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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking

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  • From: "Del Williams" <delannw AT dlogue.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] OT Thought Provoking
  • Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 09:10:33 -0600

I find these ad hominem arguments about the left wing boring and inaccurate.

The point I was trying to make is that these issues are more complex than
those labels.

The fact is, this is an extremely individualistic society. The
entrepreneur is certainly an individualist regardless of other political
ideologies. Market competition drives us to self centeredness and we have
to be if we want to be 'successful'. No one is going to hand you financial
success... not completely and not without strings attached.

Growers/Producers big and small want to be successful and they will do what
they know how to do to accomplish that. There certainly are political
agendas that influence the way different entities tap into the power-base
that gives them certain privileges.

As for Americans not wanting to pay more for food. Aw c'mon. Look at the
proliferation of foods that are costly and selling at a brisk pace.
Processed, frozen dinners. Prepared cereals. Lunchables! LOL, and how
about the proliferation of chain restaurants? Americans spend plenty of
their dollars on food with questionable benefit to their health.

Over the holidays, I found my own self in Chicago paying close to $4 for a
latte at Starbucks on the Magnificent Mile. It was delicious. $4 for a cup
of coffee! Am I out of my mind? Not any more out of my dollar paying mind
than the millions of Americans that have made that particular chain
successful.

If you have a product and you can develop a market and means to sell it,
Americans are more than willing to pay a lot of money to buy it.

It is individualism gone awry when growers/producers believe that just
because they produced it, someone ought to buy it at the price we want and
that we shouldn't have to deal with competition from others. I saw plenty
of that at our farmers' market. Attempts to limit legitimate local
competition.

Those efforts did not come out of either right wing or left wing thinking.
Just the individual desire to be successful even if it meant limiting the
potential for the success of others by denying them a stall at the market.

Del Williams
Farmer in the Del
Clifton IL







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