This is good news:
From the New York Times...
ONE of the biggest brand names in food this summer doesn’t carry a trademark. It’s the word “local,” which has entered the language as a powerful symbol of high quality and goodness.
Supermarkets are beginning to catch on that stocking corn and tomatoes grown nearby is not enough for customers. Now they are competing with farm stands and farmers’ markets for a wider variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.
It’s been a boon for local farmers. Ten years ago local produce was devalued at the wholesale Hunts Point market, said Lyle Wells, whose family has been farming on Long Island since 1660. “Now you can’t get enough of the stuff.”
Last month Wal-Mart announced that it plans to spend $400 million this year on locally grown produce, making it the largest player in that market.
“When Wal-Mart makes a major effort to reach out to local food systems, it’s a major signal,” said Gus Schumacher Jr., a consultant to the nonprofit Kellogg Foundation and a former Massachusetts commissioner of food and agriculture, who has worked to introduce farmers to restaurateurs and retailers since the 1980s.
Some independently owned, small-to-medium-size chains have been selling extensive lines of local seasonal fruits and vegetables for years, lines they are now expanding.
For the largest supermarket chains, though, where for decades produce has meant truckloads transported primarily from the West Coast, it’s not always easy to switch to the farmer down the road.
But soaring transportation costs, not to mention the cachet customers attach to local food, have made it more attractive not just to supermarkets but to the agribusiness companies that supply them.
Growers like Dole and Nunes have contracted with farmers in the East to grow products like broccoli and leafy greens that they used to ship from the West Coast. Because of fuel costs, in some instances the cost of freight is more than the cost of the products.
“There is a huge shift,” said Brian Nicholson, an owner of Red Jacket Orchards in Geneva, N.Y., who has also become a distributor for local farmers. “Wholesalers and retailers no longer say, I can get it cheaper from out West.”...
But not all chains are there yet. “The whole commercial value of local is just now being appreciated by retail,” said Bill Bishop, chairman of Willard Bishop, retail marketing consultants in Barrington, Ill. “It’s a little bit behind the curve.”...
Will Wedge, director of produce for the chain (Hannaford Brothers), said that in company surveys, “82 percent of all customers told us loud and clear, locally grown produce tastes better. We have over 200 farmers selling over 50 different commodities, primarily from June through September.”
Wegmans Food Markets, a 71-store chain based in New York with locations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia, has been buying from local farmers for the last 20 years. Today it has 800 farmers and has also experienced a 20 percent increase in sales of local produce over the past year. “There’s a real emotional connection with local,” said Dave Corsi, vice president for produce.
Mr. Corsi said that in order to buy from local farms, the chain had to stop acting like a chain. “We don’t control these relationships centrally — the produce manager in each store does this directly,” he said. “We only guide the stores.”
...Despite the difficulties, many in the food industry believe the demand for local food is here to stay. “It’s going to be a way of life,” said Matt Seeley, vice president for marketing of the Nunes Company, which sells Foxy brand vegetables. “I don’t think there is any turning back.”
Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Friday, August 01, 2008
"Small farming is the future"
From the Capital Times (Madison, WI)
Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer in Wonewoc and a policy fellow for the Food and Society Fellows Program.
....Have we finally hit the wall with our never-ending desire for "bigness"?
I decided years ago that I didn't want my farming operation to get bigger. I liked milking 45 cows, raising their feed and doing a little direct marketing. I liked being small.
"Hopelessly behind the times," I was told. Local cheese makers were giving up, local meat processing was a thing of the past.
Small farming was dead. The developing world couldn't feed itself and needed industrial farming systems.
Who could argue with the Green Revolution? Until the current food crisis. It's not so much a shortage of food, but a shortage of cheap food. The poor can't afford to eat and the middle class feels the pinch. Why wasn't industrial agriculture, farming fence row to fence row, feeding the world?
There's the rub -- feeding the world was never the intention. Back in the '70s well-meaning researchers and eager graduate students, myself included, were convinced we could eliminate hunger in our lifetime. We had good intentions, but the big picture was always about making a profit.
Farmers, using cheap fuel, fertilizer and plenty of chemicals, could plant more acres, produce enough volume and generally make a profit. This, of course, benefited the seed and chemical companies, which long ago figured out that small farmers saving their own seed and tending small acreages didn't spend much money.
The big meat packers and dairy processors anticipated the end of local processing. Their market share increased and they grew larger. By breaking the labor unions, they could pay lower wages, bring in immigrant workers, increase profits and grow even larger.
It was a grand plan. Agribusiness corporations were increasing profit margins quarter after quarter. The bigger they grew, the better it worked. Prices paid for animals, milk and grain fell as farms grew larger and produced more. Small farmers couldn't compete as per unit profit margins fell and only the larger producers could survive.
Oil prices went up and farmers were urged to grow more corn for ethanol. More land went into corn production, wheat acreage fell, speculation pushed prices up and food prices soared. The International Monetary Fund estimates that 50 percent of the increase in food price was due to ethanol production. Instead of feeding the world, industrial agriculture starves it.
While oil companies banked huge profits, people lost their homes, jobs and farms. We have become too dependent on globalization and the big corporations that control it.
Small is the future. We know indigenous farmers can produce more food using traditional farming methods. They have no need of genetically modified seed or chemicals. All they need is an end to wars and, as Frances Moore Lappe would say, "more democracy." The World Bank and the G-8 need to let them make their own decisions and feed themselves.
Western countries need to take a step back. We cannot continue to feed grass-eating animals a diet of grain, nor can we continue to fill our fuel tanks with grain. We cannot continue to encourage and subsidize industrial agriculture at the expense of small local producers.
What we can do is return to local and regional food production. We can allow the rest of the world to feed themselves by reining in the influence of multinational grain and chemical companies. We can redevelop local communities and keep local dollars local, rather than filling the coffers of offshore corporate bank accounts.
Accepting the value of "smallness" and living more locally is the solution. Embracing small and local addresses the failure of systems -- whether it is the failure of the globalized food system to embrace food sovereignty, the failure of capitalism and its penchant to move more wealth to those who already have more than enough, or the failure of an entire society that has based its existence on oil.
... We need to reclaim our sense of local and realize the necessity of being small and interdependent. We need to end thousands of years of thinking bigger is always better.
Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer in Wonewoc and a policy fellow for the Food and Society Fellows Program.
....Have we finally hit the wall with our never-ending desire for "bigness"?
I decided years ago that I didn't want my farming operation to get bigger. I liked milking 45 cows, raising their feed and doing a little direct marketing. I liked being small.
"Hopelessly behind the times," I was told. Local cheese makers were giving up, local meat processing was a thing of the past.
Small farming was dead. The developing world couldn't feed itself and needed industrial farming systems.
Who could argue with the Green Revolution? Until the current food crisis. It's not so much a shortage of food, but a shortage of cheap food. The poor can't afford to eat and the middle class feels the pinch. Why wasn't industrial agriculture, farming fence row to fence row, feeding the world?
There's the rub -- feeding the world was never the intention. Back in the '70s well-meaning researchers and eager graduate students, myself included, were convinced we could eliminate hunger in our lifetime. We had good intentions, but the big picture was always about making a profit.
Farmers, using cheap fuel, fertilizer and plenty of chemicals, could plant more acres, produce enough volume and generally make a profit. This, of course, benefited the seed and chemical companies, which long ago figured out that small farmers saving their own seed and tending small acreages didn't spend much money.
The big meat packers and dairy processors anticipated the end of local processing. Their market share increased and they grew larger. By breaking the labor unions, they could pay lower wages, bring in immigrant workers, increase profits and grow even larger.
It was a grand plan. Agribusiness corporations were increasing profit margins quarter after quarter. The bigger they grew, the better it worked. Prices paid for animals, milk and grain fell as farms grew larger and produced more. Small farmers couldn't compete as per unit profit margins fell and only the larger producers could survive.
Oil prices went up and farmers were urged to grow more corn for ethanol. More land went into corn production, wheat acreage fell, speculation pushed prices up and food prices soared. The International Monetary Fund estimates that 50 percent of the increase in food price was due to ethanol production. Instead of feeding the world, industrial agriculture starves it.
While oil companies banked huge profits, people lost their homes, jobs and farms. We have become too dependent on globalization and the big corporations that control it.
Small is the future. We know indigenous farmers can produce more food using traditional farming methods. They have no need of genetically modified seed or chemicals. All they need is an end to wars and, as Frances Moore Lappe would say, "more democracy." The World Bank and the G-8 need to let them make their own decisions and feed themselves.
Western countries need to take a step back. We cannot continue to feed grass-eating animals a diet of grain, nor can we continue to fill our fuel tanks with grain. We cannot continue to encourage and subsidize industrial agriculture at the expense of small local producers.
What we can do is return to local and regional food production. We can allow the rest of the world to feed themselves by reining in the influence of multinational grain and chemical companies. We can redevelop local communities and keep local dollars local, rather than filling the coffers of offshore corporate bank accounts.
Accepting the value of "smallness" and living more locally is the solution. Embracing small and local addresses the failure of systems -- whether it is the failure of the globalized food system to embrace food sovereignty, the failure of capitalism and its penchant to move more wealth to those who already have more than enough, or the failure of an entire society that has based its existence on oil.
... We need to reclaim our sense of local and realize the necessity of being small and interdependent. We need to end thousands of years of thinking bigger is always better.
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