Just adding my thoughts and observations to Jon's message: I think farmers need to build co-operative arrangements of all sorts for many, many reasons. I think the trick will be to start small (a few small farms start to co-operatively buy and share equipment, barter their by-products, etc.) and gradually grow in scope, scale, etc. I also think CSA's are the way to go, where the price vs quantity of food is better than at the Farmers Market and relationships are built between the farmer and consumers. And I agree that there will be huge price adjustments in favor of local produce as time goes on. But if we think locally and small, there's no reason to wait! I recently moved here from Mass, and it seems that there was a supportive infrastructure for sustainable, organic farming in New England that is missing here. CISA (Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture) was very active in promoting local farms, there's an independent Small Farms Institute in Belchertown (near Amherst and UMass), etc. This is true partly because farmland is disappearing in western Mass, and the local, liberal, educated population is aware and motivated to try to help the farmers that are left. One farmer in Hadley, MA assumed responsibility for coordinating the sourcing, collecting, and even some of the food prep to deliver local farm food to UMass, and is working with other local farms to provide veggies for UMass (where food service is organized centrally) on a weekly basis throughout the season. Because UMass is able to deal with only one farmer, it's now getting most of its food service produce from a number of local farms. There's all kinds of potential to develop mutually beneficial farm co-operation. Incidentally, does anybody know what ever happened with the effort to start a co-operative commercial kitchen/food prep space? Real Pickles got started in Greenfield, Mass in a co-operative, commercial kitchen, and only moved out when they were so big and successful that they needed their own factory-scale space. I'd be interested in talking to anybody who is still interested in doing this here. CSA's could use it to can excess harvest by organizing classes for members or to process food for sale at holiday markets, and I'd be interested in using it to make yogurt, cheese, butter (am hoping to start a raw milk cowshare dairy).
| 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 _______________________________________________ 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
