New Money For New Farmers

This is a unique and wonderful window of time. At 53, I've seen "windows" cycle through before. Some were Bardos ... transition points ... that led to good eras and some were bad ... like the bardos that led to disco (smile) and The Eighties ... that wonderful time when black people old enough to work got clowned BAD. (Some who seniors I talked to said the 80s were worse than The Great Depression. "At least everyone was poor during the Depression. In the 80s, it was like we wasn't nothing at all.")

Well ... we need to learn Big Time from it.

Right now the Department of Agriculture is actually recognizing that only 1% of the American population farms. The average age of the American farmer is 60. So, suddenly they are planning to recruit new young farmers.

1. Department of Agriculture Highlights Young New Jersey Farmers
   
   
2. American Farm Bureau story on Farm Policy Changes & Child Bearing Age Farmers
   
   
3. Financial Security For New Agriculture: MUST READ!!!
   
   
4. Department of Ag Helps New Farmers Get Started$$$$$$$

Slow Postings

Black Solutions is preparing to move to a paid site that will:

• Be more secure, and
• Present a deeper level of information

Please bear with us while we make this transition. The process will take a few weeks. It's amazing how fast things are happening once I began exploring and walking towards the JOY of my First Dreams.

My Buddhist landlord helped me with a recent quote from Gandhi:

Don't worry about all the world's problems .... "How will your next step help the poorest person on the planet?"

Mulling over that question creates both great opportunity and great wealth. But the "wealth" is not always monetary ... and when it is, shouldn't such funds be used to take care of the basic needs of you and your family ... and after that, care for those deserving poor who you can help?

[NOTE: You cannot help everyone ... and "everyone" who wants help ... is not "deserving."]

Fear of Change?

This site is talking about change. Moving away from urban madness and buying rurual land to create ... whatever. Change.

Whenever I discuss life changes with most people, fear and adventure are the first two things that pop up. Fear of change, fear of success and/or fear of failure are key ingredients that keep people stuck in addictive, abusive and maladjusted lifestyles.

"Every where I went, I took myself with me…"
This is an old cliché commonly spouted around recovery rooms. In the first stages of realizing how they've kept themselves stuck for years in unhappy circumstances, addicts of all types, alcoholics and co-dependents often realize that simply changing geographic locations is not enough to change an unsatisfied, unrealized life. Chances are, if a person was unhappy in St. Louis, he or she will be just as unhappy in San Francisco. We're talking about the life skills needed to develop happiness, contradict shame and trauma … and to intentionally engineer the quality life that says, "I'm not going to simply survive … I will flourish" ....in any enviornment I find myself in.

"If you find yourself in a bucket of shit, don't stomp around," Right?
Let's call that bucket "shame." African Americans often get a double dose of shame. Shame comes from many sources, but it's also comes from the common cultural values we get simply by being born and raised in a Judeo-Christian country. The second wave often comes from abuse, poverty, a lack of parental "good attention", and/or internalizing oppression. You don't have to live with shame. Read John Bradshaw. Join groups. Talk and "normalize" the events of your life. Stop doing the things that make you feel bad about yourself and start doing more that make you feel good. We're talking about walking completely out of the bucket and forgetting it was ever there.

It's absolutely necessary to cultivate mental and emotional habbits that make you feel good about yourself:

• Expecting good things … tell yourself that 007 is MY year!
• Expect people to like you. When you do, you radiate a charm and welcome that attracts people
• Faith! They say you cannot be a Man without faith. But faith is only effective when we believe in ourselves … that God or your Buddha Nature loves you … and in turn, you love others.
• Have and repeat a good opinion of yourself.
• Stop telling yourself the same old negative stories about your life. Look at things from different perspectives. Instead of blame and guilt, take a step back and look at what the life experience was trying to teach you.
• Take an honest inventory of yourself and rid your life of secrets. "I'm as sick as my secretes."
• Live authentically. I'm not "exceptionally proud of everything I've done in life, but 12-Steps told me that if I didn't do everything I did… good, bad and indifferent… I wouldn't be here. I'd have exploded or imploded. The proof is that you're still alive … able to make yet another "growth change."
• Joy. We don't have to get all complicated. We don't have to spend years on somebody's couch paying them for hearing our tired whining about our mothers… we just need to make a decision to move constantly towards JOY!
• Love. We all need it. Unfortunately not as much as food or air, but to really do what we come into this life to do before they throw that shovel of dirt on your face, find FIRST LOVE for yourself. We get into all that trouble when we settle for second and third choices. Decide to walk out into the sun and live YOUR life. Not your father's life, nor the people on TV, nor the folks you went to high school with …YOUR life. Decide what's best for you and if you can't live with it in the light of the noon day sun … then you're going to have to let that ball and chain go.

God rolled away the stone of Egypt's Reproach on the Children of Israel before he allowed them to go into the Promise Land. "Risk the blind leap of faith into the wounded hands of Jesus and you end up with nothing" … a charismatic speaker once said when I was in early sobriety … and I still hear the truth of it 21 years later. This is where faith comes in again… if you believe that the "stone" has been rolled away from your heart… from your life… then you can walk boldly into the "Promise Land" of your new dream life.

Feel good about yourself, your family and whatever new community you're walking towards. Get up early in the morning ..before the noise starts, and put on a good record of thoughts about yourself. Then read all you can about small farming, permaculture, intentional communities and rural Real Estate. Join us on http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/blackfarms/ and lets begin taking the next steps.

World Hunger Will Increase By 2015

The Bahamas imports over two thirds of their food but help is on the way. Micro and small farming techniques are being developed by Tuskegee Agricultural Chemists. Their goal is to funnel better small farming techniques directly to small landholders.

Professor Per Pinstrup-Anderson, from Cornell University in New York, says that improving agriculture is the key to both future national hunger and international famine.

"When you put money in the hands of farmers that money is spent on creating employment and reducing poverty elsewhere," said Pinstrup-Anderson.

"We have found in our research that for every dollar you invest in agricultural research you generate about $6 of additional income among the farmers and about $15 of additional economic growth in the society as a whole. Much of that will help poor people in those countries," he concluded. "

From BBC Online. Click for Full Story.

The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, scientists say.

I’m not sure how good their journalism is, but Prophecy Central list links to these stories:

• One in six countries facing food shortage


• Famine threatens 11 million in Horn of Africa


• 'Millions more starving' by 2015’

From Prophecy Central. Click for full story.

One of every eight American families is on
the edge…

USA Today ran the following story about homelessness and hunger in America. I've posted a few story highlights:

• "Families with children are among the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The Conference of Mayors found that 41% of the homeless are families with children, up from 34% in 2000. The Urban Institute reports about 23% of the homeless are children.


• "Cities and shelters are also seeing the shift. In New York, the number of homeless families jumped 40% from 1999 to 2002. In Boston, the number of homeless families increased 8.3% to 2,328 in 2002 compared with 2001.
  
• "An estimated 3.5 million people are likely to experience homelessness in a given year, the Urban Institute reports. People remained homeless for an average of six months, according to the Conference of Mayors survey — a figure that increased from a year ago in all but four cities.

From USA Today. Full Story click for full story.

My question is, in light of the economic, cultural and social problems facing us in urban America, WHY ARE WE STILL SO COMMITTED BE THE LAST RATS OF THE SHIP?

How many tea leaves in the bottom of the cup does it take to see that becoming increasingly self-sufficient by producing as much of your own food, and growing it on land you own ---preferably with water on or beneath it. Please look through this and Black Farms post (and archieves) and follow the links to your survival, your freedom, and a greater quality of life.

Mint Farming? Amish Acres?

As a born and bred urbanite who is seriously planning on moving back to the land within the next two years, I am continually researching:

• Ways to make it on the land, as well as,
• Exactly what does, "making it mean"? ... what are my expectations?
• What crops bring in money to the small farmer
• Are my expectations for sustainable living too low ... can I actually bring in a profit too?

These and other questions brought me to Mint Farming. A kind new friend on www.tribe.com informed me that crops like mint could be easy as well as profitable. A quick search brought up Amish Acres. This site provides not only information about the crop, but the directions on everything from planting to harvesting.

Like anything, you want to do your homework. While the appeal of growing mint is that you plant it, treat it perhaps once, and do little besides ensure proper watering before harvesting the crop, nothing is guaranteed for small framers any more than they are for large, corporate farms.

"Mint is a small, unstable market with frustratingly little solid economic data," says Montana State University economist Gary Brester.

That’s why linking up with associations like the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG) , that featured award winning small farmers Alex and Betsy Hitt and told the story of how they make above average earnings on just three acres of their 27 acre North Carolina Peregrine Farm. (Click here for photos.)

The web is filled with information for new hobby farmers. New Farm’s web site is a treasure trove of information and it also host a forum to ask questions and read problems and solutions encountered by other small and organic farmers. One of this site’s niche appeals is that it covers both national and international farming. They also plan to offer online courses for both the veteran farmer interesting in organic farming, and courses for tenderfoots like myself.

The United States Department of Agriculture's web site also offers a treasure trove of information to people who love the idea of growing crops for their family and/or for sale to the public. The link below details the planting of cover crops which are used to enrich soil and protect the land after the fall harvest.

NOTE: I encourage you to look at the text in this article closely. Links aren't easily viewed in some browsers.

Mother Jones Highlights Environmental Racism

Environmental Racism:

Silent Existence

We all know it exists. Predominately black and people of color living near Richmond's Standard Oil Refinery ... cancer clusters and nothing is done.

The old Navy Shipyard at San Francisco's Hunter's Point... again, more cancer clusters, asthma and high rates of other diseases ... yet little is done.

But my question is ... WHY do people continue to stubbornly stay where the job situation is bleak, and health risks are enormous? Moving is a simple answer for many, but there are some for whom the answers are more complicated.

Read Mother Jones articles on this and other related issues- "Black Gold"

Then, glance below and think about:

• Different ways to live
• Different ways to parent
• Different ways to work

Types of people who are moving “Back To The Land”

emagazine.com ran the following article on, “Young Professionals Go Back to the Land.” (Written by Jason Mark)

“A growing number of smart, ambitious people are rejecting the lure of lucrative careers for the promise of a simpler agrarian lifestyle. Many of those in the new crop of young farmers boast the kinds of diplomas typically found in Silicon Valley cubicles, Wall Street suites or Hollywood editing rooms. But instead of pursuing fast-paced careers, these members of the so-called “best and the brightest” class are choosing to spend their days weeding carrots and building compost.” More

Young Black Farmers

Another story by "dyverse productions" did a story about young black farmers. It' s both interesting and inspiring to learn of young black people expanding the possibilities of their future.

In short, there are segments of every population who are returning to the land and discovering the many ways to make a higher quality of life for themselves. Farming the land is only one choice.

When you have land with water on it, you have control of your life. By all signs, those who do will be amongst the lucky ones in the future. If you don't have a desire to move back to the land, it is perhaps in your best interests to connect with those who will. There are also many Urban Farming choices.

For a more complete story, visit: Black Farms

8 Cheapest Places In America To Live

This blog isn't written for everyone ... and certainly not for every black person. Many African Americans who I've recently talked to state that they are concerned about "being separated" by some outside force (e.g. "da government") or some other unknown agency in some unknown conspiracy. But regardless to what their opinion is about moving away from California (or another urban area) and moving to the rural South or Midwest, almost all voice an uneasy concern about the future.

China is poised to become the Number 1 world's economy. When that happens, many of the countries, foreign corporations and non-Americans with money invested in this country that hold negative feelings about our politics are going to pull their money out. Should that happen, our economy is going to be rocked ... and we all know who will feel it the worst.

Even if that scenario doesn’t happen, according to many of Wall Streets best economic prognosticators (I'll allow you to goggle it this time ... I've previously posted an article on this or on http://blackfarms.wordpress.com/ ), we will still most likely experience a number "deep" recessions. Again, we all know who gets hit the hardest during "recessions."

It is to those people who either haven't been able to acquire the kind of Real Estate and land they dream of and need that this blog speaks to. You may be a young adult with a family you'd like to raise in a more wholesome place, or perhaps someone near retirement--or someone who simply sees that as the greater urban stresses (the economy, crime, adult illiteracy, drug addiction and moral decay) continues to worsen, it's best to get out of the way and head for higher ground (with fresh water if possible). In that spirit, Black Solutions is re-posting a link to a story that ran today on www.msn.com

8 Cheapest Places To Live

Californian's Chances of Success: From Birth To Death

State's children less likely to succeed:
California is 34th in nation in study of criteria that help identify chances to excel.

(click on map to enlarge graphic)
"Children growing up in California, fabled land of opportunity, have a worse chance of achieving the American Dream than children in most other states, a new study says.

The real Golden State is Virginia, where children are most likely to become well-educated adults with steady, high-paying jobs, according to researchers from the nonprofit Editorial Projects in Education Research Center in Washington, D.C.

Children born in New Mexico were deemed least likely to succeed.

The researchers stacked up all the states and the District of Columbia against 13 measures of success, ranging from parents' employment and English fluency to children's test scores and graduation rates.

California ranked 34th among the states and was below the national average in seven areas: percent of children whose parents work full-time, speak English, graduated from college, earn at least a middle-level income; percent of children proficient in reading and proficient in math; and percent of adults who work full time.

California had by far the nation's lowest percentage of children whose parents speak fluent English: 62 percent. The next lowest was 73 percent, in Texas. Nearly everyone's parents speak English in Virginia: 91 percent."

[Reprinted from SF Gate. Full Story]