Discussion (4)¬

1. SuburbanEcology says:

   September 29, 2011 at 12:28 am

   Anecdotally (i.e., this means jack without any statistics to back it up …), when I was in rural Iowa for three years, I saw more people using food-stamps than I did in Chicago or suburban Detroit … I thought it was weird to be surrounded by food, and yet still see people who needed help to feed themselves and their families.

   • ChayaFradle says:

     September 29, 2011 at 6:32 am

     With the listeria outbreak recently, I think we should all grow our own food. I am throwing out my cantaloupes in my refrigerator. You're right; that must have felt weird seeing people who live in a state where so much food is locally grown having to use food stamps. Oy.

   • Macushla Bubba says:

     September 29, 2011 at 3:30 pm

     Man does not live by corn alone! [Nor, of course, does Woman, but I'm borrowing from Mathew 4:4 about bread. Gotta love old Matt- he may be my favorite socialist!] Actually, thinking of my grandmother's native Iowa, people do not live by just corn [much of it grown & of a quality for animal feed anyway], unprocessed wheat, millet, sorghum and soybeans, esp. when a farm may only grow one primary crop [farms aren't as diversified as they used to be.] And income from the increasingly rare, non-industrial, non-absentee-owned, family farms is pretty dismal these days… Esp. in an occupation with such inconsistent yields, and with such huge "overhead." It's a function of weather, economics, distribution and the specialization & industrialization which means farmers usually do not process their own crops or livestock, like in the "Olden Days." As Suburban Eco saw, rural poverty is a huge problem, however ironic is seems in "America's breadbasket." And anyone who teaches in rural areas can also sadly tell you that the stereotypical urban school problems– drugs, teen pregnancy, child & date abuse and suicide are all prevalent in rural areas as well.

2. ChayaFradle says:

   September 28, 2011 at 5:50 am

   🙂