Expand Family and Business Income Streams

Economic suffering from jobs lost to automation and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerate the need for multiple income streams from family members and businesses. The earlier post, "Rebirth of Self Worth," suggests ways children even can help generate income by adding lemonade and hot dog stands and entertainment to family yard sales. The following examples show how some businesses find new market segments eager to try their products.

     Hard to mow hilly parks overgrown with invasive buckthorn bushes and honeysuckle inspired the formation of the HaakHagen Goat Grazing farm run by a couple of friends in Wisconsin. Their 88 agile goats, rented out to private landowners and government land, also help preserve prairies by nibbling invasive species and shrubs that block the sun needed by shorter native plants. The goats are gentler on the land than heavy mowing machinery, what they leave behind eliminates the need for some fertilizer and adults and children find the goats fun to watch.

     Renting out RVs during the pandemic has become a new business catering to both vacationing families and virtual employees looking for office space while sheltering at home. When pleasure and business travelers return to the skies, they are likely to receive airline-branded Honeywell Safety Packs containing single-use gloves, hand wipes and face masks. Trendwatching.com reports Honeywell offers airline crews reusable packs of safety glasses and face masks with interchangeable filters.

     What is obvious from these three businesses is the way they each seized opportunities to serve multiple market segments. Clothing manufacturers now have an opportunity to produce double-duty items for home and business wear. Educational suppliers can think in terms of the home and school markets. Online retailers might gain multiple incomes from pop-up holiday shops, and more and more similar ideas will create new jobs and economic growth. 

   

After A Disaster, Give Me A Break

Climate change doesn't let up. Four blizzards hit the East Coast of the United States one after another this winter, and, on the West Coast, mudslides followed the fires that burnt away the trees anchoring soil. People on Caribbean islands, like Haiti, recovered from one hurricane only to be struck by drought and then the wind and torrential rain of another hurricane.

     Knowing a hurricane's devastation, or that of a war, and the effort and money needed to repair damage provides motivation for preventive measures. Immense benefit can be gained, if, for example, planting trees goes hand in hand with development, such as China has planned in its One Belt One road Initiative. Consider the benefits of tree projects in Haiti.

     A farmer in Haiti, who already had fields planted in potatoes and beans, was working to increase his income by diversifying, when a hurricane hit. His four goats, unable to bear the wind and rain, died of heart attacks. All his potatoes were lost along with at least 80% of his bean crop and what was left of the trees that had been cut down for fuel.

     Restoration of trees became a high priority, since they were needed to improve air quality, to stabilize hillsides from washing down over farms, and to provide avocado, mango, and papaya trees for food and income. Fast growing native oaks were needed to provide charcoal for cooking, and cedars and pines were a source of raw material for construction. Reforestation by the Plant With Purpose group's "Cash for Work" program gave immediate income to 2,000 employees.

     Long term, a variety of religious groups, the Arbor Day Foundation, and agronomy teams in Haiti have set up nurseries that now plant as many as 60,000 trees per year. Agronomy teams "get down and dirty" with local farmers to start income-producing fruit and other tree nurseries shaded by palm fronds propped up by sticks, to start tree plants in discarded broken buckets, and to employ procedures, such as drip irrigation, composting, and grafting citrus trees. As a result of student hikes to the forests on once barren mountains, from an early age, young people gain an appreciation for their country and learn to value and help plant trees.

   

All I Want for Christmas Is Seeds

Who knew elves occasionally take a break from making toys to store seeds in Santa's warehouse. Although many put Syria on their naughty lists, in October, 2015 the Svalbard global seed vault half way between the north pole and Norway responded to an urgent request from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (Icarda) and sent the 128 crates of wheat, barley lentil, chickpea, fava bean, pea, and legume seeds Syria needed.

     After seeds for another 70,000 crops were added to the Global Seed Vault in 2018, Svalbard now stores 1,059,646 seeds. 

     Svalbard, known as the "Noah's Ark of seeds," is just one of the storehouses for the diversity of seeds needed to grow fruits, vegetables, and grains; the collections of plants, like apples and grapes, that are not cultivated from seeds; and even the genetic material essential to maintain the bees that pollinate many crops.

     Individual farmers also are essential in the process of ensuring a lasting food supply. On one of his "Parts Unknown" TV programs, David Bourdain found restaurant owners in the US South have been searching for the seeds that grew foods popular before the US Civil War. They located seeds that had come down through the families of former slaves, when war wiped out the seeds held by plantation owners. When kids start collecting and drying seeds for diverse crops, they also will be getting involved in the vital task of protecting the world's food supply.

 Why is the world's food supply in danger? There are many reasons:

• Wars destroy farms. Research stations in Lebanon and Morocco are working to produce seeds and saplings to resupply Syria's farmers.
• Globalization of agriculture has concentrated seed production in companies that abandon many plant varieties in order to produce uniform, high-yield varieties. (See the earlier post, "World (Food) Expo. Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices.")
• Pests and diseases can wipe out crops. (See the earlier post, "The Bees and the Birds.")
• Global warming has reduced the area suitable for farming. (See the earlier post, "Coffee Prices Going Up; Allowances Going Down?")
• Farmers have moved to urban areas to find work.
• Without a market, farmers have stopped growing foods that have gone out of favor when diets shifted to wheat, rice, potatoes, maize, soybeans, and palm oil.
• Deforestation has removed forests where plants thrive and evolve.

Kids used to get oranges and apples in their Christmas stockings. To be sure these fruits continue to exist, the world is counting on Santa to bring these goodies along with toys and candy.