
What Farm-to-Table Got Wrong - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/opinion/sunday/what-farm-to-table-got-wrong.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
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araes
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.

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EdwCoady
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.

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johnchristopher
> 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.

And yes we are rediscovering old "winter" vegetables. It took some time to
find out how to cook some of them (eg: [https://encrypted-
tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBngVF...](https://encrypted-
tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBngVF-IiV2GB0DHt1BKI-
qKasOYYbctPvCCuVB9T15d-7JeM-))

I re-read the article again and I am under the impression the slow-food
movement or the farm-to-table movement is really at the beginning in the US.

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awalton
> 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.

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jpatokal
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.

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dasil003
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.

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georgeoliver
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?

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canvia
It also ignores the subsidies being provided.

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jaegerpicker
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.

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jqm
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.

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wtbob
Why do you need central planning? All you need is insurance and crop futures,
traded on a free market, to even out the price spikes and troughs.

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insensible
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!

