Self Sufficiency; a road we must walk.

Douglas Malloch in his poem puts..." the tree that never had to fight for sun and air and light, but stood in the open plain and always got its share of rain, never became a forest King, but lived and died a common thing. The man who never had to toil, never became a manly man...he lived and died as he began.” This is 2009 packed and sealed. Hard work! No household, institution, government which is not called to make bold moves and near utopic decisions. Sacrifices! EARTH University is not an exception!

While we have toyed with the idea of self sufficiency for decades, as an institution we have always mark timed and never made significant moved towards this end. The time is now and this is the year to do those bold moves. There are a plethora of reasons that make this endevour have legs.
First, The university's mission is to train agents of change. Better put, propagate change! Make economically less privilleged regions to walk down the road of self sufficiency. As a agent of change itself, the university should be first the change in order to impart change to the future change beares. In this way should walk that road toward self sufficiency first. As the Chinese adage puts..." You do not cross a river but sitting on its banks".

Second, there is an economic reason to do that. This year, 2009, more that ever, the university has felt the impact of the global economic crisis. Without much ado, the university's financial status is in jeopardy as the crisis deepens. An alternative source of income is urgently needed.

Lastly, there are other institutions and farms whose example can be followed. They have seen the importance of self sufficiency just as we have seen but have walked the road before us. We have a leaf to borrow from them.

There exist a number of ways to start this long sacred walk. We have discussed this in other forums. So many bright ideas have come up. But my hope is as benevolent as yours, but one thing am sure of, that am convinced to participate in this.This is the sacrifice all of us need to do. For we as D. Malloch would put..." build the road of Masonry with other men in mind;We do not build for you and me, We build for all mankind. We build a road! - remember, men, build not for now, but build for then, and other men who walk the way shall find the road we built today... and shall bless the builder for faithfulness."