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Sustainable means sustainable

I saw a sad piece on the local news a few days ago. A woman's small farm was closing because they wouldn't let her live on it and it wasn't commercially viable.

She was upset because it was a local farm supplying local food - an excellent concept. 'Every village should have a sustainable farm like mine,' she said. And she was almost right.

Every village should have a sustainable farm, if possible. Local food is good. But sustainable doesn't just mean sticking your manure on the fields. It means financially sustainable too. And sadly, all too often, the economics aren't thought through. Sustainable is wonderful, but it has to mean what it says.
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Comments

  1. Ms A16 April 2009 at 14:52

    Agreed. My first thought when I read that quote was 'it wasn't that sustainable if you had to close it down.' Sad but true...

    ReplyDelete
  2. MagicMan18 April 2009 at 11:28

    From the picture, it looks like a lot of money was put into the endevour. Some people have grand abitions, spend time and money without researching the returns and operating costs. You build it and they will come is not true.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian Clegg18 April 2009 at 13:07

    Sorry - I should have put a caption: the picture was just a random illustration of a small farm, it wasn't the one in question.

    ReplyDelete

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