By Ellen LaConte

30 March, 2011
Countercurrents.org

Spring has sprung—at least south of the northern tier of states where snow still has a ban on it—and the grass has ‘riz. And so has the price of most foods, which is particularly devastating just now when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, retired or retiring, on declining or fixed incomes and are having to choose between paying their mortgages, credit card bills, car payments, and medical and utility bills and eating enough and healthily. Many are eating more fast food, prepared foods, junk food—all of which are also becoming more expensive—or less food.

In some American towns, and not just impoverished backwaters, as many as 30 percent of residents can’t afford to feed themselves and their families sufficiently, let alone nutritiously. Here in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina where I live it’s 25 percent. Across the country one out of six of the elderly suffers from malnutrition and hunger. And the number of children served one or two of their heartiest, healthiest meals by their schools grows annually as the number of them living at poverty levels tops twenty percent. Thirty-seven million Americans rely on food banks that now routinely sport half-empty shelves and report near-empty bank accounts. And this is a prosperous nation!

In some cases this round of price hikes on everything from cereal and steak to fresh veggies and bread—and even the flour that can usually be bought cheaply to make it— will be temporary. But over the long term the systems that have provided most Americans with a diversity, quantity and quality of foods envied by the rest of the world are not going to be as reliable as they were. [Read more]

In 2009 North Coast Opportunities and Willits Economic Localization with support from the Community Services Block Grant and Cal-Endowment created a local food backed currency and called it Mendo Food Futures now called Grange Grains. It’s mission was to provide markets for local farmers, increase community food security, and provide an alternative currency to be used in the community. In one year the project created and distributed $10,000 worth of Mendo Food Future notes, sold over 10,000 pounds of local organic grains and provided grain storing and preparation materials to consumers at Farmers Markets. (Read entire article at gardensproject.blogspot.com)