issues
support pci
Fight Global Warming Now
Article
Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace
Posted Jan 27, 2010 by Michael Shuman
[Excerpt] It's time to connect the headlines between persistent unemployment in the United States and growing food insecurity. The next Obama stimulus package should focus on how local food can address both simultaneously.
A study done two years ago found that a 20% shift of retail food spending in Detroit redirected to locally grown foods would create 5,000 jobs and increase local output by half a billion dollars. A similar shift to Detroit-grown food by those living in the five surrounding counties would create 35,000 jobs - far more than ever will come out of the multibillion-dollar bailout of the auto industry. The experience of microenterprise organizations around the country suggests that each of these jobs can be created for $2,000-3,000 of public money--a tiny fraction of the price of the last stimulus.
To some skeptics, locavorism is a cute hobby only embraced by Prius-driving environmentalists in rich countries. Libertarians like those at the Cato Institute argue that the best way to localize is to open Walmarts in every community. Progressives like Peter Singer of Princeton University ask, "If you're living in a prosperous part of the United States, what's really ethical about supporting the economy around you rather than, say, buying fairly traded produce from Bangladesh, where you might be supporting smaller, poorer farmers who need a market for their goods?"
Read the report Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace authored by Michael Shuman, Alissa Barron and Wendy Wasserman for BALLE and the Wallace Center
Originally published January 25, 2010 in The Huffington Post
Get The End of Growth http://www.postcarbon.org/eog | Watch the animation Who Killed Economic Growth? http://bit.ly/whokilledgrowth
Like this article?
Keep the information flowing: Donate to Post Carbon Institute
Stay connected: Receive our monthly e-newsletter
Reposting: See our reposting policy
meet our fellows
what is pci?
Reader Comments
2 comments
Blinded by the hype
From: Robert, Feb 1, 10 10:26 AM
It's the constant barrage by the TV media and the videos that shape society's beliefs. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "Thinking is such hard work, that's why so few people do it." I grew up on a labor-intensive farm and know where food comes from, and how to grow it. I'd be glad to teach others, but, "Strait is the way, and narrow is the gate, and few there be that find it." So many will be like Scarlet O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind', in the scene where she kneels in the dirt, grubbing up a turnip, then turns her face to the sky and vows, "Ill never be hungry again. Perhaps that will have to happen before society wakes up and flushes away their fantasy beliefs.
Deaf Ears, Ostrich heads in sand
From: Kathy Kier, Jan 31, 10 03:31 AM
I have been vocalizing for years the coming shortage of food production. Many people (educated, and Un-educated) seem to think our world is just going to continue as it always has. They think it will never happen to them, and they will always be able to go to the local grocery store and buy whatever they want. ????????
I have even tried teaching a class at the local community college called "Gardening on Pennies", showing how to add rotted wood chips to improve soil and water retention, recyling plastic containers for growing plants, and saving seeds for own vegetable production. Words of wisdom and caution seem to be falling on deaf ears, and the people seem to want to bury their heads in the sand; not wanting to be educated on the coming changes in our world. Help!