Today I bought some eggs, strawberries and beef at the local farmers market. I paid more than one would at the grocery store, even accounting for the very high quality of the food (grass fed beef, pastured eggs, and possibly the most delicious strawberries I have ever eaten).
I am curious, though, is this just a form of consumerism? Is there real value to supporting local agriculture, or am I just getting the same yuppy feel-good buzz I would get buying organic Thingamajigs at a Whole Foods? I live in a small town, so there could be some antifragile aspects to participating in the community. How well do I need to get to know the farmers to really consider that it helps my personal situation?
Not sure what brought on the bout of introspection about these purchases, but I would love to hear what others think about local agriculture.
Local food and antifragility
Re: Local food and antifragility
I like it, but I feel your pain about the current trend of "expressing values" through variations of consumerism. Sometimes a carrot is just a carrot.
But fresh food is usually worth it, both in terms of taste and health. Most delicious strawberries ever is definitely worth a few bucks, especially if you took the time to savor them.
I joined a CSA group this summer/fall -- we will get vegetables in bulk every week, whatever is freshly picked. I'll be curious to see how it goes and what we get. I'm imagining it will be like something out of Forrest Gump: Life is like a box of vegetables. You never know whether you're going to get a rare turnip or just more kale.
But fresh food is usually worth it, both in terms of taste and health. Most delicious strawberries ever is definitely worth a few bucks, especially if you took the time to savor them.
I joined a CSA group this summer/fall -- we will get vegetables in bulk every week, whatever is freshly picked. I'll be curious to see how it goes and what we get. I'm imagining it will be like something out of Forrest Gump: Life is like a box of vegetables. You never know whether you're going to get a rare turnip or just more kale.
Re: Local food and antifragility
I think there is tremendous value in local agriculture. Whole foods....not so much. There is a big difference between the two.
Local foods are priced more toward reality in that there is not as large of an energy subsidy behind them. 5 calories of fossil fuel input instead of 10 per calorie of food. The closer you get to home, the lower it is. The closer you get to reality, the less of a shock in the event of a systemic crisis.
Local foods are priced more toward reality in that there is not as large of an energy subsidy behind them. 5 calories of fossil fuel input instead of 10 per calorie of food. The closer you get to home, the lower it is. The closer you get to reality, the less of a shock in the event of a systemic crisis.
Re: Local food and antifragility
Local food is a complex question without easy answers.
"But implicit in the argument that local farming is better for the environment than industrial agriculture is an assumption that a “relocalized” food system can be just as efficient as today’s modern farming. That assumption is simply wrong. Today’s high crop yields and low costs reflect gains from specialization and trade, as well as scale and scope economies that would be forsaken under the food system that locavores endorse."
http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the- ... ocal-food/
"The local-food movement has been gaining momentum in developed countries, and in many developing countries as well, in recent years; in the United States alone, sales of locally grown foods, worth about $4 billion in 2002, could reach as much as $7 billion by 2011. Local food's claimed benefits are driving health- and environment-conscious consumers to seek alternatives to the industrial agriculture system whose products dominate grocery-store shelves. It is also linked to the localization efforts of people who believe that rising transport costs and reaction to globalization will trigger a shortening of economic links and greater reliance on local and regional economies. This two-part series examines the potential impacts of greater localization of food, beginning with the environmental effects and then, in our July/August issue, the economic implications.)"
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6064
"But implicit in the argument that local farming is better for the environment than industrial agriculture is an assumption that a “relocalized” food system can be just as efficient as today’s modern farming. That assumption is simply wrong. Today’s high crop yields and low costs reflect gains from specialization and trade, as well as scale and scope economies that would be forsaken under the food system that locavores endorse."
http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the- ... ocal-food/
"The local-food movement has been gaining momentum in developed countries, and in many developing countries as well, in recent years; in the United States alone, sales of locally grown foods, worth about $4 billion in 2002, could reach as much as $7 billion by 2011. Local food's claimed benefits are driving health- and environment-conscious consumers to seek alternatives to the industrial agriculture system whose products dominate grocery-store shelves. It is also linked to the localization efforts of people who believe that rising transport costs and reaction to globalization will trigger a shortening of economic links and greater reliance on local and regional economies. This two-part series examines the potential impacts of greater localization of food, beginning with the environmental effects and then, in our July/August issue, the economic implications.)"
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6064
Re: Local food and antifragility
In situations were you'd benefit from the increased resilience from locally sourced food, wouldn't everyone else also be scrambling for the farmers market? For it to have value, I'd say you'd have to have a more direct relationship with a food producer, for example regularly buying a whole cow/pig/sheep from someone or arranging to have vegetables delivered weekly. In the event of a shortage, the shared reciprocity might just be enough for you to be able to come out ahead of the pack.
Re: Local food and antifragility
I mostly agree with cmonkey but I am also familiar with the debate on the topic which does make some sense on both sides. My personal quick and easy solution is to separate the need for calories vs. the need for weight or volume of food in my diet. Calories are definitely most inexpensively obtained from processed food produced on large modern farms, high volume/low calorie food is more inexpensively obtained from my own garden or local farm market.
Simple example would be arugula vs. white sugar. My 2X3 planting of arugula cost me maybe $5 to get started and yields the equivalent of a plastic container that goes for $2.99 every other day. OTOH, in theory, I could produce my own white sugar from the beets I am growing but since I know that beets are grown and processed into sugar on farms that are just a short drive away from me, why bother? I was wondering why most of the urban farmers in my neighborhood seemed to be growing a lot of kale (rugged but not the most delicious thing you can grow yourself) until I learned that the local Buddhist center produces a very delicious, quite expensive brand of healthy, natural kale chips for the yuppie market.
It's generally true that growing/processing patterns don't necessarily follow eating patterns for cultural reasons. For instance, a lot of soybeans are grown and processed into tofu in rural parts of Michigan where the average resident would rather eat some authentic old world kielbasa produced at the meat shoppe a few blocks away from me in the city. No fresh food keeps forever so most foods, whether grown commercially, small-scale or at home are eventually processed into a form that will keep longer in storage. In her book, "The Resilient Gardener", Carol Deppe makes the very good point that given crisis situation, knowledge about how to grow food may be less needed than knowledge about how to properly harvest, process and store food. Therefore, developing the habit of buying food in bulk right at harvest time from a local farmer will at least give you the opportunity to learn the skills of cooking, drying, smoking, canning, cellaring and pickling even if you never choose to learn how to garden.
Besides, who says there is an inherent conflict between the rational and the sensual? There is nothing wrong with wanting the pleasure of eating the most delicious strawberries you've ever had. There are just more and less rational means of obtaining that pleasure.
Simple example would be arugula vs. white sugar. My 2X3 planting of arugula cost me maybe $5 to get started and yields the equivalent of a plastic container that goes for $2.99 every other day. OTOH, in theory, I could produce my own white sugar from the beets I am growing but since I know that beets are grown and processed into sugar on farms that are just a short drive away from me, why bother? I was wondering why most of the urban farmers in my neighborhood seemed to be growing a lot of kale (rugged but not the most delicious thing you can grow yourself) until I learned that the local Buddhist center produces a very delicious, quite expensive brand of healthy, natural kale chips for the yuppie market.
It's generally true that growing/processing patterns don't necessarily follow eating patterns for cultural reasons. For instance, a lot of soybeans are grown and processed into tofu in rural parts of Michigan where the average resident would rather eat some authentic old world kielbasa produced at the meat shoppe a few blocks away from me in the city. No fresh food keeps forever so most foods, whether grown commercially, small-scale or at home are eventually processed into a form that will keep longer in storage. In her book, "The Resilient Gardener", Carol Deppe makes the very good point that given crisis situation, knowledge about how to grow food may be less needed than knowledge about how to properly harvest, process and store food. Therefore, developing the habit of buying food in bulk right at harvest time from a local farmer will at least give you the opportunity to learn the skills of cooking, drying, smoking, canning, cellaring and pickling even if you never choose to learn how to garden.
Besides, who says there is an inherent conflict between the rational and the sensual? There is nothing wrong with wanting the pleasure of eating the most delicious strawberries you've ever had. There are just more and less rational means of obtaining that pleasure.
Re: Local food and antifragility
Of course it is a form of consumerism, but even anti-consumerism is a form of consumerism, so that does not matter as long as you are not enthralled by the yuppie/hipster lifestyle aspect of it. As for the question of value, that all depends on *what* you actually value. Supporting small business, maintaining good health, animal welfare, reducing carbon miles, and curbing pesticides in the environment just for starters are important to some, not others.5to9 wrote:I am curious, though, is this just a form of consumerism? Is there real value to supporting local agriculture, or am I just getting the same yuppy feel-good buzz I would get buying organic Thingamajigs at a Whole Foods? I live in a small town, so there could be some antifragile aspects to participating in the community. How well do I need to get to know the farmers to really consider that it helps my personal situation?
As for Whole Foods and "Big organic" (as I think Bittman coined it)--they may have their problems, but they support some of these values a lot better than 7-11.
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black_son_of_gray
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Re: Local food and antifragility
I've been trying to frame this in my own mind for a few weeks now. I've tried to focus on the ethics (reflecting my own values, not everyone else's*). Here's the logic that I've been using for my own food purchases:
Let's first ignore the money side of things and just consider the food for what it is, where it is grown, who is growing it, and the impacts on the environment** and other people. In a choice between otherwise identical foods, I would choose local over foreign, smaller farms that grow a variety of plants over mega-farms with less variety, farms with better working conditions over farms that overwork and underpay their farmhands (or expose them to high doses of pesticides/herbicides), farms that don't use persistent, endocrine-disrupting or cancer-causing chemicals over ones that do. To me those choices are obvious. Now let's bring back the price. It is probably going to cost more for that food. But I'm saving a pretty huge chunk of money every month - I can definitely afford it***. Actually, it would only change my savings rate by a few percent, if that.
I've come to the conclusion that I should buy the more expensive food that follows my choices**** above because overall I think it:
1) Promotes better health and livelihood for the poor farmhands who have to pick my food by hand, in the summer heat!
2) Reduces the amount of long-lived chemicals being sprayed on the ground (which eventually end up in everyone's water anyway)
Are these ideas a bigger priority for me than saving an extra 1000 bucks a year? For me personally, yes.
*I'm not trying to be high-and-mighty here. I don't blame or look down on people for having different priorities.
**There are a LOT of ways that the environment could be impacted, and that isn't always obvious or straightforward.
***In some sense, because I can easily afford it, I OUGHT to pay more to offset people who really can't afford to pay more.
****Assuming I know what is actually going on with how that food was produced. With some stores, the information is better, in some, it's completely opaque.
In the end, I think this is also promotes a more anti-fragile food system as well. Environmental degradation/pollution gives everyone less options. A more spread out, more redundant, less concentrated food supply is probably less efficient, but more robust. A stronger local economy is less likely to be affected by geographically distant black swans.
Let's first ignore the money side of things and just consider the food for what it is, where it is grown, who is growing it, and the impacts on the environment** and other people. In a choice between otherwise identical foods, I would choose local over foreign, smaller farms that grow a variety of plants over mega-farms with less variety, farms with better working conditions over farms that overwork and underpay their farmhands (or expose them to high doses of pesticides/herbicides), farms that don't use persistent, endocrine-disrupting or cancer-causing chemicals over ones that do. To me those choices are obvious. Now let's bring back the price. It is probably going to cost more for that food. But I'm saving a pretty huge chunk of money every month - I can definitely afford it***. Actually, it would only change my savings rate by a few percent, if that.
I've come to the conclusion that I should buy the more expensive food that follows my choices**** above because overall I think it:
1) Promotes better health and livelihood for the poor farmhands who have to pick my food by hand, in the summer heat!
2) Reduces the amount of long-lived chemicals being sprayed on the ground (which eventually end up in everyone's water anyway)
Are these ideas a bigger priority for me than saving an extra 1000 bucks a year? For me personally, yes.
*I'm not trying to be high-and-mighty here. I don't blame or look down on people for having different priorities.
**There are a LOT of ways that the environment could be impacted, and that isn't always obvious or straightforward.
***In some sense, because I can easily afford it, I OUGHT to pay more to offset people who really can't afford to pay more.
****Assuming I know what is actually going on with how that food was produced. With some stores, the information is better, in some, it's completely opaque.
In the end, I think this is also promotes a more anti-fragile food system as well. Environmental degradation/pollution gives everyone less options. A more spread out, more redundant, less concentrated food supply is probably less efficient, but more robust. A stronger local economy is less likely to be affected by geographically distant black swans.
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jacob
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Re: Local food and antifragility
Allow me to be a "definition-nazi" for a brief spell, but I think the thread can benefit from more accurate definitions given that they exist:
Fragile: Something that lose a lot of value or breaks when exposed to a shock---the loss of value is larger than the shock. Examples are dropped coffee cups, a mobile home in a hurricane, a specialized career, a startup tech company, ...
Robust: Something that can withstand shocks without breaking---the loss of value is smaller than the shock. Examples are Sigg bottles, a bunker, government jobs, the S&P500, ...
Resilient: Something that is only temporarily affected by shocks and quickly reverts to the same value---there is no permanent loss of value. Examples are baby tippy cups(*), a rental, handyman skills, the PP, ...
(*) I don't know the term but the ones that are weighted at the bottom and reverts to an upright position when pushed. Parents?
Anti-fragile: Something that gains in value when exposed to shocks---there is a permanent gain in value from the shock. Examples are water purification means, tents, survival skills, hedged portfolios, ...
Local food, then, can be any of the four (and possible a 5th unknown?!) depending on how it's approached.
Fragile: Something that lose a lot of value or breaks when exposed to a shock---the loss of value is larger than the shock. Examples are dropped coffee cups, a mobile home in a hurricane, a specialized career, a startup tech company, ...
Robust: Something that can withstand shocks without breaking---the loss of value is smaller than the shock. Examples are Sigg bottles, a bunker, government jobs, the S&P500, ...
Resilient: Something that is only temporarily affected by shocks and quickly reverts to the same value---there is no permanent loss of value. Examples are baby tippy cups(*), a rental, handyman skills, the PP, ...
(*) I don't know the term but the ones that are weighted at the bottom and reverts to an upright position when pushed. Parents?
Anti-fragile: Something that gains in value when exposed to shocks---there is a permanent gain in value from the shock. Examples are water purification means, tents, survival skills, hedged portfolios, ...
Local food, then, can be any of the four (and possible a 5th unknown?!) depending on how it's approached.
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BeyondtheWrap
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- Location: NYC
Re: Local food and antifragility
Everyone else would be scrambling for the farmer's market, and that's why it is important to support the local farmers. By giving them your business now, you make them able to invest in growing their businesses to make them able to produce the quantity needed when that time comes. As I understand it, the point is not to make yourself resilient at the expense of your neighbors but to make your community resilient so that it can provide food for itself in the event of collapse of transportation networks or of big agriculture.oldbeyond wrote:In situations were you'd benefit from the increased resilience from locally sourced food, wouldn't everyone else also be scrambling for the farmers market? For it to have value, I'd say you'd have to have a more direct relationship with a food producer, for example regularly buying a whole cow/pig/sheep from someone or arranging to have vegetables delivered weekly. In the event of a shortage, the shared reciprocity might just be enough for you to be able to come out ahead of the pack.
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George the original one
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Re: Local food and antifragility
Value: better taste or lower price?
Proper strawberries with good taste are more fragile than the cardboard ones shipped from California. Proper strawberries were bred for making jam/jelly, so they are picked ripe and go from the field to the processing plant located within 15 miles of the field and have a shelf life of about two days if they're at a road-side stand. Many more examples amongst fruit & veggies. To get lower price, find a source that discounts when the local season provides a local abundance.
Meat is a little different. The feed & activity level is responsible for most of the taste and, for some cuts/animals, aging the meat is important (something I still don't understand very well). Freshness matters little because promptly freezing meat does very little damage to the flavor. The hazards of meat production are overfishing, feedlots, pollution from overcrowding, inefficient calorie collection, inefficient water usage, and eating far more meat calories than we ought to for our sedentary lifestyles.
Proper strawberries with good taste are more fragile than the cardboard ones shipped from California. Proper strawberries were bred for making jam/jelly, so they are picked ripe and go from the field to the processing plant located within 15 miles of the field and have a shelf life of about two days if they're at a road-side stand. Many more examples amongst fruit & veggies. To get lower price, find a source that discounts when the local season provides a local abundance.
Meat is a little different. The feed & activity level is responsible for most of the taste and, for some cuts/animals, aging the meat is important (something I still don't understand very well). Freshness matters little because promptly freezing meat does very little damage to the flavor. The hazards of meat production are overfishing, feedlots, pollution from overcrowding, inefficient calorie collection, inefficient water usage, and eating far more meat calories than we ought to for our sedentary lifestyles.
Re: Local food and antifragility
Lesson From a Local Food Scam Artist
narrative.ly/foodie-fables-and-foibles/lessons-from-a-local-food-scam-artist/
Her food stall was in New Jersey.
So, when my boss's son put up the “local bananas” sign, I let it alone. A few foodies laughed. A few questioned me accusingly: How could the bananas be local? “Greenhouses,” I said one day. “Miles and miles of greenhouses. In Andover Township.” The word “township” got them; it was so quaint.
narrative.ly/foodie-fables-and-foibles/lessons-from-a-local-food-scam-artist/
Her food stall was in New Jersey.
So, when my boss's son put up the “local bananas” sign, I let it alone. A few foodies laughed. A few questioned me accusingly: How could the bananas be local? “Greenhouses,” I said one day. “Miles and miles of greenhouses. In Andover Township.” The word “township” got them; it was so quaint.