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Excellent article! Thank you.

Great post Raymond. I was wondering how do CSAs deal with the problem of cross-pollination from patented stocks of industrial farming. I know in California those I.Fs. have some incredible legal rights to go on another farm to see if the farmer next to theirs or several miles away, has plants that are the result of pollination from I.Fs. to the innocent farmers stocks. Then they have the right to demand money. Yet the innocent farmer can't sue them for contaminating their stock.

Thanks for the info. But it begs the whole question of whether animals ought to be eaten at all. It is ironic also that people are burning up so much oil to get to the farm. Come on. Someone driving a Mercedes to buy chickens and comparing prices with the local supermarket? How few see the insanity in this. Why? We live in a culture of money which drives almost everything, and drives us crazy. We are money addicts, and the food issue illustrates it to a tee.

I eat mostly whole organic grains, beans, vegetables, a few nuts and fresh fruit that I can pick, mostly oranges. Grains and beans have to be shipped, however, which in this case is legitimate, and hopefully from not too far away.

I believe the real sustainable solution is to stop eating animals. It is a violent action, no matter how it is rationalized. Nature includes animal killing in her grand scheme but she mitigates it. Man sometimes has to kill animals to survive but we pay a high price for it in a culture of violence. Today it is not necessary for animal killing to go on. I believe animals should be allowed dignity and freedom. Man needs to mitigate violence and that means eating as far down the food chain as possible which is mostly grains and vegetables. The first animal right is freedom, and that is freedom from being tortured and killed. It also implies freedom from being put in zoos and circuses, and from being forced to be pets to humans because humans need to get their love and control needs met through animals. A huge amount of psychic and physical energy is sucked away from human to human love and displaced onto animals who have no choice in the matter. The natural human to animal to plant relationship has been subverted through greed and ignorance. The food and animal problem is a human problem. The smartest humans are still trying to catch up to the dumbest animals. The money monster poisons and addicts us to fast, frozen foods; then offers salvation through drugs, insurance and medical care. Insanity. People can't even boil rice anymore; they head for a restaurant or the frozen food section and then to a mircowave. Insanity. Insanity I say. Old man Midas learned he couldn't eat money. We haven't learned that yet.

The food issue opens up a whole can of worms. I'm glad you brought opened up the can, hopefully with a manual opener.

So then what would you propose to do with all of the millions of domesticated industrial food animals that have been born and raised and could not survive by themselves in the wild and are dependent on the animal/human relationship.

Or are you saying eat them all and then don't raise anymore?

The path back to sanity is a slow and gradual process. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will utopia but we'll never get there unless we know where we're going. There is a grandfather clause.