Truth Farmer

When the first rattlings about the Greek financial melt down began, well over a year ago now, there were some articles about how the new thinking in the nation went to food production and many young people were heading back to familial farming lands to be able to weather the coming storm. Now that the crush has begun, another article about this has come across my desktop.

The concept is simple. CIVILization, with the operative word being civil, requires that people have enough food to live. If we can’t, or won’t, help others, we will lose the ability to treat each other in a civilized and humane fashion.

Greek villagers’ secret weapon: Grow your own food

KARITAINA, Greece (AP) — Ilias Mathes has protection against bank closures, capital controls and the slashing of his pension: 10 goats, some hens and a vegetable patch.

If Greece’s financial crisis deepens, as many believe it must, he can feed his children and grandchildren with the bounty of the land in this proud village high in the mountains of the Arcadia Peloponnese.

“I have my lettuce, my onions, I have my hens, my birds, I will manage,” he said, even though he can no longer access his full pension payment because of government controls imposed six days ago. “We will manage for a period of time, I don’t know, two months, maybe three months, because I also want to give to our relatives. If they are suffering, I cannot leave them like this, isn’t that so?”

(Read the whole thing here)