Self sufficiency

Bill Liebhardt (wcliebhardt@ucdavis.edu)
Thu, 19 Dec 1996 11:57:44 -0800

I have found the discussion on this issue to be very interesting. In the
1950's when I was in high school my folks had a dairy farm in Wisconsin. We
grew a lot of our own food as did most of our neighbors. We had 22 cows,
10 sows a year farrowed and we had about 250 chickens and a large garden.
We could get snowed in for week and we were OK. I know this is not the way
it is now in that area. Many of the farms are gone as are the people that
were there. The idea was that you had land, labor and the will to be very
self sufficient and it was a good feeling at least to me and I think members
of our family.

In contrast to this I got a call from a farmer in Iowa in the 80's during
the crisis and he said he was broke had six kids no food in the house and 35
cents in the house and he needed help. How could a farmer get in such a
position? There is some value in being self sufficient<a personal opinion>
in terms of a families well being. It is certainly easier on a farm and it
is an advantage of being on a farm. It is part of the life style. It maybe
more difficult to pluck the chickens but there are chickens to pluck.

People are free to make choices whether they want to grow there own food or
not to do it and there are consequences. It is not just growing the food
there are other advantages that take place when this happens.

Take Care All,

Bill
Bill Liebhardt
UC SAREP
UCD
Davis, CA 95616
phone: 916/752-2379
FAX: 916/754-8550
email: wcliebhardt@ucdavis.edu