42,238,000 - That's the Number of Food Insecure People in America

42,238,000 or 42.238 million. That's a lot of people. Out of a total population of 326,474,013, it represents approximately 13% of all Americans. Thirteen percent who are food insecure. What does it mean to be food insecure?

Here is how Feeding America, the largest non-profit organization devoted to providing domestic hunger relief through its network of over 200 food banks that serve 42 million Americans, defines food insecurity.

Food insecurity refers to USDA’s measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food-insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods

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Of that number, only 43 percent, or roughly 18 million people, have access to government food programs such as SNAP. The rest, some 25 million people, must depend on food banks, churches and other charitable organizations to feed their families when faced with a choice to pay the rent, pay for health care or pay for food. On average, people who are food insecure. And get this: the majority of people who lack access to government food assistance live in rural counties. I don't suppose that it will come as a big surprise that the highest concentration of food insecure people live in southern states.

Here are some of the other key findings of the report issued by Feeding America, called "Map the Meal Gap," on May 4, 2017:

Other key findings of Map the Meal Gap 2017 are:

Food insecurity exists in every county in the nation, from a high of 38 percent in Jefferson County, Mississippi, to a low of 3 percent in Grant County, Kansas.

  • Children are at greater risk of hunger than the general population. Across all counties, 21 percent are food insecure, compared to 14 percent among the general population.
  • In 76 counties, a majority of food-insecure individuals are likely ineligible for most federal nutrition programs, such as the Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and free and reduced-priced school lunch programs, underscoring the importance of not only the charitable food assistance sector, but also a strong and effective safety net of public nutrition assistance programs. According to 2015 data from the USDA, 26 percent of food-insecure people likely do not qualify for such federal assistance.
  • An estimated 89 percent of counties with the highest rates of food insecurity — those that rank in the top 10 percent of all counties — are in the Southern United States.
  • 76 percent of counties in the top 10 percent of food insecure counties are rural. Predominantly rural counties have higher rates of food insecurity than predominately urban counties.

Both the Democrats and Republicans have abandoned these folks. Indeed, in many rural communities, most of which are deeply red, Democrats do not even bother to run candidates against incumbent Republicans. Even in poor urban communities, Democrats have failed their constituents, or at least the people who vote for them. In the starkest of terms, as a collective entity, the Democratic Party simply doesn't care. One more thing they share with the GOP.

Indeed, following Obama's eight years in office, a food insecure person in 2017 now faces, "on average, a food budget shortfall of $527.19 per person per year." That's an increase, after adjusting for inflation of 13 percent since 2009. In other words their food costs went up while their incomes remained the same or fell. Meanwhile the rich, who are never food insecure, did very well under Obama.

Between 2009 and 2012, according to updated data from Emmanuel Saez, overall income per family grew 6.9 percent. The gains weren’t shared evenly, however. The top 1 percent saw their real income grow by 34.7 percent while the bottom 99 percent only saw a 0.8 percent gain, meaning that the 1 percent captured 91 percent of all real income.

... According to Justin Wolfers, adjusted average income for the 1 percent without capital gains rose from $871,100 to $968,000 in that time period. For everyone else, average income actually fell from $44,000 to $43,900. Calculated this way, the 1 percent has captured all of the income gains.

This pattern of wealth inequality continued through 2015 (the last year we have good numbers) with the top 10 percent share of income increasing at rates in the double digits

The share of income going to the top 10 percent of income earners—those making on average about $300,000 a year—increased to 50.5 percent in 2015 from 50.0 percent in 2014, the highest ever except for 2012. The share of income going to the top 1 percent of families—those earning on average about $1.4 million a year—increased to 22.0 percent in 2015 from 21.4 percent in 2014.

America, the "richest country in the world" ranks near the bottom among developed countries with respect to food insecurity. We are barely better than Mexico, Turkey, Hungary, Chile and Estonia. Greece beats us, and Poland, Spain, Italy and Slovenia - all countries in far greater financial trouble than the United Sates. This failure to feed all our people, when Wall Street is swimming in profits, is one more reason why the Democrats lost the presidency to a clown named Trump, why they lost Congress, and why they keep losing governorships and state houses.

Yet, the Democrats still refuse to get behind a $15 minimum wage or support single payer health care for all, or get behind any other policy that would benefit the lower classes at the expense of their "friends" (i.e., code for well-heeled donors). Other than the deeply flawed ACA, Democrats did next to nothing to significantly improve the lives of the poor and working class. They did do everything possible to help out the big banks and Wall Street firms, however.

So, why would someone barely getting by, literally struggling to feed their family, consider the possibility that voting for the "D" team would make any difference in their lives? The Democrats have either insulted them, demeaned them, alienated them or ignored them. Why? For money. Think about that. The sheer level of venality and dishonesty and greed required to sell out your base time after time, and continuously lie about it each election cycle for at least the last two decades. To allow children to go without healthy food and suffer the consequences of malnutrition. To allow people to suffer such horrific mental and physical anguish, and even die, so their corporate overlords can get the laws they want passed without any opposition from the so-called progressive, grass roots party.

Those who defend the Democrats, who say "policy doesn't matter," (Trigger Warning: TOP link), who promote bashing Trump and promote the tactics of lesser-evilism as the way to win elections, are either (a) Delusional, (b) in Denial, (c) Evil Grifters, (d) Malevolent Sociopaths or - my choice - (e) All of the Above.

Trump lies openly, and most of the Republicans have never expressed much empathy for the poor. But far worse are people who pretend to be your friends, tell you they are care about you, that they "feel your pain," talk about hope and faith and solidarity and the American Dream, ad nauseam. Yet, when out of your sight, shielded by the invisibility cloak our corporate media provides, they stab you in the back time after time after time. That my friends, is today's Democratic Party. No wonder Bernie Sanders doesn't want to call himself one.

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they bitch about what they buy, and they make them dance for their supper. If you've ever applied for or received aid, you would know exactly what that means. I had the displeasure of operating TANF grants through my center. I hated the program.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

detroitmechworks's picture

@dkmich This last week was a doozy for me. Had to run down tot the DHS office 3 times to straighten out the paperwork. The last time in a wheelchair.

Did my shopping last night. Came out to about 180 bucks, and that's about 2/3rds of what I get. Of course I shop Winco, because Costco doesn't take Food stamps, even though I'd vastly prefer Costco, when I can afford to go there. (Bulk is easier when you're a parent. Kids tend to like one meal for a long period, at least mine do. As a result, it's easier to go there for the huge staples.)

Saddest part is that the stores that don't take food stamps, DON'T have lottery right there at the counter. The Government knows who to soak.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Granma's picture

@detroitmechworks Costco stores do accept food stamps. They started accepting them in 2009. And it is all of their stores, but not the food court.

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PriceRip's picture

@dkmich @dkmich

[redacted]

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Raggedy Ann's picture

to my community. Our university is not giving raises but our health care premium is increasing. I wrote a letter to our university rag and also submitted it to our local rag (it was published in both) how they can fire a basketball coach and pay a golden parachute of $1.3m yet watch employees experience a decrease in pay due to increased health care costs. I asked how they can live with themselves knowing there will be those that will not meet rent and end up homeless or those that suffer from food insecurity won't have enough to eat.

I have not yet received an answer, however, in their defense, our illustrious governor defunded all state universities because she is angry with the legislature for not holding hearings to confirm her Regent picks. Playing politics with the lives of ~40,000 state university workers seems to be an okay method to get your way.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Rural and southern to me means acess to land to grow food. Collard greens would grow year round in the south. Maybe that's why they're so popular down there. Since these 42 million are food insecure and I'm assuming are involuntarily on a low-caloric diet, I'd love to know what their rate of Type 2 diabetes is in comparison to the rest of the population. As long as their bodies aren't using their own organs for fuel (starving) they possibly could be the healthiest, metabolically speaking, Americans living today.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated @the_poorly_educated

[redacted]

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@the_poorly_educated
but just because you're rural doesn't mean you own land, or have access to the equipment needed for planting a substantial garden, whether you own or rent whatever land your home sits on.

And of course, gardening is hard work, when it isn't your hobby. Years ago, a classic Doonesbury cartoon had Jane Fonda mystified by her housekeeper's exhaustion. Fonda run through a list of her various businesses and activities, to which the housekeeper replies something to the effect of, "Ms. Fonda, you work because you want to, and I work because I have to, and there's a world of difference ..."

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

gulfgal98's picture

@the_poorly_educated and very stereotypical of southerners. You are showing your ignorance or arrogance in these posts.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Deja's picture

@the_poorly_educated If I had the equipment, like a tiller for one, and the time (I commute about 2.5 hrs per day), and an area that's not baked in the intense sub-tropical heat, I could grow some collard greens. Then all I'd have to do is find me some fried chicken and watermelon. Shaking my damn head.

On a serious note, we have a small grocery store. It has a very limited supply of seriously overpriced, wilted, sad veggies and your basic apples and oranges. It also has a small selection of meat, if you're into that, though it's no longer fresh, as they removed the butcher department.

The next closest grocery store or Wal-Mart is 20 miles away. I can get organic yard eggs about 15 miles in another direction. The fields between here and both places grow feed corn, milo, and hay to feed the animals that are shipped away to feed other people.

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@Deja They are a SUPER vegatable. Grows all year while the temps are above freezing and can handle freezing at night while above freezing during the day

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

Deja's picture

@the_poorly_educated It was at or slightly below freezing for less than 48 hrs total here this past winter. I'm thinking even collards couldn't withstand the the direct sunlight on the south side of my house or the marshy swamp like soil to the north - it's actually a drainage area, so planting there is futile.

I saw your comment below about how I've obviously never had a garden if I think I need a tiller. Actually I have, and unless we've had regular rain, even a back hoe has a hard time getting through the sun baked earth and the extensive tree root systems. It can, technically, be done by hand, but it ain't gonna be done by me.

I had a beautiful basil plant in a container until the fire ants killed her. And, only one window gets sunlight inside, that's not in my kid's room. Now that my dog has passed, I might consider growing some things in front of her old sentry spot.

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@Deja

I've filled 5 gallon buckets with dirt from the woods and am growing stuff right now.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

@the_poorly_educated I am a farmer in rural NY. Scattered among our small farms are tiny communities, many consisting substantially of small trailer parks, many if not most having no grocery store. Wipe out that happy peasant cheerfully tending a garden bursting with fruits and veggies fantasy. There are many elderly people here living on social security, seniors whose children have long since moved away.People here are severely stressed economically, and don't have the space,time, money or physical ability to have a garden. The church food kitchens are badly needed. The good news is that those who do grow produce donate generously to the food kitchens, and everyone tries to take care of their neighbors.

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mimi's picture

@GusBecause @GusBecause
To be honest I got scared and quite saddened seeing the poverty among the isolated residents in trailer parks especially. I know to say that as a foreigner is quite insulting to most Americans, but I really like to understand why, from how I see it, there are no villages in rural areas of the US.

It is different from what I saw driving through German county sides and Italian ones, North Italy and southern ones. I try to figure out why rural areas in the US are so different from rural areas in Europe, but I can not understand what it is. It looks like there are no villages in rural communities. If people own land and are farmers, it seems they have to have lots of land and they cultivate just one or two different crops to sell for money. The residents can't have that much land and own it. Who buys out the land? There is so much land in the US.

I remember I tried to express my feelings that the US country sides scare me to my first American friends from Oregon I met in Italy in the eighties. They couldn't understand why I felt that way.
Basically I do believe that you can learn to self-sustain yourself for the most part food-wise in rural areas in Germany and Italy and France and achieve at least basic food security, no matter how poor the peasants were, but I doubt it can be done in US rural areas.

The question is how did this develop that way? Is it because first immigrants arrived with absolutely nothing to handle the land they made homestead in? Is it the specific and unique history how everyone, aside from native Americans, arrived in the US? I tried to explain it this way to myself. If you cross over the Atlantic or Pacific, leaving everything behind your own ancestors had developed or taught you, it's just a different starting point. I see just traumatized desperate folks leaving their ships and being thrown into situations no other residents in European countries ever faced or experienced. They could build on what there was before through their ancestors, no matter how poor they might have been, and how lacking their rights and ownership of land might have been. There were at least communities, separated by class and rights nonetheless.

In the US the immigrants couldn't build on anything that was there before, it was all wilderness, no community or social structures to start and build upon and nothing known about their environment, climate and soils etc. And I believe that those traumatic experiences are inherited by their kids and grand kids through generations. Of course Americans can teach you a lot about how to "make it work" with "what you have", way more so than Europeans would have to teach their kids. But I believe it always had been and still is a traumatic experience.

That's where my confusion comes from. and I should add that this specific attitude of Americans to believe that "we can do it" and then actually work on it, is one of the things I most respect about Americans, while at the same time I feel shocked and in pity with empathy for those who suffer under the cruelty within your own socially dysfunctional system of self-governance.

Now I start thinking how I would slaughter my goats and chickens and rabbits if I had them in my backyard and ... see myself saying "mimi, what were you thinking?" My German literature teacher in German high school said to us: "yeah, yeah, thinking is hard, it makes your brain heat up, then emits smoke that fogs your mind and finally fries everything." At least that made us laugh, when we couldn't figure out something as important as how to survive. May be I should try to specialize in smoked bacon and smoked fish cultivation... Smile

Peace.

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DunDealgan's picture

@mimi : The original colonists in America came from 4 distinct areas, backgrounds and religions in Great Britain which dictated their use of the land that they encountered. Below are links to two books which can explain it better than I. The first is more cultural with more information on Great Britain and the second expands the areas to 11 and is more political.

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America

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"People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases."

mimi's picture

@DunDealgan @DunDealgan
hope to find the books used and hopefully not through Amazon. Wink

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mimi's picture

@DunDealgan
and think they are very well worth studying. I always regretted that I was not able to make a comparison analysis of the German electoral system to the US one, not enough skills for that and no time. Ha, may be I will dig into it one day. It's all statistics and statistics are the best kabuki theater to throw shadows on what otherwise would be self-evident on first sight. Smile

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive. George Bernard Shaw

I think once in a while one should republish such diaries. Thanks for writing them.

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Creosote.'s picture

@mimi
relates to the time of settlement, as well as to the introduction of the car. In Europe, the distance between many villages was about 20 miles, a distance set by how far a horse could move a wagon in a day. Early midwest settlers from Europe before the car found themselves facing almost unbearable isolation. When cars entered the equation a massive disconnection between people and the need to care for animals also took place. Cars made some things more accessible, but also made it possible to turn your back on caring for animals and the village and move away.
Today most agricultural land is owned by Big Agriculture interests, who in addition to promoting GMO seed and the poisons needed to grow crops, can make deals to transport seed and products that traditional farmers can't match. The railroads from the 1840s on added to all this. The country turned its back on small functional villages and cities.
Throughout, the lure of the modern, the city, of fashion, entertainment, and so-called sophistication -- the contempt for stability, resourcefulness, thought and learning.
My grandfather in Nebraska, farming with mules till the 1940s, would go through his fields, look for birds' nests, and move them to the grass as the edge during cultivation or harvest. Who would do so today?

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mimi's picture

people who own land in rural areas would be able to feed themselves from the plants they grow and animals they could raise on that land.

So, isn't there then another reason for why in rural areas the "food insecurity" (I don't like that expression, why not say "hunger syndrome") is more prevalent than in others?

During wwII you were lucky to be a peasant or small land owning farmer, because you could feed yourself and often help the passing refugees to get enough to eat. Women, children and elderlies were evacuated out of cities to rural areas, because they thought you could get food and shelter easier in rural areas.

What is the reason for the "rural hunger syndrome"? People don't own their hand anymore?

I guess so.

Didn't the CEO of Oracle buy the land of a small island in HI?

On June 21, 2012, Hawaii's governor, Neil Abercrombie, declared that Larry Ellison had signed an agreement to buy most of the island of Lanai from the Castle & Cooke company, owned by David H. Murdock. Ellison owns 98% of Lanai.

O well, may be you have fun to read about the history of Lanai. Whatever it was, I think one thing was certain, the few native Hawaiians who may have lived on Lanai didn't have a "rural hunger syndrome", but they got caught in the net of Mormon and Christian missionaries" or were bought by corporate oligarchs.

When Ellison bought 97% of the island in 2012, he took over pretty much everything. That includes small, local businesses — restaurants, shops, galleries, and markets — and large businesses like the two Four Seasons hotels on the island. He owns two golf courses, the community swimming pool, the water company, and a cemetery. He also owns nearly a third of all of the island's housing. The rest is owned by the government....
...Ellison reportedly bought out fellow tech billionaire Bill Gates.
Ellison isn't the only tech billionaire to have an interest in the island. Bill and Melinda Gates got married here on New Year's Day in 1994, reportedly during a ceremony that took place on the 17th hole of the Four Seasons' golf course, which looks out over the Pacific Ocean. The ceremony was so secretive that the couple booked all of the rooms at the hotel to keep reporters from coming. Gates had reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Lanai before Ellison snatched it up.

Romantic stuff, isn't it ... if you are a billionaire that is.

I think what is correct for Lanai is similarly correct for all rural areas of other HI islands. The ananas from Dole you buy at Cosco in Maui is way cheaper than your own produce you cultivate in your garden. Who has the money to have land in HI? A house on this little island costs around $ 400,000.00. Who of the local working native population of 3,200 people earns enough money to buy a piece of land and a house on their own island?. Forgettaboutit.

So, what's the reason for rural poverty? Natives don't own their land or it has never been measured and titled before it got "sold" by corrupt politicians to corporate oligarchs from overseas. See also The Mystery of Capital.

It's beyond my paygrade, but I get the basics. "Hunger Syndrome" is a politically induced sickness and wouldn't occur naturally just because you live in a rural area.

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PriceRip's picture

@mimi @mimi

[redacted]

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mimi's picture

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PriceRip's picture

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mimi's picture

@PriceRip
sounds to me as a non native English speaker a little strange, as does "water boarding". If I had to explain the meaning of 'water boarding' or 'food insecurity' to a person, who doesn't understand English, I would need to use clearer words.

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PriceRip's picture

@mimi

          I grew up, Food Insecure, in the 1950s and 60s. "Food Insecure" was never, to my knowledge, a bureaucratic euphemism. The term most accurately describes my experience for the first twenty years of my life.

          My major professor at EOSC asked me to help him with a home improvement project. I, in fact helped him with that project, but it became obvious within a short span of time that his real motive was his concern for my well-being. He was worried that I was starving and wanted to make sure I had a decent meal that day. I suppose all those years of food insecurity somehow affected me in a way that made it obvious to him that I was at risk.

          As crazy as it sounds this is a problem in everywhere from large cities (like Portland Oregon) to the tiniest isolated towns in the middle of farm country. It is not just about being hungry, that's a part of it for sure, but the real killer of the soul is the anxiety of not being able to see how to improve your lot in life.

          I have encountered plenty of people that are hungry and I have helped them. But those that are also food insecure are profoundly different. There exists a desperation that my college professor must have been able to see in me many years ago.

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@PriceRip

Was going to fast to the death in defense of family honor. Then he missed a meal for the first time in his life. Carlos didn't like that.

So much for his "honor". Funny how he always thought it was ok for other people to go hungry.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/04/world/mexican-ex-president-starts-and-...

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PriceRip's picture

@irishking

          I did read the linked article and I must say "sad" and maybe "wow, how so very shallow".

          Thanks, for the link.

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mimi's picture

@PriceRip @PriceRip
I did understand your comments that are now redacted, but was embarrassed that my answer had touched and upset you. If you read my comment to dance the monster and gulfgal, it may help you to understand how I came to my opinion too. I also admit that the picture of rural poverty in an African village not equating to food insecurity may be a bit too rosy. At least I know that as soon village folks left their villages, the kids could get very food insecure in the cities among their own families. Some of my in-laws felt a lot of food insecurity as kids, just not in their own villages, only when their parents left for the cities in search for better schooling and work. Their 'jobs' never paid enough to secure enough food, means of transportation and sometimes adequate shelter for the kids to feel safe.
So, I kind of get it. Smile
Peace.

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@mimi Maybe that is why the rural southern areas are the most food insecure. The gov't don't have anyway to measure their own output but since they're not showing up to the grocery store to buy food the stats say they're food insecure. They may be eating better than most of us. Who knows.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated @the_poorly_educated

[redacted]

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SparkyGump's picture

@the_poorly_educated

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

@SparkyGump @SparkyGump BTW, anyone who thinks they need a rotor tiller to plant a garden has never planted a garden. 40% of all produce was produced in backyards before WW2.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

@the_poorly_educated
economic value? calories? weight? and define "produce". are you including tree fruits like peaches? grapes?

i don't know where that statistic comes from, but i do know that about 25% of Americans still lived on farms "before WWII". if the other 75% -- including millions who lived in tenement housing in the cities -- were producing 40% of the nation's grapes, cherries, apples, pears, peaches, lettuce, onions, potatoes, i'll eat my own shirt. rather, my guess is that a big chunk of that "40% grown in backyard gardens" includes a significant amount that was grown in the backyard gardens of farm families -- people living on decent land, and possessing the skills, equipment, and knowledge to get the job done.

and even in the context of the suburban population, you had something that most families today do not: a stay-at-home adult who could spend one to two hours per day during the summers tending that garden.

and i'll guarantee you something else: even people who lived on farms and grew their own gardens often had less to eat than you might think. they had to concentrate their efforts on growing the crops that would pay their mortgages. remember that ireland was still exporting food throughout most of the famine years. (modern apologists have attempted to argue that the exported food wouldn't have helped much. for example, they've argued that the exported food was animal feed, and that it was being exchanged for human food. such apologies require a peculiar understanding of what human beings can successfully eat when the alternative is starvation.)

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

enhydra lutris's picture

@the_poorly_educated
Serpentine. So, you take your negligible money and buy a plastic bucket and potting soil and seeds or starter plants and plant, tend and water collards in your infinite spare time after commuting to and from your job and working at your job and keeping the house shipshape etc. and you live on that bucket of collards? Nah.

BTW, I have gardened and have one now that won't feed us, but helps a bit. A few more yers, however, and it'll be too much.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

PriceRip's picture

@enhydra lutris

          Fortunately very few of my students were as disadvantaged as @the_poorly_educated with respect to analytical skills. I suspect that in real life (as opposed to this environment) he could actually be "teachable". Online behavior suffers from the lack of interpersonal interactivity. This lack of connecting allows one to grossly "misunderstand" while pretending to communicate. In real life this sort of behavior (usually) can be corrected. I say that with a certain amount of trepidation because I once had an upperclass student very like @the_poorly_educated , I will refer to him as ABA.

          ABA was much like @the_poorly_educated appearing to be reasonably well educated and having a rather pleasant demeanor. Everything seemed to be normal as the class went through the usual routine: taking notes, asking and responding to questions, engaging in dialogue, studying for and taking examinations, and working out homework assignments. Screech, grind to a halt !!!

          My routine during the first few weeks involved assigning homework exercises selected from the end of chapter problems. One fateful day I explained to the class that the equations on page XYZ could (using basic techniques) be inverted. I explained that doing this mathematical process as an exercise would provide them valuable insight into the physics defined by those equations. Unfortunately, ABA did not accept my notion of good teaching technique.

          ABA was quite adamant (and animated) as he explained that I should be showing the class how to do this particular mathematical process. He insisted that I was a poor teacher if I expected students to "figure it out" on their own.

          During this entire episode it never occurred to me that all of the end of chapter exercises could be found, with completed solutions, on line. Sigh.

          ABA tried, to no avail, to cultivate classroom allies for his position. After failing to gain sympathy from other classmates or any of the departmental faculty, ABA went to the dean. The dean actually launched an inquiry. That development made ABA very happy, and he was quite smug throughout the rest of the semester and beyond.

          After the end of the semester and the deans decision was about to be released, I, metaphorically, ripped him a new one, as I explained why he had no business interfering with the situation as it stood at that time.

          The fact is ABA received a passing grade. The sad reality is that standards were so very lax that he obtained employment teaching physics to impressionable young people. Sigh, but such is the way of the world.

          I find people like @the_poorly_educated to be rather insufferable in part because they remind me of the real-world versions of themselves. So I endeavor (but often fail) to ignore them, as some can be so very persistent.

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@PriceRip

If that rant ain't the biggest case of psychological projection I've ever seen.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

enhydra lutris's picture

@the_poorly_educated
Serpentine. So, you take your negligible money and buy a plastic bucket and potting soil and seeds or starter plants and plant, tend and water collards in your infinite spare time after commuting to and from your job and working at your job and keeping the house shipshape etc. and you live on that bucket of collards? Nah.

BTW, I have gardened and have one now that won't feed us, but helps a bit. A few more years, however, and it'll be too much.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

gulfgal98's picture

@the_poorly_educated @the_poorly_educated @the_poorly_educated The big problem in many rural southern areas is also access to quality food. Living in a rural area often means being transportation disadvantaged which limits the ability to shop at a grocery store or to take advantage of local farmers' markets.

I live in a small, mostly rural southern county and I am seeing a number of stereotypes in your comments that offend me as a southerner. Being rural does not necessarily mean living in an area in which land is easily aerable. Growing your own food also means having the time to work the soil and tend a garden. Many elderly people are food insecure. Our local food bank serves over 1/5 of the total population in this county and yet our poverty rate is slightly below the national average and several percentage points below the state average. Most of the families they serve have at least one member who is working. Food banks are often that only thing that prevents people from going hungry for portions of the month or year.

The real problem is that wages have been suppressed for decades while prices for everything continue to rise. In addition, much of the economy is no longer dedicated to full time jobs with benefits, but is what gjohnsit has written about as a "gig economy." The cost of housing (which is becoming more and more often rental) has risen far faster than incomes with rental costs becoming unaffordable for lower income people. There is no state in the US in which a person earning less than $13 an hour full time can afford to rent an apt in the lower 40% of rental rates.

I am getting sick of seeing the blame being placed upon individuals who are struggling to make ends meet when the system itself is what is holding down the vast majority of those trying to work and support their families. No person in the richest country the world has ever seen should be forced to worry about food, clean water, health care, or a safe place to live.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

featheredsprite's picture

@mimi There's a lot of land in the South [and other places] where the land is worthless. It won't grow much of anything. The fertile land has been bought up by folks with the wherewithal to do so. The poor people are pushed off of these areas.

You can rejuvenate land, of course, but that takes time and money. If you're already insecure, you probably don't have either.

Have you heard of a program that helps poor people reclaim land? I haven't.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

dance you monster's picture

@mimi

It's a discipline that seeks general truths at the expense of particular truths.

I grew up in the rural South, the edge of Appalachia, with neighbors and classmates who were poor and food-insecure. There were times when my family was poor and food-insecure.

Every one of us grew food to supplement what we could afford at the grocery. If you have very little income, you can't afford the grocery at all. And no one anywhere on any piece of land can grow all the food groups that make up the diet we're told we should have. Certainly no small family can do more than a couple of food groups if they are very skilled and very lucky.

The poor have the poor land, as someone else noted above. That means no pasturage for livestock, no fields for grain. All that better acreage belongs to the (comparatively or really) wealthy. You will be lucky to carve out a small kitchen garden to supplement your intake. If you have time -- because you are probably working like crazy for someone else just to pay rent or utilities or auto installments or insurance. You may not have time to garden. You may also be a child, unversed and unable to do the heavier tasks of gardening. Or you may be elderly, or disabled, or otherwise un-functional. The statistics don't distinguish these details.

The poor do not go hungry out of choice; they go hungry because they have little or no means to feed themselves, and that story comes in countless variations that the statistics ignore. It's very easy for the comfortable to ask why the poor don't do better for themselves. It's a very different thing to be poor and try to figure out how, in our society's configuration of resources, a poor person is supposed to be able to do better for himself/herself. These individuals, and they are individuals, not percentages, want better for themselves and their families, strive for better as long as any hope lingers somewhere inside them, but cannot achieve it because they are poor for a reason: the society made them that way in order to distribute the resources to someone else.

And one cannot compare the plight of the Appalachian poor with the circumstance of the Waldbauer in Germany in the war years.

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gulfgal98's picture

@dance you monster For saying so well what I was trying to say.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

dance you monster's picture

@dance you monster @dance you monster

. . . for those who don't know the history, . . . this is a trope in postwar Germany.

For centuries, the bourgeois townsfolk of Germany looked down upon the Waldbauern, the forest peasants, as uncouth, uneducated, stupid lumoxes, little removed from the level of the cows they milked to make the cheese that the townsfolk wanted.

During the second world war, those townsfolk had little to eat, everything was rationed, and they turned to the Waldbauern to get something more. The farm peasants embraced this opportunity that put them -- the peasants -- at an advantage for the first time in their lives. They traded eggs for earrings, hams for Oriental carpets, and they became somewhat wealthier than their lot had been since the Middle Ages. The townsfolk resented this mightily, and still do (in part because those peasants were the only people with the means to enlarge their houses after the war), to the point that it has become a trope, but they needed their eggs and hams.

As for the relevance to the rural South today, there is none. The German farmers had productive land and life-earned skills in working it. The rural poor in Appalachia are not farmers but laid-off miners and such, on poor land and with few agricultural skills. The poor in Appalachia will never, in any conceivable circumstance (barring mine tailings' becoming the national currency), have an advantage, or much of a chance to better their lot, at least as things stand now. Indeed, the lot of the rural poor is getting worse.

[edited for clarity]

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gulfgal98's picture

@dance you monster My county is in Appalachia. This area was not a mining area, but it once was an area of timber and fur trading. While there area few aerable areas within the county, much of the land is owned by well to do families. The bulk of the land in this part of Appalachia consists of very steep slopes with lots of rock or rocky soils, not suitable for growing much of anything, even if you or your family owned the land.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@dance you monster
even when they had work mining coal, they lived in appalling poverty.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

mimi's picture

@dance you monster @dance you monster @dance you monster
and thanks to others too.

I do understand your points and agree with all of them. I guess I came to my first comment with another "image" in my mind (which I also experienced in real life) and that is small village with its native people in the tropical rain forest areas of Africa. Those people were all dirt poor compared to the standards of colonialists and the political elites in their countries, but they did not have "food insecurity".

The organizational form of family and clan life made sure that people did not go hungry and were secure to harvest enough food and were able to build their own shelter. Hunger in those regions in Africa are created politically by destroying structures of land usage and land ownership of the traditional clans. Even in deserts people adapted to their climate induced harsh living conditions and did not suffer from "food insecurity". That's what I was thinking when writing the comment. Sorry for that.

The native Americans, before being killed off or chased off their land, did not starve from hunger and were able to be "food secure" and build their shelters quite effectively. Millions of people in rural areas all over the world are very poor, but are not food insecure for the mere fact that they live in rural areas.

When I lived for a short while in Northern Italy in the mountains near Bologna, I learned that the peasants cultivated grapes plants and other crops since 2000 years, sometimes in the same manner as they still do today. There was poverty, but no "food insecurity" and no hunger, nor lack of shelter.

In my mind I thought the rural poverty in the US is due to the fact that the natural grown structure of peasant life and farming was not grown out their traditions, because they occupied the land and came with no "native" culture of their own to know how to stay "food secure" on their conquered land. Not only political structures but also family structures seem to be so destructive that rural poverty means "getting hungry" like you and gulfgal described so well.

It's a bit confusing. There are no family owned small farms that can guarantee a family to stay "food secure" anymore in the US.

I guess I shot myself in the foot with my comment. But I still believe that German Peasants were brave revolutionaries ones upon the time. Of course they lost miserably, because they were not allowed to own their land and live off the fruits of their labor. I think many of their descendents therefore became immigrants in the US searching for freedom and their own land. But then, it looks like they didn't get what they were looking for on the long run. Who says life is easy...sigh ...
Smile

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@mimi
the clothes on their backs. They are the folks who make up a big chunk of that bottom 20 to 25% of the population whose net worth is effectively $0 -- or negative, even.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

PriceRip's picture

@mimi

          One does not simply plant seeds, water plants, cultivate to remove weeds, and harvest to be able to have food to eat. Certainly all of that is involved in the process, but if you just "go through the process" you may or you may not have enough to feed yourself and your family. Not all plots of land are equally suited for a given crop.

          My mother had the proper knowledge to produce an over abundance within the small space at the house where we lived. While the neighbors barely produced enough to pretend it was worth the effort, my mother produced enough to provide food to several neighbors. Most importantly, she shared her knowledge.

          Even with my mother's knowledge the garden crop would only provide food for part of the year, so yes, while the bounty lasted I feasted like a king. But for most of the year I, along with many others, faced the hell, known as Food Insecurity.

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@PriceRip Anyone waiting for the gov't to solve their problems will still be waiting when they die.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

          The input of one person cannot always produce enough results for even that one person to survive through the next cycle. The rugged isolated individual conquering the wild is a myth. For every mythic story there is a hidden connection to the larger support system. There is a reason our species went through bottleneck events/periods. This is big on that list of reasons.

          If we-all try to be individually and separately self-sufficient we will fail. Show me a successful mountain-man and I will expose his Bowie Knife.

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@PriceRip @PriceRip I'm not a big one in believing it can't be done. People can do it, they just need to believe they can. The gov't isn't going to do it for us. Experience has taught me that.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

          during those summers when we lived in a house with access to a suitable garden spot. But do remember that would provide for us until the foodstuff would run out.

          During the rest of the time it was the "abundant food" government program that kept us alive.

          You need to work the math a bit more. The "they just need to believe" term in the calculation just doesn't produce enough calories to feed very many mouths. Back when we were just starting to fill up the world we could move about hunting and gathering to fulfill our dietary needs for the few short years we live. The situation has changed.

          Individuals do not survive, villages survive which is by definition government.

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@PriceRip @PriceRip @PriceRip @PriceRip

but don't tell anyone, especially the rich. Go to your local supermarket and ask them to save you the beef fat they usually throw in the garbage. they'll give it to you for free. Take it home, cut it up or put it thru a grinder or food processor and render it down to tallow. Cook everything in it. Add it to everything. It's loaded with calories ( 9 cal/gram or twice the cals of carbs or protein) and it'll lower your triglycerides and blood sugar along with your cholesterol. I eat the shit like it's going out of style and my "numbers" have never been better and I've never felt better.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

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@PriceRip @PriceRip @PriceRip

untruths and myths, you will be as ignorant as the person who can't read. Maybe even more ignorant becasue you can't be taught anything because of your biases. Trust me, you've been lied to for your whole life. By the institution that you supposedly want to save you, the gov't.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

the institution that you supposedly want to save

          Please explain this non sequitur, or have I slipped over/through a dimensional divide?

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@PriceRip

If we-all try to be individually and separately self-sufficient we will fail. Show me a successful mountain-man and I will expose his Bowie Knife.

Actually, you'll expose the troupe of mountain-men he works with.

And the miners and smiths who made his Bowie knife.

And the other members of the mountain-man community he meets and trades with at Rendezvous, without which trades he'd starve or freeze to death within a year.

There's a word mountain-men use for one who attempts to work that trade alone:

Suicidal.

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

PriceRip's picture

@thanatokephaloides

          Don't forget the First Nation's people at the rendezvous.

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@PriceRip

I'm not trolling I'm giving you the best advise you'll ever get .

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@PriceRip

Don't forget the First Nation's people at the rendezvous.

Or those married to the mountain men! Those women were with their men all the time, sharing in the work they did. It is my understanding that mountain men usually preferred First Nation women as wives; the advantages were myriad.

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

gulfgal98's picture

@the_poorly_educated Wow! Apparently you have not read many of the other comments on this essay.

If you are able to do it without worrying about paying your other bills, more power to you. I am sure that your three crops provide the exact nourishment that you need without any other food sources.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 They do it because they have to. If it's done right it doesn't take a lot of time. As far as the other stuff you need to eat, eat the cheapest pork shoulder and eggs. That's it.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

riverlover's picture

Those may be meals for the day for some kids, very hard to track. Given the (still) tiered payments for school lunches, I do fear that some are falling through the grates. And vacations? Summer? Trump's visions seem to not have anything to do with reality. After-school programs (at least a snack) have no utility? Tell that to working parents who cannot be home at 3PM.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

gulfgal98's picture

@riverlover Provides a breakfast for every child in public school. It is a minimal breakfast, but it is something to prevent children from starting the day hungry. The percentage of students receiving free or reduced price lunches in my county was nearly 59% in 2012, up from 48% in 2008. Note the rise of eleven percent in four short years. Hunger and food insecurity affects children the most.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Mark from Queens's picture

@gulfgal98

Been meaning to post this somewhere, and found my way down to the discussion about school lunches.

Thanks for the essay, Steven, and the excellent discussion.

It's hard to believe how cruel and heartless school administrators can be to the poor:

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

SnappleBC's picture

You asked this question:

So, why would someone barely getting by, literally struggling to feed their family, consider the possibility that voting for the "D" team would make any difference in their lives?

The answer is provided for us clearly and regularly by the Democratic party. They quote employment statistics to show how wonderfully the Obama economy treated everyone. Why... just LOOK at that unemployment figure of 4.5%! Seldom do they like to talk about the nature of those "jobs". They don't like to discuss retirement pictures. They don't like to discuss average hourly income or hours worked per week. Nope... 4.5% unemployment! The economy was ROCKING under Obama!

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

mhagle's picture

Fighting food insecurity in the South is my current passion. Where I live in Texas, plenty of less wealthy people still own land. It has been cheap. It is pretty land with wild flowers, but worthless for farming unless you can do the full Monsanto thing . . . and those people only grow crops to feed cattle or cotton.

I am partially growing my garden in round hay bales. There are many rotting round bales littering the countryside from over-baling in 2015. Still trying to figure it all out. I bought bales (cheap) from two different farmers. The first group that were more rotten and composted more quickly . . . the veggies grew at an amazing rate! The second group . . . I think I shrink wrapped them too soon so they did not decompose enough . . . those have not done as well, because the plants did not grow roots down into the bales. All of the veggies in all the bales, however, are full of blossoms.

But here we are . . . only the 7th of May and my in-the-sun thermometer says 98 degrees F. The heat index is 158. Even though there are thousands of blossoms and many bees the veggies will not set fruit when it is that hot. So I am frantically sewing shade cloths for all of the beds.

If the round bale gardening concept would be viable, those can be set up anywhere . . . even in parking lots.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

@mhagle FInally someone who lives by "there is no such thing as problems, only solutions"!

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

mhagle's picture

@the_poorly_educated

Yes!!

There is no denying that the soil where I live is crap. But, after 25 years . . . lasagna beds/keyhole gardens and this haybale gardening stuff is giving me hope.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

PriceRip's picture

@mhagle

          @the_poorly_educated will not understand the significance of the "after 25 years" in your comment.

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mhagle's picture

@PriceRip

Traditional gardening does not work. You have to build your own soil and trick the seasons. Climate change is making that harder as it is hot much earlier this year.

A couple of years ago my husband told me I had a black thumb. Smile

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

gulfgal98's picture

@the_poorly_educated has zero to do with sustainability and people trying to do a home garden. We have had numerous posts here that support those ideas.

But what you continue to post is saying that poor people should be able to feed themselves from their own gardens. Your comments, whether you see them this way or not, are a form of poor shaming.

Shaming people who cannot earn enough even when working a 40 hour or more week is to ignore the real problem of why we have both hunger and food insecurity in this country. While it is nice that some people like you may have a garden that produces what you need, many very poor people do not have the place to put a garden from which they can feed their families. In addition many poor people are working jobs that are irregular hours and shift work, so their time to put into building and maintaining a garden, even if they have a place to put one, is very limited.

I have posted this before and I will say it again. There is absolutely no reason why our minimum wage is so low that it prevents people from being able to support themselves and their families. We are the richest country the world has ever seen and yet nearly one half of our country is either in poverty or near poverty. Healthy food, clean water, healthcare, and safe shelter should be a basic human right - period. The system is the real problem, not lack of initiative of the poor to feed themselves.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

SnappleBC's picture

@gulfgal98

There is absolutely no reason why our minimum wage is so low that it prevents people from being able to support themselves and their families.

Therein is the #1 question. Given that labor must occur in the US how is it possible that labor can be bought below the rate required to sustain the laborer? Quite obviously "the free hand of the market" isn't operating as expected. This is the Walmart paradox.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

PriceRip's picture

@mhagle

          We will be trying out a small scale version (of what you have been doing) in our small yard in Medford. While doing my other sciencey stuff, I hope to connect, and develop some cooperative teaching ventures, with local producers in that area.

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mhagle's picture

@PriceRip

The bales that were conditioned/rotted enough . . . stuff grew at an amazing rate. You have to be careful not to plant in hot spots, but the warmer bales also allow "summer crops" to flourish earlier.

In Oregon you will not have the problem of extreme heat. Our native dewberries/blackberries are three weeks early this year. This is way too hot for early May.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

earthling1's picture

@mhagle
The hay bales are brilliant. Raised beds are not that hard either.
I'm growing crops in most of the food groups needed for a healthy diet.
Multible varieties of beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, corn, multiple varieties of peas, all the herbs, raspberries, melons, and multiple varieties of lettuce. All at a tract home of modest size.
It wasn't created overnight but it can be done.
Of course, I'm retired and have the time and health to tend a garden.
Many people have to work, sometimes two or three jobs and don't have the time or energy to garden. But weighing those jobs against creating a self sustaining lifestyle of a garden, poultry, or rabbit husbandry could prove easier on the body and soul. Throw in a little bartering, one could live fairly healthy.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1 Use old carpeting to mulch your garden. never water or weed again. I've found that swiss chard and collard greens are the 2 BEST plants to grow for production, ease to grow and the lenth of time they produce. Black Seeded Simpson lettuce is an easy one too. Let some of the plants bolt to seed and never need to buy seeds again.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

@the_poorly_educated BTW, I recommend fordhook swiss chard and georgia variety collards.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

mhagle's picture

@the_poorly_educated

True . . . they both withstand the heat well. I have always loved Swiss chard from my Iowa farm child days. It was great to discover they survive the summers here and will produce for two years.

I have not tried the old carpet trick, but thanks for the tip!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

@mhagle @mhagle Take the carpet and put a board under it and drill 3 inch holes every 2 feet apart in a grid . plant the swiss chard and collard seeds in each hole after laying it over the dirt. Try and make sure the dirt is soaked before laying the carpet. That's it. Just sit back and wait. Then harvest.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

earthling1's picture

@the_poorly_educated
I let numerous veggies bolt and harvest the seeds for the following season.
I have successfully germinatex seeds 5 years old and planted them. We blanch and freeze, cook into sauces and freeze, and dehydrate tomatoes, squash, and pumpkin. Green beans we freeze or dehydrate. Other beans we dry and keep as regular beans. Potatoes are stored in cool dry place and last all winter. Peppers are dehydrated. Whe ears of corn are frozen or shucked, cooked, and frozen.
While we don't have chickens or rabbit, we certainly could if needed to supplement our protein requirements.
Again, not everyone can do this as I have spent 11 years practicing and experimenting in my retirement. But it can be done.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

enhydra lutris's picture

@the_poorly_educated
you carry it home, and what is the point if you re growing your garden in a bucket?

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

mhagle's picture

@earthling1

The hay bales can actually be doable for working people. Have watering set up with timers. Not much weeding.

I have been gone 4 days a week this year until now. It was OK until at the end when it started getting hot and my timers failed. Got the timers working, but now it is evident I need to shade it all YESTERDAY!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

@mhagle Irrigation is above my pay grade. I'm a mulch guy. You shouldn't need to irrigate much if the bed is mulched correctly.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

mhagle's picture

@the_poorly_educated

We have no choice here . . . but it should be done with captured rain water. Small beds don't require much though.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

@mhagle Yes, rain water from the gutters is the way to go.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

@the_poorly_educated

compared to well water or city water with regard to plant growth. I think it's the nitrogen in the air that is mixed with the rain water that is the diffence.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

referring to this.

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earthling1's picture

@the_poorly_educated
as my roofing tiles are made of petroleum based asphalt and I am concerned with contamination. The same concerns with raking up leaves from the street curbs and mixing into garden, asbestoes from brakes, oil drippings, and rubber get washed over to curbs and contaminant anything there.
I'm kinda anal about protecting my garden soil as I made every cubic foot of it.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

mhagle's picture

All of these millions of little fundamentalist churches and individuals pushing over round bales and planting veggies in them.

With steps one, two, three . . . I think it can be done.

After all, Jesus spent most of his time doing two things . . . healing and feeding.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

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