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YORKTON - Now I completely recognize that any posting on social media needs to be taken with a bushel of salt because social media is certainly a cesspool of misinformation, so you best do some ‘fact checking’ and determine what sources are legitimate.

So when I recently saw a post suggesting there are ‘40 million acres of manicured lawns in America’ it was a case of immediately doubting such huge numbers.

Imagine if the number were accurate and those acres were instead producing wheat how many bushels would be produced to feed the world’s hungry.

Ultimately that was what the ‘post’ was actually about. It suggested that if lawns were ditched and the idea of ‘victory gardens; was brought back food security would drop dramatically.

And therein lies an interesting vision of what could be, and it matters not of whether the 40 million acres is accurate or not. Even in a community such as Yorkton, or Weyburn, or Moose Jaw there are lawns in front of hundreds of homes which exist basically to look at as most front yard lawns are little used for activities beyond burning gas or using electricity to mow the grass, or spraying some herbicide to deal with a rogue dandelion.

But, imagine the beets and turnips and carrots and parsnips and potatoes that might be produced and stored to feed the hungry if the grass was tilled under and veggies planted instead.

And we don’t need to look past the growing need realized by local food banks and community fridges to know there are hungry people living in our communities.

One wonders how we might better use the land resource which now grow grass to feed our neighbours? Could for example a small tax break be given to front yard gardens with the produce donated to a food bank? It certainly would not be so different from a business garnering a grant from the city to upgrade its façade.

One can see similar efforts by farmers, some tax break for raising some livestock destined for food banks.

Of course when you start to look at how we might better our community by aiding those most needing a hand, it opens the doors to some bigger ideas that might seem extreme, but you are left wondering why.

For the sake of argument, let’s take the growing issue of homelessness. One at least partial solution is creating ‘tiny houses’ as a starter home for the homeless. But even tiny houses cost money.

But what of instead of requiring one, two, or three car garages in some development areas, we realize it would be better to have the BMW outside, and the materials that would have gone into a ‘required’ garage go to a tiny home – with a small tax break for the homeowners decision?

Certainly a home with veggies out front and no garage seems a pretty reasonable way to help others, and are at least ideas to start looking at new ideas.