[Foodplanning] JPER article

Fri Jan 5 18:11:58 PST 2007

Without getting too far off topic...by venturing into land use and food
policy.

Jesse is right that the location of the farm matters. However, keeping a
local farm in production does have the potential to change both the rate
and amount of development. If farmers are able to make a profit from
farming, they are much less likely to seek an alternate source of funds (ie
development). If farm incomes are adequate, land agricultural land prices
are likely to be higher, and thus farmland is either less likely to be
purchased or it will be purchased for a greater price (thus creating some
incentive for the development that does occur to be at a higher density).

Buy the local tomatoes even if that local "real" farm is not located in the
face of imminent development. If the "real farmer" cannot make a go of it
economically, it is likely that land will just become more country estates
or hobby farms or will be even more intensely development, regardless of
its location.

I disagree with the logic that if good farmland has become a country estate
or hobby farm, this therefore makes it the land that should be [more
intensely] developed rather than develop on a "real farm." The farmland
that should be maintained is the land with the best combination of
resources (ie soil, water, climate, access to markets, and relative freedom
from incompatible neighboring land uses). These lands may or may not
currently be the "real farms" but have the best possibility of being a
sustainable farm into the future.

An equally important task is seeking ways of placing "real farmers" on good
farmland. However, I will settle for hobby farms with conservation
easements if that keeps the land available for agriculture in the future.

I do think more serious quantitative measures needs to be provided to
support rationale for why "local" is good or better than "global." The most
obvious are associated with food miles and associated pollution, but also
include ecosystem amenities that are being more carefully quantified (air
and water quality, groundwater recharge, carbon sequestration, open space,
aesthetics, wildlife habitat, floodplain protection, etc). I also believe
there are numerous qualitative measures (eg flavor, taste, knowing who grew
the food, understanding the connection between how food is grown and
impacts to soil, water and air resources) that do not easily work being
quantified.

Michael Isensee
Agricultural Resource Specialist
San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture

             Jesse Richardson                                              
             <jessej at vt.edu>                                               
             Sent by:                                                   To 
             foodplanning-boun         Jill Rubin <jrubin at glynwood.org>    
             ces at mailman1.u.wa                                          cc 
             shington.edu              foodplanning at u.washington.edu       
                                                                   Subject 
                                       RE: [Foodplanning] JPER article     
             01/05/2007 03:31                                              
             PM                                                            

Jill:

I agree with most of your comments. However, your statement "that you are
buying
tomatoes that are keeping a farm in production and preventing sprawl is not
insignificant phenomenon of local food systems" struck me.  "Keeping a farm
in
production" is just as likely to promote sprawl as to prevent sprawl. It
depends on many factors, not the least of which is the location of the
farm.
"Keeping a farm in production does not change the rate or amount of
development
in a region, it merely helps determine the spatial arrangement.  Some farms
SHOULD be developed, in order to prevent development on more "worthy"
farms.
In some regions of Virginia, we are seeing so many country estates and
hobby
farms with conservation easements (for which the donors were handsomely
compensated) that there is only one place for development to go: the real
farms.

Jesse

Quoting Jill Rubin <jrubin at glynwood.org>:

> Hello,
>
> I just read Avoiding the Local Trap.  I think it makes some good points
> (relevant to almost anything) that local should not be embraced without
> examination.  And yes, academics and advocates often interchange local
> with other goals probably more often then we should.  But, I am not
> convinced it is as big a problem or as neutral as the authors suggest.
>
> The loftier goals of sustainability, democracy, and social justice are
> very difficult to define and manufacture (ie. one of the major
> criticisms of both organic and fair trade labeling schemes is that they
> fail to capture the essence of social justice and sustainability by
> their inherent reductive approaches).  Local is a tangible approach that
> sometimes, but not always, compliments these broader goals.  I think the
> reason local has gotten a lot traction in the food movement is because
> it is not an idealistic concept but a physical reality (even if it is a
> socially constructed, relative, relational, and fixed reality).  What
> makes local an effective organizing tool is that it is a hook.  I think
> the challenge is that in defining a local food system, or community food
> system, as I prefer to call it, is in understanding the components you
> have, you don't like, and you want to change, and what side-effects that
> change will have...but this is not a critique of local, but a prudent
> approach to any endeavor.
>
> Another important feature of local is that it is "human scale."  Local
> is something people can relate to, grab onto, and get to know.  The one
> clear advantage local always has over broader geographic scales is
> proximity.  When a New Yorker eats hamburger raised in California on
> mid-west feed, it is hard to know (except by books like Omnivores
> Dilemma) the environmental and social impacts.  Local presents a much
> more feasible scale to understand the good and bad of the food system
> ie. my lake is nutrient loaded because of fertilizer run-off and I
> cannot fish there or I appreciate the aesthetic of farms on the
> landscape.  I think the intimacy of a local food system is a very
> important feature of local...that you are buying tomatoes that are
> keeping a farm in production and preventing sprawl is not insignificant
> phenomenon of local food systems.
>
> My point is local is not a misguided approach, but it needs to be
> tempered with understanding of the diverse consequences and ultimate
> goals.  And I would happily throw out the concept--"local food system"
> for a much more diverse and descriptive concept such as community food
> system...but there are plenty of problematics with "community" too...
>
> -Jill
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foodplanning-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu
> [mailto:foodplanning-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of
> Joseph Nasr
> Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 10:03 AM
> To: Janet Hammer
> Cc: foodplanning
> Subject: Re: [Foodplanning] JPER article
>
> Thanks Janet for getting this discussion started on a good footing.  I
> look
> forward to hearing the thoughts of others on this.
> Joe
>
>
> Joe Nasr
> joenasr at compuserve.com
> (alternates: joenasr at cyberia.net.lb
>                   jnasr at ryerson.ca)
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Jesse J. Richardson, Jr.
Associate Professor
Urban Affairs and Planning
School of Public and International Affairs
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0113
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