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Four Arguments for Buyingfrom Local Producersby
Lenore Ginsburg If
you were at the
membership meeting in April or read Lynne Lekakis’s President’s Report,
you may
recall a discussion of a new emphasis: buying local. In one sense, of
course,
there’s nothing new about this: The Coop offers far more locally
produced
merchandise (not just summer garden produce, either) than almost any
store
around. But the Board of Directors and the CMT have been talking about
making
this a major focus of the store. During the coming months, you may see
more
publicity given to local producers and more local goods of all sorts.
In this
article we’d like to lay out the rationale for this direction. It’s not
only an
opportunity for us to “do something nice,” it’s our responsibility to
ourselves
and to the society we live in. There
are four main
arguments for buying local. Argument
#1: The
Environmental Argument Which
makes better use
of our environmental resources? Organic produce grown in California
using
taxpayer-subsidized irrigation (which over time builds up salts in the
soil and
renders it unusable unless special methods are followed), elaborately
packaged
to preserve “freshness,” then flown or trucked to central warehouses,
and only
then delivered by huge trucks to the store? Or organic — or, at the
minimum,
pesticide-free — produce grown twenty or thirty miles away and
delivered by the
farmer’s small van or pickup? Milk shipped from Argument
#2: The
Economic Argument The
economic question actually has two parts: the effects of increased
demand on the
local economy, and the effects of decreased demand (however small) on
agribusiness
and national food production. A
strong local economy is important to all of us. Every time we spend a
dollar
locally, on goods actually produced locally or regionally and not just
shipped
in, that dollar (minus taxes, etc.) gets re-spent in the local economy
… and
re-spent … and re-spent. This “multiplier effect” has been recognized
by
economists since the mid- 20th century as meaning a dollar can have far
more
economic impact than just a dollar’s worth. Local jobs are created,
demand for
more goods (ideally, also locally produced) is stimulated: The whole
region prospers.
Not to mention the fact that local producers are far more responsive to
you and
me in the quality of products available, how they’re grown or made,
packaged,
etc. How much attention does a national producer pay to your specific
desires?
Buying local is a very concrete form of economic democracy. On
a national level, we all know that agribusiness and other national food
producers, even the organic ones, are corporate entities where the
bottom line
rules. Fortunes are made in international trade and commerce,
stretching out
the class structure of our society. (In contrast, when was the last
time that a
local farmer or cheese maker or baker made a fortune?) The
concentration of
distribution into a single national wholesaler also puts us all at the
mercy of
its own economic logic: It will — it must, given its nature as a
national
company — do what is best for it, not for us the consumers. Buying
local resists
the concentration of wealth. Compared to a national system, we are
tiny, minuscule;
but every little bit helps. Argument
#3: The Consumer Argument This
may be the simplest and most self-interested of all the reasons for
buying
local. Locally produced foods — especially fresh produce, but other
goods as
well — are fresher and healthier. A small local producer cannot compete
on
price with the big national producers with their economies of scale and
federal
subsidies. Her/his only strategy for success must be to grow or make a
better
product, and do it the way we want it. By buying local we buy better. Argument
#4: The Democratic Argument Intrinsic
to the very concept of a cooperative is the idea of democracy. Our goal
ought
to be a participatory democracy where individuals have a share in
making the
decisions which affect their lives. But we have very little control
over what
is produced or imported for a national market. Only in huge aggregates
can we
affect marketing and the nature of what is available to us. At the
local level,
however, where every buyer counts, we can and do make a difference.
And, who knows?
once we get used to being active, not passive, in our economic
relations we might
carry over that attitude into our social and political relations. How
big a
step is it from getting used to telling our producers what we want, to
telling
our politicians what we want? The democratic process is first of all,
and most
fundamentally, a mental attitude, a mind set. Going
forward… So
we think Honest Weight should go as far as it reasonably can in
supporting,
sustaining and marketing local producers. Insofar as is practical we
should try
to supply what our members want from the following sources, in
descending
order: from local non-corporate sources; from regional non-corporate
sources;
from national non-corporate and nonprofit sources; and only as a
residual, from
corporate sources. We don’t know exactly what that entails yet and will
be
working out the implications of this in the coming months. We
do not mean this shift as a criticism of our present buyers, who
already work very
hard to find and support local producers even when it is so much easier
to order
from a single national producer. But it will mean new and different
efforts, and
probably a large role for member workers in the process, as we search
to find
producers whom we may not even know of. It may mean subsidizing the
prices of
local producers (whose costs of production are sometimes higher than
the big
producers) by charging more for the national goods in the store. It may
even
mean subsidizing some local producers while they get started so that
they can
supply us with what we need. All this will have to be worked out. |
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