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Whole Foods does it as a part of their "local" and "organic" brand identity, but even they don't buy from very small providers. Walmart and the major grocery ch
by SwellJoe 11y ago
Whole Foods does it as a part of their "local" and "organic" brand identity, but even they don't buy from very small providers. Walmart and the major grocery chains generally do not.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/04/171051906/can-small-farms-benefit-from-wal-mart-s-push-into-local-foods http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/04/171051906/can...
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/08/08/where-does-your-grocery-money-go-mostly-not-to-the-farmer/ http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/08/08/where-does-your-grocery-...
- tptacek 11y agoSure, Walmart is not buying bespoke crops from small family farms. But it's not my argument that small family farms are likely to supply a significant portion of all the produce the median American buys at a grocery store. Rather, my argument is that there are steady, high-volume buyers for small family farmers. Whole Foods can constitute a tiny fraction of the produce sold in the US (though: they don't; they're extremely popular) and still be one of several means by which it is viable for small farmers to be in business. And, I guess my point is, this seems to be the case. When you read this Salon article, you didn't get a bit of a "Brooklyn" vibe from this particular "mid-20s, early-30s" farmer outraged that their watermelons and lavender flowers buttered by the Sacremento sunlight on their less-than-one-city-block farm plot couldn't pay all their bills?