Paul Wheaton (of permies.com fame) wrote this gem of an article where he delves deep into a student’s question, “How do we get permaculture apples into Safeway?”
Along with enjoying learning details of growing and marketing apples, I appreciated his words regarding the pitfalls of focusing on financial wealth:
When you spend any time understanding the world’s problems you get that horrible feeling of “that could happen to me!” followed immediately by “how do I add safety to my life so that won’t happen to me?”
The first piece is “if I had a million dollars I could make safety for me.” – in time, I think most people start to come to the conclusion that that is a poor type of safety – you would need to buy just the right things, and without knowledge, you could buy the wrong things, or not install the right things correctly. And then as you start to learn all the things to make the million dollars be safe …. I think (and I’m sure a few billion people with have different thoughts) all roads lead to permaculture and homesteading.
So if a person has a head full of homesteading and permaculture, a solid home, their energy needs are itty bitty, and they are growing four times more food than they could ever eat … and they have $4,000 in the bank and $10,000 hidden under the mattress …. maybe that person now has more safety than the earlier person with a million dollars in hand.
Now, as I have often commented, the “homesteading” mentality has its shortcomings.
For one thing, a lot of us in the permie movement are unintentionally causing gentrification and other suffering by trying to have too much land. We should be occupying the minimum amount of land possible, and if we have extra, we could be returning surplus by sharing the land with other, less-fortunate people.
Personally, I’m not going to lie, but I find even my 1/10 of an urban acre way more than a handful to manage. Granted, I’m not trying to grow all my own food, but I wouldn’t be trying to do that alone *anywhere*.
Or we don’t have to be buying extra land; we can be buying old commercial buildings in blighted downtown areas and letting young people launch their businesses there. Now, the reality is I don’t personally know very many permies who are in a position financially to do that. I’m just pointing out that if a person has extra money, just buying up land and letting it sit is not the regenerative thing. That said, it is better than parking money in a mutual fund and supporting corporations.
(Many of us don’t believe in land ownership, and that’s a whole separate conversation. I would like to live in a world where people can have security of residence without needing to own land.)
Anyway, go read Paul’s article about apples; it’s a real treat. And, I don’t think I’m doing a “spoiler” by telling you that in the end it’s really not about getting your hyperlocal apples into Safeway or any grocery-store chain at all! It’s about reexamining our whole mentality around the food-supply chain.
And, if you apply it to your own life and situation, you might find Paul’s advice is applicable to other “crops” (both physical and intangible) besides apples.
BTW you don’t have to create an account on permies.com to read the posts; they are public. But, creating an account is free and then you get to participate in quite a variety of worthwhile conversations.
As is the case with other homesteading circles I know of, there is a lot of emphasis on the “growing food” aspect, but there are plenty of conversations about invisible structures and home economics as well. I particularly enjoy following the “threads” about sewing.
PS. Wherever you live, I encourage you to partake of your local fruits. Learn their seasons, learn to grow them if you can, and make them a regular seasonal part of your diet. Right now, for example, extremely delicious passion fruit are ripening in our area. I have never been able to grow them, but that doesn’t matter because there are vines overhanging the sidewalk at an empty house nearby. (A lot of people say they don’t like fruit trees etc. because they “attract rodents.” So basically I am doing those people a favor by grabbing fruit off the ground haha.) Also, a couple of friends on my local social-media feed have access to prolific vines, so if I wanted to I could probably trade something. I haven’t had to buy any fruit in 2 weeks!