[Scpg] Time is Ripe for Urban Agriculture

[John Calvert]

Published on Monday, May 23, 2005 by the Seattle Times
Time is Ripe for Urban Agriculture
by Neal Pierce

Is America ready for a metropolitan agriculture policy? Is the time 
ripe to take some of the billions in subsidies now flowing to big 
commodity-crop operators and focus instead on sustainable farm 
production in and around the citistate regions where 80 percent of us 
live?

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and the man who founded Congress' 
Livability Caucus, argues that with half of federal farm subsidies 
currently "flowing to six states to produce 13 commodities that in the 
main we don't need, like corn, wheat, cotton, and rice," there's a 
dramatically superior alternative.

We should, says Blumenauer, "use that money to build sustainable 
agriculture, create a farmer's market in every community, help farmers 
protect our land and water, preserve our viewsheds, foster land banks 
and control erosion."

Read more...
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0523-24.htm



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