Is rationing in our future?

By Sam Brown

    Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) sponsored a monthly discussion at the Abbot Library in Dexter on Friday, Oct. 11, with the topic of “Rationing” attracting about 20 local citizens.
    Ed Hummel of Garland began the session with a description of the last time the United States experienced rationing on a national basis, namely World War II and the pressures felt by the government then to harness the manufacturing and agricultural power of the country to the war effort.

    Only as a result of some large crisis does rationing become acceptable to the mass of the population.
    Hummel noted that at that point the U.S. was just emerging from a long economic depression, and most people in the country were already familiar with having to make do with little, so rationing (limiting the personal consumption of certain items such as gasoline, rubber, butter, meat, sugar, etc. by the national government) was not a huge change in lifestyle.
    Since the end of that war and the relaxation of any rationing, however, the U.S. economy has been centered on affluence, and the relatively unlimited accumulation of personal goods is commonly seen as a measure of social health.
    In such an economic climate, any talk of restriction or rationing is difficult, to say the least.
    But Peggy Gannon from Palmyra observed that “It’s impossible for infinite economic growth to occur on a planet with finite resources,” prompting others to join in with concerns about our food system’s massive dependence on fossil fuels for fertilizer and tillage and transportation.
    We are fortunate to have plenty of water and good soil, but what will happen as the rest of the world population rises and weather-related events reduce food production elsewhere?
    Many older people in the group remembered Dexter in the 1940s, when there were 100 small farms still operating in town, and what the social fabric was then and how it has changed over the decades. Dexter’s Carol Feurtado gave a few examples of local farms and their contributions to the overall economy of the town.
    The group acknowledged that the main cause of civil unrest throughout human history and today is lack of food and unequal food distribution. Preparation to increase our local food production makes sense. Gannon noted that “more and more small gardens and farms are in the area. It’s easier to get good grass-fed beef, for instance, and farmers’ markets are springing up all around.”
    In referring to the results of the materially-based economic system we live in, Gerry Amelotte from Troy quipped “There are no U Hauls behind hearses!”
    He also observed that the basics for human life are not only food, water and shelter, but also community, that we are not individual consumer units, but rather parts of a larger community that functions best when we help each other instead of blind competition.
    “We Baby Boomers may have been responsible for some of the most consumption over the last 50 years, but we also can be leaders in showing how to reduce our consumption too, once we see what to do.”
    DDATT is a local organization dedicated to increasing the area’s natural resource productivity, especially in ways that improve our way of life and decrease dependence on imported fossil fuels.
    For more info, call 277-4221 or e-mail info@ddatt.org.
    Sam Brown is president of Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition.