"By that, I mean the personal energy of farmers, who have to get up at outrageous hours on Saturday morning and schlep their stuff into town; and in terms of gasoline up in smoke, as all those little trucks lurch their way into the city."

Fortunately for us, there's a big local farm with a great vegetable stand 3 miles away, but this illustrates an issue that I'd love to see a knowledgable farmer like Tom discuss more.

Specifically, it's not enough to grow good food, but food&consumers have to come together, and a lot of people, especially in urban areas, don't seem to understand how food really happens, and what it costs in terms of energy & transport.  The USA has cheap food in part because our farms are very productive, but also because we have cheap oil for transporting food, and with Peak Oil, the latter's end is clear, and a lot of food is grown nowhere near its consumers.

[My favorite: in grad school at Penn State, one of my colleagues was from NYC, of the sort who knew that beyond the Hudson was wilderness.  He liked chocolate milk, which he seemed to think appeared in grocery stores.  Using my experience as an old farmboy, I was able to show him the ag school pastures and dark cows that provided the chocolate milk. PSU had a terrific creamery that did use that milk ... so he really wasn't sure that I was kidding. :-)]

Anyway, how abut an essay on agriculture, energy, local-vs-industrial, transport options, and how to feed NYC when oil is $200-$300/barrel, and after that, when conventional oil is gone.

-John Mashey

Yes, we New Yorkers are a pretty dull lot.

And while I cannot speak for my fellow citizens, I would gladly build a shrine in honor of the cow that is responsible for the Dagoba Xocolatl bar that I just ate.

Our farmers set up their market on Broadway, between 114th and 115th, on Thursdays and Sundays.  They seem to be faring well.  I think the socialization is valuable, so the wholesale-center-in-the-Bronx idea leaves me cold.  Still, I agree, the labor of the farmers should come first.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.