The Fallen Serpent
Master Poster
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2009
- Messages
- 2,139
Obviously there are limitations to buying local. Buying food grown in a rural area will generally be cheaper than buying food bought in an urban area. Unless of course we are talking about supplmental home garden growing of food, which is encouraged. The local food movement in general is not suggesting we turn supermarkets into farms. Nor are people in general suggesting that all valuable land that is not otherwise being used be turned into a lovely garden. Though you know, if people were not upset by the thought of mixing a death connected site with growing food turning the land of the Trade Center into a garden that fed locals would be pleasant.
In Portland, Or there was some otherwise unused urban land turned into low income gardening. To collect food from it you had to work so many hours in it. So it became a very cheap way for poor residents of that neighborhood to acquire more food. A few schools here have experimented with growing some vegetables for use in the cafeteria. It actually is fairly cheap, especially if the school was already in the act of teaching gardening or plant biology. You can even get geology and chemistry lessons out of it. Perhaps more I have not heard examples of.
As for cost efficiency of growing local foods that is a concern. There are some foods that are just not cost effecient to grow local. Guess what local food movements suggest? Buy the types of food that are cost effecient to grow local. I do not think there is any state that lacks an agriculture industry, though a few may have sparse industries. What is local really does change from situation to situation and the movement does not suggest ignoring the physical reality of not being within 50 miles of sustainable farming.
As for the strange food market fluctuations, the farmer does not pay to ship the food. It largely has to do with business contracts. With strawberries 95% of what farmers grow gets put into the distribution network, the rest into direct sales, farmers markets and other such similar situations. The US produces much more food than it consumes. It is more profitable to sell some products far abroad than it is to sell locally. So a farmer in Oregon can sell their product for twice as much plus .5 times in shipping to someone in British Columbia. Which leaves the market open for a farmer in California to sell to Oregon at 1.5 times as much plus .5 times in shipping. Which means that a farmer in Mexico can sell to California. And so on and so far. To clarify, by farmer selling abroad I mean selling to a distribution network locally that collects and brings it abroad.
In Portland, Or there was some otherwise unused urban land turned into low income gardening. To collect food from it you had to work so many hours in it. So it became a very cheap way for poor residents of that neighborhood to acquire more food. A few schools here have experimented with growing some vegetables for use in the cafeteria. It actually is fairly cheap, especially if the school was already in the act of teaching gardening or plant biology. You can even get geology and chemistry lessons out of it. Perhaps more I have not heard examples of.
As for cost efficiency of growing local foods that is a concern. There are some foods that are just not cost effecient to grow local. Guess what local food movements suggest? Buy the types of food that are cost effecient to grow local. I do not think there is any state that lacks an agriculture industry, though a few may have sparse industries. What is local really does change from situation to situation and the movement does not suggest ignoring the physical reality of not being within 50 miles of sustainable farming.
As for the strange food market fluctuations, the farmer does not pay to ship the food. It largely has to do with business contracts. With strawberries 95% of what farmers grow gets put into the distribution network, the rest into direct sales, farmers markets and other such similar situations. The US produces much more food than it consumes. It is more profitable to sell some products far abroad than it is to sell locally. So a farmer in Oregon can sell their product for twice as much plus .5 times in shipping to someone in British Columbia. Which leaves the market open for a farmer in California to sell to Oregon at 1.5 times as much plus .5 times in shipping. Which means that a farmer in Mexico can sell to California. And so on and so far. To clarify, by farmer selling abroad I mean selling to a distribution network locally that collects and brings it abroad.
