This commentary is by Dan Jones of Montpelier.
In these frightening times, rather than any investments, I am finding food security climbing to the top of my worry list. I am searching for those with positive visions and local leadership who will help us to put our energies towards things we can actually do to make a difference.
Sure, we are told to send $20 to the Democrat of our choice, who earnestly promises to build future “resistance.” But I’ve been waiting for such meaningful resistance for years. Lots of folks I know seem paralyzed, watching the destruction of those fractured governmental systems whereby we once solved problems.
For generations we have taken for granted traditional government and market supports which provided our collective ability to solve problems. As these supports are chainsawed by the Muskrump regime, many of us are left wondering how to survive lost business, income, health care, and, yes, food and shelter.
There is, in fact, a lot we can do, but they will require both imagination and work. First, we need to get real and shift our focus away from the glowing little screens with their dire messages of doom, which only reinforce our sense of powerlessness. Rather than twisting our hands in frustration, let’s put on our ruby slippers and remember there is no place like home.
In Vermont’s ancestral bones we, in fact, do know what to do, but we’ve forgotten how. We are starting to relearn resilience in our flood responses and our halting care for the unhoused, but that is just the beginning.
The more basic components of our future lives like food, clean air, transportation and health safety are at risk. New responses are needed.
Regularly feeding ourselves is one of the basic assumptions we make of a secure life, and we have become quite used to enjoying endless bounty. Imagining threats to our food supply today is a stretch since we can walk into the supermarket and find the midwinter strawberries from Mexico.
Yet, further on, in the egg section, we discover sparse supplies and soaring costs. Soon, tariffs, deported farm workers, disease and destructive climate events will be threatening the nature of our food security. As that challenging future arrives, providing the needed energy for our bodies to respond, access to sufficient food must be a priority.
The big test, in our regional communities, will be relearning how to feed ourselves and to take care of each other and our more limited collective resources.
Our needed responses can begin practically and simply, with things like replacing some of our front yard lawns with a simple vegetable garden that can help feed our family and neighbors. You don’t have a lawn? How about working with our neighbors to create a new level of common “victory garden” on those acres of lawns close by?
For the stuff we can’t grow, our signature farmer’s markets must transform away from being seen as a quaint but expensive exercise in “sustainable consumption.” Instead, those markets must become a critical element for all our weekly food supply.
If you really want to be Vermont Strong, how about demanding our legislature provide funding and support for the local storage and food processing infrastructure that will be required in each of our state’s regions? The Center for Agricultural Economy in Hardwick provides an amazing example of how these efforts can be created. Such capacities will provide ways by which we will feed ourselves in future winters.
It is also time to give up on the nostalgic image of subsidizing our fading dairy industry. Instead, a much more diverse and comprehensive food crop production has to be the keystone of our future economy, both to feed us and for export trade. A lot more state support will be needed to subsidize new and young farmers with land, equipment and market supports. As these farmers develop the skills and practices they will produce a variety of foods for our local shelves, not just for our “farm to plate” branded luxury restaurants.
Now is the time, in the face of the onslaughts of the Muskrump administration and worsening shifts in our climate and economics, to start making changes. We don’t have time to wait for the plodding role of markets and bureaucrats to shift economic priorities. Let’s publicly, and forcefully, work towards the resilient future we Vermonters need. Instead of fixing our attention on the national gladiatorial fare of schlock and awe, we have to stop waiting for the return of disappearing governmental services and get about doing what we can.
What you and I can actually do is to use our minds and our hands to create something concrete and lasting, right here at home. We can all build our own gardens and help our neighbors build theirs. Coupling such efforts with the toil and ingenuity of a new generation of farmers we can, perhaps, begin creating a local future that will nurture and feed us.
In that way, hand to hand, neighbor to neighbor, community to community, we can learn the skills to navigate through the rough times slouching our way.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Dan Jones: Getting back to the garden.