Market Farming

["Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>]

Thanks for providing this article Lawrence. It underscores the important
point that consumers will respond to a superior food product if it's offered
in the marketplace. Consumers today have much more dispoable income, have an
interest in eating well and are fast discovering how mediocre the offerings
are in supermarkets. They are waking up, slowly, to the fact that huge
distribution systems favor mediocrity for efficiency of product and cash
flow. Buying local allows consumers to buy fresher, riper, more nutritious
product. The point must be hammered home because it's to the advantage of
small, local farms as well as consumers.

Bill Shoemaker
Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
Univ of Illinois - St Charles Hort Research Center



>NYTimes.com Article: Growers and Shoppers Crowd Farmers' Markets
>September 29, 2002 By TIMOTHY EGAN
>
>STOCKTON, Calif., Sept. 24 - To find chickens that still
>have a pulse, neon-pink eggplants and tomatoes that have
............snip....