Nikos Gavalas and Alexandra Tricha tended to their snail farm in Chios, Greece.
(Fat smug Americans and Obama-voters....... this might be your future too!!!!!!!!!!!)
Posted on 01/10/2012 12:32:20 PM PST by dennisw
Nikos Gavalas and Alexandra Tricha, both 31 and trained as agriculturalists, were frustrated working on poorly paying, short-term contracts in Athens, where jobs are scarce and the cost of living is high. So last year, they decided to start a new project: growing edible snails for export.
As Greece’s blighted economy plunges further into the abyss, the couple are joining with an exodus of Greeks who are fleeing to the countryside and looking to the nation’s rich rural past as a guide to the future. They acknowledge that it is a peculiar undertaking, with more manual labor than they, as college graduates, ever imagined doing. But in a country starved by austerity even as it teeters on the brink of default, it seemed as good a gamble as any.
Mr. Gavalas and Ms. Tricha chose to move back to his native Chios, an Aegean island closer to Izmir, Turkey, than to Athens. They set up farm using $50,000 from their families’ life savings. That investment has yet to pay off; they will have their first harvest later this year.
“When I call my friends and relatives in Athens, they tell me there’s no hope, everything is going from bad to worse,” Ms. Tricha said , as she walked through her greenhouse, where thousands of snails lumbered along on rows of damp wooden boards. “So I think our choice was good.”
Unemployment in Greece is 18 percent, rising to 35 percent for young people between the ages of 15 and 29 — up from 12 percent and 24 percent, respectively, in late 2010. But the agricultural sector has been one of the few to show gains since the crisis hit, adding 32,000 jobs between 2008 and 2010 — most of them taken by Greeks, not migrant workers from abroad
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Nikos Gavalas and Alexandra Tricha tended to their snail farm in Chios, Greece.
(Fat smug Americans and Obama-voters....... this might be your future too!!!!!!!!!!!)
Vassilis Ballas and his wife, Roula Boura, extracted the gum from a mastic tree on their 400-tree farm in Chios, Greece.
Back to the soil Graeculi!
So the NYT has turned Greece’s decline and reversion into a country with an 1800s economy into some quaint, environmentally friendly fantasy. Greece is swirling down the toilet. Its modern economy is falling apart. Industrial and service workers have to go back to individual farming. But to the NYT, its wonderful. They do the same thing when you see stories about economies so F’d up that the people revert to riding horses. To the NYT and other Lib papers, its a wonderful alternative to fossil fuel.
I say this story is fraud.
The only people going back to the land are people rich enough to own 400 trees or a football field sized greenhouse.
Of possible interest, ping...
And a herd of snails... I wonder if they have to brand them?
Round up time shouldn't be very tough, though, for the snailboys. Yee-haw little doggies...
JADB I bet your geese would have fun at the snail farm!
University Degrees from Greece have been particularly worthless for some years now. In the past the junk degree would yield a cushy government job because you knew somebody who knew somebody.
BTW private universities are not allowed in Greece.
USA universities, and students and lenders, should take note. Useless degrees yield useless results.
The NYT glosses over the crony capitalism and the rampant socialist that created this mess.
Now the the same 6 or so rich families that controlled the drachma want to go back to the drachma in order to rule behind the scenes again.
Snails aren’t the first crop I’d have thought of, but, hey, Greece can use the export income.
“Useless degrees yield useless results.”
We’ve gone a step further; if you have a degree in high demand, 1,000 Asians with the same degree will be imported to take your job. If there aren’t enough in Asia we will educate them here, then they’ll take your job.
I would have a great time ... snails, shallots, garlic and butter!!! My silly geese are vegetarians.
These people are at least producing something tangible. We are headed towards the same kind of collapse. That’s why I wrote the book “Going Galt”, to suggest ways to protect your lifestyle. http://www.futurnamics.com/goinggalt.php
Good for the ones that can do it. If they were palestinians, they’d sell those greenhouses for scrap.
The three basics of a real economy are agriculture, mining and manufacturing. You can add building roads and buildings to those three. What we have is a service economy and a consumer economy which is idiocy and cannot last. Too many consumers and not enough producers. Too many tax eaters and not enough taxpayers.
[The three basics of a real economy are agriculture, mining and manufacturing. You can add building roads and buildings to those three. What we have is a service economy and a consumer economy which is idiocy and cannot last. Too many consumers and not enough producers. Too many tax eaters and not enough taxpayers.]
Couldn’t have said it better. I am scrambling personally to move into light mnufacturing, even a little gardening/agriculture.
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