Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

From Farm to Table, Building local infrastructure to support local food

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7807

many small-scale food artisans find it discouragingly difficult to grow beyond the booth at the farmers’ market. And they are finding those farmers’ markets less useful. Although the number of markets in the United States has exploded from 1,744 in 1994 to 4,000 in 2005 and 7,864 in 2012, sales have not kept pace; more and more farmers are trying to slice the same pie.

Cutting out the middleman to get more of the customer’s money into the hands of the farmer may sound great in a TED talk, but the reality is that there is no way to challenge the economies of scale of industrial food production, which is propped up by subsidies, kickbacks, and money-saving environmental shortcuts.