{"id":572,"date":"2008-11-18T10:12:09","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T10:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=572"},"modified":"2008-11-18T10:12:09","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T10:12:09","slug":"the-sad-economics-of-growing-vegetables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/the-sad-economics-of-growing-vegetables\/","title":{"rendered":"The sad economics of growing vegetables"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I came across an article on intensive commercial horticulture in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.organicmattersmag.com\/\">Organic Matters<\/a>.\u00a0 It reflects much of what we&#8217;ve learned over the past decade of organic production in Ireland (a developed economy, with subsidised industrial farming and a consumer market generally interested in cheapness and uninterested in quality or source).<\/p>\n<p>Two main ideas which are relevant to organic horticulture are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> small, intensive plots &#8211; which we&#8217;ve found to be easier to work, easier on the soil and more interesting.<\/li>\n<li>the economic impossibility of producing real food in the face of industrial production and supermarket multiples.\u00a0 A passage on the economics is reproduced below because it hits most of the issues.\u00a0 It is painfully true.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0I re-trained in commercial organic horticulture in 2004, hoping to forge some kind of a living wage growing organic herbs and salads for restaurants and direct sales. A mere three weeks into my FAS course at Rossinver&#8217;s Organic Centre, I was brought to earth with a bump when I began to calculate the labour and capital investment required to net a basic salary &#8211; and I didn&#8217;t yet own any land. Furthermore, it appeared to be a bare wage that would tide you over only if you a) already owned your own home outright or b) possessed a kindly, supportive spouse and\/or c) had a second income. (Small scale organic growers invariably have additional incomes as trainers, gardeners, or other forms of consultancy). This was frightening stuff to learn on a &#8216;commercial&#8217; organic curriculum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.organicmattersmag.com\/features\/1-features\/200-putting-a-new-spin-on-organic-horticultural-production\">full article is online here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I came across an article on intensive commercial horticulture in Organic Matters.\u00a0 It reflects much of what we&#8217;ve learned over the past decade of organic production in Ireland (a developed economy, with subsidised industrial farming and a consumer market generally interested in cheapness and uninterested in quality or source). Two main ideas which are relevant &hellip;<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/the-sad-economics-of-growing-vegetables\/\" class=\"more-link pen_button pen_element_default pen_icon_arrow_double\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The sad economics of growing vegetables<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,22,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-living","category-mediaandgatherings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hwcd-9e","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}