Speaking
David Fisher’s 47-year career as a university professor and conference speaker presenting academic papers, in tandem with teaching and research in botany and crop breeding, and creation of a university-level Sustainable Living BS program, have enabled him to put together a vast background of information in gardening, sustainability, and the value/benefits of self-sufficiency gardens as a powerful antidote to industrial food.
His audiences are entertained with stories of varied experiences and challenged to think about food in a new way. In addition, they come away inspired to apply his ideas and methods to a self-sufficiency garden of their own and to become aware of the substantial health, social, economic, and environmental benefits of home food production and how it can enormously outperform the industrial system.
Presentations can be tailored to the needs of specific audiences.
Example of presentations include:
The great missed opportunity: self-sufficiency gardens as a major source of food
What’s the greatest myth of food production? One that even advocates of local, sustainable systems miss? It’s that only farms can produce much to most of the country’s food, in volume. This despite the fact that WWII victory gardens did just that (40% of the country’s fresh produce) in times of war, in backyard gardens, with minimal training, by everyday people. Learn why the infrastructure for that level of production, and more, is already in place now.
Why industrial food costs vastly more, pound for pound, than that produced by self-sufficiency gardens
It takes the industrial system 3 acres to Feed the Average American for a year, while self-sufficiency gardens require only 1-3% of that, about 1/30th of an acre. Second, industrial food incurs $trillions in external costs (i.e., beyond the cost it pays), while self-sufficiency gardens incur no external costs. And in fact, provide additional benefits that the industrial system cannot produce.
The best measure of a self-sufficiency garden’s worth: how long It will sustain you
Yes, you can compute the “cash” profit of a self-sufficiency garden, or the yield, or the number of pounds it produces. But by far the most useful, and telling, measure of a garden’s worth is how long it can keep you alive and healthy if you ate only from the delicious, wholesome and nourishing fresh vegetables produced by your garden. Start with just one meal, then go on to a day, a week, or more to experience the feeling of empowerment and satisfaction you get from rewarding yourself with fresh, wholesome food.