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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Opportunity knocks when it comes to a local food economy
  • Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:00:49 -0700


Published Feb 5 2009 by Energy Bulletin
Archived Feb 5 2009
Opportunity knocks when it comes to a local food economy
by Olga Bonfiglio
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47980

Community-based agriculture has the potential for creating jobs, developing
small business entrepreneurship and keeping precious dollars in the
community.

“As manufacturing jobs decrease, food jobs are increasing,” said Dr.
Kami Pothukuchi, associate professor of urban planning at Wayne State
University in Detroit.

This is especially good news for a state like Michigan whose economic
engine has been dependent on the declining automobile industry.

Out of a total GDP of $381 billion, agriculture is the state’s second
largest industry pulling in $63.7 billion annually compared to $68.4
billion from manufacturing, according to the Michigan Department of
Agriculture (MDA) and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, the present “industrialized food system” is made up of a
handful of “mega-corporations” that control food production,
processing, distribution and preparation, said Pothukuchi. Change to a
community-based system is difficult because these corporations have a lot
at stake in keeping the current system.

The U.S. industrialized food system was designed in the 1950s to increase
production in order to provide the nation with cheap and plentiful food
that was easily accessible. As a result, the United States became a top
food producer in the world.

A variety of food-related jobs in processing, marketing and distribution
also emerged even though the number of farmers declined. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture Census (USDA) reported that farms increased in
size averaging 155 acres in 1935, a peak year when the country had 6.8
million farms, compared to 2002 when farms averaged 441 acres and numbered
2.1 million farms.

It is important to remember that the industrial food system was developed
at a time when most American businesses were creating systems for mass
production and economies of scale. Because volume is critical to the
profitability of this system, farming methods developed to support a
large-scale, energy-intensive monoculture that uses huge amounts of water
and chemicals for herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers. Tons of animal
waste products also accumulate and pollute land, water and air because
factory farming methods keep animals indoors and free of disease instead of
allowing them to graze in pastures.

Actually, the costs of the industrialized food system outweigh its
benefits. For example, most food in the industrialized system ends up in
supermarkets after traveling an average 1,300 miles to get there. Fruits
and vegetables may spend seven to fourteen days in transit. So freshness
and taste are sacrificed for the ability to travel.

Transporting products has been possible through cheap fuel. However, when
oil reached over $100 a barrel last spring, the expense incurred over such
long distances proved problematic. For example, world food prices averaged
a 43 percent increase over the past year, which inadvertently created a
global food crisis that is causing political and economical instability and
social unrest in both poor and developed nations.

Unseasonable droughts in grain-producing nations also affects high food
prices just as falling stockpiles, the increased use of biofuels in
developed countries and increasing demands for meat products in Asia’s
middle class, according the BBC (May 2008).

The Consumer Price Index estimates that U.S. retail food prices increased
in 2007 by only 4 percent, but this is the largest spike in 17 years—with
more expected to come.
Industrial farming practices were developed when world population was only
2 billion. While they increased the carrying capacity of the earth then,
they are slowly destroying the earth’s long-term carrying capacity for
today’s population, which is 6.7 billion and climbing.

Over the past two decades as the industrialized food system has expanded to
the global level, concerns over food safety have emerged, like the recent
tainted food imports from China.

The industrialized food system has had a detrimental effect on the local
economy, said Pothukuchi. Our food system should be designed to be a
community-based system that revolves around small, polycultural farms that
practice sustainable agriculture, preserve regional biodiversity and help
build local economies. This is already being done in many ways.

First, local food networks like community gardens, food co-ops,
Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), farmers' markets, and seed savers
groups keep money in the community.

Second, as more people prefer organic food products, organic farming
represents a profitable alternative for local economic growth and
sustainable agriculture since organic farmers tend to sell to local markets
(within 150 miles). More acreage is being dedicated to organic farming.
>From 1997 to 2005, the number of U.S. certified organic acres grew by 63
percent, while Michigan certified organic farmland increased by 166
percent.

In actuality, the number of industrialized farms converting to organic
farming methods remains steady, but small. Michigan’s 45,500 certified
organic acres comprise only .4 percent of the state’s total farmland and
1 percent of the total 4,000,000 certified organic acres in the country
according to the Michigan Organic Farm and Food Alliance (MOFFA). But the
potential for growth is there, especially when organic food
processors/handlers are figured into the economic mix. The USDA reports
that there were over 3000 organic-certified facilities nationwide in 2004,
with 41 percent of those located on the Pacific Coast and almost 800 in
California alone.

Local organic food is admittedly more expensive than food from
industrialized farms, however, organic advocates claim that prices in the
industrialized food system are cheap because the true cost omits
governmental price supports, direct payments or tax breaks and road
infrastructure.

Third, colleges and universities across the country are looking for ways to
support sustainable agriculture. One way they are doing it is by supplying
their cafeterias with food grown by local farmers. These institutions teach
students how to grow backyard and community gardens as well as food-related
careers like urban farming. Pothukuchi started an urban gardening program
at Wayne State, which is distinguished as the largest inner-city campus
with a comprehensive food systems program that is not run by an agriculture
school.

Some areas of the state are actively recruiting youth for community-based
farming careers through hands-on learning situations. The 4-H Entrepreneurs
Club in Kalkaska County has youth pick and buy produce at area farms in
order to sell it at five different farmers markets. There are similar
programs in Detroit and Monroe County.

Fourth, regions like Grand Traverse, are rebuilding their local economies
through agriculture by forming partnerships among businesspeople, economic
developers, schools, grocers, restaurateurs and food retailers, reported
the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service. As these partnerships work to bring
more food-related jobs to the area, they not only support local farmers but
they also protect precious income-producing farmlands from being overtaken
by urban sprawl.

The Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI) speculates that the Grand Traverse
region could stimulate more job growth and entrepreneurship by supporting
its 2,229 farms through cooperative efforts like the Food and Farm Network.
Moreover, a 2006 MLUI study found that farms could generate 1,889 new jobs
across the state and $187 million in new personal income by selling more
fresh produce locally.

Fifth, state programs can provide yet another opportunity for local
economic development, like the MDA’s Agricultural Innovation Program.
This competitive grant seeks to establish, retain, expand, attract or
develop value-added processing and production operations in Michigan
through innovative financing assistance to processors, agribusinesses,
producers, local units of government and legislatively-authorized commodity
boards in Michigan.

All these efforts for change, however, have barely dented the
deeply-entrenched industrialized food system. Michigan residents, for
example, spend $26 billion on food with only 10 percent from the state’s
farmers, according to a 2001 MLUI study.

“Michigan has the second most diverse agriculture in the United States
[with 150 crops],” said Pothukuchi. “We could add another $2.6 billion
to the state’s economy if we increased production of local food by
another 10 percent.”


Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
and author of "Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the
War in Iraq." She has written for several national magazines on the
subjects of social justice and religion. Her website is
www.OlgaBonfiglio.com.






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