Over the past summer and fall, at farmers markets and food coops in New Hampshire and Vermont, I kept seeing small packages of “microgreen” products, with names like ‘black oil sunflower microgreens’ and ‘pea microgreens.’ I bought a few and found them delicious and delicate greens to place on salads or put into a smoothie. One of the vendors at a Vermont farmers market, an enthusiastic young woman, told me she produces them out of her house in the small town of Lebanon, NH.
I’ve since learned that there are dozens and dozens of these tiny producers around the country….. along with much larger producers operating out of old warehouses in assorted cities and suburbs. They use various horticulture and aquaculture approaches to grow their products, indoors or in greenhouses, all year round. A half dozen of the largest had attracted more than $5 billion in venture capital investment by the middle of 2021. Their products are already showing up in the veggie sections of Walmart and Whole Foods, among others.
This massive move toward technology-supported food production carried out in small towns and large cities alike includes new companies producing lab-grown ‘meat’ and various kinds of customized fermented foods. “This is the greatest change to food production since domestication,” says Azeem Azhar, a technology analyst and writer.
This move seems like a big improvement on continuing attempts at farming innovation going on internationally, some of which are spelled out in a recent New Yorker article that describes the pollution and high water consumption associated with new varieties of rice and wheat seeds in Africa and Asia designed to increase yields. These are similar to problems confronting American Big Ag.
It’s important to note that the tectonic shift in food production isn’t necessarily happening at the expense of traditional farming. Local food production by small farms operating sustainably and producing specialty products like raw dairy, grass-fed meats, and premium cheeses is being helped by moves to reduce stultifying regulation, such as Maine’s recently approved food sovereignty amendment that enables minimally regulated farm-to-consumer food sales.
This transformation is timely for reasons beyond the impact on our food system. For one thing, it’s part of a larger transformation in energy usage spearheaded by the shift to electric self-driving vehicles– all part of a move away from carbon-based energy toward renewable energy like solar and wind energy. Just in food production alone, newly produced foods from proteins made by what Azhar refers to as “precision fermentation” have the potential to reduce conventional energy costs by a factor of five, water requirements by a factor of ten, and land needs by a factor of 100. And that’s before any discussion about improvements in food safety.
Perhaps even more important, this transformation has the potential to support a massive and long overdue political and economic realignment. Over the next few years, for example, the densely populated Northeast will become ever less dependent on places like Texas, Oklahoma, and Saudi Arabia for its energy needs, and less dependent on California and Mexico for its vegetables, fruit, and dairy. Economic independence invariably translates into political independence as well, which to me is becoming ever more tantalizing as the U.S. moves toward increasing polarization, including even talk of civil war.
When you see these emerging opportunities for regional economic independence, you have to question the need for ongoing political tension and violence that seems a permanent part of our “united” states. Why should the ‘liberal’ and ‘diverse’ Northeast and West Coasts, for example, be confronted by the very real possibility of long-term minority rule by people scheming as I write, to ‘fix’ our elections in favor of ultra-conservatives? They denigrate public education, criminalize women who seek abortions, seek to limit the availability of life-saving vaccines, pooh-pooh the realities of climate change, and encourage the distribution of semi-automatic guns even for children….and in general seem to want to be guided by a kind fundamentalism akin to what drives repression and violence in parts of the Mideast, Africa, and Asia.
What’s been most discouraging to me is that a number of the most outspoken advocates of this brave new fundamentalist world are leaders of various types who were once active in supporting the availability of traditional healthy foods like raw dairy and direct sale of foods from small farms to individuals. Even as progress has been made on these fronts, these people have moved on to immerse themselves in the most divisive issues of the days—people like Sally Fallon of the West A. Price Foundation; Joseph Mercola, a mass seller of nutritional supplements and dubbed “the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation”; and Rep. Thomas Massie (pictured above in his family Christmas greeting put out on Twitter a few days after a school shooting in a Michigan public school that resulted in four students being murdered). Massie had a few years ago been an advocate for raw milk sales across state lines and for reduced meat regulation to help small farms. He’s apparently discovered there’s more political opportunity in promoting ownership of semiautomatic weapons than healthy foods; his Christmas Twitter greeting about ammunition is apparently a cynical reference to reports that the accused student murderer was spending time in his public school class looking up sources for ammunition on his cell phone prior to the shooting.
As I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to reconcile myself to the normalization of such grotesque behavior, I’ve increasingly been drawn to an idea I would have found unthinkable not long ago: a national “divorce,” whereby various contrasting regions simply go their separate ways. The Northeast goes one way, the South goes another, the Midwest yet another, and so on. Decentralized food and energy production make such a divorce ever more realistic.
A creative blogger, Jared Brock, has already scoped out a redesigned America, divided into 12 countries. I’ve reproduced his map (above) to give a sense of the possibilities, and limitations (for example, as a longtime Red Sox fan, it’s difficult for me to stomach the idea of living in a country with the name “Yankeedom”). But those are details. What’s key is the notion that the whole of this new collection of American countries could be much greater than the sum of its parts, which right now feel increasingly alienated and embittered.
Each region could exploit its economic strengths, and nurture its political preferences as it sees fit. Maybe Thomas Massie becomes president of Southland, and gives preferential funding to private schools, where the kids can bring their semi-automatic weapons to school and play cops-and-robbers using live ammo during recess. The Northeast could continue doing what it does best, which is to nurture world-class colleges and universities that draw students from around the world and trains them to launch leading-edge technology companies. It may also become a food and energy exporter, taking advantage of the shift to new food and energy production technologies.
Life might be tough for Southland, since racial minorities would likely resent the new repression of white supremacists being in control, and head for better economic opportunities up north. Southland would also need to be much more self-sufficient than it is now—states like Kentucky and Virginia, for all their talk of individual rights and portrayal of the Northeast as a bastion of socialism, take in many more federal dollars than they pay in; while places like the Northeast could at long last stop supporting those on the dole down south and to the west, as this study indicates.
In the new decentralized America, when Massie visits Massachusetts in Yankeedom to attend reunions of his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (yes, he is a graduate), he can leave his and his family’s weapons cache at the border, since the Northeast will have rational gun safety laws in effect that don’t include open carry.
There would, of course, be a huge number of financial and regulatory issues to work through, much like the United Kingdom worked things through with the European Union over the last couple years as part of Brexit. The big challenges could be to provide for a national defense and divide up the national debt, as well as establish priorities for national infrastructure (like the federal highway system).
To many Americans, working out new regional constitutions would be far preferable than arguing endlessly about fantasy conspiracies concerning vote fraud in the 2020 election and how Mark Zuckerberg is in cahoots with the Chinese to take over the U.S. (when Facebook isn’t even allowed to operate in China) and missing Democratic computer servers in Ukraine. Yes, a dozen new nations of urban entrepreneur farmers in friendly competition on behalf of their truly united small countries…..I like that idea.
Oh David, there is much to despair over these days. I appreciate your trying to make some sense of it. I still believe in the democratic experiment here in the U.S. (as a whole United States) and hope that we can make some headway in restoring it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Shana, I would desperately like to believe America’s democratic experiment is still intact. But politically, things are looking quite desperate. More than 20 states have passed legislation to either restrict voting or put it under the supervision of the political party in power. Corrupting the voting process is a surefire recipe for autocracy. If the autocrats win the White House in 2024, the only elections that will count thereafter will be those they win. So unless Congress can pass federal voting rights legislation, which would render the new state voting tricks illegal, in the next few months, I suspect the democratic jig is up. To me, dividing the existing nation into some number of new countries would be much preferable to living under autocracy.
The white folks who founded this former nation(via the Articles of Confed, not the “CON”stitution) do not need to secede from anyone….”balkanize…” They just need to expel those who oppose freedoms ingrained in their Bill of Rights. Most racial minorities(like myself) have invaded this former nation “nonviolently,”….. inadvertently destroying their civilization. Others were shipped in as slaves by a majority of non-white traders. So I have no issue with Massie displaying weapon freedoms and/or expressing racism. Racism kept them white and safe from tyranny.
So David, a question please for you and your readers:
Here in Tulsa, Swan Bros, a raw dairy producer for over 100 years that was sellng all kinds of wonderful raw dairy products, has just been forced to close it’s operations by Health Department threats of a huge legal battle. I can’t find any other Raw Dairy Producer within easy driving distance of Tulsa. Do you know of any? If so please email me.
Steve, sorry to learn about Swan Bros.’ problems. It looks from their Facebook page as if they’re attempting to deal with their listeria issues. Here is the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/SwanBrosDairyInc/
I’ll email you privately with other options for obtaining raw milk in your area.
Cool, Thx David, I’d appreciate that.
Had a long talk with friends at the Oklahoma raw dairy.
The state has given them a long list of things to do to reopen raw milk operations. My advice … get that list done! The start intensive testing to validate that pathogens are not found in the milk. They believe they found the violating cow.
When pathogens come from inside of the udder , it does not matter how clean the udder is or how clean your systems are or how cold or how quickly you chill the milk. The pathogens came from inside the udder.
A good food safety plan will screen for this problem and address this risk.
Raw milk is no longer an iconic piece of food tradition. It is a technical science managed from grass to glass. Unless it is taken really seriously, the risk profile will be variable and you are going to have ugly surprises. The regulatory and consumer liability environment is unforgiving.
Time to take raw milk seriously. Very seriously ! If raw milk is going to emerge with a strong reputation, producers better get trained and use good standards plus testing.
Mark,
“Pathogens” if you will don’t just magically appear inside a cow’s udder… Their origin is the environment and their existence in the environment is ubiquitous… The presence and predominance of a specific microbe inside a cow’s udder depends largely on management protocol. Overall stress and metabolic imbalance especially when initiated via the use of invasive chemical biocides, antibiotics, toxic parasitics and toxic vaccines etc. on a cow is particularly problematic in that they disrupt her overall health and likewise the natural flora inside her udder. Indeed, a natural flora that is essential for competitive exclusion… the basis for a healthy udder and the overall beneficial probiotic qualities of raw milk. I’ve been drinking raw milk for over 60 years… I don’t worry about so-called pathogens but rather that the animal and her milk is free of invasive drugs and chemicals.
As well, people who consume raw milk or spinach or lettuce would do well to seriously consider their use of toxic chemicals and drugs and the effect that those substances have on their gut and immune health.
” As well, people who consume raw milk or spinach or lettuce would do well to seriously consider } what effects the introduction of a “gene therapy agent” disguised as a socalled “vaccine” { will have on their gut and immune health.
No one knows.
this particular medication – which is not a medication – is completely un-tested, even while being administered to billions of humans being. What is known for sure, is : the animals who were injected with it, all died
when a batch of spinach or raw milk, is found to have harmed a couple dozen people, officials fall all over demselves to recall it
now up to many THOUSANDS of deaths directly consequent from the injections, and millions of adverse effects, yet the mass psychosis continues as the greatest medical mal-practice in history
confer with the classic work “Popular delusions and the madness of crowds” by Charles Mackay
Thomas Massie drinks raw milk from my farmer (where I get all the milk for my food buying club). He’s still living off-grid in KY and I LOVED his Christmas card 🙂 He is still promoting the PRIME act, he understands the very real problems we are having with processors. He’s a good guy. And if it weren’t for the 2nd Amendment, we’d be locked down and force vaxxed like Australia. I dislike guns, I don’t like to shoot but I do practice with my .22 pistol. I plan to leave America as free as I found it. Which will take quite some effort. If you don’t jump into the political fray and work to stop this world-wide flu d’etat, then perhaps you condone the takeover? Do you see what’s happening?
Sally, I’ve met Massie a couple of times, including once in 2014 at a conference at Joel Salatin’s farm in Virginia. I was impressed by him, and quoted him, along with others, who spoke at the session.
https://www.davidgumpert.com/first-food-freedom-fest-anticipates-more-aggressive-government-moves
I couldn’t find anything about the PRIME act, or any other food/farmer-related activity on his current Congressional web site. That absence, together with what seems a highly provocative holiday greeting, made me think he had shifted his focus.
I think we have much different views about where the current danger to our freedom comes from. I think the threat from Covid is temporary, and when this pandemic finally subsides (which hopefully will be within the year), so will the various government mandates around the world that have you and many others so afraid. To me, this carefully researched analysis in the current Atlantic explains the real dangers very well–that the danger comes from the ongoing plotting and systematic changes to America’s voting laws and requirements in more than 20 states since the 2020 election. I highly recommend it because it is so well researched.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
You know, in the 1860s, we fought a devastating civil war with hundreds of thousands killed to keep the nation from dividing into two countries. The main reason we fought the war, from all I’ve read, is that the North (the Union) couldn’t abide a nation based on slavery existing next door. The differences that divide us today aren’t quite so moralistically fraught, but they are emotional and divisive, as I describe in my post, and becoming moreso nearly by the day. I guess what I’m saying is that as serious as they might be, they don’t deserve us killing each other via another civil war. But they have become so intractable, I am wondering: Why not just divide ourselves up into a few countries, each of which embodies the values its people decide are pre-eminent, and go our separate ways?
I realized after I wrote my response, Sally, that you made reference to “Australia” and its “forced vaxx.” I think you meant to say Austria, which is now requiring all its citizens to become vaccinated. This is one matter on which we agree–I couldn’t ever imagine such a requirement in the U.S., or most other countries. Actually, the fact that Austria would mandate such an action didn’t surprise me, since Austria was one of Nazi Germany’s strongest allies, the home country of Adolph Hitler. Whereas Germany after WWII apologized and paid reparations to the survivors of its atrocities, Austria never did in as full a way. So, while it has a democratically elected government, the autocratic tendencies remain strong there. There is another European country that has attracted the admiration of the Fox News crowd, and that is Hungary, largely because of its refusal to accept migrants into the country. It also has become increasingly autocratic in recent years, implementing laws that reduce freedom of speech and the press, make voting difficult, and force workers to work overtime. This last requirement is something associated with both fascist and communist oriented systems. The BBC reported: “New rules mean companies can demand up to 400 hours of overtime a year and delay payment for it for three years.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46551904
And in addition, it is pushing hard for vaccination.
allow me to correct an – apparent ? – typographical error in your mention of Hungary, Mr Gumpert. The govt. there didn’t refuse ” … to accept migrants in to the country.” Rather : it is repelling invaders … who are much the same as millions attempting to invade the US of A, utterly illegally
Hungarians know who they are so they refuse to allow their territory to become the kind of “shithole country” * from which those invaders originate
as President Trump put it so well
are the Hungarians wrong to love their own race?
Are they wrong to prefer their home the way they like it?
David, thank you for recommending the article in the Atlantic. I read it and am thoroughly shaken. I had an inkling of the vulnerabilities to our democracy, but this article clearly lays out how extensive those vulnerabilities are. I’m among those who can’t wrap my head around the idea of Americans trying to nullify the votes of their fellow Americans, but I had better become wise to the possibility (probability).
I appreciate the discussion of where pathogens might come from.
It does not really matter. If they are present in their raw milk, that producer gets into serious trouble.
There are very specific things a producer can do and should do to avoid having pathogens in their raw milk. Ignorance is not bliss.
Get educated. Get trained. Start testing! Don’t be that producer.
Merry Christmas everyone…
people like to go about this particular day ( 3rd day after winter solstice ) being fulfilment of a Biblical prophecy … let’s read a bit more of it, for a change
” therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign ; Behold, a virgin shall. conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.
( and a bit farther on, in Isaiah 7 )
And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep; And it shall come to pass for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter, for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.
can’t get much more specific than that … all part of the same Declaration
new REAL MILK cowshare forming in the Vancouver B. C. area
open house at the farm on January 15th in Langley
Jerseycows with phenomenally-high cream content in the milk!
contact the langleyjerseysociety at mail dot com