Practical Farmers of Iowa

Mostly I just love the name of this group:
https://practicalfarmers.org/
But I like their purpose, too:
We use farmer-led investigation and information sharing to help farmers practice an agriculture that benefits both the land and people.
And the fact that it's a farmer-to-farmer kind of organization. 

And I skimmed this from their values.
Curiosity, creativity, collaboration and community
I want every group I am a part of to embrace these. 

I learned from a Civil Eats story today that the Leopold Center has been defunded. It really makes no sense to me how a party that defines itself as conservative - you know which one - is so short-sighted. Because not supporting research in sustainable and resilient agriculture trades the best of our past and our hope for the future away in the service of present day greed. 
There's a whole lot of bad stuff going on beyond D.C.

Bountifield

Years ago I asked what anyone might know about an organization called CTI, promoting sustainable technologies for global agriculture. I've never found anyone in my local circle who had an answer. A little online research just now revealed that they have been rebranded as Bountifield, with a focus on Africa, providing support for improved and sustainable post-harvest technologies, such as storage and getting crops to market. Ninety percent of the farmers they help are women. It seems critical work to reduce hunger and food waste, and to improve the lives of rural women. You can read all about it and support them through this website https://bountifield.org/

I find this to be somewhere between creepy and immoral:

http://www.harvardagriculture.org/article.html?aid=129

I wouldn't be attending a seminar about investing in anything anyway, since my wealth is mighty small, but I'm sure this is not supportive of a just agricultural system.  How can they call it Harvard Alumni for Agriculture? Perhaps the assumption is that if you are for something, you corner the market on it.  Sigh.

So - after gasping some more I read on, exploring the web site.  There is a nod to sustainability on this web site, but it may be more about economic sustainability than environmental sustainability.
There's also an annual student contest on food system innovation. It's sponsored by the Law School and the School of Public Health.  Hmmm.

And so - should I join this group to find out more about what they are up to?  Or would it annoy me more than I need to be annoyed.

keeping up with the links

Specifically this time, Christian Ecology Link, a British organization.   Their LOAF campaign resources have been updated.

I like the idea of a LOAF bake-off some coffee hour - loaves of various sorts made following at least one of the Local, Organic, Animal friendly, Fair-traded principles, and labeled accordingly.   I wonder if anyone at my parish could get behind organizing this, just for the fun and educational value of it, and so that those of us concerned with the sustainability of our food system are recognized as having fun with food, not just being cranky about how un-green others are?

http://www.greenchristian.org.uk/resources/loaf

The results are in

I'm looking at a couple of recent surveys today.

One, by the International Food Information Council, www.foodinsight.org, surveyed 1000 Americans (not so international) on their shopping, eating and exercise habits.  Many are trying to lose weight, many find gathering and understanding nutritional information difficult.

What did surprise me was the percentage (about 2/3) who had considered sustainability in their food choices in the past year.   Turns out, though, that sustainability loses to other factors when push comes to shove.
Taste and price drive actual choices.
(% Rating 4 to 5 on 5-point scale, from “No impact” to “A great impact”)

Taste  87%
Price  73%
Healthfulness  61%
Convenience  53%
Sustainability  35%
Healthfulness and sustainability increase in importance for older folks (65 and up).

Another interesting factoid is that most people wrongly estimate the number of calories they need, with almost half under estimating.   Then why are we all so fat?   Is it because we also underestimate portion sizes?   The survey didn't give any clues to this, but maybe there are some in the full report, which I will read soon.

The recent Kellogg foundation survey http://www.wkkf.org/news/Articles/2012/05/Poll-Americans-support-doubling-food-stamp-value-at-farmers-markets.aspx
says just what the link above indicates.  Three quarters of us agree with the idea of doubling SNAP or CalFresh value at farmers' markets.  93% of us think it's important that all have equal access to fresh produce.

And consider this from the press release:

Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed said they would pay $1.50 more each month for produce to guarantee fair wages for the people picking fruits and vegetables. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, such a raise would increase the pay of a farmworker making $10,000 a year to $14,000, which would be above the poverty line.

Americans also support their local growers. More than 80 percent strongly or partly agreed that Washington, D.C., should shift its support toward smaller, local fruit and vegetable farmers and away from large farm businesses. Nearly 90 percent strongly or partly agreed they would pay more for produce if that money stayed in the community.

Who did they survey, I wonder?   And where are all these people who are so interested in food system justice?

Episcopal Church's message to the G20 ag summit

I am pasting in here our Presiding Bishop's letter to Secretary Vilsack on the eve of the G20 ag ministers' summit.

I'm extremely disappointed that there is a lack of specificity about what kind of agricultural research should be funded. Nowhere does she mention that research in sustainable agriculture is a value.

This,perhaps is the answer to my question - did the materials I put together for last week's executive council meeting actually get on the agenda? Is anybody listening?

There are some good points, here, of course - it's just that this very key one is missing.


The Honorable Tom Vilsack
United States Secretary of Agriculture
Washington, DC 20560

Dear Secretary Vilsack,

As Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, I write in advance of this week’s meeting of the G20 agricultural ministers to urge consideration of the needs of people in developing countries most affected by food insecurity. The Episcopal Church is a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, most of whose 80 million members live in developing countries. This letter comes to you today as other leaders of Anglican and Episcopal churches around the world are writing to their own agricultural ministers to share this call, with a particular concern about the impact of high food prices on small-scale and subsistence farmers, many of whom are women.

The focus on food at this year’s G20 represents an important recognition by the world’s leaders that rising food prices present a potential crisis for areas of the world most affected by hunger and malnutrition, especially Africa and South and Southeast Asia . With my fellow Anglican leaders, I am particularly encouraged by the growing global consensus for reducing food prices through increased agricultural spending, research and development in agricultural productivity, and the easing of trade barriers. Moreover, as an American, I am particularly heartened by the President’s Feed the Future initiative, a recognition that food security holds an important key in eradicating global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

To build on these commitments and respond with agility to the looming crisis of rising food prices, I urge the G20 leaders to consider four new steps.

First, enhanced global support for small-scale and subsistence farmers would provide an important investment in those who produce approximately 80 percent of the food supply in developing countries, the majority of whom are women. Such support should include financial investment in training; expanded access to credit, including loan subsidies and guarantees; improved access to global markets; and the development of new measures to help farmers mitigate risk and improve small-scale crop storage. Additionally, world leaders should pledge to work to improve land tenure for women in all countries, and to promote women’s participation in national decision-making about agriculture, rural development, and resource management.

Second, it is crucial for G20 leaders to support the calls from agricultural ministers in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world for increased investment in agricultural research, better dissemination of research information among farmers in developing countries, international investment in agricultural insurance markets in poor countries, and the development of better farm infrastructure – particularly irrigation – in poor countries. It is also critical that industrialized countries reform their agricultural subsidy structure, a goal for which The Episcopal Church and many other faith communities worked during the last Farm Bill reauthorization and will continue to work in the upcoming renewal of the legislation.

Third, G20 leaders should seek to incorporate food security measures into wider strategies for reducing global poverty and achieving the MDGs, as the United States has begun to do through the Feed the Future initiative. An important component of this, which has yet to receive adequate consideration in the United States , is halting global warming and accompanying climate change. Climate significantly affects agricultural productivity, rainfall patterns, drought, and crop yields. A comprehensive strategy for addressing food security as part of the fight against global poverty must include serious efforts to reduce the carbon emissions that cause climate change.

Finally, and most fundamentally, it is crucial that world leaders keep the promises they have made already in the area of food and hunger policy. In 2009, the world’s eight richest nations signed the Aquila Food Security Initiative, pledging to achieve clear targets for increased spending on agriculture. Thus far, these pledges have not been fulfilled, though a blueprint for the United States contribution has been set forth by President Obama through the Feed the Future initiative but has not yet been funded. I am mindful of the budget shortfalls presently faced by the United States and most of the world’s industrialized countries. Increasing investment in food security, however, will strengthen the entire global economy and ultimately lead to billions of dollars in savings for the United States and other industrialized countries. Investment in food security truly is investment in the future.

Thank you for your consideration of these important issues. Know that my prayers are with you and all who undertake the costly work of public service, and that I remain

Sincerely yours,

The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Re - re - re - re - re

No, I'm not singing Aretha's anthem, though it's one of my favorites.

I'm thinking about our lengthening list of re-'s, which began with reduce, reuse, recycle, and now features repurpose, rethink, reskill...

And, of course, the biggy, relocalize.

Scanning our local post-petroleum monthly email compendium the other day, I saw a magazine, partially available free on-line, Resurgence.

And in the recent issue, an article suggesting that the new key work is "resilience".

http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/keynotes_resilience_2571.pdf

In it Rob Hopkins of Britain's Transition Network (raising consciousness and doing training in relocalization) suggests that not sustainability, but resilience, is the key property of systems which we should be emphasizing if we are to take the disruptions of climate change and post peak oil seriously.

Let's see if I understand this well enough to explain it. If we look at our local food system, sustainability has us paying attention to the fact that we are using few external inputs, that we are decreasing the number of seasonal jobs in favor of more stable year round employment, that our crops are in harmony with our local environment, and not a detriment. That sort of thing.

Now in a resilient system, we pay attention to biodiversity in our seed stock, so that we can face the coming drought (due to climate change) hopefully. We look at food storage strategies that are not energy intensive, as a hedge against crop failure. We help our workers learn a variety of skills, to enhance their chances of finding useful employment year round as weather patterns change. We look not only at sourcing agricultural inputs locally, but at marketing our product locally, too, perhaps with value added, as a hedge against escalating prices for transportation.

It occurs to me that the two things most necessary to building resilience in our systems are diversity - especially nurturing diversity locally, in eco and human systems - and community. Surely these are things good Christian people know something about. My own work with Total Ministry congregations has emphasized identifying and nurturing diversity, especially diversity of gifts, and strengthening people's capacity to work together, to achieve a more deliberate practice of community - not just for the sake of getting along, but for working and envisioning together. So I wonder why so few congregations are involved in this work or relocalization, of helping the communities in which they exist become more vibrantly resilient?

Unintended Consequences

Some emails and lots of postings this week about the death at 95 of Norman Borlaug, father of the "green revolution".

The National Academy of Sciences credits him with saving millions of lives, and those with whom he worked and lots of Iowans, apparently, revere him. As one plows through the coverage, it seems pretty clear that he was a deeply compassionate, humble man. And he was a competent scientist.

What has distressed me, though, is that this has provided an opportunity to silence or diminish critics of the green revolution - despite what we now know about its lack of sustainability.

We should not be surprised that The News Hour did this, greenwashing the green revolution.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/july-dec09/faminefighter_09-14.html
After all, look at their sponsors: agrichemical companies.

But we need to be honest about the fact that yesterday's best science is not necessarily the greatest hope for the future. High tech agriculture that relies on fossil fuel inputs and synthetic pesticides is not sustainable for most of the world's population - either economically or ecologically.

There will be those of an older generation, like Borlaug, who see such high tech solutions as GMOs, the key to the "new green revolution" ("green revolution 2"? "son of the green revolution"?) as the way forward, and condemn their critics as elitists, immune to the plight of the hungry.

And there will be those like John Jeavons, in South Africa right now, working with folks who want to support small scale local farmers in sustainable growing techniques.

And there will continue to be a place for science, but working with local culture and biodiversity to find the most appropriate strains of seeds, searching for best biological practices to manage plant and animal pests and build soil fertility, and helping share knowledge among different locales as climate change brings about shifts in temperature and rainfall patterns.

The era of better living through chemistry, of the magic bullet, is over. But its saints are still on our calendar, in spite of the unintended consequences, as a reminder that we all strive to do the best we can to respond with compassion to our world in our times.

Ancient no-till crop rotation

I've been reading Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity.

This is not my usual fare, edited as it is by a couple of M.D.'s and very anthropocentric. But hey, it's a pretty good book - coffee tablish, but very well-crafted essays, including two relating specifically to the food system.

In the chapter on "GM Foods and Organic Farming" they quote Virgil on green manures and no-till methods:

in Part I of "The Georgics"

Sow in the golden grain where previously
You raised a crop of beans that gaily shook
Within their pods, or a tiny brood of vetch,
Or the slender stems and rustling undergrowth
Of bitter lupine...
Thus will the land find rest in its change of crop,
And earth left unplowed show you gratitude.

Susatainable Fishing

A BBC story caught my eye, and led me to a new World Bank - FAO report on fishing.

The reality would seem to be simple - more and more effort, at greater and greater cost, for less and less fish - with the endpoint somewhere around mid century. We probably already knew this.

The antidote seems to be major reform - and the article suggests that if there is a move toward reducing the size of fleets and building up stocks, fishing could be profitable again worldwide.

The pull quote in the BBC story says it all:

"Sustainable fisheries require political will to replace incentives for overfishing with incentives for responsible stewardship. " Kieran Kelleher, World Bank fisheries team leader.

Ah - political will. With the opposite of political will being short term gain (or supposed short term gain) and greed, I think.

Reading the article I wondered how much of the resistance to a change to sustainability comes from the way of life of fishers - my sense, having known some, is that there is almost more emotional attachment to fishing as a way of life, generation to generation, than there is to farming. Turns out the report does have some things to say about this - and the need to invest in the transitions of persons who are displaced by increased management of fisheries. But what about beyond the economic considerations - to considering what such displacement does to people's sense of self, sense of place in creation?

Here's the report: "The Sunken Billions: the economic justification for fisheries reform"
http://www.donorplatform.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_view/gid,742/Itemid,98/

If they are this conflicted about lunch

no wonder they can't come up with a better farm bill.

Nancy Pelosi has taken the House in hand, with an eye toward greener and healthier food, the New York Times reports.

http://go.compass-usa.com/house/content/sustainability.asp

Here's the site of the group they are contracting with - who had to change some of their claims to satisfy the industrial food side(s) of the aisle.

http://go.compass-usa.com/house/content/sustainability.asp

I note they could move toward greater sustainability if they would get rid of some of the menu items that are not seasonal, but all in all this seems like a pretty good effort.

The Times article reports that no such strides have been made in the Senate. Interestingly, for the most forward thinking and best developed food policy among presidential candidates one needs to look to an ex-Senator, John Edwards.

http://www.johnedwards.com/issues/food-safety-fact-sheet/

Interlibrary Loan

I'm speeding along reading a book I have for just two weeks, wondering why with all the foodies in this county my library didn't have a copy of it.

It's Food Wars: the Global Battle for Mouths, Minds and Markets by Tim Lang and Michael Heasman. (London: Earthscan, 2004) It is a global book, much less US centered than most of the other reading I have recommended. There are lots of charts and graphs and tables here, which I like a lot. But most significant is that this book does not mince words about the tensions between human health and nutrition values and ecological values. This is a tension I feel a lot when I meet with food system folks around here - I came close to a shouting match with a woman who felt it was more important for folks to have fresh produce, even if it does come from Mexico. I was arguing for sustainability values. It's not that I don't care about health - but that I see the values as nesting. Unless we look at planetary health, our solutions to individual health will be for one generation at most.

One of the tables toward the end of the book is "some tentative rules for food and ecological health (adults)". I love the last bullet
- Enjoy food in the short term, but think about its impact long term

Why I don't eat meat

I've been meaning to write this piece for a long time, so here goes.

Today I followed a trail in a NY Times article - about aggressive pro-vegetarian ads, aimed at people concerned with climate change - to a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization report Livestock's Long Shadow. (See link to right.)

I'll admit that I was more than a little annoyed when I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" (aka All About Al) that there was no mention of the contribution cattle make to global warming. Now it seems PETA is taking on our former Vice President, basing their billboard campaign on data in the the UN report.

So I tracked it down, and even though reading on line and reading sans serif is not easy, decided not to print all 408 pages. I read the introduction, skimmed the report (good pictures, better charts, graphs and maps!) and then read the conclusion.

The report outlines the impact of livestock globally on climate, water and biodiversity - and it's not a pretty picture.

There's a strong appeal for policy change - to move from the superficial nuisance issues related to livestock such as flies and smells, through the intermediate issues like local clean air and water, to consideration of the long term issues, like climate change and loss of biodiversity.

And it's not easy, since the social importance of livestock far outweighs its economic importance globally. Think about the way meat eating is used as a dividing line socially in the media here in the U.S. Think about Precious Ramotswe's father's cattle. (#1 Ladies' Detective Agency stories - and by the way, cattle in Botswana use 23% of the water) Think about using goats as dowries, think about sacred cows - and you begin to get the picture.

And over a third of the world's poor depend on livestock production for at least a piece of their livelihood.

The environmental impact of livestock is also grossly disproportional to their economic value (about 1.4% of global GDP). One third (33%) of the arable land in the world is used to grow feed for livestock. Eighteen (18%) of the global warming effect is due to livestock - that's larger the transportation sector worldwide.

Growth in production of livestock around the world is not in small scale farming, but in industrial production, usually near urban areas. Manure is a huge problem!

I am reminded of wondering, when listening to the keynote from Petaluma Poultry (Rockie and Rosie) at the Sustainable Enterprise conference, that they can't call themselves a sustainable enterprise until they solve the manure issue, preferably cycling it back into the system nearby to produce feed for R & R.

I'm not sentimental about animals (Okay - except the ones I know. Okay - I have watched the movie Babe half a dozen times.) And if I were much concerned about eating meat and health I would eat much less of everything. I stopped eating meat ten or twelve years ago for environmental reasons, and then I rather lost my taste for it. I might still eat a little if I were still working in rural Nevada, where range fed beef, backyard sheep, and venison from the annual hunt were common - and sustainable. But I live in a suburban/exurban area where good produce is much more readily available than sustainably grown or harvested meat, and most restaurants (and congregations) speak vegetarian.

Livestock's Long Shadow does deal with policy changes, not with consumption and lifestyle issues, yet it does note
"While not addressed by this assessment, it may well be agreed that environmental damage by livestock may be significantly reduced by lowering excessive consumption of livestock products among wealthy people."
I would assume that means us, and that it includes leather and fiber, too - though there was little about the latter in the report.

It's not my job to "convert" anyone to vegetarianism. It is part of my calling, I think, to remind environmentalists that livestock present very serious issues. The report says with great understatement
"Perhaps even among the majority of environmentalists and environmental policy-makers, the truly enormous impact of the livestock sector on climate, biodiversity and water is not fully appreciated."

We got the first environmental set of 3R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. Perhaps now it is time to consider another set: Reform farming practices, Reduce meat consumption, Replace meat in the diet with other things.

regional sustainable development - not just an academic discipline anymore

Friends of the Brule River & Forest just marked their 20th anniversary with a guest lecture by Mark Leach, Bro Professor of Regional Sustainable Development, Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin. Introducing himself to the college (by means of faculty profile page) he writes:

'We live in a time of increasing environmental challenges: from global to personal. As a society, we need to transition quickly to sustainability. My approach to sustainable development emphasizes “development.” Not the “development” we associate with new buildings and roads, but the “development” of the mature person as a moral and effective participant in society. From the time I could walk, my mother and aunt would take me along to gather wild asparagus, morels, and berries. At the end of a successful berry picking day there was always a pie. No wonder my academic training and research interests have been primarily focused on plants and their conservation. I enjoy the intellectual exercise of discovering the inner workings of ecosystems. I have been involved in understanding, protecting, and restoring tallgrass prairie, oak savanna, and forests. I quickly learned that scientific knowledge has never been sufficient; knowledge of how to be effective in organizations and agencies is also essential....I recently moved to an Ashland neighborhood where gasoline-powered lawnmowers maintain acres of lawn. I look forward to converting most of my lawn into wildflower and vegetable gardens and trying out a newly re-engineered motorless mower.'

Biofuels and Food Security

I've been reading the UN report Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision Makers and have been overwhelmed by the complexities of the issues.

Since the report is 60 pages and pretty dense, I'm going to focus on the implications for food security in these reflections.

The basic challenge is how to make the these three things - food, feed, and fuel - work together. (The report doesn't list fiber, as it might, or we'd be talking about the four Fs of crops.)

One thing I learned: as development increases, there is an increased demand for dairy and meat, which increases the need for animal feed production, thus causing even greater competition among the 3 Fs when we look at the global picture. Already 30% of the world grain supply is used to feed livestock.

Another framework to think about: food security involves four major dimensions: availability of enough food, access, particularly for low income people, stability of the food supply over time, and utilization, meaning people's ability to use the nutrients in the available food.

If land, water and other resources are used to produce biofuels rather than food, availability could diminish.

If the use of food crops for biofuels (corn) increases, commodity prices will increase, making these crops less accessible to the poor. And the poor depend on cereals and the like for most of their calories.

But it's also true that growing biofuel feedstocks could improve the income of rural folks and thus contribute to better food access. This may come into play more with second generation biofuels (not ethanol).

Stability is an interesting one. Apparently, and this makes sense to me as I thought about it, prices for biofuels move with petroleum prices. So volatility in biofuel prices could be one more variable affecting the agriculture sector, even when the agriculture in question is not dependent on inputs from fossil fuels. And of course, if you have less money and no wealth, as the poor do, you have a lot harder time adjusting to rapid shifts in prices.

Utilization is dependent on other health factors, particularly water supplies. Where biofuel feedstock production competes for water, health of people in those areas could be threatened.

BUT - if biofuels replace more expensive and more polluting fuels locally, cooking could be more efficient, and food utilization greater.

All this is just a taste of the no-simple-answers content of this paper.

Factoid - no - metafactoid: Even though the percentage of hungry people in the world has declined, the number has stayed the same. More people around the world die of hunger than of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

What are the new philanthropists doing about global hunger?

It appears that one key piece of biofuel development will involve how quickly we can move to the second generation of biofuels - away from the liquid biofuels being produced in quantity today.

There are even some possibilities of positive synergy, for example, if nitrogen fixing legumes used for biofuels production were to be rotated with food crops - enriching the soil over time. On the other hand, there could be a push to plow up rangelands and the like , to plant switchgrass and other proposed crops, with the attendant environmental damage. And, of course, those rangelands can feed livestock without additional feed, so the pressure on raising feed for meat would be greater.

Clearly a lot of analysis needs to happen to model and undertand the effects of biofuel production on food security. Will policy makers - in governments and global corporations - take the time to do this? know how to do this? care enough about the poor to do this? There is also a need to come up not with one plan or solution, but with a range of schemes that will suit different contexts, cultures, and environments.

Here's a loaded sentence from the report:

"Agricultural research aimed at improving productivity, conserving water, and building soil fertility can lessen the tension between food, feed, and fuel production by increasing overall agricultural output in a sustainable manner."

But will the research (increased funding for biofuel research is proposed for the Farm Bill) on biofuels proceed with sustainability as the highest value? or growth and profit?

And will the research funding be directed at small scale local possibilities - or only integrated agribusiness?

Silly footnote: When I was making some notes on "biofuels" in wordperfect, the spell check suggested "beefaloes" as the proper spelling. Let's use that rangeland for ruminants!

More on the Sustainable Enterprise Conference

I've been mulling over some of what I learned last weekend, and am somewhat surprised by the connections. I think it started when in the workshop on Web 2.0 our leader said there were many common values between geeks and greens, and it was time environmental activists got over their anti-technology attitude. I don't think I've ever been there, but I certainly saw what he meant. And when you add in the challenges of re-localization, which we heard about on the second day, you really have something: a renewing of the local economy and community combined with greater global communication and trans-local networking and collaboration through the wiki-world.

(Is wiki-world an amusement park?)

It also seems to me that local ministry development fits into this picture - the revitalization of the local congregation in its context, with its resources, combined with greater connectivity with the wider church no longer mediated by a professional clergy class.

What does this have to do with food?

Well, perhaps food is the place where can begin to live into relocalization and enhanced communication, and also one place where we can sign that reality.

Suppose our congregations put more of emphasis on the seasonal and the local in our feeding and food distribution programs, with gleaners, and community gardens, and the like? And suppose we could then build a network of churches doing this, to share vision and information, and maybe even to work together to get some grants - to redistribute money to local projects - not just in one locale, but in national or even international networks.

And suppose a locavore meal were not something we did once a year at church - but that every Sunday the coffee hour, the flowers, the potluck, reflected the beauty of the local season in that place?

Then there's the whole notion of sharing. Julian Darley of the Post Carbon Institute suggested we need to bring back sharing. Why are our congregations not sharing networks? We don't need to go to the extreme of challenging the concept of private property (though some of us might like to) to see that there are many things some own that could be shared by everyone. There might even be some things - tools or equipment or ??? - I need to do more imagining here - that we could hold in common and then "rent" from the church to members.

There was not just a rush of self-righteous frugality, but real joy, when I lived in Los Angeles and the Horstmans brought a big bag of lemons to share from their very old back yard tree. Ditto in congregations around here when excess fall persimmons find their way to church. How could we see this sharing of bounty as sign and invitation to get creative and do more?

Another message for our churches I took away from the relocalization address was that limits are good. Too often, I think, our churches have bought into the American way of Growth Is Good. Thirty-five years ago on those early Earth Days, I thought about limits, and what a theology of limits might look like. It is time to revisit this, and draw out of our bag of tricks those Christian virtues which respect the limits of nature, and the limits which justice requires.

Okay - one last heavy thought. Darley said that relocalization is inevitable. That feels like both a statement of doom and a challenge to get started now, and do it right, in ways that are creative and adventursome, not cramped and painful.