Dear Editor,
Yes, the economy is in a dire condition and does not look to be anywhere near a road to recovery. The price of everything from education, health care, fuel and even food are steadily soaring upward. Some say, what can we do about it … we do not have the power to change the government and the wrong doings of Wall Street.
Well, my suggestion is that we do have power over our own lives. Since the founding of our country, it has been the way of one people to rule over another, and that is their idea of freedom.
I say let us go back to pre-Civil War ways of living in the sense that we quit relying on someone else for our well-being and start taking a proactive stance and control our own lives. Agriculture needed to support life as we know it can be done by us, our neighbors and our communities.
Small personal farms, a garden if you will, can be enough to reduce your dependency on the “supermarket” drastically, hence, reducing your basic cost of living, freeing up money that can be better spent somewhere else, education perhaps.
We need a stronger community in a time when most of us don’t even know the names of the people who live right next door. Let’s plant community gardens, create common land for the use of the people that are not fortunate enough to buy their own land and start working together.
Some hard work, a little bit of capital investment and time can start guiding us on our way to independence from far away states like California. This has many advantages.
First, we grow our food locally so we no longer have to worry about what pesticides are or are not on our food.
Second, we take away transportation of said food, giving it a longer life for us to enjoy it, without environmental impact.
Third, we grow as a community, getting involved with each other. I believe helping to reduce the ever climbing crime rate in an economy such as this.
The more thought one puts to this issue the more benefits one can associate to local farming. Not long ago I heard someone say, “yes we can,” so what are “we” waiting for, no one will do it for us. Besides it all tastes better if you grow it yourself.
-Thomas Jones

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