The number 3 reason why we need to overhaul our agricultural system is in order to achieve a greater level of self-reliance, and with that, greater peace of mind.

It has a long tradition, self-reliance, and is expressed in dozens of overlapping social movements:  self-sufficiency,  sustainable living, homesteading,  simply living, back-to-the-land, etc.

Why do it?  The thing is, I didn’t get into this wanting to know why folks do it, I just knew why.  The inner wisdom Emerson and other Transcendentalists spoke of makes perfect sense to me.  Unfortunately, other people ask me this question, a lot, and they don’t like the answer I’m inclined to give, which is, “Common sense.  Duh!”

So for them I research, in order to put into words what feels to me like a preposterous question that deserves only another question in reply:  Why would we NOT want to be self-reliant? The fact that there is any doubt of this demonstrates unequivocally that we have truly lost our way as Americans.

So, here are a few good reasons:

Food Shortages: Writes John Vidal of The Guardian, “Prices of wheat, maize and many other foods traded internationally have risen by up to 40% in just a few months. Sugar, butter and cassava prices are at 30-year highs, and meat and fish are both significantly more expensive than last year.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/17/un-warns-on-food-prices

Hyper-inflation: When the voices of experienced, educated individuals and groups start to remind you of the paranoid ranting of conspiracy theorists, it’s about time to take notice.  In the futuristic article “The Year America Dissolved”, I thought I was reading a bit of clever science fiction, and hopefully I was.  Then I saw the author’s byline:  “Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary U.S. Treasury, Associate Editor Wall Street Journal, Columnist for Business Week, Senior Research Fellow Hoover Institution Stanford University, and William E. Simon Chair of Political Economy in the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C”

Fear of Total Dependency:  The “Food Safety Modernization Act,”  for which voting is scheduled to begin today, should shock and outrage every American.  The fact alone that the government thinks this is what people want, or will blindly accept, shows how very far off Washington is from EVERY PERSON I KNOW!  If you do one thing today, please, please, get informed and act on this outrageous insult to our intelligence and freedom.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/senate-bill-510-the-declaration-of-dependence.html

I could go on and on to try to convince every last reader, and I’d like to, but the bills still gotta get paid.  That is until we are entirely off-the-grid.  Besides, I still need to get to the turkey research!