need to search out that which we feel is superior and will go the extra mile to get it. Of those I know in the cowshare “families”, we trust our dairymen and realize some of the inherent risk in the bottling process, yet others trust the government inspection system and its highly publicized and all too frequent failures.

Lastly, the bill reiterates that the raw milk may only be sold or sampled on the farm which produced it which puts the smaller sized dairymen at a significant disadvantage compared to industrial dairies and their convenient sales and delivery systems.

There is much to like in this proposed law. It brings to light the increased desire to consume raw milk and the rise in the re-localization of our basic foods. It show a desire on the part of a legislator to legalize what should be freely available, similar to the farmers market expansion we are currently watching happen. It helps bring Kentucky closer to the regulations of other enlightened states concerning local foods. It does many good things but it also falls somewhat short.

There is much to be done which will make this bill better.

Help Preserve Our Food Freedom

The government is well on its way to taking away another of your fundamental rights. Soon, you may not have the right to enter into a legally binding contract with just anyone for the reasons of your mutual agreement. You may have to get a governmental agency to allow you to do so.

Last month, a Dane County, Wisconsin Circuit Court judge ruled that people in Wisconsin do NOT have the right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd. That is ludicrous on its very face.

Wisconsin has long been known as “America's Dairyland” and so much so that it has been emblazoned on their license plates for years. The locals up there are known as “cheeseheads” because of all the dairy products. But these people are now being told that they have no right to sell the milk that they obtain from all the vast dairy herds in that state. Since corporations are now classified as “people”, even they do not have the basic right to use cow's milk as they see fit.

Throughout history and particularly American history, we have been told that the pioneers went west with their families and their animals to settle the frontier. Cows milk was a very staple of that trek since there were no local grocery there at the time. Little did they know that they were breaking the law of a state yet to exist.

The Court also ruled that having a private contract does not fall outside the the scope of the States' police power and therefore the State can tell you that any contract is “null and void” in its entirety or in part. Does this sound like a State where you would like to live?

Finally, the Court ruled that the DATCP [Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection] . . . had jurisdiction to regulate the Zinniker Plaintiffs' conduct. This appears to be the same direction that the FDA is heading on the national level.

This is not just a Wisconsin problem nor is it solely related to raw milk, this is about food freedom and food security. With poor economic times upon us and likely to get worse we must all now plan for our food safety and security. I think that leaving food safety to the large agri-businesses will make us more susceptible to the massive food recalls which have populated ti news of late. These recalls have only grown larger and more frequent with the consolidations of the mega farms concept and the agricultural lobbying done by a select few corporations.

This is why I now urge you to support HR 1830 currently making its way through the House. I may not agree with all that Ron Paul advocates but this is one that we all need to back. The key points of this bill are:

• We believe that there is a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of our choice including raw milk.
• We believe the federal ban against transporting raw milk for human consumption across state lines is a violation of our rights.
• We should be free to obtain raw milk from sources outside our own states' borders.
• We demand the termination of an unjust law that interferes with the exercise of our legal right to consume raw milk.
• We support passage of HR 1830 into law - a bill that would effectively end the interstate ban.

If you agree with me, please sign the online petition to support HR1830. Go to www.farmtoconsumer.org/hr1830 and then help spread the word. I think that our food future depends on it.

A Cowshare- Business As Usual?

The cowshare program to which I belong is having a bit of difficulty lately.

The whole thing dates back to when the health authorities in Ohio and Kentucky along with their Federal counterparts began harassing the farmer for delivering what the cow owners were expecting, just plain, raw milk.  

Cowshares work a little differently from a normal dairy whereas the farmer sells shares of his cows to a group of people.  Very much like a syndicate would own a race horse or other property.  They then pay for the maintenance and care of the property and receive a dividend of the product which results.  For a racehorse that would be a share of the purses won but in dairy cows it would be the milk produced.  That is produced daily.  For me, my two shares result in two gallons every week  Sometimes it is sufficient, sometimes it is too much.

Our farmer is an Anabaptist from Mississippi who raises cow and other farm animals for the simple joy of producing the highest and best quality food that people can buy.  To him, farming is not a business where the bottom line is profit or loss, it is a living where he can work hard, provide for his family and others and do what the Creator put us here to do.

This mindset and philosophy runs contrary to the general direction of the world today and that is where the cowshare program begins to have difficulty.  Several years ago, when they were located in Northern Kentucky and the harassment took place, our local agencies sought to remove this type of program and/or force it to be like all the other agri-businesses.  Despite all the talk of the movement toward locally grown food or the organic foods movement, the state and federal governments only want them to conform to the big business model.  Our farmer was forced to sell the existing farm(at a loss), file bankruptcy, move the herd and establish themselves on a leased farm.  In effect, to start over.

Again, our farmer (and we of the cowshare program by extension) are being forced to look for a new location.  A location where the farmer can put down roots and continue to provide the nutritious food that we members want and expect.  This is whee it becomes real difficult.  Because of the current financial situation, banks are not willing to lend to farmers who are not really operating as a business, the ones just getting by but still paying the bills.  Trying to operate within such a narrow, confining box is proving very difficult for us all.

Our farmer reminds me of a Mennonite, although I guess that he could be called a "Mennonite Lite" as he drives a truck and they do use the Internet, and the way they approach farming is somewhat reminiscent of the Amish.

I actually learned today that the Amish population in America is growing (10%) and growing even better in Kentucky (15%) in the last two years.  Studies reveal that new Amish settlements are established about once every three weeks.  The states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Delaware which are usually known for their Amish communities are actually losing out to states like Kentucky and New York.  The truly unfortunate part of the foregoing information is that roughly only 10% of the Amish today receive their primary income from farming.

Might they be another example of how our big business before farming attitude is eroding the country?

Food and Farm Freedom

Several things have popped up on the radar today and most have something to do with relocalization of food. I am surprised that our local champions of farming and good local foods have not been shouting this from the rooftops. On Monday, the 16^th of May there will be a rally in Washington, DC for Food and Farm Freedom.

You say to me, Sweeper, we have our farms and our Farmers Markets and they all are growing. But there is also a growing movement within the FDA to gain control of all that. Take this from Natural News.

The freedom to grow, sell, and buy clean food is under serious attack. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made it clear that the agency is not a friend of food freedom and that it is willing to do whatever it takes to go after those involved in the "Slow Food" movement in order to protect corporate interests.

Corporations have noticed that the organic foods movement is making big strides and gaining “market share”. Why else would the mega-foods companies use their considerable clout to lobby the FDA to change the rules for organic products. I will assure you that these changes will not strengthen the rules for anybody. The new rules are noticeably weaker than the European standards and make it so that the factory farms of America can sell you the same old schlock, but labeled as “organic”. An organic label for which they can charge more in the market place.

At the same time, they(the FDA) are starting to ramp up their attacks on small farmers who are finding “niche” markets providing what the big companies don't want to be bothered with. Last summer, they raided the farm of Dan Allgyer, an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, whom the agency accused of illegally selling raw milk. Raw milk is legal in Pennsylvania. That did not matter to the FDA agents and other law enforcement officers, they raided anyway. They confiscated (that is stole)pictures and other material while threatening “regulatory action” if the situation was not “resolved”

This is a similar tactic used on the farmer that has put together the cowshare program to which I belong. It is documented that they lay in wait for a weekly delivery of milk to the share participants and accosted both the farmer and the owners. The stress was so great that it brought on reactions similar to PTSD and recovery time took months. Lately a simple “farm inspection” has initiated another round from which we are just now getting back to normal. The bottom line is that the FDA is not out to help the general public consumer or the small farmer (the ones who built this country), they are out to protect those who fund their work with lobbyist dollars – big business, the mega farm agri-business corporations.

The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) has actually filed suit against the FDA on behalf of raw milk. The FDA has responded to the suit with statements like “There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food” and, amazingly, “There is no generalized right to bodily and physical health”. Do the rights to eat food come from the FDA or are they in place to protect our rights to eat healthy food?

It is for these reasons that food advocates are banding together to put on the Rally for Food and Farm Freedom at Upper Senate Park on May 16 to push for justice. It would be nice if some of the locals would have a rally here in Lexington, but I have not heard of one. I am beginning to think that the high-tech creative class jobs and the folks that do them, do not care that the FDA is not on their side. Is the Fayette Alliance aware of this rally? Can they pull something together on short notice? How about the various farmers markets? Or the Good Foods Co-op? Is somebody doing something?

Knox Van Nagell responded to a comment of mine (on ProgressLex) the other day with: “Through matching Federal, State, and local funds, the PDR program “purchases” the development “right” from local farmers, and holds this right in perpetuity…resulting in conserved farms that will continue their agricultural operations for the future. “ It is my hope that these “agricultural operations” will be of the small local farmer rather than the agri-business type.

There is nothing about any of this in the local press.

Comments On The Rise Of Food Prices

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has raised the alarm on rising food prices.

"We must act now, effectively and cooperatively, to blunt the negative impact of rising food prices and protect people and communities," she said at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome.

The U.N. estimates that 44 million people world wide have been pushed into poverty since last June because of rising food prices, which could lead to desperate shortages and unrest. Clinton said the world could no longer "keep falling back on providing emergency aid to keep the Band-Aid on."

She called for countries to adopt better policies and "to encourage everyone to respond to rising food prices not with failed policies of the past but with a sounder approach."

Some of those “failed” policies may include the following: During the 2008 crisis, the world's biggest rice producers — Thailand, Vietnam and India — curbed rice exports to protect domestic supply, leading to record high prices. The price of wheat, meanwhile, shot up last year when Russia imposed an export ban after severe drought damaged harvests. Ukraine, another major grain exporter, also imposed export quotas because of the drought.

Time magazine has reported the a major cause of rising food prices may well be the much discussed “climate change” that the world is undergoing.

The hidden story of 2011 has been the record-breaking rise in global food prices. Global corn prices April 2010 and April 2011, while wheat prices are up some 60 to 80%. Exactly why food has gotten so expensive in recent months is the subject of an ongoing debate

Some of the causes may be simple inflation or that the competition for food grains by the biofuel production process which has not lowered local gas prices in any appreciable measure. Natural disasters, like the recent rains and subsequent flooding, which are plaguing the Mississippi Valley currently along with the growing world wide consumption certainly do play a big part. But maybe the largest part is just the greater and greater distances that food has to travel to get to our family tables. The distances and methods of travel which require fossil fuels, the same fossil fuels which are accused of aiding the global “climate change”.

Most all of us realize that locally produced food is better for us and is better for the local economy, but usually carries a premium on price due to the volumes that individual producers can generate. Factory style farms will win out on economies of scale yet temper that victory with reductions in health benefits from crop monoculture, increased processing to combat bacterial or germicidal contamination or just the forced completion of the natural growth cycle to comply with the shipping schedule. Unlike the winemakers who used to advertise that “ they would sell no wine before its time” many fruits and vegetables are today picked in an unripe state and chemically treated so as to arrive on the store shelves looking like “just picked”.

Research and better farming practices have increased crop yield lately throughout a majority of the world but we are now seeing “climate change” or rising temperatures during the growing season begin to reduce some of that. Combined with the greater use of petroleum based fertilizers or genetically modified seeds or insecticides / pesticides allowing for the overuse of many historically rich farmlands and the documented rise of herbicide resistant “superweeds”

Might these also fit into the category of “failed” policies and the more sound approach to food production be a more localized and sustainable methods which got us to this point? I would much rather have lamb from Kentucky than the ones that come from New Zealand. It has to cost less to grow and slaughter here. Milk production should cost less if you removed all the processing involved with replacing the desired qualities that were eliminated through pasteurization. Farmers should be able to sell for less if the costs of hybrid or GMO seeds and chemical fertilizers could be decreased through natural methods. These possibly failing policies which were once alternatives and are now requirements.

A branch of our State Government is on the verge of a systematic harassment of local farmers. Specifically, the dairy farmers whose sole purpose it is to supply healthy dairy products to their friends. These farmers are ones who do NOT supply “dead” milk that has to be artificially supplemented with vitamins and nutrients which have been removed by pasteurization. The farmers I am speaking of supply raw milk, the REAL milk.

I am reminded of the commercials of Meijer and Hardee’s, wherein they have actors posing as competitors explaining how their products, either mass processed or frozen and shipped many miles, are better for the end consumer. Meijer says that their daily butchered meat is fresher than the packaged brands which have unpronounceable ingredients on the label, while Hardee’s claims that frozen is NOT “fresher than fresh”.

We can all see through these advertising ploys and realize that, yes, they are right, the freshness is lacking in mass processed foods but the convenience/price factor is just something that we have to live with. I and my family don’t feel that way. We desire to have the best available and the cost is justified. With the rise of “farmer’s markets” around the country and a growing “locavore” movement, we realize that we are not alone.

Just like Hardee’s customers, I wish to eat freshly made biscuits with my breakfast and, as well as the Meijer folks, the freshly cut beef and lamb out taste the “shipped in” products (although we get ours from Whole Foods). Our milk is even more important. We choose not to have the whole product stripped of all bacteria, just to have some “possible” strains of harmful bacteria “cleansed”, then replaced with (artificially created) “good” bacteria and vitamins/minerals. Our grandparents did not have this travesty thrust upon them when they were young and the pioneers did not suddenly keel over from bad farm food.

This form of food adulteration has come about by the rise in mass produced foods and the “factory farms” now being seen as a plague on America. >The massive recall of eggs that has recently been in the news did not come from the small farmers of Central Kentucky, nor did the spinach recalls of a few years ago, nor do the many meat recalls that happen several times a year. They all are centered on huge agri-processing plants which have touted their “economies of scale” for keeping prices low but have nothing to do with food safety. Factory farms and food adulteration may be killing America in the guise of saving it.

Real milk, the raw milk I spoke of earlier is not allowed to be sold in stores in Kentucky. It is not allowed to be sold in any way in Kentucky. These are the rules of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. You may get milk from your own cow for your personal use, and that is why we and some friends share the ownership of a cow. Now, I am a city boy and I don’t know how to deal with cows so we have a farmer take care of the animal (for a fee, of course). He has the land and the know-how, and particularly, the time. Once a week we have to go get our milk and some of the other things like eggs or produce that he may have available.

Our farmer is not the only one who operates this way. It is a also a growing movement, the idea of owning shares of an animal for the good of many (think of it as the original Stock Market shares. Lately, the Milk Safety Branch (a department within the Department of Health and Human Services) has started to feel the pressure from the factory dairies and will begin “on-farm inspections”, although they have no jurisdiction or authority to do so. These cowshare dairies are being harassed as a service of our government for doing more than the agri-business factory farm dairies care to. Product recalls at these cowshare places are unheard of. Health scare publicity for them is non-existent, so why the sudden need to do inspections while offenders and repeat offenders grab headlines and court cases wind slowly through the system?

Those of you who choose to go with the local foods and healthy living may wish to contact your local representatives and try to nip this in the bud, because from here it may only get worse.

I got this from Natural News.

Growing awareness among the American populace about the health benefits of wholesome, raw milk has been steadily increasing over the past decade, putting many state and federal officials into a frenzy. The harsh crackdown tactics used in the past to deter farmers from selling, and consumers from buying, raw milk are giving way to a new approach that anti-raw milk fanatics hope will put an end to the sale of raw milk.

Why would the state and federal government officials get so upset over something that the people find so healthy? In our current America, the health benefits of raw milk are becoming more and more widespread and desired by consumers, even faster than the organic movement that industrial food producers are hoping to cash in on. The USDA has decided that they cannot stop organic food production and giant agri-business has decided that they can get in at a profit, but that same relationship does not transfer to the milk production.

"While millions of Americans are seriously injured by or die from pharmaceutical drugs every year, U.S. regulatory agencies are busy devising new ways to prevent family farmers from selling a natural, health-promoting food to their fellow citizens."

And pharmaceuticals are not the only ones, the e-coli outbreaks and recall cost our citizens $millions each year and yet those businesses are not inspected more closely, nor are they shut down with their equipment confiscated. No, these are the firms that are rewarded with bigger and bigger contracts which put more farmers OUT OF WORK. This is just the kind of thing that our government should be doing in times like these. Therefore:

Stopping people from consuming raw milk is a top priority for federal and state officials.

This makes no sense.

In the nearly three years that I have been in a cow-share program, I have not noticed any of my fellow members dropping dead from the milk, quite the contrary. I have seen my son's eczema totally clear up. I have seen a friend diagnosed with "lactose intolerance" drink milk and cream on a daily basis. My whole family feels better and stronger from the milk.

Factory processed milk is pasteurized to the point that all the beneficial pro-biotics and vitamins that naturally occur in milk are removed.(this is to kill any stray unhealthy virus that may be present) Then manufactured vitamins and minerals are added back in(these are not as good for you as the natural ones) as well as the unpronounceable items that extend shelf life for the retailer. If you need it in there then why did you take it out, only to replace it?

This makes no sense.

"As private buying clubs have been gaining popularity, officials have begun targeting them to shut them down.

Several buying clubs have recently been targeted in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, and even Massachusetts where raw milk laws are more lax. Recent emails obtained through freedom-of-information requests revealed that the FDA, the Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection, and other public health and agriculture officials have been planning to raid up to 20 different buying groups in Illinois as well."

This makes no sense

"Americans are increasingly choosing to drink grass-fed, farm-fresh, nutritious raw milk rather than the filthy, processed milk substance available at the grocery store.

"Americans must stand up and resist the tyranny or else face the elimination of one of nature's perfect foods."

This is what make sense

Sustainable And Nourishable Places

It is no secret that I am very pro local food. Mrs. Sweeper and I have tried our best to find, buy and prepare local foods. That is why we frequent the farmers markets of the area and have joined a cowshare program. I also have not been shy in commenting about the shortcomings of the Kentucky Proud program that is run by the Ky. State Agriculture Department.

It has not been an easy task to find certain local food services, but why is it an even more onerous task for the local farmer?

The idea of knowing where your food comes from is appealing to more and more families every day. Concern over food safety and eating of a healthy diet is in the news on a daily basis. So, why are the local, state and federal regulatory agencies not doing more for the growing “locavore” enthusiasts?

Sustainable development and sustainable cities have been buzzwords in the planning literature for several years and yet we are no closer to achieving such a system than we were thirty years ago. These words are now creeping into our mayoral election and yet we still hear of no solutions being put forth by any of the candidates.

Lately, I have seen a new designation put forth, a label of Nourishable Places. Nourishable Places are ones that grow a significant portion of their food within a few miles of where it is eaten AND could grow more in a long emergency. Unfortunately they are found in very few locations in the First World today. The typical ingredients for a family meal – what is that these days?- will travel over 1,300 miles to get to the table. It is getting worse daily.

In some parts of the country, particularly the Northwest, things are changing. According to Crosscut.com there are more, smaller farms developing on the urban fringes of their Olympic area cities. Even places like Detroit MI and Dayton, OH. are looking at vegetable farming on some of their abandoned residential properties. There are places in Lexington where we could use some of our reclaimed urban floodplain land for community garden plots if need be.

Those actions may help us out in the fruits and vegetables department but will do us no good for the rearing of farm animals. But here too there we are seeing an increase in the number of small farms.

There are now new problems with this rise on farm animal production on small farms and that is, where do they get their processing done? The number of slaughterhouses nationwide declined to 809 in 2008 from 1,211 in 1992, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. America’s small independent farmers are now being forced to schedule their slaughters BEFORE the animals are born AND drive them hundreds of miles to slaughtering facilities. This added movement causes an unneeded stress on the animals and expense to the farmer.

The interest in grass fed and finished or even organic beef and lamb and the non antibiotic, no hormone added production of these animals means that using some of the larger slaughterhouses opens the possibility of introducing e-coli and other unwanted contaminants.

Slaughterhouses should not be placed just anywhere and certainly not in the most urban parts of a state, but as a matter of economic development and employment generators, they are something that a politician should be aware of.

Lexington may one day find that the concept of “peak oil” or “climate change” is real, or maybe there could be a natural or man made disaster requiring that we sustain ourselves. So far, I think that we as a city would fail the sustainability test. We are somewhat positioned, with the PDR program, to have land in the county that could be used for food production (you know, we cannot eat the horses) but we are lacking in the processing facilities necessary for a city of this size. Home canning, for the most part, is a lost art among the youth of today and butchering may mean that they would have to get their hands dirty, so we may be in trouble.

High-tech, healthcare and horses may be of some priority is certain circles and a vibrant, socially conscious downtown is a priority in others, while health and human safety or social responsibility and government corruption will highlight another’s political rhetoric. If we don’t try to arrange for our very basic needs of good food and water, all of it locally grown or collected and processed, then it may all be for nought.

A New Follower And The Local Growers

I want to welcome one of my latest followers John's Custom Meats, from down in Smiths Grove, Ky. I sure do wish that I was a bit closer to western Ky(or that they were a bit closer to Lexington) so that I could enjoy some of their product once in a while. I guess that I will have to make do with another Kentucky Proud supplier that I located on the net today. One that is closer to Lexington.

Better Beef is an outgrowth Lone Tree Cattle Co. LLC. of Paint Lick, Ky. with a local outlet in Berea. Finally, a local grass-fed, no hormone, grown, raised, finished and processed in Kentucky supply of reasonably priced meat. This is definitely a place that Mrs. Sweeper says that we will give a try. These people currently deliver to Lexington and say that they will soon add Louisville and Danville. Between our cowshare program, which supplies us with milk, eggs and cheese, a good local meat supply and the Good Foods Co-Op, we may be eating some of the best meals in the country.

I am going to have to add a Locavore/Slow Foods links list soon in order to keep up with all of this.

What Is To Be Proud About?

I don’t know that much about the “Kentucky Proud” initiative and maybe I should, but it sounds like something that promotes a very local oriented, food production and slow food lifestyle. I get the impression that more and more of the local restaurants are receiving fresh produce from a local source and that there is a minimum of processing involved. And, I don’t think of canned vegetables or fruit when I hear the words “Kentucky Proud”. That is why I was enthused to hear about an expansion into the distribution of locally produced beef products carrying the “Kentucky Proud” labeling.

The press release from the Commissioner of Agriculture Richie Farmer’s office was written to indicate that a statewide food distribution network has been established for all products by three experienced food service companies, but several key phrases lead me to realize that we are now talking about processed meat products - specifically beef.

The network is distributing beef raised by Kentucky producers such as the Greathouse family of Midway and other cattle purchased through Kentucky’s Certified Pre-Conditioned for Health (CPH-45) program, in which source-verified cattle are raised under a strict health regimen. The cattle are finished on a nutritional diet developed by Alltech of Nicholasville and processed by PM Beef of Windom, Minn.

I guess that I should be happy that they are buying locally raised cattle, but finishing them out of state and then processing them in Minnesota seems like insulting our intelligence. Does it matter to anyone else that cows are supposed to eat grass and not some other nutritional supplement, even if it does come from a local supplier in Alltech? Does it matter that the cost of shipping the animals out of state, slaughtering and processing the animals and then shipping the product back in to the state, has to be added to the final sales price?

To be sure, all of this transporting, slaughtering, processing, re-transporting and distributing is supplying jobs for folks but are they Kentuckians who are getting these jobs? I would think that, being a state government initiative, a primary purpose would be to promote local jobs and the local economy. I can understand that some of our local meat processing facilities may not be able to handle the estimated volume, but isn’t that just a matter of building our own infrastructure to be able to handle our own needs? That is how we can build our sustainability.

According to the article in Business Lexington, “Kentucky Proud” has been in place for nine years and “working to help Kentucky producers and value-added processors market Kentucky products” and yet for nine years we haven’t noticed that we have no local meat processors of any scale capable of the volume envisioned. Only lately, approximately six months ago, did a processor from out of state call upon the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA), when they recognized our state’s need for their services. They were the one to propose a project, so there must be a profit in it. They were the one to initially identify a distributor.

If I may quote from the above referenced article:

It begins with family farms looking for a steady market for their products working with family focused processors like PM Beef. The processed products are then distributed by a network of family owned distribution businesses which deliver the Kentucky Proud products to small family restaurants across the state. Snell (a spokesperson for KDA) believes this system goes to the core of what the Kentucky Proud program is about, helping Kentucky families by promoting local Kentucky Proud products.

It also begins with the family farms which raise their livestock in a traditional way, unlike the giant agri-business herds, and the quality conscious consumers looking for such a producer. The missing component here is a local, traditional, quality conscious processor who will not dictate changes to either the farmer or the consumer that neither one wants. This is also what should be “the core of what the Kentucky Proud program is about”. Can the KDA and the Department of Economic Development not co-operate with each other for the advancement of all Kentuckians?

This article goes on to describe the potential for this beef program by stating, correctly, that people are requesting more quality in the products that they buy. Many Kentuckians also relate local production with better quality and so are looking for local products like those having the Kentucky Proud label. Some of us realize that just meeting the USDA standard is not enough and that even their “organic” qualifications are starting to be watered down, at the request of the large agri-business multi-national corporations. We would like the “Kentucky Proud” quality to be higher than it is. The estimate for full scale production is set at 400 head of cattle a week. That seems very low to me for a statewide program.

Once again quoting:

That is 400 head of cattle each week that were born and weaned on farms in Kentucky. That is 400 head of cattle each week that were sold through Kentucky markets to PM Beef for finishing. Then those 400 head a week would come back processed to be distributed…

That is 400 head of cattle that are trucked out of state and maybe not by Kentucky truckers. That is by truck, not rail which is 11 times more efficient than trucking. That is 400 head of cattle finished on something other than grass. That is 400 head of cattle that are slaughtered by non-Kentuckians and trucked(again no rail) back to the local folks to be sold as “local” products.

"As the largest beef cattle state east of the Mississippi we should be proud to see our beef come back to Kentucky as a branded product,"…

As the largest beef cattle state east of the Mississippi, we should be embarrassed to have no local processing plants, which employ local labor, and force our consumers to pay extra for a “local” product for which we are so proud.

"At the end of the day this is going to be bigger than the Kentucky Proud beef line. The distribution team is also networking with Kentucky family farms for chicken, pork, dairy and lamb," said Snell. "We are looking for sustainability and what is good for Kentucky, and we are building relationships and networks that will last. This is what being Kentucky Proud is all about."

If I recall correctly, a local economist told the Urban County Council lately that agriculture accounted for only 2% of the state's output and it is not expected to grow. With deals like this going on, then I can concur with that assessment. We in Lexington, have enacted a PDR program to preserve farm land. The Fayette Alliance has called the preservation of farmland and the local production of food a necessity and yet we still want to send our products out of state for processing.

I am still waiting for something to be really proud about.

Who Are You Going To Trust?

It is going to come down to "Who do you trust?"

While checking out my usual reading sources online, I found two headlines that are just miles apart yet both of these "trends" are coming from the west coast. On the one hand is a report from the San Jose area which claims that the nations' seniors will be relocating into more livable, walkable communities in the years ahead.

"We're going to find that there's more demand for urban and town-center housing" for seniors, said John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. "The demand will outpace the supply, which means that will drive up value."

Changing economic times have more architects and developers rethinking designs for retirement housing. Out: isolated, gated senior living communities. In: cities and suburban town centers.

Many senior communities were built with land-grabbing amenities like golf courses, tennis courts and swimming pools, so they had to be built far from the city center. Residents drive miles to the grocery store, movie theater or hospital.

Today, developers and designers want to create more communities in areas where amenities, services and infrastructure already exist. "Walkability" is a key element in urban and town-center housing developments.

This is what I've been waiting to see happen for the past year or so. A community where one can grow up, get married and settle down, raise your own kids, then watch your grand-kids grow up. It can be done, it has been done for centuries, in places all over this globe. These are not the styles of development that we are seeing being built in Lexington today, though other are beginning to see the light.

In Lyndhurst, Ohio, designers want to convert a golf course into independent living housing and continuing care facilities that blend into the surrounding neighborhood. The community will feature townhouses, apartments and houses, next to a hotel and a short walk to shops, offices and a public plaza. A completion date has not been set.

Hodgson, the architect, said, "People want to go back to this kind of neighborhood setting because it's a comfortable community."

Then on the other hand, there are those who suggest that our aging, retiring baby boomers will be living in more rural or exurban type settings. An article from the Portland, Oregon area details the lifestyle of some retiring executive and the desire to get out into the countryside for some real living.

"Any direction out of here -- north, south, east, west -- is absolutely gorgeous mountain country with fabulous streams and lakes," Dick Fisk says. "It's close to everything, and we're not under the kids' feet."

They represent a migration that turns conventional wisdom on its head. Urban planners have until now proceeded on the assumption that retiring baby boomers will downsize to a high-rise and spend their days lapping lattes and taking the streetcar to the art museum.

This reality may, of course, exist for a sector of the baby boomer generation but I'm not sure that there are all that many upper management types who will follow the same or similar path, or for how long they will stay on that path. This may be a delayed mid-life crisis finally realized or a life's dream finally coming to life.

...new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says baby boomers will head to the country in big numbers, in the Northwest changing the face of rural Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

So, here we have two differing scenarios. They are moving to the cities and more livable, walkable communities. They are moving to the country for the fresh air and the amenities of the good life. We have the differing viewpoints of respected agencies, one a liberal think tank and the other a Federal Cabinet agency.

My first inclination is to go with the Urban Land Institute(ULI) and their assessment, because I believe that revamping or reinventing our suburbs is a necessary step to making our cities more livable. The ULI may have tendencies toward development companies but those corporations do supply jobs and employment. I would rather the FDA stick to quarantining the quality and wholesomeness of our food supply and not quantifying the lifestyles of anybody who want to live on the land. The FDA is controlled by the large agri-business corporations and not the general population. Monsanto and Cargill are not out for the benefit of the consumer or the farmer, so I am not convinced that their assessment of the population trends of America are on target.

You will have to read both articles, do some other research and ask yourself "Who do you trust?"

Thinking and Eating Locally

You all have seen me post about the benefits of buying local farm goods and even the possibility of some backyard farming. I cannot do such a thing today because I don't have much of a backyard. At our old house, we used to have a lot of homegrown fruits and vegetables grown in the garden(if we got to them before the tree rats). We have tried to eat as organicly as we can and as locally grown as possible.

Mrs. Sweeper told me of a conversation that she had with a friend about raising chickens and how her friend had bought some chicks, hoping to get fresh eggs. She did not have or want a rooster, just some hens for eggs. She also had a desire for a cow for milk.

At this point, her husband told her that she couldn't drink it as they had no way to pasteurize it. People for many years-like thousands of- have been drinking milk straight from the pail and cheese, butter, yogurt as well. Does he think that it will kill her? All those other people lived, I know that because we are here now.

The FDA has convinced the American public that raw milk is not good for you. First we need to kill all the bacteria in the milk, both good and bad-kind of like a military scorched earth policy. Then we add back all the vitamins and calcium that we took out, bleach it to make it white to please our senses, water it down for 2% and skim versions and raise the price so that the processor get the money, not the farmer.

We, the Sweeper family have been members of a Cowshare program for about two years now and I am proof that drinking real milk, unprocessed milk will not kill you. My whole family is in better health and feels better now than we did several years ago. Two of my sons developed scaly skin on their knees and elbows which took prescription cream to clear, but after several weeks of drinking real milk, the expensive cream was relegated to the back of the medicine cabinet. Mrs Sweeper is like a magnet for mosquitos in the summer and it is worse now that we live closer to the waterfront, but since we have been using a real milk based soap infused with citronella, the mosquitos get to within several inches of the body and then veer off. Sometimes it is comical to watch.

The beauty of the arrangement is that we OWN a portion of a cow. We do not have to house or graze the cow on our property, but we do have to maintain the cow, or at least pay for the upkeep on a community property. In return we get the proceeds of the cow(or our portion) in the form of milk. Rich, creamy, good tasting milk the way it is supposed to be, fresh from the farm and full of all the probiotics necessary for good health.

The family that looks after and administers the herd for all of us cowshare owners also has chickens and will supply us with fresh eggs on a weekly basis. These eggs are larger, fresher and tastier than can be bought in the supermarket for just about the same price. We would be crazy not to avail ourselves of this treasure trove of locavore cuisine.

Lexington has a growing variety of locally owned organic farms producing a multitude of healthy food choices. The make up the bulk of the Farmers Market sellers and they need to be supported or we may lose our sustainable agriculture that is envisioned in the 2040 report that the Mayor has so proudly put forth.

Weekend thought for a slow weekend

Mrs. Sweeper and I have been talking about what we can do in our little backyard in the way of urban gardening and we have concluded that some raised beds would do the trick. We are now preparing to construct the same as soon as we can acquire the proper materials. The other night, while she was perusing a seed catalog, I ran across this new twist on Urban Farming. It has some really different ideas.

There is also a movement around the country for keeping chickens in the back yards in urban areas. Vancouver, Canada is now considering allowing the practice while New York, Seattle and Portland among others apparently never outlawed it. I can just see how the idea would play out in Lexington. Could we again see live chickens being sold at the Farmers Market? Could you take them home if you went to the market on the bus?

This would be a large step toward re-localization of agriculture.

A preview of the plans for the East End were released to the newspaper and the whole plan will be unveiled tomorrow night. That means that the easy work is done. Now the hard part, getting the implementation work started with little or no stimulus money.

Stimulus Watch shows that the $250,000 wish list entry has 80% of 35 votes saying that it is not a critical project. The Lyric Theater and the Issac Murphy garden are on the list and both are garnering a lot of negative votes. (The Lyric will proceed due to a previous government commitment). The Issac Murphy garden is supposed to be a Legacy project for the World Equestrian Games, so they had better start on that soon. I have also heard that there is some question about legal ownership of the property.

There is the $2 million Race Street Shotgun House Redevelopment project that does not have a description and the @250,000 renovation of the Charles Young Center, both of which are gaining negative votes. The only other project on the list is a rebuild of the signalized intersection for $200,000 and it has 2 positive votes.

The consultant has said that the people have spoken, but these are not wealthy folk in a time of recession so there will be a lot of hard work ahead of them.

Destination 2040: Part 5

Picking up on the discussion of the Destination 2040 report, today I will look at Aspect 3 Economic Expansion. They describe Lexington as a fertile field of opportunity, where taking advantage of key strengths and exploring creative new endeavors will benefit all its people. That has long been the case but what they do not mention, or see the prospect of, is that it does not benefit all people equally. By simply reading the statement, one could imply that all will benefit equally, but that has NEVER been the case.

The community elements of Economic Expansion are:

New or Existing Business Expansion
Stable Employment / Adequate Wages
Agricultural Industry
Workforce Training and Education
Stabilization of Government Revenues
Regional Cooperation
Institutes of Higher Education as Economic Engines
Business Recruitment Strategies/Methods
Entrepreneurship and Innovative Partnerships/Programs
Generation of New Markets or Products

In this aspect, the ranking do not show any great need for any one to be ahead of any other as the all may be equally valid. I do question the first one, as to whether It should better read Existing and New Business Expansion, but that is just quibbling details.

This time the report re-arranges the order of the elements and starts with number 2 Stable Employment/Adequate Wages.

To further enhance business, government, and non-profit job expansion efforts toward both high wage skills-based workplaces and high-income knowledge based workplaces… sounds like an admirable goal, but that should hardly be first in a long line of actions. This action will, in the long run, increase the revenue collected by the local government, but we need to enhance the abilities and wages of the lower classes first. When we ensure a living wage for the common workman AND ensure that the so called “high-wage “ positions are not in the realm of the “New York financiers” that we have heard of lately, then we can gain more opportunity for both ends of the economic scale. The worker training opportunities are(or will be) there, what is not there is the ability to attend, due to pressing needs to provide for a family. Assure a living wage and reduce the economic pressure and people will advance themselves.

We do have an active cultural arts scene. It may not be as active as Danville/Centre College’s Norton Center for the Arts, but there is a cultural scene going on. We have two fine university concert halls, one publicly owned venue and a number of smaller sites. There is no reason why Lexington should not have concerts and shows of the caliber of those presented almost weekly in Danville It is curious the both universities are left out of the list of initiators for this action. There is a nice arena for other concerts and events in our Rupp Arena, the unfortunate reality is that what plays well there is not considered cultural enough for the upper echelons of cultural society. Country music concerts and monster truck shows are all cultural events.

The action to create permanent school based personnel to facilitate job placement come too close to a Big Brother society for my tastes. We already have school counselors which cannot seem to correctly assess the real problem students in order to provide real help, otherwise we would currently be reaching the intent of this goal.

Community element 1 Existing and New Business Expansion has seven action statements with such broad reaching, generalized meanings that each and every one of them could be working a cross purposes with any of the others. Mostly, what I get out of them is a sense of doing here the same that has been done elsewhere and had brought this country to the brink of financial collapse. Our need is to return to the basics and let the people do what they have done before the global economics got in the way.

Element 3 is our treasured Agricultural Industry and by that we mean the equine industry( plus some of those food farmers) since we have lost the tobacco market as a major money mover. The actions all have something to do with our “signature” industry and have nothing to do with our sustainable agriculture that was predicted in the opening section of the report. The industry of thoroughbred horses will not feed the families of the high-paid high-tech workers that we apparently will have, nor will it support the well paid health care workers and scientists housed within Lexington’s boundaries. What is needed will be acres upon acres of re-localized, truly sustainable food production, supplemented by greenhouses of non-local species plants. Even agriponics is not out of the question.

Once again, in Element 4 the action statements do not follow the form of the element heading. Workforce Training & Education actions are all about education and very little about training the real workforce. If the past 30 years is any evidence, then one would realize that the real workforce is not the highly educated, but those that do the bidding of the educated elite.

The first action of setting and reaching a top tier in U.S. education still puts us somewhere near 16th or 17th globally, which is a far cry from the top. The second action desires a nebulous number of “free scholarships”to local schools of questionable reputation which is like getting free gas without asking about quality. Action three tells me that if we throw enough money at education, then we will have the highest paid teachers graduating the same quality of students as we are presently. Fifteen years to raise the standards but five years to over pay the teachers. The last three actions will continue to display efforts that have done "sooo well" in the past.

I , myself see very little coming from these actions that is not already being done.

Next time I will tackle one of my favorite topics the Cultural Creativity of our creative class

"Peak oil"--- when will we plan for it?

I have posted before on the subject of "peak oil" and the lack of attention that this city has paid the matter. Now, in my in box was the latest newsletter from Post Carbon Cities and the entry for how, in the past year, a growing number of communities have instituted planning for the possibility(probability) of a declining source of petroleum products. This coming situation is not even on the Lexington radar. I keep seeing short mentions in the local press and more on the forums and chat rooms that I have occasioned. There is no lack of access to the information on "peak oil", relocaliziation, sustainable farming or a myriad of similar topics. The only place where it is not discussed is in the public meetings of the city fathers.

Lexington has a growing number of farmers markets and and increasing system of "organic" and "sustainable farming" growers. The PDR program head keep touting ,that the family farm is the "factory floor" of our agri-business or the hoped for agri-tourism. (Has anyone thought of how tourism will still be possible after peak oil?) The city has pushed for walkable and bikeable communities, yet still approves subdivisions without real connectivity, thereby limiting the real ability to provide sustainable communities.

These are just two of the shortcomings of the city leadership. Some others in the city have also seen a lack of leadership and have blogged about it, only they see a failure in another direction. One of these is Transforming Lexington run by Eric Patrick Marr. He seems to want the City Council to make us more like the cities that continue to deny that "peak oil" will occur. Those are the cities more concerned about image than real progress. Those who believe that a Disney-esque circulator trolley is better than a fixed guideway streetcar or tram system.

Eric and I have traded some comments and he says that, in principle, he can agree with statements I have made on his posts, yet he still confuses the "flash of bling" with the real bang of sustainable progress. I don't see applauding the current council for the continued scatter shot approach to finding solutions. Some of the attempted projects counteract others to the point that progress on both is so difficult, as to appear ineffective, and one then the other is discarded for a new "wonder project".

I also don't care for the individual grandstanding of council members, showing that they have the leadership qualities to move the city ahead. This starts to pit member against member or faction against faction, and makes for some strange alliances just to get their pet projects on the table(which may get unfunded by the next election). A number of these projects spend more funds than they bring in in the long run.

I would call for the city to go back to the original charter, reinstall the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), have the Council set policy and guide the direction of Lexington. In other words , have the "part-time" legislators allow the "full-time" administrators run the day to day efforts of the city. To borrow the analogy from Eric, have the Council steer the vehicle and the department heads apply the gas and brakes as necessary.

The Fayette Alliance and Agri-business

I really wanted to keep politics out of my blog but I just can't help it this time. Within the last week I received an informational mailing from the Fayette Alliance with the answers of the Council candidates to a survey of their positions. A copy of the flyer can be read here.

Now, I like a candidate who will tell me just what he/she will do. I know that they won't or can't follow through on it, but I like to hear it. I also know that groups like the Fayette Alliance can craft their surveys to elicit responses that are positive for their own agendas. Its the way that the questions are worded that you just can't say no to it.

I was particularly intrigued by Cheryl Feigel's response to question #4. Her claim that Lexington's farm receipts should equal the Napa valley's is quite a boast. According to a report titled ECONOMIC IMPACT OF WINE AND VINEYARDS IN NAPA COUNTY the Napa valley received from the wine industry alone $836 million in taxes. Lexington, in the same year had a total farm cash receipt figure of $354 million. Furthermore, there were horse sales in Fayette County totaling $650 million and $0 taxes paid to the State or the County. When we add in the tourism tax dollars ($14,650,000) it appears to me that we come up a little short.

Then there is the second part of her thought, the justification of a Commissioner position for agriculture. Lexington started the current fiscal year with a projected shortfall of $25 million. Since then we found about $12-13 million in a "rainy day fund", but now the whole economy thing has caught up with us. I don't see how we can propose to expand local government at this time, especially when the current administration is working to reduce the existing workforce. A new commissioner position would easily incur a six figure salary. But my major question is (even if we could afford it) which of the current divisions/offices would come under this new commissioner's authority? PDR office is the the first to come to mind. A three person office, at the most, and I believe only one of those is full time. Maybe the office of Urban Forester but I really doubt that. Anybody have any ideas on this one?

Her opponent, Edward Norton III, does not strike me as the one to vote for either. The few times that I have seen him campaigning I hear buzz words and slogans and witty quips of nostalgia about Ashland Park, but no real ideas for solving the current problems of the 5th district. I don't think that either candidate has a grasp of the underlying severe problems that plague or will plague this city.

Lastly, I find fault with the Fayette Alliance, a well funded organization striving to be paid to not do what the Comprehensive Plan says that they aren't allowed to do in the first place. Their survey questions are worded cleverly to make it hard to disagree with all that we are (so they say) indebted to as a city.

I find it hard to call a winner in this election and feel the the 5th district and Lexington, as a whole, will be the loser. OK, thats all for politics, until... maybe next year.