By Jane Bauer

“In our society growing food ourselves has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can ― and will ― overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world ― we change ourselves.” ― Jules Dervaes

I own a restaurant, which means if you look in my fridge at home you will find a lot of good intentions. I spend all day around food and it is often easier to just have a piece of toast at the end of the day or to bring something from work. Recently some potatoes I had forgotten about started sprouting in the fridge, so I planted them. I was so inspired by the quick results that I dug out seeds I have accumulated over the years and bought some pretty planters. There is an amazing satisfaction to eating something you have grown.

The cost of food around the world is soaring! Forget when a few years back when people were complaining about the 8$ cauliflower – that is nothing compared to what is currently happening. The New Yorker recently published a piece about “The True Costs of Inflation in Small-Town Texas,” detailing the impact of inflation on BBQ. This is mainstream media reporting on rising food costs that are causing businesses to close!

In Huatulco it’s not just meat, fish (which is locally caught but there is less of it) – it’s tomatoes, avocados and everything else.

What we are experiencing right now is not the famines of the past which affected people in far off lands that we could forget about when we turned off the TV and sat down to our meat and potatoes dinner. There is no turning off the TV any more – globalization has ensured that we are all connected and we are all going to feel the effects.

The causes for some of this inflation have been higher freight costs, supply chains disrupted by the pandemic and war, increase in the cost of fertilizers and gas. Average monthly natural gas price, as indicated by the World Bank’s Natural Gas Index, went up by nearly 600% between June 2020 and December 2021.

Much of the world is experiencing record-breaking heat waves and water shortages along with soaring food prices, which will impact food production as well.

The stories about people living off the grid, near a water source and growing their own food? They don’t seem eccentric or crazy or counter-culture any more… they seem smart.

See you in October,

Jane