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Thread: A frenzy over free food

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    Default A frenzy over free food

    http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_11052263

    Want one more palpable sign of a desperate economy?

    An estimated 40,000 people came to a Weld County farm Saturday to collect free potatoes, carrots and leeks.

    Cars snaked around cornfields and parallel parked along Colorado 66 and 119 early in the morning to get free food from the Miller family, who farm 600 acres outside of Platteville, about 37 miles north of Denver.

    As this prolonged Indian summer continued, the Millers had decided to give away produce because so much was left over at the end of their annual fall festival. Any day now, a few deep freezes would kill it off.

    They expected between 5,000 and 10,000 people spread out over a couple of days. Instead, they found themselves on Saturday morning inundated with cars and people with sacks and wagons and barrels ready to harvest whatever was available.

    The Millers canceled the second day of the giveaway originally planned for today because, as Chris Miller put it, "the pickins' are very slim now."

    At one point, 30 acres of family farmland had become a parking lot. Their crowd estimate of 40,000 plus was based on the number of cars. Sheriff's officials said they "wouldn't be surprised" if that count was accurate.

    Traffic was backed up almost to Interstate 25, and police ticketed people who had illegally abandoned their cars in the frenzy.

    "Overwhelmed is putting it mildly," Miller said. "People obviously need food."

    Evidently, Platteville isn't the only place where this is the case. Last week in Denver, thieves broke into freezers owned by the Park Hill Grandparents Organization and stole Thanksgiving trimmings — including more than a dozen frozen turkeys — set to be donated.

    And in Lakewood on Saturday, people lined up in the dark at 6 a.m. to collect Thanksgiving boxes, donated by the Jeffco Action Center. By the end of the day, 5,141 people had gotten food — the biggest demand in 40 years.

    At the Miller Farm, it never got truly unruly.

    They had friends and family members help direct cars. Sheriff's deputies cruised up and down highways trying to move traffic along, after fielding complaints from neighbors.

    The family makes most of its money in the summer and fall, visiting 42 farmers markets a week, and hosting a fall festival where relatives charge an entry fee and then teach people about where their food comes from.

    Normally, any unpicked produce goes back to the land. But after hearing reports of food being stolen from some nearby churches, the Millers decided to let people take what they wanted for free.

    Sandra Justice, a Greeley resident who works at a technology company, brought her mother and son to pick potatoes. The price was nice, she said, but Justice also enjoyed picking her own food in these downtrodden times.

    "Everybody is so depressed about the economy," she said, noting she hauled off about 10 bags of vegetables. "This was a pure party. Everybody having a great time getting something for free."

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    Default Re: A frenzy over free food

    and note the urban 'flip side' ...



    (snip)"CHICAGO - The line for a Thanksgiving meal was long when the Chicago Christian Industrial League shelter opened Thursday morning, and volunteers served more than 200 people in the first 40 minutes — record demand for the shelter.

    Among the hungry were familiar faces, people who had eaten their last Thanksgiving meal at the shelter and others who had helped provide those meals, said executive director Mary Shaver.

    "These are the people who are always giving money — and now they're asking for help," Shaver said. "These were the people donating money to us.""(snip)



    something to ponder ...

    next spring, it's very probable that small farmers won't be able to be as generous ... since they will have difficulty borrowing enough money to pay for fertilizer, pesticides etc. to fully plant and harvest. This is already a problem in the southern hemisphere - which is now in it's planting season, and where small farmers of all sorts of crops can't get fertilizer and pesticide financing. See where Brazilian coffee farmers are only expecting to harvest 2/3rds as much coffee next year due to shortage of credit for fertilizer and pesticide.

    next spring, it's also very probable that urban middle class ... who formerly contributed to charities ... will no longer be able to afford doing so. Thus many charities that are already running out of money will not be able to afford to continue providing the same services as in the past.

    Essentially, this will leave the government and / or government 'chartered' corporations as the 'provider of last resort' in both cases.

    It wouldn't be the least bit surprising to see Archer Daniels Midland become a 'CitiGroup' in the agricultural sector ... using government bailout money to 'gobble up' financially distressed small farms in the same way that Citi et al will 'gobble up' financially distressed small banks. This probably won't be difficult given that a whole lot of US corn farmers borrowed heavily to fully fertilize and pesticide tons of acres this year in expectation of very high corn prices at harvest time. However, between the corn ethanol fuel additive mandate cutting demand for corn right along with demand for gasoline, and the big money commodity speculators filling grain silos with corn futures they purchased but never intended to consume, current corn prices have fallen substantially. This will really put the squeeze on small farmers to cover their fertilizer and pesticide loans from last spring (with fertilizers and pesticides bought at record high prices), still turn enough of a profit on this year's corn crop sale in order to pay their other bills, and still have enough money left over to financing planting themselves in the spring of 2009 in the absence of affordable short term credit. Like the coffee farmers, this is likely to lead to a significant reduction in US agricultural output next year ... along with a significant (re)elevation of food prices.

    If future gov't policy re troubled small farms follows along similar lines to the bailout of troubled 'subprime' mortgage holders, there's also the possibility of agencies related to the US Dep't of Agriculture taking on analogous roles to Fannie and Freddie ... i.e. keeping bankrupt small farms afloat by 'eating' ongoing loan losses at the expense of the US taxpayer, while refusing to foreclose. And like Fannie and Freddie placing the US gov't directly in the home mortgage business, such an action would place the US gov't directly in the farming business.

    It also wouldn't surprise me to see the gov't directly substitute for the Salvation Army and other soon to be bankrupt charities.

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 12-02-2008 at 06:01 AM.

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