Barter Systems

Barter Systems and Other Forms of Commerce Bartering springs up in modern cultures when the local currencies are no longer valued by the participants in the local economies.  At least, that’s barter from the perspective of an economist.  However, if other values...

Probiotics Has Several Meanings

Probiotics are about more than just food. Media marketing has a way of overwhelming every good discussion.  A few years ago the public began to discover “pro-biotics.” Probiotics became defined in that context as foods that contain beneficial bacteria,...

How Cows Saved America

Cows Saved America If you read the histories of the early settlers of America you can’t help but be amazed at how precarious their lives were. Starvation was a real possibility. The one event that seemed to have made the difference was the importation of Jersey...

USDA Takes Over DEA’s Job

In honor of April Fool’s Day, we are re-publishing the following article, originally published in The Spoof. USDA takes over DEA’s Job. In what appeared to many to be a cruel irony, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was assigned the task of...

Aidan and the 20 Pound Kurkey

Raising Organic Turkeys Requires a Big Effort It all began when my neighbor called to ask “Would you be willing to split a chicken order with me?”  “I will get them started and bring you your half at six weeks.” I could not turn that offer down...

Cheap Food Costs Too Much

Cheap Food Is Not Cheap When You Count the Medical Bills It Entails One of the paradigms of American farming is that the farmer has always been grossly underpaid. The people who buy the foods produced do so on a wholesale basis. They contrive artificial ways to...

Price and Value

Some People Know the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing Farm Values I received a call once from a man who wanted to buy my hay to feed his horses. I had more than I could use and was willing to sell it for not much more than it costs me to make it. He choked...

A Better Way to Find Organic Foods

“Sustainable farms are to today’s headlong rush toward global destruction what the monasteries were to the Dark Ages: places to preserve human skills and crafts until some semblance of common sense and common purpose returns to the public mind.” Gene...