When the economy started looking really grim a month or so ago, the farmers’ markets also took a hit. The first week was particularly bad; my own sales were down quite a bit, and nearly every farmer I spoke to was in the same boat. Over the intervening weeks things have leveled off some, I suspect mainly because the weather in Seattle this past month has been unusually good. It’s comforting to realize that many variables affect one’s sales, and the state of the overall economy is just one of them.
Still, the whole experience has gotten me thinking about the economics of sustainable food. Consumers are being asked to pay more for better food during a time when everyone is short on cash. On the surface that sounds like a tough sell, until you consider the fact that eating well is not just a short-term choice. Like the stock market, it’s an investment in the future, one that can have a real bearing on our long-term quality of life.
When we put our money into stocks we help support companies that, for the most part, we don’t see first hand. Their activities take place in other parts of the country, and sometimes even other parts of the world. But when we put your money into locally produced, well-crafted sustainable food products, we share in building our own communities and we can see the results directly, as small businesses thrive-or at the very least, continue to do business-and farmland is preserved for future generations.
When we buy shares in publicly traded companies, the value of those shares rises and falls in keeping with a general perception of their supposed value, which may have nothing to do with the real worth of the enterprise: whether it helps or hurts people, and whether it is engaged in practices that offer us a better future. When we pay higher prices for fruits and vegetables that come directly from the folks who grow them, we spend more than we would at the supermarket because the product we’re buying has real value, and is worth more than the mass produced alternatives. These products are worth more because they’re grown by people who care about flavor, tradition, and the long-term health of the land.
When we buy stocks, we receive no immediate benefit (except sometimes a tax deduction.) But when we buy sustainable food, we’re able to enjoy fine meals right away, while we also invest in a way of life that will give us a better future by keeping us healthier, and also keeping us more closely in touch with the things that really matter, like enjoying day-to-day moments, and taking care of one another.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Bob Comis // Nov 9, 2008 at 7:38 am
This post reminds me of so much that is wrong with the thinking of so many proponents of local-regional farming and food systems, especially when it comes to economics, or more aptly, political economics.
In 1980, only about 13% of Americans owned stocks. By 2000, this number had jumped to just a bit higher than 50%, which of course neo-liberals everywhere hailed as a marker of the great success of capitalism. What it really marks is the gutting of American unions and the shift of the burden of retirement income, especially in terms of risk, onto the backs of American workers through the dissolution of the pension system in favor of the 401k system, a system that further enriches the rich at the expense of people who work.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2004 more than a third of all people living in New York State could not afford to meet even a *basic* family budget. In other words, even when they were paying industrial food prices, they couldn’t meet their most basic needs of clothing, food, housing, transportation, child care, etc. For them, and many others, neither stocks, nor local food are a choice.
As long as we in the local food movement have things like buying stock as a reference, we are never going to be able to imagine a just and *broadly inclusive* local-regional farming and food system.
Just as important as working to build local-regional farming and food systems infrastructures that reduce our fossil fuel consumption and lower our costs as much as possible, we need to recognize that the buy local movement needs to be, perhaps first and foremost, a movement for economic, social, and political justice. We cannot simply say, “but this is the true cost of raising good food!” We must say, “This is the true cost of raising good food, and all people everywhere need to earn enough to afford it!” We need to recognize that the local food movement can and should be the driving force for broad and deep economic, social, and political change.
2 devra // Nov 10, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. You’re absolutely right that a far-reaching, long-term solution to the many problems that plague our food system needs to include living wages for everyone, wages good enough for us all to afford the real cost of local foods. But when I look at the issue of providing everyone with a living wage I have to idea where to start, and when I look at the issue of local foodways I feel that I’m able to get a bit more traction.
I know that the local food market makes up only a very small percentage of what Americans spend on food–I believe your blog said something like 1%–but I don’t think that necessarily reflects how much local food folks are actually eating. There’s also the food that we grow in our own gardens, not to mention the food that’s bartered. Granted, it’s still much smaller than it should be, but I’m still encouraged by the fact that there are more than ten times as many farmers’ markets as there were 30 years ago, and that local food is chic these days.
For better or for worse, many of the foods that are central to Western diets today started out as high priced luxury items. Sugar and white bread are examples, and the mainstream meat industry also took a product that rich people ate every day and poorer people ate seasonally, and made it an everyday food for nearly everyone.
I think that the fact that fresh, local foods are currently positioned as luxury items could ultimately help to bring them mainstream and even bring down their prices a bit as we develop some sustainable economies of scale. Unlike the spread of sugar, white bread and factory-farmed meat, taking the local foods movement to the next level won’t necessarily exploit people and degrade the product. Even though Wal Mart has begun selling “local” foods that are shipped to warehouses and then back again, most local foods these days are sold at farmers’ markets and through CSA’s. People enjoy meeting the folks who grow their food. I vend at several thriving farmers markets in low income neighborhoods, so I can say first hand that this isn’t just an elitist, upper income phenomenon.
If 50% of Americans own stock, then 50% of Americans could, in theory, find ways of investing in their local economies instead. Small changes can become big changes, but it takes time.
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