dagblog - Comments for "The Locavore's Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn't Be Grown in North Dakota"

The bigger farms keep a lot

Michael Maiello — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:32:14 +0000

The bigger farms keep a lot of stuff in storage so the green market is indeed available this time of year and there are great root vegetables and hearty greens available...

Hadn't heard that orange story but it reminds me of Jerzy Kosinski in Reds. Scurvy always reminds me of that.

Applying economics to the

wabby — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:45:58 +0000

In reply to The Locavore's Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn't Be Grown in North Dakota

Applying economics to the taste of an heirloom tomato does not compute.

I am not agreeing with much this essay has to say...there's so much straw stuffed into those arguments, I could make a good sized scarecrow for m'corn patch and have enough left over to mulch the strawberries.

And at the end of the article, I had an intense desire to learn who these two fellas really worked for....Big Ag, perhaps?

*Jayson L. Lusk is professor and Willard Sparks Endowed Chair of Agribusiness in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University.
*F. Bailey Norwood is associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University.

Oh.

Haven't been lately,

artappraiser — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:23:40 +0000

In reply to The Union Square Green Market

Haven't been lately, wondering how a luscious a spread of locallly-grown fruits and vegetables they have this time of year?

(I do like to go to both kinds, hipster markets and non-hipster farmer's markets. The latter is where the farmers don't throw out the ugly veggies with scars and flaws and malformations caused by disease and offer them for sale, it helps me learn that what happens to mine also happens to them. The former is where everything looks incredibly beautiful and tasty.)

Didya ever hear the story told by many Depression era kids of how they got an orange in their Christmas stocking and how precious a gift it was? You hear if from a lot of them. I researched that once, turns out that FDR purposefully subsidized train shipments of citrus to urban areas from warmer climes to be sold at greatly reduced prices around Christmastime. To fight the scurvy that all the urban kids were in danger of getting. "Eat your sauerkraut" was the "locavore "alternative, that or moldy cabbage from the root cellar.

The Union Square Green Market

Michael Maiello — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:32:56 +0000

In reply to But the food at Farmer's

The Union Square Green Market in NYC has both. It's predominantly farms from Penssylvania, New Jersey and upstate New York but there are also hipster foodies with tables, often selling more crafted items like pickles and stuff and some cheeses. But it is a great resource and when carefully shopped can save you a bunch of money.

But the food at Farmer's

Donal — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:29:29 +0000

In reply to My spouse is a foodie and

But the food at Farmer's Markets is grown on farms by farmers - not in backyards by urban hipsters. At least that's true of the ones where I've shopped. And for the most part, it is cheaper as well as better. Especially the apples. The pickles and pies are more expensive, but the produce is cheaper.

I saw that video a while back, I think I posted a link here.

My spouse is a foodie and

artappraiser — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 20:19:36 +0000

In reply to With all that grand talk

My spouse is a foodie and absolutely loves every square inch of our tiny urban spit of land that I sacrifice to vegetables over ornamentals, he just adores the idea of getting food out the back door. But even he jokes that our tomatoes probably end up costing us $50 per tomato. And my god. things like cabbage take an enormous amount of land to grow, I would never waste inches like that. Watched a video last night about the hipsters repopulating downtown Detroit, several people are also farming there. They can do so because there's hardly any people living there. You want urban density, you give up locavore.

With all that grand talk

Donal — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:56:00 +0000

In reply to The Locavore's Dilemma: Why Pineapples Shouldn't Be Grown in North Dakota

With all that grand talk about free trade, I don't see any mention of food subsidies for the larger, cheaper agribusinesses. If the local farmers got those subsidies, too, perhaps the costs would be more even.

The argument about extra cost of trips to the farmer's market assumes that the number of trips to the supermarket is fixed. Perhaps trips to the farmer's market will replace trips to the supermarket.

And the argument that transportation costs don't matter is short-sighted.