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"Foodshed" as a term too difficult to understand (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 08:20:23 -0600 (CST)
From: Bart Hall-Beyer <barth@ncatfyv.uark.edu>
To: sustag@beta.tricity.wsu.edu
Subject: "Foodshed" as a term too difficult to understand

Presumably those folks having trouble with 'foodshed' and even
'watershed' have equal trouble comprehending 'software' (Duh, is that
a fabric treatment or something..?) and 'floppy.'

The 3 1/2" floppies must cause apoplexy, because they're not very
bendable.

C'mon, people.  I speak several languages, and the ongoing beauty and
strength of English is its very maleability and adaptability;
borrowing, adapting, adopting, shaping, modifying words to expand and
introduce meaning.  English has become the language of preference for
international communication in large measure precisely _because_ its
speakers can (and do) coin words like 'foodshed' to explain a
concept.

If you want to stand up and wave the flag for integrated, corporate,
centralised, and heavily subsidised agriculture, by all means do it,
and it can be discussed in those terms.  Please don't, however, set
up a term such as 'foodshed' as a straw-man and attack the term
rather than discussing the concept.

Bart Hall-Beyer
Fayetteville, Arkansas