Capital Comments

Fuel, food prices prompt garden variety of solutions

By state Rep. Camille "Bud" George, D-74 of Clearfield County

Many folks undoubtedly are anxiously watching the weather forecasts to determine when we can begin our gardens in earnest.

The months of eyeing seed catalogs and dreaming of delicious homegrown vegetables, peppers and other delights are about to evolve into action.

The conditions leading to rising fuel and grocery prices gnaw at the American psyche.

 Once we prided ourselves on self-sufficiency. Now, we have become addicted to foreign oil and glibly buying fruits and vegetables from Chile, Argentina and anywhere, it seems, but the United States.

The dependence on foreign food and fuel is troubling on many levels. The U.S. only has about 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, but produces more than 8 percent of global supplies, suggesting that domestic oil production is running full tilt or close to it.

 OPEC nations control about 77 percent of the world's known liquid crude oil reserves.

Food has the opposite problem. Since 1985, the U.S. has paid farmers not to plant. According to the New York Times, the set-aside program peaked last summer with more than 400,000 farmers receiving almost $1.8 billion for idling 36.8 million acres – a plot larger than the state of New York and representing about 8 percent of all U.S. cropland.

Now, farmers are fleeing the set-aside program because of the higher prices they are receiving for their crops. Meanwhile, the costs of foreign-grown foods are soaring because of high transportation costs.

The pain of both fuel and food is real and deserve serious solutions. However, both represent opportunities for America to begin weaning itself from tin pan dictators and predatory oil companies controlling oil supplies and the troubling reality that we have become a nation of consumers instead of builders, growers and doers.

I’m not caterwauling against the global economy or adding my voice to the conspiracy theories about a Third World Order.

I am suggesting that an America even a tad more self-sufficient in food and energy is a stronger America.

It’s in vogue to blame ethanol for rising food prices. It doesn’t ring true. Less than 10 percent of the U.S. corn crop is used for corn-based food consumed by humans.

The vicious circle caused by high energy prices, a weak U.S. dollar and increasing demand for U.S. foodstuffs is a more likely culprit.

American agriculture and knowhow can reduce our addiction to foreign oil and feed a good part of the world if we just give it a nudge and make small changes in what we buy and from where.

We have to think globally nowadays. A drought in Australia contributes to rising food prices just as our nation’s weak dollar – fueled by bumper crops of record deficits – weaken our hand when purchasing oil on the commodities market.

More importantly, we have to act locally. Fuel and food made and grown in our backyards, in Pennsylvania and in the U.S. make us stronger and safer.

Change is always difficult. Refusing to change or accept the fact that the economic dynamics are changing is insanity.

          It will be a long road to making America energy self-sufficient. It will be even longer if we delay starting the journey.

A writer for the conservative Cato Institute wrote last fall that, "OPEC and its fellow travelers will be left with a far less valuable commodity, because their present, shortsighted, high oil price strategy is causing their customers to develop economically and environmentally sound alternatives…"

          I say, full speed ahead.

          A backyard garden is not going to solve our energy woes, but it is a start. A dollar spent on locally grown foods is one less dollar going overseas.

          The American Dream is not built in China or fueled by OPEC.

If we can dream it, America can build or grow it.

                                                --30--