“The main elements of the national debate are here, just somewhat hidden beneath the surface: the mutually dependent relationship of employers and immigrant workers, the financial benefits and setbacks an influx of immigrants brings to a community, and the awkward question of who is legal and how much it should matter,” The New York Times reported in an article Tuesday about Liberal, Kan.
It noted that due to the growth of Liberal’s meatpacking industry, Latinos’ share of the Liberal population was 43 percent in 2000, up from 10 percent in 1980. And children of immigrants make up nearly two-thirds of the public school enrollment.
There has been some resentment about social costs and culture changes, the Times reported. But for the most part, Liberal residents have recognized that their economy has needed the workers, so the town has taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to immigration.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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52 Comments
The percentages might be lower but Wichita will soon be facing a similar situation as Liberal, Kansas. Just drive up Waco, to 13th and 21st streets. Then turn right along 21st to Broadway.
Businesses are busy, houses are occupied, pedestrians everywhere, new restaurants and businesses, some new construction. Dillons at 13th and Waco is very busy. The Cathedral on Central is full as I experienced on a recent Sunday morning.
Eagle newspapers being purchased from metal dispensers. Do we really want to give this up here in River City?
Very true..the Dillons at 14th and Waco is very busy…and the only one I know of in the city with a uniformed guard at the entrance.
Coincidence?
typo…13th…not 14th
If it weren’t for illegal immigration, western Kansas would be dead.
Evenutally it will happen, the illegal immgrants are just prolonging their survival.
Even with the large influx of immigrants to work in the packing plants in Liberal, Garden City, and Dodge City, those places still loose population.
But we need to watch out. They are making the words “Illegal” alien or immigrant a racial slur word. In the political correctness world.
I’ve no problem with these folks living where no one else will live. Liberal and Salina can have them all for all I care.
IBP has domination of the meat packing industry because of who they hire. How many industries will or have followed suit? I guess unlike TWECO, they’ve kept the plant in Kansas instead of moving it to Mexico. Safeway Processing used to be a good paying packing house, but folded due to low wage competition, and sold out to Farmland, and quit cutting beef.
JR,
That was what I was going to say. It is not exactly like Liberal is the garden stop of the universe. If they can live there, power to them.
There is an article in today’s paper version of the Eagle that reports on amateur rodeos that are organized by the Hispanic community North of the neighborhood that JWink describes. It is getting interesting. :-)
I’ll take about thirty of those families in my dying community. And thanks.
I would welcome their contributions out here. Does that make my community desperate? Maybe, but I’ll take my chances with people who WANT to live out here, rather than be stuck with the dinosaurs who live out here because they cant hack it anywhere else. Dinosaurs just waiting for better weather I guess.
I would love for my grocery store to be busy, my schools to be filled with students, my churches over flowing and our housing market energized by immigrants. I really dont care WHAT language they use when they make our cash registers ring.
So please do, as we USED to say in this country, “give me your tired your poor…” and I will be most happy to give them the same opportunity my grandparents had.
Being a second generation american myself, I like the chances my community will reap BENEFITS from these immigrants within, um, ONE generation.
Maybe you all in Wichita dont have room for “them”, or think you dont want to “live next to ‘em”. Send ‘em on out here.
It wouldnt be the first time western ks took in the “refuse” and the “refuse” returned the favor by being productive members of the community.
I’d rather live next to “them” than some of the hard core redneck righties from Wichita. I think “they” would improve my neighborhood.
Oh and by the way, my community would assist them in getting citizenship, not shun them until they did. That shunning is so, like, nineteenth century.
And we might actually pay them a living wage since labor is short out here. I dont believe in using immigrants to drive down wages. If any using is going to go on, I believe in using them to lift my community.
You are correct in that western ks may be such a cultural and economic wasteland that only “wetbacks” would want to live here. But I, for one, would be glad to share this wide open space with ANYONE tough enough to live here.
I’d love to take part in that experiment. Personally, I like the odds. You all keep terry and joe and send me your immigrants. As the first REAL residents of this continent might have said…
“Good trade”.
(I’ll try to get it in three!)
Not being a scientist, I can only wonder here…..
Is it just a conincidence that southwest kansas, with a HUGE hispanic population, both legal and illegal, has the second fastest growing regional economy in the state? Next to joco of course.
Just wondering. All those packing plants and dairies and hispanics in southwest ks couldnt possibly be CONTRIBUTING to their regional economy?
I mean, if they were such a drain on their community resources, wouldnt the economy in the southwest be in the tank?
Just wondering….
As a former WestKan resident, I knew things had changed from my childhood when I read an obit in the Satanta newspaper. The funeral for a Spanish-surnamed woman was held in a catholic church officiated by a Vietnamese priest.And when I visit my family in Liberal, I see signs of a new immigrant wave with stores and bars and used automobile lots. Maybe they are re-taking what we stole from them, who cares? I will have to admit though, that a municipal judge friend of mind, now deceased, worried about the rising rate of petty crime. I don’t live out there anymore and don’t want to. But while the area is flat and not really scenic, it continues to thrive, with, of course, agriculture leading the way.
What else does the New York TIMES article say that is mentioned in the lead paragraph of this blog thread?
This massive shift of population might be the major sociological event of the 21st century. Of course, Mexico City is said to be between the fourth to the largest city in the world with possibly 30,000,000 people (10% of the U.S. population) many living in unbelievable poverty.
I’m not offering a value judgment here. But some kind of registration system is needed in order to get this situation in hand in regard to rules/regulations, health checks with required shots, schools, identities and followup schedule.
It appears this effort will have to come from the state level because the federal government appears to be in a state of disarray and probably will be until after the coming elections.
Am I on track here?
You are on track wink.
The feds, under the preznit’s leadership, are no more capable of dealing with immigration than they were dealing with Katrina. Or big oil and their obscene profits. Or big pharma and the prescription drug bill. Or our growing health care crisis. Or the war in iraq. Or anything else they set should be doing but arent.
If anything is to be done anywhere, it will have to be done by state and local govt.
Which makes those votes all the more important here in November.
Had enough?
NO INCUMBENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh I forgot one.
No more capable of dealing with immigration than they are their own addiction to deficits and their addiction to spending like drunken conservative republicans.
NO INCUMBENTS.
Wetbacks do not have the moral, intellectual or cultural capcity to IMPROVE anything. The scum will only create filthy slums and produce low iq offspring that will drop out and commit crime!
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!Viva La Raza Blanco!!Deportacion Total!!
I recently heard Pat Roberts speak, in favor of big western Kansas landowners. I think he may have lumped locally-residing, and distant-residing colonial-minded landowners together, but I don’t know for sure.
Anyway, his proposition was, these large landowners take major risks. and then when thing break right, they get major profits. His proposal, discussed on C-SPAN, in favor of continuing giving them huge federal subsidies was, ” We have to eliminate their downside risks in poor markets with massive subsidies, then allow them to make windfall profits when things break right.”
This was in response to a question, “Should farm subsidies be available only to live-on-the-land small farmers?”
Some people might argue that Pat’s response seemed to sound like, “No, that’s not my vision of subsidies. I think big agribusinesses need help to drive small farmers off the land.”
I’m not accusing him of saying this. Maybe it’s my bad ears, or maybe he could have expressed himself differently.
It just sounded to my ears and brain that he was suggesting this, when he said he was not in favor of cappying federal subsidies that might satisfy small family farmers. but not big operators, including, maybe, some people who may not live in Kansas, or who may live in Kansas part of the year, and Florida part of the year, or whatever. But if my brain and ears don’t work, or if Mr. Roberts’ brain and mouth don’t work, or some combination, it’s nobody’s fault, is it?
We need to hear from Mr. Santiago.
His name means the “the supplanter”, the the deceining usurper through deceit. But his posts are important. If readers will absorb ALL the information, then they can make wise decisions for their children.I’ve think I have done a lot more for Americans than Mr. Santiago. How do I dare assert this? I could be wrong. But I worked at 3 PM to help white Americans. Then the following day at 7 AM. Then the following day at 3 PM. I finally got off at 8 PM two days later. I worked for 60+ hours straight for white Americans. Too many times to count. That’s because I was trained, and worked as a doctor.
What do you do when two guys come into an Arkansas ER at 2 AM Saturday morning, and one says, “My friend was bit by a rattlesnake.” His friend has a Popeye forearm.(That’s like when your forearm is humongously bigger than your upper arm. Some of you may remember Popeye cartoons in the 30’s-50’s.)
The victim is passed out. The awake friend says, “I can bring the bag of snakes in, if you want to see.”
No, the late-night doctor and his beautiful, really smart nurse (whom he’d jump in a NY minute if he wasn’t already married) concur, “DO NOT BRING the bag of snakes in, because the wound looks looks EXACTLY like a large diamondback bite.” We’ll infuse antivenin.
Okay Mr. St, James, tell the readers what you have done to help your fellow white Americans. Like at 2 AM on a Friday night. Then Saturday at 8 AM, then at 8 PM Saturday night, then Sunday at 9 AM.Then sleep in the rest of Sunday, and go to work Monday at 7 AM.
Or work until 8 PM on Sunday night, and get relieved to go home and get ready for you day job Monday at 7 AM.
Ian
Do you drive an African car?
ksfarmgrrl: I’m curious about the meat packing industry in western Kansas probably in Garden City. Its my understanding that a lot of water is required and presumably this comes from the Ogalala “reservoir,” or underground water. I believe the level of this water keeps sinking lower and lower as its extracted.
So my question is — is any time-table discussed in western Kansas when the meat packing industry will grind to a halt for lack of water supply?
It appears to me that some of our water sources here in central Kansas specifically the Ninnescah River and Chickaskia River which both furnish some of the drinking water to Wichita and Wellington, etc. actually have their sources from the Ogalala. This seems to me to be true due to dropping elevation of topography, west to east, even though their source springs are somewhat east of the east edge of the Ogalala.
So what are your thoughts on this?
The meat packing industry uses huge amounts of water in processing. But that doesnt even count the water used to IRRIGATE the corn and feed used to grow the cattle that are processed in those plants.
I am aware of no official plans to deal with the end of the aquifer other than the standard hand wringing and woe is me talk.
Some talk from the water office that we should pay irrigators to stop draining the aquifer. Silly when the state already owns all the water and can allocate according to beneficial use.
The water issues will be the demise of southwest kansas sooner than the immigrant problem. How will kansas react when it’s second fastest growing regional economy bites the dust?
Shock? Surprise? Anger? Helplessness?
All of the above probably. But it isnt like we didnt have 40 years to prepare. We just stuck our heads in the dry riverbed sand and hoped for a miracle.
How’s that working for us?
And as you mentioned, water runs downhill so that means water problems and fights run uphill. The water problems and looming crisis will soon be your problem in Wichita.
It is the Arkansas River they use in southwest kansas. Why do you think the state is so hot to own Circle K ranch near Kinsley? I mean, other than Mike Hayden gets to buy and control land, the governor gets to suck up to hays and bail them out of their bad decision to purchase the ranch, and Dodge and the southwest ks beef industry get to continue using lots of water while the doomsday clock ticks.
Buying Circle K will retire some water rights in the Middle Ark. That is a VERY good thing. But the state buying land to do so, especially when there is supposedly no money for education, is stupid and bad precedent. The state could just retire the over appropriated water rights without filling several pockets in ellis and edwards counties.
The ultimate beneficiary will be downstream water users of the Ark. The system will recharge at the Middle Ark, but that still doesnt make the river flow between Dodge and Kinsley.
But eventually, the water will run out west of Kinsley too. And you could have had more water in your area if the river were allowed to flow.
Complicated subject, but on a note more familiar to me…
Do you know who governor leadership appointed to chair the Kansas Water Authority? Steve Irsik of Garden City. A HUGE irrigator/beef guy, a HUGE governor leadership campaign contributor, and a HUGE crop subsidy welfare queen.
Nice to have him in charge of the water out here. Just like putting bush and cheney in charge of the nation’s energy policy.
Can you say “fox in henhouse”?
The packing plants only go where the cattle are. So those packing plants have nothing to do with regional economy, but with access to cattle and feed lots.
And the only reason why there are massive feed lots is because of farmers around Kansas grow cattle feed.
Cattle feed is grown cheaply because it is subsidized and irrigated.
Once the government cuts the subsidies, the state tells farmers to stop irrigating or if the water becomes brackish or gone, then they cannot grow cattle feed.
No cattle feed, no feed lots, no cattle market, no packing plants.
I know somebody who is high up at National Beef in Dodge City. They already have a 15 year maximum operation plan in place with the contingency to get the “hell out of Dodge” literally, on any short notice if they know the cattle market is going to go Tango Uniform.
They know they are only on borrowed time, but they will max it out as much as they can to squeeze the dollars out of it. But they could care less about their communities they are in.
Compared to our looming water crisis, our petro-energy crisis is going to look like small potatoes in 50 years.
Actually, humans are nicely evolved: we’re like pigs and bears, we’re omnivores. We don’t have to eat meat. I once had a lunch at Loma Linda University, run by vegan Seventh Day Adventists. It was tasty, nutritious and filling.
I LOVE beef. We home-grill USDA dry-aged prime ribeyes (2 inch thick) steaks or porterhouse once a month. The cattle are raised here, but you have to order grass-and-grain fed meat from New York.
I love pork. We have a smoker barbecue that can do ribs in 5 hours under hickory that is to die for.
But mostly now, we do chicken and seafood. For the latter, we have to “order out” to Seattle, or go to Overland Park’s Whole Foods store, or “Go Wild” seafood here, that has some great seafood. So patronize them. You don’t like “fishy” taste? Find out that fish doesn’t have to taste “fishy”.
Some days we don’t eat any flesh. It’s not that my family doesm’t like flesh–cuz we DO–it is that the “good stuff” is becoming very expensive. I mean, I don’t mind tough select beef. Just cook it for four hours and add some nice spices, and it’s really tasty and isn’t tough, but it may have bovine spongeoform encepalothopy prions, thanks to feeding cows animal byproducts. Humans are ominivores, but cattle are not, they’re designed to eat plants, not animal byproducts.
A young cousin of mine was trying to figure out what to do with his life. I told him to go to law school, intern for 2-3 years with a Colorado water lawyer, then move to, oh, Hugoton or Liberal and set up a water law practice. He’d have more work than he could handle. He ended up teaching, though. I’ve often thought I should have followed my own suggestion.The packing plants moved out of Wichita and to WKan to get away from Wichita’s unionized beefcutters so they could pay slave wages. The day the wage structure starts to equalize, they’ll leave in an instant. Then watch the feedyards close up. And the farmers figuring out what to grow. It will have to be dryland soon, because the water has been wasted by such people as Irsik who believe they have the right as landowners to mine all the water they want to.Hummm, maybe that law school idea isn’t such a bad one. Would give me something to do to keep from retiring.
Actually Heartlander. Our intestines are design to eat meat.
Digest meat, I should say.
Fun fact: Beans have all but one of the essential amino acids our bodies can’t produce. Corn has methionine, the missing amino acid. We don’t need to eat meat.Doesn’t make it any less tasty, though. Here they cook tuna steaks medium rare (just like beef) and its delicious! Too bad there isn’t any place in Kansas that serves tuna like that.Wow, that’s one hell of a thread drift. Sorry!
If memory serves, the aquifier is huge, and runs all the way down into Texas, and is indeed sinking low everywhere. I haven’t heard anything lately, but I doubt the problem went away. Look for some more extended litigation between states before it’s all gone.
Then the fun REALLY starts. Ahem.
Might have to see about some tuna steaks for the meet up. I wouldn’t know how to cook them though.
Actually Joe, I think I remember reading that our intestines are NOT ideally designed for eating meat. They are too long and better suited to fiber. That is why eating meat gives us such health problems.
kfg is probably the best reference to the degradation of the Ogallala Aquifer. What people don’t understand and what government does not want you to know is the aguifier is being pumped out at a rate almost one hundred times faster than nature can replenish it.
When it does go dry, and it’s not a matter of if but a matter of when, it will be the greatest environmental disaster this country has ever seen. Basically, there wont be anythiong left to litigate. I would look for intra state warfare.
When it goes dry, there is no way the rivers of this country can replace it. Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Oklahoma are desert states. When the first explorers passed through those states, they said, to a man, that they were worthless land.
The government gave right of way land by the millions of acres to the railroads. When the railroads built the rail system from the east to the west, they lied, cheated, and did whatever it took to get settlers to move to those states. The rest is history: misuse of water on a national scale.
(kfg, I found the book and I’ll give it to you at the picnic.)
JR,The human body has an intestinal tract that supports both meat and fiber. Kind of like the bear, or even monkeys. The problem we have with eating meat is eating too much of it. The fat in meat, eaten in moderation, is benificial. When over eaten, it tends to clog arteries . . . bad.
Tara,The best fish I ever ate was bluefin we caught on a long range boat out of San Diego. The cook on board made sushi out of it. Awesome.
The next was some BBQ albacore we cought on an overnight trip out of the same place. My b-in-l q’ed it the next day. Im telling you no one can q fish like my brother in law, Terry. It’s right along side kfg’s tater salad.
Oh ok thanks JM. Omnivores mainly to plant fiber direction I guess.
I don’t know alot about this water problem. FIrst heard of it from kfg. I do remember the one time I flew west. It was 20 years ago. I remember seeing all the circle in square fields and thinking it seemed quite unnatural. I guess I was right.
Walker, JR, Tara, I might not be as good as Terry, but I can cook tuna steaks. I had swordfish steaks last night with a cilantro/jalepeno cream sauce. We had salmon tacos the night before, so the sauce was already made!
The water thing is indeed, too late to stop, but that doesnt mean we should just turn a blind eye and wait for the federal government to bail us all out. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
And the water lawyer career path would be a good one. Interstate and intra state litigation is infinately on-going, but as you all wisely point out…it will eventually be fighting over the scraps, with nothing but desert remaining.
And since water runs downhill, our water problems are soon to be YOUR water problems. You all might have plenty enough water now to think quality is the major problem. It isnt. You must HAVE water before you can worry about the quality. Rainfall in eastern kansas will help, but it wont make the rivers run from here to there.
Rage, did you know T. Boone Pickens is buying up water rights in texas, the ok panhandle, and southwest kansas, all with the idea of pumping the last of the aquifer to dallas? It is true, and he is buying more rights every day.
Walker, if you have a copy of Cadillac Ranch, I would love it. I’ll bring my copy of Jonathan Rabin’s Badlands, the story of how the railroads indeed duped the settlers by saying “rain would follow the plow”.
That lie ranks right up there with “six days, six weeks, but certainly we wont be in iraq six months”. Or “I did not have sex with that woman” or “gay people are the cause for the decline of straight marriage”.
Almost as good as “phil klein cares about abuse, not abortion”.
Here is another one. “The water problems in western kansas are their own fault and will not affect us in the east.”
Is it really a good idea to bring in millions of third worlders to further compete for ever dwindling resources? The sierra club now answers that question in the affirmative and as such that outfit no longer has any credibility, nor do they have my membership dues any longer.
V.L.R.B!!!
JR, I dont have all the answers to the looming water crisis either, but shutting off the irrigators would be a start.
Of course, as mentioned previously, that means the feedlots and packing plants in southwest ks will go, taking the state’s second fastest growing regional econonmy with it.
It means the virtual end of ethanol production in this region too, as the budding ethanol industry largely runs on huge amounts of water, irrigated grains, and then sells the by product mash to feed lots. They will both be gone, remember?
It also means you might as well put up the “Buffalo Commons” signs west of Salina. No one can live here soley on bottled water. But hey, look at all the money that will be left over for your schools when the schools out here close!
You will get what money is left, after, of course, all those former residents quit paying income and sales taxes, and the property taxes collected out here are gone because the land is worthless and there are no homes to tax because people cant live without water.
No big deal for the rest of the state, right?
And that is just the beginning, IF you manage to stop irrigation out here. Just TRY taking irrigation away when governor leadership’s choice to head the Kansas Water Authority is one of the largest irrigators and subsidy queens in the state.
And Janis Lee’s district is totally dependent on irrigation from Webster and Kirwin, both down so low that no water will be released this year. And her farmers want their water district loan payments defered because there is no water.
Where will THOSE dollars come from when the irrigation districts go belly up? From the STATE COFFERS?
And did I mention the biggest water bully in the state? The CITY OF HAYS? None other than governor leadership’s pet democrat community?
Yeah. Four more years of bad water policy, courtesy of governor leadership and her water hogging buddies.
Ian, household water use, no matter the race of the user, is a fraction of what the big irrigators use.
I dont think the water to boil beans and rice or take a shower after a hard day’s work will drain the aquifer. It will be the irrigators and the feedlots that do it first.
When that happens and the jobs dry up, (heheh) the immigrants will move somewhere else.
Maybe wichita? heheheheh. I cant wait!
KFG,
I have read that the huge influx of mainly illegals into the metro Las Vegas area is going to cause a severe water shortage there in the very near term. If the amnesty goes through then that means another 20 million people and possibly 40-50 million more if kennedy and mcclown get their way and push for family reunification. Most of those “people” will be heading mainly to the increasingly parched southwest. Just the environmental implications of that are too horrific to contmplate!
V.L.R.B!!
Ian, then maybe those communities should stop their economic development efforts. They do e.d. to draw more people to the region. If they are overpopulated, or about to be overpopulated, they should take their economic development money and shift it to water infrastructure.
I am all in favor of enforcing our immigration laws. I do not support using illegals to drive down the wages for ALL americans.
But to ignore that these parched communities are STILL trying to recruit more people in the face of not being able to support the existing population just boggles the mind.
And Ian, I am not sure the growth in population in the southwest can be blamed on illegals. It certainly has an effect, but population has been shifting south, both east and west, for decades.
Could it be the industries in those regions that are depleting the water? And if those industries are hiring illegals, doesnt that exacerbate the problems?
Shouldnt water intensive industries, and their workers, be located um… where there is water?
Yeah. I bet the southwest u.s. is really willing to give up both jobs and people without a fight.
kfg,all good points. if JR decides to look closely at the water problem in the states, i think he will be an excellent spokesperson for the cause.
Cadillac desert has quite a lengthy section dealing with the railroads and their influence on populating the mid-west desert. So I’m aware of what they did.
Desalinization plants are going to have to be installed on both coasts in order to meet the needs of water intensive industries. AND they will be expensive.
This may sound strange, but hydroponics may be the way to go with the farming industry. It would work for several reasons: 1. the plants will use only the amount of water they need. 2. all water not used will be recycled in a closed-loop environment. No water loss to evaporation due to the closed-loo[p system. 3. Water quality, and specific plant needs can be kept to a very high degree of accuracy. 4. It greatly reduces the need for a constant water source. Water will only be needed to replenish that used by the plants. 5. A hydroponics environment would mean better control overall of the plants, ensuring a higher quality product. 6. The use of hydroponics would mean a signicant reduction of both fertilizers and pesticides, meaning much better control of the total environment.
The problem with hydroponics is the fact it would be extremmly expensive to start up on a large scale. Framers would need government assistance in doing so. and they should get it. If we run out of water, which we will at the rates we use it now, all the government subsidizing in the world wouldn’t make a bit if difference.
So the bottom line is major desalinization plants all along both coasts, and hydroponic gardening. And the time to start is NOW!
Walker, desalinization is not only applicable on the coasts. Hays’ excuse for not going to Lake Wilson for their water is that it is too salty and would require too much treatment.
I guess they prefer to drink from Cedar Bluff, where the water quality was reclassified last year to reflect the increaseing, and dangerous, amounts of nitrates washed into the water supply.
Several communities out here had their water supply poisoned years ago by salt after old oil wells were not properly plugged. Better treatment facilities could make that water usable again.
Hays also has lots of underground water that was polluted long ago. It is good enough for homeowners to drill their own wells, but too expensive for the city of hays to treat.
Treatment could solve lots of problems here as well as on the coasts. But it is expensive. I guess that is why hays and russell never spent the $1 million in grant money Jerry Moran got for them seven years ago for improved water treatment facilities.
They’d rather fight with the rest of western kansas than to actually achieve a workable solution.
Just because they can….
…and about hydroponics….
Walker, right now that is kinda what we have out here with no-till farming. All the dirt does is hold the plant in place and upright so ever increasing amounts of nutrients, nitrates, pesticides and herbicides can be applied. And irrigation water is used to wash the whole thing down… into the rivers and the aquifer where we get to recycle it through our own livers.
Hydroponics may be all that we can do out here as the naturally nutrient rich topsoil has blown away or been leached of its nutrients so chemicals are needed to supply the plant’s needs.
Not sure about the reduced chemicals in hydroponics. I thought they used MORE artificial nutrients and pesticides. Not as many herbicides for obvious reasons :)
And who removes all those used chemicals before the water is returned to the original source? Doesnt that add to the cost?
I’m tellin’ ya, locally grown organic food is the way to go. FAR less damage to the environment with little ag than with the production methods of big ag. And the higher prices to go with it.
Are we willing to pay to IN-source our food supply again? Or are we only willing to do that for oil?
kfg,I’m talking about organic hydroponics. I studied the process years ago when I was growing produce in calif. There are no pesticides. Nutrients are added on an as needed basis. This is not a open field process. It comes closer to greenhouse gardening. About the only thing you have to control in the water is TDS (total desolved solids) and nutrient level. Soil is not a necessary ingrediant. Airating the water resupplys the needed oxygen.
Done correctly, it is not labor intensive, uses far less water. The nutrients are limited to what the plant needs and can be grown in a controlled environment.
kfg,I would add that the process in western ks is an open system. The hydroponics I’m talking about is completely closed loop, i.e., the same water is used over and over again. None of it is allowed to drain to the outside of the environment, except that needed to control TDS. The TDS needs to be controlled because of the calcification that would take place in the system if it wasn’t.
kfg,I got a feeling we gonna have some interesting conversations at the get together.
Me too walker. And conversation always goes better with ‘tater salad :)
“N German sausages:-)
(It’s me J R)
I wish we could have a little beer to grease that conversation. I was not able to accomodate that. Maybe next time.Beer and potato salad might not sit well with me anyway.
I look forward to visiting with you both.
I wonder kfg if there is a market for organic produce in Wichita. I am as I said looking to “reinvent myself”
Yes there is a market JR. A big one. I have some extra spades….
If you think you would like all the mexicans, tell them that. I would love them to leave my community and move to yours. But before you agree to having them next door, maybe you should try it first. I bought and 210,000.00 dollar home in southwest kansas 4 years ago. Now all my neighbors are mexicans, my kids have no one to play with that speaks english. My neighbor would rather shit a gallon bucket rather than inside their house in their three working bathrooms. They also bring home truck loads of cow shit from work for fertilizer, try living next to that for two years. You people piss my off so much, you have no idea what they are like, so you assume we bigots, or racist. How you can you say you agree with something without seeing both ends.Open Your EYES!!!