11 ms·

This is a perfectly valid decision! But you recognize that your local, fresh, in-season food is more expensive to produce and more expensive to consume, but qu

by readams 11y ago

This is a perfectly valid decision! But you recognize that your local, fresh, in-season food is more expensive to produce and more expensive to consume, but quite possibly with higher quality. This is a luxury consumer good. There's nothing at all wrong with that! Just don't then make the leap to claim that this is a model for feeding the world.

silentplummet 11y ago
Do the prices of industrial farm produce include the cost of cleaning up industrial farm pollution such as nitrate fertilizers, organophosphate biocide, and airborne products of fossil fuel combustion? What about the inefficiency caused by the entire massive pyramid of the attendant industries: transportation, chemical manufacture, distribution, marketing? And the cherry on top: the health care burden due to epidemic diabetes and obesity? Think carefully before you decide what is cheaper.
- readams 11y ago
  You're presenting a false dichotomy. It's entirely possible to believe that large-scale farming should be made more sustainable without believing that local, small-scale farming is an improvement. You're also assuming that local, small-scale farming has no impact. In fact to produce the same amount of calories requires vastly more land and more energy and the total impact is larger. Organic farmers also use pesticides and fertilizers; they just use different ones. It's not at all clear they result in less environmental damage. Is spraying a vast amount of nicitinoids over a larger area better than a smaller amount of organophosphates? Not at all clear.
ndespres 11y ago
I don't know whether small, local, organic farms are a model for feeding the planet but the premise of the article is flawed in the opposite direction. My produce doesn't beat Walmart prices but then, we don't have the luxury of govt subsidies, scale, and undocumented underpaid labor. Once you start paying people what they deserve, and charging people what it actually costs, the prices are more truthful. This type of food only seems like a luxury product because the scales are tipped so unfairly towards cheap/bad food.

by readams 11y ago

silentplummet 11y ago

Do the prices of industrial farm produce include the cost of cleaning up industrial farm pollution such as nitrate fertilizers, organophosphate biocide, and airborne products of fossil fuel combustion? What about the inefficiency caused by the entire massive pyramid of the attendant industries: transportation, chemical manufacture, distribution, marketing? And the cherry on top: the health care burden due to epidemic diabetes and obesity? Think carefully before you decide what is cheaper.

readams 11y ago
You're presenting a false dichotomy. It's entirely possible to believe that large-scale farming should be made more sustainable without believing that local, small-scale farming is an improvement. You're also assuming that local, small-scale farming has no impact. In fact to produce the same amount of calories requires vastly more land and more energy and the total impact is larger. Organic farmers also use pesticides and fertilizers; they just use different ones. It's not at all clear they result in less environmental damage. Is spraying a vast amount of nicitinoids over a larger area better than a smaller amount of organophosphates? Not at all clear.

ndespres 11y ago

I don't know whether small, local, organic farms are a model for feeding the planet but the premise of the article is flawed in the opposite direction. My produce doesn't beat Walmart prices but then, we don't have the luxury of govt subsidies, scale, and undocumented underpaid labor. Once you start paying people what they deserve, and charging people what it actually costs, the prices are more truthful. This type of food only seems like a luxury product because the scales are tipped so unfairly towards cheap/bad food.