A cheap and reliable food supply

deleted because I did not include quote.

So, it won't work that well for cities. (In reply to above post, the farmer could do a drop - point sevice.) But people drive just as far here as they do Wally world, out in ultra-rural area.

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

You seem to be overlooking the people who have no cars or public transportation that services the area where the locally produced food is located.

Well, they can't usually afford the cheap stuff anyways, so they won't be looking at local produce. They do have farmers markets in the middle of the city, though,

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

For a 1 or 2 day supply of food?

That makes absolutely no sense.

Erm, have you ever been to a large city?

The Houston Metro area covers 10 counties and over 10,000 square miles. It takes several HOURS to drive from one end to the other, solid city all the way. I know. I've lived there.

Where would all those people drive to to get food?

NYC has over 8 million people crammed in a small area, surrounded by yet more city, and most of them don't even have cars. Where will they go?

Where I live, the population is more sparse, but we're on the edge of the desert. There's almost NOTHING grown locally. One tiny valley has squash, green beans, tomatos, cucumbers, and peaches for a short time each year. We're talking less than a dozen SMALL family farms that neighbor each other. Where will 100,000 people in Wichita Falls get food?

Then of course you have cities in the desert southwest. Nothing is grown locally because they are surrounded by hundreds of miles of dry, sandy desert. Where will they drive to get food?

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Uh huh. Then look at, say, Toronto, or Minneapolis, about the first week in February, and look at what's available to buy from local farmers....

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The internet - fueling paranoia and misinformation since 1873.

isolated spots at best. You have to look at the Big Picture when trying to get some alternative food to others. I have some local farm markets here set up in grocery store parking lots. But if the store runs out of food even those in that parking lot are not going to feed very many at all and this is a small town of 70K Not the high density of people in a major metro area with some like in NY don't even own cars. And even then those farmer markets are only selling Fruits and veggies. Wow that is not what people are going after in a emergency stock up foods at all. they want Boxed items and such.

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Oh my, dishes yet to wash and dry

See My Pictures at
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/0903/arabianknight/

First, why do we even have cities in the desert? That's obviously not a sustainable picture, so I'm not worried about that. And, as I said, there are city farmer's markets. So, no, I suppose small farmers can't feed huge cities, but this is one of my favorite quotes, from Joel Salatin, when asked about feeding huge cities local food:
"Why do we need a New York?"

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

I agree, but the fact is, we DO have large, unsustainable cities. And that isn't going to change overnight.

If there is ANY disruption of the food supply, it WILL be a major catastrophe.

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You are right. How dare they live in a desert? They should be out in the heartland, paving over fertile soil like the rest of us righteous folks.
You want to know why we need a New York? You think that is a great quote? So where do these folks go? I sort of like the idea that places of condensed population exists. Takes a lot of pressure off the tillable land. If anyone of us had to compete with developers for our slice of heaven, we’d soon be in one of those 50 story chicken coups, with the rest of the urban masses.

We needed New Yorks and Chicagos and all other cities in the world for thousands of years so that those who could not inherit the land would have a place to live.

Martin

In 1900 the three biggest cities in the US were:

New York, NY 3,437,202

Chicago, IL 1,698,575

Philadelphia, PA 1,293,697


How did they eat?

Ok I just read the posts on this page and I am a bit befuddled.....

Like I said above how did people eat in 1900 in those enormous cities? 3.4 million is pretty darn big!

I highly recommend the book: The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon to see how it is feasible to eat nothing but local.

Simple reality is that several of the places that have become meccas for retirees like Arizona are simply not sustainable. Google Arizona and water. If you can't supply your food needs locally where you live you probably should not be living there. Or maybe you need to look at eating differently.

Now don't get me wrong some areas of this country are better suited to growing some things and that is fine. We will always be shipping wheat from the midwest and oranges from Florida. But do I need a peach in February from Brazil? Nope.

I don't know if we need a New York City but I think there would be a hole in the world if it disappeared. I don't think everyone will ever want their own little plot to be sustainable on and I think that is fine. I need people to sell my stuff to and so do all the other farmers.

Same way they eat now. Only back then, their food wasn't shipped from as far away as it is now.

You are starting to think logically.

egypt was the breadbasket of ancient rome. and spices have been traded around the world for centuries too. all categories of food are not the same. dried grains that are easily stored are not the same category as perishable fruits and veggies, or meats, etc. so talking about "local diets" without taking that into account really just muddles the issue. shipping grains by rail or ship is quite energy efficient over long distances, and speed isn't an issue since grains aren't perishable. growing grains in areas where the soil is good, the land is available, and the climate is conducive to stable production makes a lot of sense. which is exactly why ancient egypt was the breadbasket of ancient rome.

at the same time, kiwi from new zealand, bananas from latin america, flowers from chile, etc, likely have to be flown on airplanes, which are energy intensive, and hence not sustainable in a peak oil situation.

also, distance is not the same as energy distance. water transport is more energy efficient than land transport. so on the west coast, asia may well be "closer" in energy distance than the east coast of the US.

lastly, political boundaries make a difference. any food source from another country is less reliable than a domestic source, solely due to political risk. but even domestic sources can have price fluctuations due to external political issues. when the US gov't banned grain sales to russia in the 1980's (?), that certainly flooded the domestic market with grains, and likely impacted the price. and when japan bans exports of beef due to concerns over mad cow disease, that also affects price.

--sgl

I have always been considered very logical. I think you just didn't understand my thinking before.

What would happen if all subsidies were stopped?

I don't claim to know what I'm talking about but maybe it would be a great thing for this country. Bad for subsidized farmers initially, but better for all of us in the long run. Healthy, REAL foods would be comparably priced to grains so people would buy more healthful foods. Because people would have to pay more for their food initially, many more would start producing their own and cooking REAL food for themselves. People would live much less sedentary lifestyles because they would be busy producing their own foods. Their children would not be obese and would grow up to be more responsible and hard working. Because people would eat healthier and be more physically fit, health care costs would plummet. Maybe the government could actually even use the money previously allotted for subsidies to start a health care program since more people would be farming and not have health insurance. More people would move out to rural areas instead of move away from them. Because of this there would be a greater sense of community like there used to be in rural areas like mine. People could trade, barter, and help one another out like they used to. This would instill good values in our kids. Because more people would be living out in the country, this would give people the opportunity to become local business owners and the chance to work for themselves. Since there would be more businesses in the community, more money would stay in the community. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.