Small farm plots needed for future

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The current runup in gasoline prices is most likely due to speculation and corporate greed. However, this doesn�t mean that peak oil and global warming are just fantasies.

There is plenty of scientific evidence available on the Web to support both models. And the laws of physics don�t really care who is sitting in the White House or the Congress. Since most of the food we eat is grown by petroleum-intensive agricultural practices, we are eating oil. This is a disaster in the making right here in Whatcom County.

Sustainable, labor-intensive farming has a very good chance of replacing modern petroleum-based agri-business, but people are going to have to relearn how to work the soil by hand. There is a pent-up desire among young people to become small farmers and market gardeners, but the problem is access to land.

One solution to the land access problem is for landowners of 5-acre parcels to mark off an acre and let a young farmer work it on a year-to-year lease. Rent can be paid in produce via the equivalent of a CSA share (about $450 at current prices). This is called mini-sharecropping and it is an idea whose time has come.

Walter Haugen
Ferndale

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