European Americans United Project Available: Jump On In!
Read this even if you don’t like gardening or dirt, because agricultural relocalization is about a LOT more than gardening or farming. We desperately need people who will develop expertise in food processing, such as pickling, lacto-fermentation, cheese-making, saucing, juicing and processing raw grain from the stalk into breads. There is potential for a home business both doing the processing for local farmers and gardeners, and even teaching seminars in food processing to frightened suburbanites who just learned about Peak Oil. More about this below.
This is to formally announce the formation of a Special Projects Unit for Agricultural Relocalization with the European-Americans United Organization.
Agricultural Relocalization means getting involved in food production in a 20 miles radius of where you live, by replacing all of the functions of the supermarkets and restaurants, and teaching others to do the same. This includes food production, processing, distribution, and even teaching our fellow Americans how to cook again using whole/raw ingredients.
The first step is to decide whether you want to be a producer or a processor, or if you have a lot of time on your hands and land available, both.
If you want to be a processor, there are instructional videos for free on the Internet at
http://simplylivingsmart.com/
You can also find books at your local library or purchase on food preservation such as “Putting Food By” and “Preserving Summer’s Bounty.”
Ingredients for your processing projects can be found via
http://www.localharvest.org/
Local vegetable farmers are usually willing to sell you imperfect tomatoes they call “canners.” But I urge you to always start with small batches so you don’t wind up with gallons of stuff you don’t want to consume. Developing expertise and perfecting your own recipes and processes will take a LOT of trial and error. And keep your mind open to every kind of preservation. Even if you aren’t accustomed to a certain way of processing a food, such as dehydrating tomatoes, you should give it a try.
If you have land available and want to play in the dirt, I recommend two books — “Mini-Farming for Self Sufficiency” and “Square Foot Gardening.”
I will post my method for breaking the soil and making mounded raised beds with generous amounts of locally obtained horse manure using dryer drums in a future article.
Every person has a unique situation, and what they can do to best get involved in Agricultural Relocalization depends on this situation. Even a city dweller can get involved — in fact, people in large cities can get involved in the urban gardening initiatives of their city governments. I can be contacted via EAU and am willing to help EAU members find agricultural resources in their area, as well as provide helpful suggestions for what each one of us can do based on our particular situation.
If you have the initiative and the time, you may even be able to get a viable business out Agricultural Relocalization. The US is in a frantic situation with high oil prices, and people are scrambling to “make other arrangements” even as you read this.
NOTE: To contact the Project Director please write to EAU at their organizational page.