Opinion
Farmer’s market misses the point
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Also by Andrew Wagner:
- Gas tax holiday pure pandering (May 2, 2008)
- Rising food prices indicate worldwide crisis (April 25, 2008)
- Corn subsidies distort market (April 18, 2008)
- Sexual abuse not protected by Constitution (April 11, 2008)
- South trying to rewrite history (April 4, 2008)
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For those who can get up on a Saturday morning and head to Capitol Square, the Dane County Farmer's Market presents an unquestionably fun and tasty experience. Undoubtedly, many students have already taken advantage of the market since arriving in Madison for the school year. For those who haven't, I encourage you to get some friends together and take the walk around to the Capitol this upcoming Saturday. It's a delightful time, and you won't regret missing that extra hour of sleep to check out what it has to offer. Although the Farmer's Market functions beautifully as a place to acquire fresh produce and get a little more personal than your average grocery store, the walk around Capitol Square does disquiet me a little bit. In particular, the market's assertion that buying locally grown food is inherently superior leaves me scratching my head and wondering if I have missed something. Let's take a look at some of the merits that are commonly cited to support this argument. Obviously, one of the well-publicized points in favor of buying locally is the relatively better freshness and taste of the produce. A related position stresses how much the environment is helped by not transporting the produce over long distances. Finally, buying local supports family farms and helps the local economy. At face value, it may seem that these three arguments are true. However, while the taste advantage may be true, the other two arguments are disconnected with reality, particularly on the economic front. Basic economics suggests that a region, state or country should specialize to some degree in producing what that area can grow best. Furthermore, some areas simply can't sustain certain types of agriculture. Hence, Wisconsin specializes in dairy farming, and Florida grows citrus crops. Luckily for consumers in the United States, our well-developed transportation system allows producers to get their product from its place of growth to the marketplace. As long as it is cost-effective, why shouldn't you buy produce from wherever it is most easily and cheaply produced? After all, that is going to be the most efficient outcome. It ends up being a win-win situation for both producer and consumer. A common rebuttal to this argument is that the long distance transportation of produce is environmentally destructive and contributes to global warming. Yet this argument has holes in it as well. In absolute terms, a shipping company may pollute more than a local farm taking produce to market. However, in terms of the most efficient solution, having a shipping company load a semi-trailer full of produce and ship it 500 miles, may be more efficient than having 20 farmers drive their pickup trucks 20 miles each. It certainly seems within the realm of possibility. Plus, for concentrated metropolitan areas such as Milwaukee, Chicago, or New York City, buying locally just isn't feasible. There is simply no way that local produce will ever allow more than a small percentage of people in those areas to purchase it without trucking or railing it in from miles away. For those people who are worried about environmental damage, they should take solace in the fact that rising fuel prices will almost certainly lead to less long-distance transportation and more efficient methods. Finally, I'd like to address the support of small family farms in the "buy local" philosophy. The commonly expressed notion that family farms need to or should be supported seems to me to be a somewhat misguided concept that stems from an overly rosy view of the past. It is true that as late as 1900, 42 percent of the population lived on farms. Yet a century later, only 2 percent of the labor force continues to rely on farms for direct employment. The mass migration from rural farms to urban centers provided the labor that fueled economic expansion in the 20th century. Beyond the economic benefits of escaping the farm, a lot of those people left the countryside because farm life isn't some sort of paradise. Long hours and hard outdoor work aren't descriptions of many people's ideal job. I suspect many "buy local" supporters are somewhat blinded to this fact and tend to glorify the small farm tradition of the past. Although this is harmless on the scale of a farmer's market, when it comes to supporting national farm subsidies, this misguided view can cause actual harm. The Dane County Farmer's Market remains one of my favorite Madison destinations and a good place to mix with friends and fellow citizens. That said, it is always important to keep an open mind and question that which is often handed down as fact, even if it's at the hands of something you enjoy. Andrew Wagner (awagner@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in computer science and political science.
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I dont go anymore cuz of the upwardly mobiles’ knobbie-wheeled frickin baby strollers. Your kiddies dont have money to buy honey or deer jerkey or the fly-covered danishes so get a babysitter and leave the brainstems at home. The front and back of my calves would be indebted, but I doubt you’ll stop showing off Dylan and Dakota anytime soon
you obviously have never worked on a farm before, nor do you understand how economics truly function.
This is absolutely mind-numbingly retarded. If this were submitted in a freshman composition class I’d request the student be sent back to high school.
500 miles? Rarely. Think of apples which come from Washington when they’re in season and Ecuador out of season. Just to washington is 1800 mi. The idea of ‘buy local’ is the recognition of what is in season locally.
More importantly, someone has to grow our crops. If local markets are not supported, there will be no choice but to get all produce from overseas because it is ‘economically feasible’.
“As long as it is cost-effective, why shouldn't you buy produce from wherever it is most easily and cheaply produced?” Because there are more important things than cost-effectiveness.
what do farm subsidies have to do with the farmer’s market? when is the last time you purchased field corn on the capitol square?
I’ve always thought the DEA should make exceptions for farmers who want to sell pot as produce. Why does our government hate farmers?
“found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped 11,000 miles to England emitted three-quarters less carbon dioxide emissions per ton than the lamb raised in England”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?ex=1344052800&en=d27bad8aabe4ee0a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Instead of measuring a product's carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln University scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production — what economists call "factor inputs and externalities" — like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.
Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, scientists reached surprising conclusions. Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand's clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.
Can this column be retitled “Andrew Wagner just read Milton Friedman (p.s. vote RON PAUL)”?
“It certainly seems within the realm of possibility.”
wow that’s the most solid statement i’ve ever read…
Mr Wagner, you’re a little long winded in your writing. If there’s a good argument in there, it’s well hidden. It shouldn’t take you six sentences before you get to the topic and and then a few more paragraphs before you finally make your argument.
It’s a nice topic nonetheless. It’s food for thought (pun intended) for the “local/organic/fair-trade” produce obsessed folk of Madison.
The Economist did quite an interesting story on the same issue last year. A bit more comprehensive too since it also covers fair trade produce. http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8380592
http://somethingverbose.blogspot.com/2007/09/lawmakers-need-to-pass-budget.html
http://hippieperspective.blogspot.com/2007/09/this-is-just-plain-dumb.html
Re: 3:54
That’s called Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage. Congrats, you’ve ‘discovered’ it 200 years after it was developed.
Why isn’t anyone asking whether this is newsworthy or not? I know it was a slow week, but this article fails to advance anything somewhat resembling an interesting thought, and what’s worse is that it is a poorly written, uninteresting, story.
I’d venture to say that the other oped about UW and yes, even the user comments were more interesting than this story.
I doubt Ricardo had any discussions about carbon footprint with greenies wacked out on junk science.
“Question that which is often handed down as fact?”
The irony of this statement at the end of your article is incredible. You obviously have not even performed the most basic research into the benefits, whether actual or alleged, of the health, environmental, and economic aspects of a locally-grown food system. Instead of talking to anyone remotely connected with the farmers market or local food systems, let alone one of the many professors on campus who study the impacts, sociology, economics, public health … of local food systems, you make up arguments and refute them with your smug generalizations of your acceptance of the world around you (which appears to be devoid of critical thinking).
How did you get into this University?
The application of Ricardo’s law is missing an important fact; the comparative advantage is relative to a point in time and an initial endowment of resources. New Zealand’s clover fields are not inexhaustible, and furthermore, as the market moves to “capitalize” on beef specialization, the process of exhaustion will speed up. Growing all the world’s beef in New Zealand will lead to a carbon/nitrogen imbalance that would quickly and substantially reduce production capabilities. The mechanics of nutrient cycles are why it is important to support a diverse, and therefore local, agriculture system. The “comparative advantage” everyone trumps as justification for the regional production system is supported by importation of fertility which is not sustainable in the long run. Perhaps if the author had realized this on his morning stroll through the market, he would not have written such a misguided article. Then again, perhaps he is only concerned with his cheaper produce and not with posterity.
Clearly the author was frantically digging for a controversial topic at the llth hour and found Google a worthy companion.
A beauty of the Farmer’s Market and of local food is that you can walk right up the grower and ask, “what pesticides have you sprayed on this crop? What was this animal fed?”
Thus you are enabled to make informed choices about the health of your purchases, compared to blindly consuming the organophosphate pesticide residue that make growing strawberries in California (economically, mind you) efficient. And you can decide if meat from a Wisconsin steer raised on grass might be healthier for your body than a corn-fed antibiotic-stuffed beef from the nearest feedlot slaughterhouse.
Never mind the way labor might be treated on large mass production farms, nor be concerned about the downstream consequences of use of large volumes of pesticides or nitrate run-off. And don’t worry about the suffering of your beef — acidosis and bloat from the corn diet (which is unatural to the ruminant digestive system of cattle) doesn’t really hurt. Keep it personally selfish, and finding out about your food quality and content from the farmer herself still is reason enough to buy locally.