Creeping capitalism
Bookworm on Jan 21 2009 at 4:44 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
I loved this, from Best of the Web:
From the New York Times:
The local food movement has been all about buying seasonal food from nearby farmers. Now, thanks to the Web, it is expanding to include far-away farmers too.
A new start-up, Foodzie, is an online farmers market where small, artisan food producers and growers can sell their products. Foodies in Florida, say, can order raw, handcrafted pepperjack cheese from Traver, Calif., or organic, fair-trade coffee truffles from Boulder, Colo.
What a great idea! And why not take it one step further? Farmers could band together and form large organizations–call them “corporations”–to grow and distribute mass quantities of food. Retail operations could be set up in every town; they would be sort of super farmers markets, or “supermarkets” for short. Soon everyone everywhere would be able to buy local food from all over the world!
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18 Responses to “Creeping capitalism”
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Wait! Doesn’t the amount of fuel necessary to transport raw, handcrafted pepperjack cheese from California to, say, Florida violate Gore’s Third Law? (“You may not expend more BTUs on the transportation of food than the amount of BTUs the food will provide you.”)
Wouldn’t green orthodoxy call for locally produced pepperjack?
You miss the point, Book. Foodzies will be priced out of reach of hoi polloi. They will sell artisan foods, as refined as a Watteau painting or a Vivaldi concerto, to the discriminating classes, not Wonder Bread and baloney to the mediocre masses.
Hmm I’m pretty sure Book’s suggested scheme could only work efficiently if there was a government department setting up the transportation schedules and ensuring fair and equal distribution to all local food sellers. Without such government assistance, you can be assured of greed, anarchy, and unfair hoarding of kumquats.
Yeah, you see when the govt negotiates with pharma companies to buy drugs cheaply and dole them out through Medicare, paid for by taxes, that’s progressive; if Wal-Mart does the same thing and sells at discount, that’s the worse sort of free market bullying.
Interesting that the article doesn’t say *anything at all* about the energy costs of moving food across the country…I guess that is *so* last year. The topic is addressed in some of the comments, though.
Actually, the energy cost of transporting something depends *how* it is moved as much as *how far* it is moved. Transporting something 100 miles in an half-full pickup truck may use more energy than transporting it 1000 miles by rail, sea or barge.
Ronald Hayden, you have a very good point. I think the former USSR was able to circumvent private greed and unfair hoarding by the citizenry by limiting it to the party elite.
Maybe the new Administration will appoint a Czar to oversee the production and distribution of food stuffs. Oh wait, there are too may Czars now; call him/her something else–Commisar has a nice ring.
Touche, Ronald. Touche.
This small-business freemarket enterprise will last only until the big corporations feel threatened by it cutting into their own business, and bring the government in to tilt the table toward themselves with regulations and subsidies, all in the name of the consumers’ best interests. Enjoy it while it lasts–it will be yet another great idea taken over by government and its friends.
It doesn’t matter. Their intentions are good.
As a Colorado native, I was interested to see that local farmers in Boulder are now harvesting truffles. Or maybe not. Fair trade truffles? They probably have more miles on them than a new Toyota Prius.
This whole locally-grown shtick is looney for any society that suffers through winter where nothing grows. It’s an idle plaything for the very wealthy and self-indulged – kinda like Marie Antoinette and her retainers dressing up like peasants and pretending to be people of the earth.
Jose…
I think that those truffles are the candy-sweet type, rather than the fungus type that you’re probably thinking of. I’m not sure – I didn’t explore the fair-market pages, but I do know that chocolate “truffles” are a big thing these days. Very expensive.
ok, English is not my first language ( French is ) so I may be missing something here, but I think Bookworm’s point is that this already exists.
The fruits and vegetables I buy here near Montreal city ( Quebec province Canada ) come from places such as California, Florida,etc…
some come from Argentina, Brezil etc…
some canned foods come from the middle east and so on and so forth.
Being able to buy food that was grown in far away places by farmers who banded together, and having food impoerted in large quantities and sold in large stores is not a new idea…
I think Bookworm was making fun of those people who think they have just invented something when we already have had it for decades.
I think Bookworm was kind of making a joke?
Am I right Bookworm?…
“refining” my “theory” on what Bookworm’s intent was…
“…The local food movement has been all about buying seasonal food from nearby farmers. Now, thanks to the Web, it is expanding to include far-away farmers too…”
Going global means not local anymore and not seasonal anymore ; buying strawberries in January in Montreal with below – way below zero temperature – is neither local nor seasonal !
I f they go “global”, aren’t they defeating the purpose of the local/seasonal farmer’s movement?
And that is what is kind of “ironic” about it.
I think?…
You nailed it Friend of America. Mixing local/global and the notion of buying “local” fresh vegetables out of season, etc. certainly brings the English word oxymoron to mind.
For the average person, the food distribution system that exists in North America and much of Europe has opened up a luxurious eating style that was incomprehensible even in my youth.
But, I suppose it will make some folks feel elite–and thus good– and presumably they can pay for the status.
Book: I hope you gave Taranto permission to use this post in Best of The Web yesterday (or Wednesday). He posted it verbatim and without attribution.
I am a strong and solid supporter of the local food movement.
Earlier today I walked into town and bought some beer at the LOCAL supermarket. I also bought a couple of chops at the same LOCAL supermarket.
Then I sauntered down the main drag to have a beer at the LOCAL bar. After shooting the breeze at the LOCAL watering hole, which features LOCAL microbrews, I walked past the LOCAL Italian pasticceria and picked up some of its LOCALLY produced pastries.
Yessiree, I sure do love them LOCAL foods.
suek,
Re 12, You are right. As a Colorado native, I know nothing of truffles, chocolate or otherwise. I obviously am out of touch with the scene in Boulder.
I don’t get the “fair trade” part, either. I understand it the idea, but the Boulder context throws me.