I admit, I don't agree with him, and I think that farm-to-table will always be a niche market unless we effectively isolate ourselves from world food demand / markets. The United States is the per-eminent food exporter in the world by no small margin. In addition to the profit motives that provides, we also incentivize production. Some of that is cruft, but quite a bit is also so that excess food can be used as a negotiation or power weapon. Who cares about money, we're at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs for the world.
That said, I do like his rationale thought process for how to produce meaningful change in a direction you want. Its like an engineering breakdown of how to motivate social change from a top-down, demand driven approach, and exploring the logical linkages for what types of change are mostly likely to be beneficial. Admittedly, this movement is already so viral that its probably an epidemic. On no, everyone will have access to fresh grown local food, and we'll continue as the world's grocery store. Still, its nice seeing good analysis applied to public wellfare.
I thought the point about demand driven change was really the key takeway, its really critical for people to understand the impact their spending habits have on the larger economy. Voting with your dollars is way more impactful than voting in elections.
> IT’S spring again. Hip deep in asparagus — and, soon enough, tomatoes and zucchini — farm-to-table advocates finally have something from the farm to put on the table.
Huh ? I live in western Europe and every Saturday morning I meet up with some fellows (~40 heads) to retrieve my vegetables and dairy products that are bought from local farmers. We have vegetables in winter. Do Americans really have no vegetables in winter ?
> Perhaps the problem with the farm-to-table movement is implicit in its name. Imagining the food chain as a field on one end and a plate of food at the other is not only reductive, it also puts us in the position of end users. It’s a passive system — a grocery-aisle mentality — when really, as cooks and eaters, we need to engage in the nuts and bolts of true agricultural sustainability.
Most people going into the farm-to-table movement I know are doing it to support their local farmers first.
> Do Americans really have no vegetables in winter?
You're not going to find many local vegetables in Vermont in the winter. True, we're south of Paris, but the ground is frequently under 50 centimeters of snow and ice, with occasionally nighttime lows of -20°C or below during cold snaps.
Under these conditions, about the only winter vegetables that you can grow are mâche and maybe claytonia. Basically, you plant them in the fall, and allow them to overwinter in cold frames, or in hoop houses with row covers and a few degrees of artificial heat. You can't harvest the claytonia until the temperature goes above freezing, or it will wilt. The mâche can be harvested frozen and then thawed out. And it's a great salad green—tasty and attractive, without being bitter. I've grown both, and it was fun, but not terribly practical.
To read about some really epic winter farming in the northern US, check out Four Season Harvest: http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables... Eliot Coleman has thought longer and deeper about this than just about anyone around here, and his book tends to suck geeks right in.
But even Eliot Coleman has given up on January farming in northern New England. He can do it, and he can make money, but he prefers selling tons of salad greens and sweet baby carrots for the December holidays, and then spending January vacationing someplace warm. Mâche is pretty awesome, but it's not enough by itself.
+1 for mâche. If anyone is trying to get more greens in their diet but need some sort of alternative to lettuce and spinach, give it a try. Tough to find, but worth it. Nutty flavor, not at all bitter like arugula.
> Do Americans really have no vegetables in winter ?
Here in America we suffer from this thing called "climate", which causes weather-changing seasons to happen, which makes the northern parts of the country like New York into desolate wastelands of snow and ice and cold. (I know, this must be tough to understand for someone in Europe with its much more mild maritime and Mediterranean climate, of which we are intensely jealous, especially during those winter months.)
This article is specifically talking about locally produced crops; during the winter, Americans get their vegetables from refrigerated storage or from the south. Southern California, Texas, Florida and Latin America are huge producers during the winter months, but other states also produce some amounts of winter hardy crops.
They have plenty of climate in Europe -- they just haven't become reliant on a single state that's going to be in extreme drought for at least the next decade for all their produce during the winter months. See, for example, Magnus Nilsson's talk at Google regarding how he produces nearly all his own vegetables at his restaurant in northern Sweden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEMdhX3gtCY
I think you're hinting about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is associated with drier weather in California (this makes sense intuitively, since a cooler Pacific ocean near California means less energy to evaporate sea water, which means less moisture in the air, which means less rain).
This oscillation in northern Pacific sea surface temperatures has a frequency of 30-50 years, so we'll probably be in the cool/dry phase for some time.
However, given the variable nature of climate and a host of other oscillations and trends that are occurring at the same time, it's irresponsible to forecast "extreme drought for at least the next decade" based on this single signal. For example, forecasters are predicting El Niño this fall, which is a (generally) stronger signal than the PDO, and is statistically associated with wetter weather in California.
You're definitely correct in worrying about the water situation in California, though. Population pressures, groundwater depletion, and climate effects all point to significant water resource pressure for the state in the foreseeable future. This will translate into higher food prices, as farming is a major use of water in the state.
It'll be interesting to see whether the drought impacts Californians as much as the rest of the country. Our drought is really, really bad but California is one of the wealthier states with the largest population and an absurd share of the United Stats' agricultural production [1]. With a lot of our industrial meat production backed by corn from other states, our exports might suffer more than total agricultural production (18.8 out of >45 billion dollars)
Come try the "mild, maritime and Mediterranean climate" of mid-winter Scandinavia sometime. I've personally enjoyed -36 deg C coupled with a brisk sea breeze in Helsinki, and up in Lapland it's a toasty -50 deg C every now and then.
It's mild for the latitude. Consider that Minnesota gets those temperatures as well at the 45th parallel. That's with over 8 hours of daylight on the winter solstice.
As a Finn I've found it remarkable that very few have ever realised just how far north the country is. The southernmost tip of the country is roughly on the same latitude as Anchorage.
The rest of the country is then, naturally, on the same levels as most of Alaska or Yukon.
In chicago we get plenty of veg even in the middle of winter (granted it's through use of greenhouses, hoop houses, etc.). Beyond that you can essentially grow a good amount of stuff until the ground freezes (unless you use some of the newer ground insulation methods) especially tubers, etc.
Isn't it a little strange to cite the increase of corn and soy as evidence against the viability of the local food movement without mentioning the global increase in demand for those products?
This is what I came to point out. Sure farm to table should help us be more diverse in our food selection but the ABSOLUTELY gobsmackingly large subsidies the farmers throughout the Midwest and west are given to grow soy and corn is the main reason we haven't seen a massive change yet. I also highly doubt that 80% of American shoppers care about sustainability when buying grosicies, but all I have to back that up is experience not actually science.
The subsidies are ridiculous and they should be reformed but food is a pretty important thing for a society to get right. If left strictly to market forces there may be some years with very very expensive corn which would hit the poorest of the poor worldwide. Corn isn't like silicon chips where you just fire up the plant and make some more. You are looking possibly a year or more out. So there does need to be some measure of central planning in this regard.
The constrainst from going from nich market to mass market are detailed in the piece--they are supply side issues and they are technical. The demand-side is taken as a given that there is plent of demand. The reason that there is no substitution effect (ie inverse correlation) between the demand of local food and corn/soy is that the supply is not fully reflecting the demand.
The corn-syrup and ethanol issues are themselves distinct enough to leave out of the discussion. To a first-order approximation, they are not the problem.
I'm missing the link between his introduction about corn and soy and his core thesis of supporting crop rotation. Is he saying that supporting these less glamorous crops will somehow reduce the global intake of factory-farmed corn and soy?
Having interacted with them many times, I'd like to add that these folks are some serious soil hackers. Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens are first-rate farmers and their grains are truly exceptional. Friendly, knowledgeable, and sharing. Exciting to see them featured on NYT through HN!
That said, I do like his rationale thought process for how to produce meaningful change in a direction you want. Its like an engineering breakdown of how to motivate social change from a top-down, demand driven approach, and exploring the logical linkages for what types of change are mostly likely to be beneficial. Admittedly, this movement is already so viral that its probably an epidemic. On no, everyone will have access to fresh grown local food, and we'll continue as the world's grocery store. Still, its nice seeing good analysis applied to public wellfare.