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  • From: "Brigette Leach" <avalonfarmshomegrown AT earthlink.net>
  • To: "Jay Gee <jaygee AT jghelp.com>, Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cell phones and things related
  • Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 18:52:59 -0400

Another aspect of the discussion...

I'm not fond of Wal-Mart (the joke around here is that if you want to watch
people beat their kids, you go to Wal-Mart, but that's another discussion).
Actually, I have spent many hours in Wal-Marts in the last 12 months,
auditing demonstrators at stores within a 50 miles radius of my home. My
observation is that every store is different, and to a great extent
reflects the character of the area served. Some are very clean, neat and
well lit. Others are messy and full of red-neck, low-life types. Yes, I can
be snobbish, try to overlook it for now.

But there are other factors at work in the loss of small towns. I'm of the
opinion that land use patterns in general have been more to blame than
Wal-Mart specifically. We have allowed residential and commercial
development to occur wherever and whenever. People get into their cars and
drive to work. Hour long commutes are not unusual in our area, and that's
drive time, not because of traffic conditions. After their workday, they
patronize the banks, stores, etc. that are conveniently located to their
route, then drive home and stay there. It's very difficult to know your
neighbors and feel a part of a community when you don't know your
neighbors. Even when residential development is appropriately located and
at sensible small lot density, it is unlikely to have sidewalks, common
open space, or other opportunity for people to interact. What we've really
lost is the sense of community that is found is small towns. With that loss
goes respect for other people and their property. When I was growing up in
a small town, everybody knew you and your family (often times for several
generations back), if you misbehaved Mom and Dad knew what you'd done
before you got home from the mischief making. I remember knowing community
elders who were respected and served as positive role models for young
people. Look at where our youth find role models today...spoiled, overpaid
athletes and celebrities who beat their wives/girlfriends, shoot their limo
drivers, etc., etc.,.

Dawn, I think you started a good discussion by pointing out yet another
example of how inconsistent many of us tend to be. We want people to buy
our product, after all it is lovingly, painstakingly grown and it stands to
reason that people should expect to pay a premium price. We deserve to be
paid well for our hard work. But when we spend our money, we don't want to
pay the local shop keeper for lovingly, painstaking stocking the shelves.
Can't deal with the prices. People in our small town expect the local
businesses to make donations to every club, sport, or class fund raiser,
then the same people who've asked for money, turn around and drive twenty
miles into the larger town to buy groceries, get gas, fill prescriptions. I
just don't get it!



Brigette Leach
avalonfarmshomegrown AT earthlink.net
Avalon Farms Premium Homegrown
Climax MI 49034
Have you checked out our "Share of the Farm"? Contact us for more
information.




> [Original Message]
> From: jay gee <JayGee AT jghelp.com>
> To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: 4/26/2004 3:26:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cell phones and things related
>
> On Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:11:59 -0400, Pat Meadows wrote:
>
> > Certainly, one aspect of the problem with Wal-Mart (as I see
> > it) is the death of small towns, and the contributions
> > Wal-Mart has made and is making to those deaths.
>
> Small towns generally die because the children who
> grow up there learn about big cities on TV and leave.
> Without people there is no market for any small retailer.
>
> There isn't room enough in the rural U.S. for everyone
> to be farmers without driving the prices of farm products
> to levels even less profitable than now for many.
>
> > There are other problems with Wal-Mart such as their
> > non-contributions to local communities, paying employees
> > below-standard wages and keeping them part-time to avoid
> > offering health insurance, and their seeming practice of
> > hiring illegal labor, to say nothing of their reliance upon
> > slave labor in countries such as China to manufacture goods,
> > the adulteration of ALL their meat with sodium polyphosphate
> > (IIRC - sodium something anyway), and water so that they can
> > get high prices for water, and so on. But let's put those
> > aside for now, and think only of the small town problem.
>
> Farmers have over the years engaged in many of the same
> "illegal" practices that Wal-Mart is accused of these days.
> How many farmers do you know who offer migrant or part
> time labor health insurance benefits?
>
> > I don't know how many of us on this list are old enough to
> > remember *living vibrant* small towns in the USA. (I am,
> > I'm 60 now). Small towns with *people* on the streets,
> > shopping, maybe having a cup of coffee at a local cafe,
> > small towns with doctors' offices and dentists' offices,
> > with a movie theater and a bookstore maybe. Maybe a bakery
> > and a deli too, and definitely a hardware store.
>
> These issues are population sensitive. When the people
> who were successful in your area retired, did they stay
> put, or sell their business and home and move away?
>
> > I hate to see anything that drives more nails in the coffin
> > of such towns. There is no reason why such towns could not
> > exist today: nothing in modern life as such is incompatible
> > with such towns, as can be proven by reference to Europe.
> > Western Europe is just as modern and up-to-date as the USA,
> > if not more so. And yet they still have many such small
> > towns.
>
> English and European small towns are under pressure from many
> of the same forces that U.S. small towns were. TV spread more
> slowly in those areas after WWII. As upward mobility becomes
> more widespread in Europe, expect small towns to dry up and
> blow away at a greater rate than in the past.
>
> At least that's my take on the situation...
>
>
> jay gee
> not a farmer -- but interested in farming
>
>
>
> Free marketing aids for farmers at:
> http://jghelp.com/farming
>
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