Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.
In college I dated someone whose response to ambiguous news was always, "Who's
to say what is good and what is bad?" At 22 I thought myself an excellent judge
of the good and the bad. Needless to say, the relationship didn't last. I have
thought of his question often over the years, though, and it came back to me
last week when I read the New York Times
article
describing Walmart's decision
to make a major investment in local and sustainable foods.
On one hand, the thought of Walmart sticking its gigantic foot in the local
food door seems potentially ruinous. The company is known for setting extremely
low prices with its suppliers, and the margins on real food are already
achingly slim. Would contracts with Walmart actually help farmers, or
ultimately hurt them?
On the other hand, Walmart is going to get its apples and broccoli and onions
from somewhere. It might as well be close to home, with some type of
sustainable practices. Decentralizing food production is a good idea. If the
planet's biggest grocer turns sustained attention toward buying a significant
amount of local food (which, according to the Times, they define as within the
state) they could do a great deal to encourage the establishment and growth of
mid-sized farms across the country. That would be a good thing.
Walmart may be able to procure foods grown within certain geographic
boundaries, but for many of us, local food means more than that. For me, "local
food" is a kind of shorthand for an entire ethic. In this ethic, food is
produced under quality conditions, on a scale that feels human rather than
corporate, by people whose focus is on natural resource stewardship as much as
it is on the bottom line, in a business whose owners do right by their
employees. On the consumer side of this ethic, the food is purchased, prepared
and eaten with awareness of its true value.
All week I have been thinking about what single word would capture the feeling
behind this ideal. The word I came up with was 'kindness'. In my estimation,
there is a broad, radical kindness that underlies the emerging alternative food
economy, which ultimately is an economy based on relationship. It is hard for
me to imagine that kindness and relationships are at the heart of the
megastore's buy local campaign. But it is also hard for me to imagine a future
without grocery store chains. I fully expect that the groundswell of support
for authentic food and small farmers will continue to grow and flourish. If,
alongside it, the nation's grocers begin engaging local farmers in their
response to consumer demand for higher quality food, and if farmers are able to
get fair prices, that would also be a good thing.
As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin
Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest
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