This summer, two thought-provoking speakers at unrelated events — Michael Hartoonian, addressing the Consumer Cooperative Management Association in Minneapolis, and Michael Pollan, speaking to an overflow crowd in a talk sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth College — hit upon the same basic message: The quality of our future as consumers depends on how we choose to use our power in the marketplace.

Hartoonian, professor of education at the University of Minnesota, spoke to co-op leaders on "Creating Wealth in a 21st Century Market-Driven Economy," using the ideas of Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson to remind us of the link between an individual’s personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. He explained Smith’s concept of "self-interest, properly understood," by which individuals recognize that they can only be successful when those around them are successful as well, and Jefferson’s original notion of freedom as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of public happiness." Co-ops, Hartoonian said, embody these principles as they seek to meet common economic, social, and cultural needs in a global economy too often focused on the accumulation of personal wealth at any cost.

Pollan, author, journalist, and Knight Professor of Journalism at University of California-Berkeley, gave a talk entitled "Following the Food Chain: The High Price of Cheap Food." He stressed that every time we make a food purchase — be it anything from cheap highly processed food to quality products from a local source — we influence animal welfare, crop diversity, the well-being of farm families, preservation of landscape, water quality, food safety, and more. When consumer decisions are based solely on low price, the sole criterion for agricultural success becomes high yield. As a result, what was once a process of nature becomes industrialized, and unnatural procedures like forcing livestock to live in overcrowded conditions and feeding them waste become accepted practice. The true cost in animal suffering, loss of antibiotic effectiveness, contamination of waterways, and increased dependence on foreign petroleum for fertilizers, pesticides, and transportation of goods is not factored into the equation.

Pollan’s goal in reporting the often unsavory story of industrial food production is to convince shoppers to think as citizens rather than consumers. What are the long-term effects of our expectation that food should be cheap? What are the hidden costs? When independent farms are forced out of business? What happens to the local economy? To the local landscape? What happens to the security of our food supply? To our ability to influence or even question its quality and safety?

Why do we demand prices that require the use of antibiotics and hormones in our meat? That force animals to live stunted, unnatural lives in overcrowded conditions? That cost taxpayers billions of dollars in farm subsidies to produce "cheap" feed for cattle confined to feedlots? That encourage the reckless use of biotechnology to grow "more," cheaper and faster, regardless of the impact on the natural world around us?

Is this self-interest, properly understood? Or is it self-interest at any cost? And, ultimately, where will it lead?

As consumers, we have the power to shape food policy for the betterment of society, the environment, and our fellow creatures. Are we willing to use that power for the common good? Or will we choose to maintain the status quo and seek only to ensure our personal supply of "cheap" food at any cost?

At the Co-op, we can choose a New Hampshire-grown apple over a mass-produced Granny Smith imported from New Zealand. We can support humanely raised beef, chicken, and pork and choose dairy products from animals that have not been injected with bovine growth hormone. We can purchase organic food, thereby reducing the impact of pesticides and genetically modified organisms on the environment. And we can support the local farmers who provide us with safe, nutritious products that don’t have to travel thousands of miles.

Co-op shoppers as citizens, seeking to ensure the common good — what a concept.