{"id":2075,"date":"2011-05-05T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-05T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/local-foods-local-economy-local-community.html"},"modified":"2011-05-05T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-05T15:00:00","slug":"local-foods-local-economy-local-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/local-foods-local-economy-local-community.html","title":{"rendered":"Local foods, local economy, local community"},"content":{"rendered":"Local food is more than healthier, it’s even more than tasty.\nIt’s also local economy and local community.\n

\nIn the U.K., small local shops are being replaced by big-box supermarkets.\nA widespread argument for this conversion is that consumers get\nmore choice.\nPeter Wilby wrote in the Guardian 3 May 2011 about\n\nwhy that’s not good enough:<\/a>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nEven the “good for consumers” defence of the big stores requires\nscrutiny. Supermarkets may offer mangoes and kiwi fruit as a blessed\nrelief to generations who recall the surly greengrocer grunting “no\ndemand for it” when asked for anything out of the ordinary. But the\noption to buy locally grown produce is increasingly closed off; many\nvarieties of English fruit disappeared long ago. Supermarkets stock food\nnot for its taste, but for its longevity and appearance. Conventional\neconomists count numbers, assuming that a huge increase in toilet roll\ncolours represents an unqualified gain to the consumer. They neglect\nmore subtle dimensions of choice.\n

\nThe central issue, however, is whether “what the consumer wants” should\nclose down the argument. What people want as consumers may not be what\nthey want as householders, community members, producers, employees or\nentrepreneurs. The loss of small shops drains a locality’s economic and\nsocial capital. Money spent in independent retail outlets tends to stay\nin the community, providing work for local lawyers and accountants,\nplumbers and decorators, window cleaners and builders.\n<\/blockquote>\nHe then cites\n\nU.S. research that shows local stores promote the local economy.<\/a>\nAre we just consumers?\nMaybe we do other things than just buy stuff?\nEspecially, do we do other things together?\n\n\n

\nIt also finds that, after the arrival of a big supermarket, participation\nin local charities, churches, campaign groups and even voting declines\nsharply. As Jane Jacobs argued in The Death and Life of Great American\nCities (1960), communities are created by myriad small daily encounters:\ngetting cooking tips from the greengrocer, hearing about a job from the\nbutcher, recommending a good plumber at the bakery, exchanging opinions\nin the pub.\n

\n“The sum of such casual, public contact at the local level,” wrote\nJacobs, “\u2026is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of\npublic respect and trust.” Supermarkets minimise human contact in the\ninterests of efficiency and convenience, most recently by introducing\nself-service lanes for payment. As one critic put it, they “cut the\nthreads that hold an engaged community together”.\n<\/blockquote>\nSo one way to rebuild that community would be to\nhold a local event for local producers and vendors\nwhere local people could talk to each other.\nLike\n\nDowntown Valdosta Farm Days,<\/a>\nstarting this Saturday, 7 May 2011.\nAs\n\nBill McKibben pointed out:\n

\nOften a farmers\u2019 market is the catalyst \u2014 not just because people\nfind that they like local produce, but because they actually meet\neach other again. This is not sentiment talking; this is data. A team\nof sociologists recently followed shoppers around supermarkets and\nthen farmers\u2019 markets. You know the drill at the Stop\u2019n\u2018Shop:\nyou come in the automatic door, fall into a light fluorescent trance,\nvisit the stations of the cross around the perimeter of the store, exit\nafter a discussion of credit or debit, paper or plastic. But that\u2019s not\nwhat happens at farmers\u2019 markets. On average, the sociologists found,\npeople were having ten times as many conversations per visit. They were\nstarting to rebuild the withered network that we call a community. So it\nshouldn\u2019t surprise us that farmers\u2019 markets are the fastest-growing\npart of our food economy; they are simply the way that humans have always\nshopped, acquiring gossip and good cheer along with calories.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAll that and you can get local food\n\nthere and other places around here,<\/a>\nmuch of it produced without\n\nthe pesticides that are making us sick<\/a>.\n

\nLocal foods, local economy, local community.\n

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