Spring hits closer to home
Gary Carden holds forth on seed catalogs and compulsive gardening in this week’s Sylva Herald, and tidings arrive from Dillsboro in the form of the newly announced Appalachian Grower’s Fair, an April 5th festival to “celebrate sustainable agriculture and grassroots community efforts.” Sylva’s Greening Up the Mountains festival (April 26th) celebrates it’s 11th year as a festival focused on local sustainability, culture and crafts. Meanwhile, farmers around the area are greasing their tailgate hinges in anticipation of market season, which will get underway in a month or so.
Just this morning I saw that the price of gasoline has hit an all-time, inflation-adjusted high, and that some prognosticators believe we’ll pay four bucks a gallon before the end of summer. It doesn’t take an energy scientist to understand the connect-the-dots scenario here: many of us depend way too much on a strange system that mass-produces food and ships it hundreds or thousands of miles to a store near you. That takes gas. It’s already cheaper and safer to gather or grow your goods closer to home; soon it’s going to be much cheaper.
Mass-producers are well aware of all this, of course, so it’ll be interesting to follow the strategies that that industry pursues. Here’s one.
Tags: Dillsboro, Sylva, Sylva Herald
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