Economics of Local Food

By Jane Black

All We Can Eat Blog (washingtonpost.com), September 8, 2009

Straight to the Source

(Ben Woloszyn -- Associated Press)

You feel pretty virtuous when you buy local food. It's fresher, maybe even more nutritious, proponents say. Now advocates are pushing another selling point: Local food strengthens the economy. It keeps money in local communities and helps create jobs, which in turn can help reduce crime.

Wow. And you thought all you were getting was a really good peach.

Sarah DeWeerdt rounds up the facts about local food and economic development in a new, excellent article in World Watch. The money farmers earn goes in large part to buy seeds, animal feed and fertilizers from outside the region. In southeast Minnesota, farmers spend $996 million to grow $912 million worth of crops. Similar patterns are found in Iowa, Arizona and Washington.

Producing local food could change that, DeWeerdt reports. If those people in southeastern Minnesota bought just 15 percent of their food from local sources, it would generate two-thirds as much income as all the region's farmers receive from subsidies. If the population in and around Seattle bought 20 percent of their food dollars at local businesses, it would inject an extra billion dollars each year into the local economy.

"Every time money changes hands within a community, it boosts the community's overall income and level of economic activity, and fuels the creation of jobs," DeWeerdt explains. "The more times money changes hands within the community before heading elsewhere, the better off the community is. And spending money at a locally based business has a greater multiplier effect, the theory goes, because locally owned businesses are more likely to respend their dollars locally."

The article draws on pioneering work by Ken Meter, president of the Crossroads Research Center in Minneapolis, who has studied the benefits of local food for more than 20 years. The argument, Meter told me, is catching on. It's not only foodies who are interested in local food. It's state and county economic development officers. This is happening even in the Midwest, where production agriculture has long ruled supreme.

Of course, DeWeerdt rightly notes that many of the potential benefits of "shifting food dollars to the local food system are just that: potential." To date, she reports, no community has actually undertaken a sharp enough shift to see if predictions come true. And, it's hard to tell how a change to consumer behavior would affect the larger economy.

Still, government officials appear willing to explore how local food can help bolster rural economies. Last week, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan sent out a memo that highlighted USDA funds available to help build local food systems. The total amount of money available: up to $1.24 billion.

Good for you. Good for the economy. You have to admit, it makes that local corn or peach or tomato taste just that little bit more delicious

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Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us

By Chris Hedges

Truthdig.com, Sept 6, 2009

Straight to the Source

Our most potent political weapon is food. If we take back our agriculture, if we buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of corporations that control a food system as fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse as our financial system. If we continue to allow corporations to determine what we eat, as well as how food is harvested and distributed, then we will become captive to rising prices and shortages and increasingly dependent on cheap, mass-produced food filled with sugar and fat. Food, along with energy, will be the most pressing issue of our age. And if we do not build alternative food networks soon, the social and political ramifications of shortages and hunger will be devastating.

The effects of climate change, especially with widespread droughts in Australia, Africa, California and the Midwest, coupled with the rising cost of fossil fuels, have already blighted the environments of millions. The poor can often no longer afford a balanced diet. Global food prices increased an average of 43 percent since 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. These increases have been horrific for the approximately 1 billion people-one-sixth of the world's population-who subsist on less than $1 per day. And 162 million of these people survive on less than 50 cents per day. The global poor spend as much as 60 percent of their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

There have been food riots in many parts of the world, including Austria, Hungary, Mexico, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Yemen, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Russia and Pakistan have introduced food rationing. Pakistani troops guard imported wheat. India has banned the export of rice, except for high-end basmati. And the shortages and price increases are being felt in the industrialized world as we continue to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs and food prices climb. There are 33.2 million Americans, or one in nine, who depend on food stamps. And in 20 states as many as one in eight are on the food stamp program, according to the Food Research Center. The average monthly benefit was $113.87 per person, leaving many, even with government assistance, without adequate food. The USDA says 36.2 million Americans, or 11 percent of households, struggle to get enough food, and one-third of them have to sometimes skip or cut back on meals. Congress allocated some $54 billion for food stamps this fiscal year, up from $39 billion last year. In the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, costs will be $60 billion, according to estimates.

Food shortages have been tinder for social upheaval throughout history. But this time around, because we have lost the skills to feed and clothe ourselves, it will be much harder for most of us to become self-sustaining. The large agro-businesses have largely wiped out small farmers. They have poisoned our soil with pesticides and contaminated animals in filthy and overcrowded stockyards with high doses of antibiotics and steroids. They have pumped nutrients and phosphorus into water systems, causing algae bloom and fish die-off in our rivers and streams. Crop yields, under the onslaught of changing weather patterns and chemical pollution, are declining in the Northeast, where a blight has nearly wiped out the tomato crop. The draconian Food Modernization Safety Act, another gift from our governing elite to corporations, means small farms will only continue to dwindle in number. Sites such as La Via Campesina do a good job of tracking these disturbing global trends.

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