[Karl North:] | These initiatives are all good food for thought, but we need to | bear in mind that Vermont is a special case.
Yes, but so is Tompkins County. | In recent decades it has been transformed by the invasion of | permanent residents from moneyed classes that represent the upper | tier of the two tier US economy that has emerged in these | decades. Without their money flowing through the local economy, | and particularly the food economy, the kinds of changes that this | article describes would be much more difficult. Granted. | I have farmer friends in Vermont who can do things that are | unimaginable in most other places in the US. We can take ideas | from what is happening in Vermont, but we should be careful not to | be misled by how easy it is in Vermont to put those ideas into | practice. If any place can do that, we probably can, if we want to. I think the real problem is that the local stuff is way more expensive than what you can get at Wal-Mart. Up till now, that "upper tier of the US economy" has been able to afford the difference, but recent hits to stock prices and looming widespread unemployment will likely push most of those people into buying the cheap factory-farm stuff along with everyone else. So the question is whether a local farm cooperative of the kind described in the article can hang on until the cost of fuel finally levels the playing field by making Wal-Mart food more expensive than locally produced food. Jon _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
