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Wendell Berry Says Large-Scale Farms Killing Land as Well as Towns
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -- A passive populace obsessed with easy answers has led to an economy that is destroying America's land, author Wendell Berry told a packed-in crowd at the University of Virginia on Thursday evening.
A portrait of Wendell Berry from the series, Americans Who Tell the Truth, by Robert Shetterly. "Simple solutions will always lead to complex problems, surprising simple minds," he said in his talk at the University of Virginia. "Simple solutions will always lead to complex problems, surprising simple minds," he said.
In a lecture in the full auditorium of the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature and Culture/Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, Berry outlined the need for small-scale landholders engaging in forestry and farming, as opposed to the industrial-scale operations now in place.
The talk was so popular that seats in the auditorium ran out long before the 5:30 speech began. Eventually, a pair of university police officers shooed away the overflow crowd waiting outside.
Even some of those who made it inside were left without seats, and Berry invited them to sit on the stage near him.
Large-scale and corporate operations cause long-term damage to the environment and to rural cultures, he told the crowd.
Farm and timber economies that simply export raw materials for processing elsewhere kill towns because they also export jobs, he said.
"And then you will be exporting your young people to take those jobs," he said.
He added, "Our tendency has been to fasten upon one product and allow that one to determine the local land economy."
Berry, a poet, novelist and essayist, is part of a movement that is trying to spark high-level discussion by proposing a 50-year farm bill that calls for, among other things, a switch to majority perennial crops.
"It would take cattle, hogs and poultry out of the animal factory and put them back on farms, where they belong," he said.
He also advocated a more integrated approach to forestry and agriculture as part of what he called a vision for the future.
"Like you all, I hope, I am skeptical of visions," he said. "So I hasten to point out that it is a modest vision."
And he said it's not in high-level political discussion that most of his hope lies.
Instead, he cited "leadership from the bottom" as a trend that could take his ideas forward.
He praised moves such as farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture programs, wherein residents buy "shares" in local farms and reap regular installments of produce in return.
He said the movement's not about nostalgia, but learning lessons from the past.
"I think we have to go back to our old agrarian ideals," he said.
To do that, he said, will require a cultural shift.
"Good and responsible use of family-sized holdings cannot be expected of people with the subservient mindset of corporate employees," he said.
Berry's talk was the kickoff of the Brown College Visiting Environmental Writers and Scholars Lecture Series, which will continue through the spring.
Sean Borton, the Sally Brown fellow at Brown College, said he was ecstatic to have Berry as the first speaker.
"It's the thrill of a lifetime, honestly," he said.
The talk was well-received by the audience, though some expressed more interest in Berry the writer than in the importance of small-scale, non-industrial farming.
"It wasn't a disappointment. The man only has so much time and he has so many things to offer," said Bahlmann Abbot, of Charlottesville.
Linda Winecoff, another Charlottesville resident, was very excited about the topic.
"The thing that really resonated with me ... was that he really puts his hope in the people who are doing things at the lowest level without permission," she said.
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Show AllTwo things prop up industrial agriculture world-wide.
1. Cheap and abundant oil.
2. Corporate welfare.
Today's bad farming practices can't survive without them.
The good news is that:
1. Cheap oil is about to run out.
2. Economic collapse will end corporate welfare.
Having a 50 year plan ready for when the Ponzi-conomy falls flat is a great idea.
Why are fossil-fuels cheap? The price is low because the costs are externalized. In other words it is a forced subsidy, or theft, from the environment, public treasuries, and health and well-being.
Here is what to do:
Stop subsidizing fossil-fuels, autos, and sprawl. This will gradually undo the private auto system. Start this process by making public transit free. You can do this locally. It can be done. It is being done. Join the international movement.
http://frepubtra.blogspot.com
Wonderfully simple to do and vastly improves the local quality of life, An idea who's time has come!
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Judging from Obama's first year in office (financial industry regulation, health care "reform", agricultural policy, for example), corporate welfare will continue to be the US Government's top priority and keep increasing. Obama will hand out the last dime left in the US Treasury to a corporate welfare recipient. By then the rest of us will be at rock bottom.
The industrial scale farm is also tacitly regarded as appearing out of thin air rather than being a decades long process of financial destruction of the local economy for grandiose transnational megalomania export/import that has been driving earth loving human beings from the land into cities. The promise of the "green revolution" is a complete fiasco - except in concentration of greenbacks and green lands and oops the sad side effect of billions of people satarving. How did that happen? it must be their fault, çause we're such geniuses.
In nations all over the world the irreducible correlate is that refugee camps equally spring out thin air when in fact it is the above dynamic that demands concentration camps, i mean refugee camps, i mean holding camps, i mean resettlement camps, surrounded by the juicy fruits of the armaments industry.
The western model is built (Shhhh -don't say it) on genocide but it is such marvelous technological progress you are a luddite to consider its innumerble details of failure anything less than brilliant success.
Getting rid of the populist independent farmer, was a political byproduct of industrializing agriculture, a goal mostly achieved in a previous financial crisis in the 80s. Remember Willie Nelson and the farm aid tour to bring attention to the foreclosures? That's one example of why it is so disingenuous for Greenspan to say he didn't know what he was doing when he built an edifice of a 40% finance economy on top of the wrecked Main Street economy left from Volker and Reagan's Free Market revolution.
Greenspan knew exactly what he was doing because there is a long history of finance being used as a weapon that way (and surely the world's greatest central bankers aren't ignorant). It is again as it as always been, a struggle between the rentier and the working class. The free marketeers haven't done a very good job of spreading prosperity (although, as you point out, they are very good at spreading blame), and thus capitalism is once again under fire from a problem of its own making.
By the way, the populist farmers originally proposed a federal reserve. They wanted credit to be created and extended by a government bank (gummit-run, lol) based on the estimated value of the nation's total crops as a way to free farmers from bankers. William Greider's "Secrets of the Temple" has some history on this.
Pitch Fork
Excellent posting as usual. But I would point out that this problem did not come from Capitalism, it came from engineering and increasing Corporate profits.
The "free marketeers" you speak of are not Capitalists.
>>>The western model is built (Shhhh -don't say it) on genocide but it is such marvelous technological progress you are a luddite to consider its innumerble details of failure anything less than brilliant success.
old goat, do you realize how important that fact is? I've been thinking about the same lately. Genocide, slavery and the almost sudden availability of continent-size (actually 3+ continents - North & South Americas, Australia and parts of Africa, plus the Indian subcontinent later on - though it was not fully subjugated, just exploited, that's all) land and resources to colonial powers in Europe - just when their own population was making it too crowded, with not enough resources for everyone. Someone struggling to make a living in a European country could cross the ocean and find himself with a 200-acre farmland for throwaway prices in the New World. That would surely change the worldview of his offspring - because they would start to imagine that's the way it's supposed to be. What would you do if you win a 50 or a 100 million dollar jackpot and find yourself rich overnight? I'm sure you could be doing a whole lot of things. But if you start claiming that you are somehow superior and start looking down on, or worse - preaching to, others, then that's another thing.
It is incredible to me that some people who have been given, won, inherited... wealth think that bit of fortune also bestows them with a "larger view". From what I have seen, it is rare that they continue the beneficial contributions that once characterized the well off - now it must be a tax write- off or some other financial gain mechanism... and their larger view extends to those they approve of or worse, those who build their own misguided sense of importance.
If only the land had a voice that people could hear and understand, humanity would reorder their priorities and learn a bit of humility! In the meantime we befoul the nest and claim superiority for our power to do so.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
"to consider its inumerable details of failure anything less than brilliant success"
A classic case of the emperor has no clothes.
Wendell Berry is a national treasure, but the problem with his ideas is that the small farms he recommends can feed a family but not a city. And most people do not want to be farmers.
sheepherder,
Small farms can feed more than just a family. During WWII, NYC supplied itself with 3/4 of its produce with victory gardens and local farming.
On top of that, don't take it for granted that cities, as they now exist, are somehow guaranteed a future existence.
As for most people not wanting to farm, well, tough shit.
My comments were based on my experience growing up in the NYC area in the 1940s and 1950s. There certainly was food available from local sources, because the national transportation system was not developed, and global markets did not exist.
But many foodstuffs were seasonal - because they were from local sources. Somehow I do not think that people would be willing to go back to such a system. People like to be able to buy anything at any time of the year. To paraphrase Thomas Mann, "as a nation, we can't go back again."
I am a former city boy who lives on a small sheep raising operation (for the wool, not for the meat) in Indiana, and I enjoy the rural life. But we do not raise our own food, and do not have the capability or the time to do so. Even in this rural area few people do that.
Change is coming whether people like it or not. Sure, they can get some varieties of food from almost anywhere in the world at almost any time, but they would be well advised to savour that while they can. Increasing fuel prices are going to return such things to the realm of luxury.
If you want to live independently from the petro-godzilla, then yes you have to give up the godzilla's ways. But the alternatives are wonderful. Just one example - pawpaws are the native banana in the USA. They are seasonal, but seasonal is good - it helps keep our feet on the ground. Seasonals like tomatoes and peppers, fruits and herbs can be dried for the cold season. For winter, there are many cold-weather vegetables. Cabbage, cauliflower. Tubers can be stored for months. Grains/beans store for the winter, no problem. Nuts store for a year or more in their hardwood shells. Carob and mesquite pods taste almost fresh after a year in the cupboard. Fresh herbs can be grown in the south-facing windows. Cold-frames extend growing seasons. I see no problem. We need the seasons, to keep our feet on the ground, you know, that dirty earth they hate, so they had to create a "heaven above" to compete with it.
One example against your argument that most people do not want to be farmers may be myself. I have worked on farms and enjoy the work. It was the below poverty level wages, the pesticides, and the minimal hope of ever having a family that returned me to the cities. Were farmers and labourers to receive adequate compensation and have some reasonable protection from the wims of the market and weather then farming would be far more attractive as a profession.
Check the USDA agricultural survey of any given year. They smaller the farm, the more productive it is. One quickly gets into ineconomies of scale as farms get larger in size.
As for most people not wanting to be farmers, this is true. But in today's world, the large numbers who do are unable to do so for the reasons Berry notes in his work.
"the problem with his ideas is that the small farms he recommends can feed a family but not a city. And most people do not want to be farmers"
It's a strawman argument that small farms can't feed a city. In Korea the farmers truck the fresh produce into Seoul neighborhoods weekly. What, 20 million residents there? They trade out of the back of the truck. It's even more efficient than our farmers' markets because there's one less step in the handling.
But Koreans hold no monopoly on common sense. People the world over have been applying common sense for millennia, and will so in the future.
I'd say we'd do well to develop a greater appreciation for common sense ways of doing things. Then many more people will want to be farmers. Now who led the assault on common sense in the good ol USA? And who perpetuated it? It's time to point fingers, no doubt. We have to ostracize the bad guys from the society. This is how societies under stress, such as the Ihalmuit, survived for as long as they did.
Sheepherder ---- Small farms --- using sustainable methods, can in fact be more productive at lower externalized cost than factory scale ones. You are correct when you say that a small farm cannot feed a city, but enough of them can.Most factory farms, are in fact made profitable by costs externalized not only to the environment, but to the taxpayer as well, in the form of direct cash subsidies. The system as it presently operates (I am a small farmer) is not good. It maximizes corporate profit at the cost of every other entity.
Vegetable Farming--- A Different Paradigm
A few thoughts
For ten thousand years or so, little has changed. We go out, if necessary clear the land, drag a stick through the soil, plant seeds, weed, and water and wait, and hope some other creature doesn’t harvest ahead of us. Today we do this on a massive, environmentally destructive scale---- Look at the silt in every stream---- the topsoil that is depleted--- the chemical runoff that is ruinous and has destroyed species and habitats. Look at the pollutants in the very water that is used to irrigate--- and potentially poison---- those who consume the crops.
We are now equipped to make all of the above happen faster than ever----- energy inputs are huge--- the manufacturing of major power tools---(tractors--tillage equipment---harvesters etc.) require energy inputs far greater than even their voracious fuel appetites. The touted increases in “farming efficiency” (less feed more) is a total fallacy when viewed in the light of reality. Every worker at John Deere--- Caterpillar----International Harvester----- All the Chemical Companies, the trucking industry that moves foodstuffs from the West Coast production areas---- all their manufacturing costs (both fiscal and environmental) and operating costs and affiliated pollution are actually part of the costs of food production. When these are all tallied, I believe we were more efficient with small holding, family farms located all over the country near the consumers.
We have left behind the model that evolved in Nature and substituted a rapacious environmentally destructive one, driven by corporate greed and funded in large measure by taxpayer subsidies that distort the marketplace, leaving many in the developing world unable to compete.
In nature, there is a continuum, a cycle of growth and breakdown, a natural recycling of elemental material. I believe it is possible to adopt Nature’s model and harness what we have fought against. I propose a discussion of using most of the land to grow natural biomass--- selectively harvesting it---- composting part of it into very rich topsoil----- using that as a growth media on smaller cropping areas with proportionally higher yields, under highly controlled conditions to produce foodstuffs in conditions that will require no herbicides and minimal insect control. The balance of the biomass can provide good timber and material for burning to create heat for cropping areas in winter.
Advantages of such a system are (but are not limited to) the following:
Sustainability
Stop Topsoil erosion and create Topsoil
Stop chemical leaching into waterways
Greatly increased productivity per unit of growing area
Hugely reduced need for irrigation
A raising of the ground water table as opposed to the loss of it for the last hundred years.
Create recyclable fuels for energy production
Create Increased production of useful timber products
Lessened dependence on fossil fuels
Lessened need for chemical fertilizers
Increased habitat for wildlife.
Creation of jobs through small holding family farms
Independence for many now unemployed or under employed
Provision of fresher, healthier food crops
Counter the movement toward centralizing power and resources in Corporate hands
The production of more crop output per unit of energy input.
This system will require new skills being developed and new thinking. It will not destroy “Agriculture As We Know It”, Certain crops, Corn and soy beans, in particular, are, while using destructive methodology, produced with fair efficiency. Others are not. Many crops are not even grown in significant amounts in the USA any more. Many have been moved to offshore production because they are either labor intensive or can be produced more cheaply out of sight, with the use of substances properly banned in the US as environmentally dangerous. Most of these crops are now grown in Central and Tropical South America and imported via air freight. Haricot Vert, fancy squash, and culinary herbs come immediately to mind. Asparagus, once widely grown, is produced in large quantities only in the Northwest and trucked or flown to national markets,
Here in the Southeast, we live in a mild climate where only modest energy inputs are needed to modify conditions to allow year round production. A well thought out, long term system should be developed to utilize natural energy sources to create these conditions.
Wendell Berry has been a voice of reason and understanding for many decades. It is so very good to see that his lectures draw hundreds. His voice needs to be heard by thousands. We have all participated in the destruction of our agrarian economy. Every time we save 50 cents on a gallon of milk, a dollar on a roasting chicken, 50 cents a pound on meat, we contribute by not buying locally, from real farmers, rather than from the monoculture/feed lot megafarms of destruction.
"The talk was well-received by the audience, though some expressed more interest in Berry the writer than in the importance of small-scale, non-industrial farming."
"It wasn't a disappointment. The man only has so much time and he has so many things to offer," said Bahlmann Abbot, of Charlottesville.
Read them two comments there and reread them and a copule of the others above in comment section until you understand fully why 'industrial scale farming' has taken a major hold in agriculture in around the world.
Might as well just post comments about Tiger Woods here to.
99% of world population is looking for the other 1% to lead and do for them...
In every city, there is unused land which can be converted to community gardens. Not only is locally grown produce more nutritious, the carbon-footprint is much less.
I think we need to come to terms that our way of life is changing. As has been said before, we better have a plan.
Headlines from March, 2015:
"China Outsourcing Tube Sock Production To Kansas"
"Wages Rise In California - Average Now $4 A Week!"
"100 Million Americans Hungry Daily" (We're already over 50M).
"Shanghai Organization Invades Florida, Says Miami 'Terrorist' Haven"
"America's Top 1% Even Wealthier Than 2009"
...
The state agriculture colleges---formerly known as A & M schools meaning Agriculture and the Mechanical Arts---have also played a serious role in helping destroy small farmers. Whereas they once focused their efforts into assisting small farms and ranches with research, information and a network of agricultural agents based in rural areas, they have been largely taken over by a mentality and programs supporting and subsidizing corporate ag in many of its most destructive aspects from mass feed lots to encouraging "modern" practices of extensive use of chemical pesticides and herbicides and most recently the GMO corn, soy, etc. of Monsanto and their ilk. 50 years ago corporate pesticide "research" grants flowed into the state ag school where I attended with the almost assured expectation that the bought and paid for PhD university horticultural and entomology faculty would then recommend the tested products to the farmers state wide. For a $10,000 research grant, DuPont, or Dow, or Monsanto would likely reap several million dollars in sales statewide. When Rachel Carson's famed book Silent Spring was published, the state ag schools leapt to the barricades urged on by their corporate pesticide patrons to "offically" review and, of course, condemn this book which dared question the heavy petro-chemical agriculture system they were avidly peddling. The school I was at issued its offical review filled with pseudo-scientific nonsense like comparing the toxicity of DDT with table salt!! When I wrote a long review of Silent Spring and a review of the school's review for the student newspaper, one angry faculty member tried to have me fired from my part time job. Fortunately, my boss reminded him that we were at a university where debate and discussion about all sorts of things was not to be suppressed and told him to write his own response to what I had written. He never did.
I'd have been very tempted to have put DDT "salt" on that faculty member's fries. Hey, it's harmless, right? Put your DDT where your mouth is.
Wendell Berry is so very right: agrairian ideals must be rekindled.
Politically, he correctly points to "leadership from the bottom." It's time to let Washington rot in its own corruption and universal malfeasance.
The large Corporate Hog Farms are to blame for the Swine-flu.
The Corporate Mentality of the Clinton Circus and Obama presidency, is destroying our country.We must move away from the Ivy League mentality that is based on corporate profits and
the increase in population, especially the importing of
immigrants..
In a discouraging but not surprising development today, US Dept. of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced the selection of 19 integrated biorefinery projects to receive up to $564 million in stimulus money to accelerate the construction of commercial scale facilities. "Advanced biofuels are critical to building a cleaner, more sustainable transportation system in the U.S.," said Secretary Chu. He might as well have added, "They also are critical to spreading world hunger and diminishing the land and resources available for nontoxic organic farming that could feed the world rather than poison it."
That's discouraging, indeed, and disgusting too - coming from a man touted as someone who wanted serious action on climate change. I'm not sure what the feedstock is going to be for all these biofuel projects, and whether fossil fuel-based fertilizers are going to be needed for their production. If these plants are going to use grass and other cellulosic material grown in "waste land", it's one thing. If the whole deal is to appease the "farm" lobby, that is discouraging - because it proves that no one making the policies gets it.
what would these ivy league suit and tie morons
know about family farming? these people are
corporate slaves and would not understand the
principles behind small scale farming and
the necessity of getting their hands dirty!
Monsanto is going to attempt to raise seed corn prices by 43% this next crop year. The industrial farmer on the technological treadmill will have no choice but to pony up, typically by borrowing more money. As with most debt slaves they will continue until they go broke and are replaced by an even bigger fool.
Rural America has been in a Depression hidden by increased debt for 30 years. Take a look at any small farming town, it is a gutted ghetto, the corn and soybean deserts sucking the life out of them. The most fertile farmland in the world and the rural areas are dying.
As for nobody wanting to farm, my son would like nothing more than be able to have a small farm, but the reality is that it is extremely difficult economically and his college education tells him to look elsewhere.
I would like to apply for this job to serve the public, to make policy according to the will of the people but I must confess that the reason I want this job is, see, I have my own personal agenda to use this job for my own personal enrichment, which requires that I allow big agriculture, big finance, and big industry in general, to call the shots.
Nevertheless, we can kill two birds with one stone here. I'll just tell you that I'm serving your best interests, and you'll just believe me. And then I'll go carry on with my personal agenda and everyone will just be happy.
Besides, what choice do you really have? You only get to choose between two candidates, one from labor union A and one from labor union B. You can't hire non-union. Your family/friends would disown you.
How does one speak about such things in a rapidly degrading economy. Small farms can break a man's spirit and his back. It should not be thought of as idealistic. An idealistic spirit is good but the realism of small farms can be devastating. Most successful small farms that I know of are run by a family that has other outside income to live on with the farm being secondary. It is hard to find work in rural areas. As the economy gradually declines it will even be more difficult. The dark times are upon us and it's hard to see through the darkness.
Too true.
But it is not the small farm that breaks a man's spirit and his back, that exploits his idealism to the point that he is a slave and asserts that he deserves to be one. It is the market in which he has to realise the value of his toil that does this. This market is tilted against him; aided and abetted by his representatives; the ones he and others vote for and who openly take bribes. The small farmer in the USA is not the hero his deeds and integrity indicate he should be. He is a dead duck because the entire structure of authority in the USA is on a perpetual duck shoot. It is called the Free Market.
Orwellian!
This indicates what Change means in the USA.
If fossil-fuels were not subsidized, diesel fuel would be about $50 a gallon, people would demand public transit, the suburbs would return to organic farming.
What are the the subsidies? Oil wars, pipeline wars, free carbon dumping, externalized costs, auto bailouts, ... for more go to http://frepubtra.blogspot.com
What a good point! Funny thing is everybody knows this. Almost all those who deny its validity or strenuously ignore it know it too.
Such forcefully obtuse thinking is a sign of cultural degradation. This is America's biggest enemy. It is from within that Americans are threatened. What holds them in this terrible thrall is the USA.
You didn't mention farm subsidies. Rather than pay a farmer not to grow something how about paying small scale farmers to diversify? It would put a lot of wasted farm land back into production but of course then the farmer would have to work it to make it produce. The subsidy would only come after harvesting fruits, vegetables or marketing the animals perhaps by a tax break.
Your are correct, but making it too complicated. If the factory farm subsidy (cheap diesel) were ended, local farms would not need a subsidy, they could sell locally cheaper than the food from two thousand miles away.
Yes indeed Mr. Berry.
This argument is as old as the USA, with the argument for an agrarian economy espoused by Jefferson, losing to the Hamiltonian push for manufacturing and central banking (read: early desire for a Federal Reserve type institution)
Charles Walters, recently deceased editor of ACRES Magazine has written volumes about this. He is greatly missed.
What we need is a large-scale grass-roots permaculture movement in the suburbs and cities, decentralizing our food and energy production. Only then will we be truly healthy and free. The small farms will create not only jobs for everybody, but energy in the form of organically grow crops for biodiesel production etc.
But Grandpa, I don't know how to grow carrots I only know how to eat them. Can't we talk about Supernovas or something?
An interesting thing is that China and other Eastern countries have economies structured on small farms. Besides the top productivity (far better than the USA) from astonishingly well run farms one result is that people sent back the land, after the big contracts are completed, have a place to go to and work to do. They earn less but they are at home, where they are disciplined, raise production, form relationships and can eat. It is not at this stage necessary for China to fight a war to occupy its youth in making items to kill others at the same time as to kill its youth on the battle fields while they kill others.
It is clearly necessary for the USA to do this.
Peace
I grew up on a hundred acre farm in Southern Illinois. We had our garden crops, cattle, milking, chickens for eggs and fryers for the market, sheep, ducks, geese, horses, cats, dogs, peacocks, pheasants, fields of hay, corn and soy beans, fruit and nut trees, and pond fish. It was a 365 day a year job and we still needed outside jobs to help provide for ourselves. The farm life has defined who I am, and despite being away from the 'farm' of my childhood, I always managed to grow some type of crop or vegetable or herb no matter where I have lived, including cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. My wife and I are now planted on a 25 acre farm in mid Maine and the gardens are better than ever, more than enough to feed us through the summer, and with freezing and dehydration, enough to supplement our food for the winters. And some for our neighbors and the local food pantry. We have started a small orchard also. There are many more small farms like ours all around us, and a very active organic farmers association and seed saver groups. It is a great and rewarding lifestyle.
I have noted over the past several years the price of purchasing seeds has soared. Now instead of a decent package of seeds for about 35 to 55 cents, the seeds are fewer and packages run 2 to 4 dollars. Still a bargain but the overall money cost of growing a garden in the back yard may approach the purchase price of some of these same foods at the store or farmers' markets. This fact may discourage many away from backyard gardening. There has to be a longing for fresh unpolluted food and the fun of growing it.
I thought it may be a good idea to start a business where knowledgeable people go to homes and install small raised beds and plant the vegetables and herbs and educate homeowners on how to maintain it and harvest, and be available for consultation. (Sounds like a good project for an aspiring eagle scout.)
earthbound,
and others, since you probably know this already,
Excellent reasons for planting perennials, (see Eric Toensmeier, Perennial Vegetables) and Heritage/non-hybrid varieties of annual vegetables so you can save the seeds yourself, and share with others in your community. Excellent reasons for permaculture (see Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture).
The business niche you suggest is filled in many places by graduates of permaculture training programs, who have even better ideas than the ones you list. Food forests, recreating nature-like communities where every organism has several functions and many relationships, leting nature do your work for you... look for them.