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Friday, June 1, 2012

We'll be supplying a pig for...

burning beast picture courtesy of their facebook page


We will be supplying a pig for Burning Beast, a local food extravaganza that benefits a local non-profit that... well, they're one of the organizations that seems to hate farming, but, well, what are you gonna do?    Rubicon Seattle

I say that they hate farming because what they seem to be doing with the farm that they purchased in 1993 is destroying it as a farm.  "Unfarming" is prominently displayed in their  website and their primary comments about the land stewardship is that they're restoring wetlands and rechanneling salmon spawning creeks and so on.  Which is fine and good, but couldn't there be some room for farming on this farm, too?    And farming, to me, means animals.

Farmland here is precious, and every acre that's lost means less opportunity for someone to produce that local food.  Whether it's lost to development, "restoration" or housing, it's lost, and often permanently.  

I say farming means animals because this fundraiser is pretty much a BBQ extravaganza!   They have hundreds of acres (385 acres, actually); some of it looks like very good pasture.  You'd think that this wonderful resource would be used to produce some of the local food that they celebrate -- animals.  How about a flock of sheep?  or some beef cows?  They've got pictures of 50 chickens being BBQ'd -- how about a few that got raised there?

Don't get me wrong -- local food is good, and a venue where local food is celebrated is great.  But shouldn't we actually be using our local farm resources to produce that local food?

Burning beast is July 15th, meats come off the grill at 5pm.





1 comment:

  1. It is kind of sad that they can say they are "unfarming" but they are still buying from...farmers? Sounds like all hype with nothing real behind it. They can make themselves look good but when you know how they do it, they kind of lose their charm.

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