This is super common. My wife and I live in Sonoma County. She operates a floral design business where she only sources locally grown flowers. To our frustration many of her competitors also claim to use local flowers. However, my wife knows nearly all of the local flower growers personally and they tell her that these same competitors give them very little to no business. Instead they buy nearly all of their flowers from the SF flower market which in turn gets most of it's flowers from South America. It's amazing how many businesses have no problem flat out lying to their customers.
What shop? I'm also in the area and would prefer to know of a shop that I could assign a bit more trust to, since I'm getting married in the next year or so.
> “It’s really hard to find non-GMO produce,” Moran said.
Aside from the IP problems of patent-infringement-via-unintended-germination, I don't understand what's not to like about GMO. GMO seems like a great idea -- modern human medicine seems to include techniques that are similar to or just-short-of "GMO."
Are there any HNers who can articulate what they don't like about GMO?
I'm not an expert, but one criticism I've seen is that a lot of genetic modification is used to either get plants to produce pesticides or be immune to commonly used weed-killers, like Roundup. Some critics worry that lets farmers basically saturate their fields in herbicides to eliminate weeds, and that some of them are toxic to humans, other animals and plants near to the farm.
Another issue is that most genetic modification work is done by massive companies, which then patent their results. If they develop cheaper-to-grow crops, farmers may essentially have no choice but to license their IP to stay competitive. That gives those big companies a lot of clout over farmers and probably advantages giant farming operations, who can negotiate to buy GMO seeds cheaper than small farmers can.
Some people also worry that there will be "bugs" in the genetic code introduced into plants that will have unforeseen consequences. On some level, plant genetics always been a software problem, but now we're potentially deploying updates in the (literal) field much faster. If new corn seeds distributed en masse accidentally produce toxins, or are unusually conducive to harmful bacteria, or just don't grow properly in some areas, what does it mean for farmers and consumers?
I think it's a lot of the usual technology-upends-formerly-slow-moving-industry issues, but that's especially frightening for a lot of people when it comes to things we're putting in our bodies.
In this case, the problem is that there's a huge difference between public perception and reality. For instance, you talk about herbicides: A modern GMO actually lets you use LESS herbicides and insecticides, and often far less dangerous ones than many that are OK for labeled organic crops, and happen to be far more toxic.
As far as updates on the field producing toxins, GMOs are actually more controlled, genetically speaking, than something that doesn't come from big agribusiness. I can irradiate my seeds to create mutations to use then on traditional breeding, and call myself organic afterwards!
As far as growing well in an area or not, that's why there is testing. Selling a seed that yields poorly to a region would lead to a major economic damage to whichever company is selling those seeds, so everything we can find at a seed store from a major manufacturer, whether GMO or not, will have more than enough agronomic information to make a farmer's decision easy. And besides, I don't know how many farmers you've talked to, but they tend to be a pretty conservative bunch, as far as making sure that they don't bet a lot of hectares on tech that they haven't tested first in a smaller part of their fields, and only plant everywhere if they expect a significant profit. When yields are already very good, and grain is cheap, expensive seeds just sell less across the board.
You don't get much opposition to GMOs among farmers: they just go with what is more profitable for them. Same thing for industrial companies that use the GMOs products to feed cattle or make biodiesel. It all comes down to people that are afraid of what they don't understand, and just choose to be afraid in ways that work well with their political affiliations.
If we were REALLY afraid of food being dangerous, and with untested genetics, we'd actually ban the organics, because there's a lot more genetic variation that is unaccounted for in traditional farming products than in something that comes from agribusiness.
Producing higher yields is not analogous to producing healthier food.
The interests of farmers (ie produce more yield/mass that is impacted less by weeds/pests) do not match the interests of consumers (ie purchase healthy/tasty food with no unforseen side-effects).
Considering the turnaround time between the time a seed is purchased and when the resulting food is consumed, the 'testing period' of newly introduced GMO breeds is very long compared to software iterations.
At the very least, consumers should be able to trace what GMO breed they're consuming and where it was produced. That way, if there are any unforseen side effects, it'll be easier to trace the source.
Just look at the fallout caused by pistachio yields that have been contaminated with E Coli and Salmonella. The long shelf life of nuts means that contaminated foods could still be sitting on store shelves years later.
I'm all for GMO foods if it improves farming effectiveness but the process needs something similar to version control to track quality and a way to clearly indicate GMO foods so people can opt out of beta testing new breeds.
> A modern GMO actually lets you use LESS herbicides and insecticides, and often far less dangerous ones than many that are OK for labeled organic crops, and happen to be far more toxic.
Again, neither of these articles, nor anything in here (http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1282246/err162.pdf), supports the preposterous claim that organic farming is leads to the use of more herbicides and insecticides, which are more toxic (which ones?) than the use of glyphosate et. al. In fact, in the USDA report I just cited, in the first abstract there is even the claim:
> However, overreliance on glyphosate and a reduction in the diversity of weed management practices have contributed to the evolution of glyphosate resistance in some weed species.
It is indeed true that traditional, non-organic means of farming likely requires the use of more (non-organic-certified) herbicides and pesticides, of which some may be more toxic than glyphosate.
Nuance! The allusion that farming with GMO+glyphosate is "far less dangerous" than standard organic farming practices is not supported by research.
"It is indeed true that traditional, non-organic means of farming likely requires the use of more (non-organic-certified) herbicides and pesticides, of which some may be more toxic than glyphosate."
Idk about "far less dangerous". I didn't make that claim. Im only showing that indeed gmo's use less poison, a point that we both seem to accept, but I hear the "far less dangerous" claim used by the anti-gmo crowd after stating the falsehood that gmo's require more herbicides and pesticides over and over again. I would even say that that seems to be the central claim of the anti-gmo movement. In fact, I see people saying that all up and down this thread... so.. go argue with them, lol.
Did you even read the blog? (also note, it's a blog)
None of that blog actually supports the claim:
> A modern GMO actually lets you use LESS herbicides and insecticides, and often far less dangerous ones than many that are OK for labeled organic crops, and happen to be far more toxic.
Nor does it ever mention herbicides, only pesticides. Nor does it mention that you may actually be harming yourself by consuming organic produce vs GMO produce, which is what the claim was alluding too.
Roundup wasn't a bad herbicide to choose, and still isn't. Given your choice of compounds, it has quite low environmental persistence and toxicity relative.
Just thinking about it, you'd want it to affect a metabolic pathway that's not present in other taxa, or at least animals, so the Shikimic Acid pathway fits the bill.
You also want something that degrades rapidly so that it doesn't accumulate in the environment. Now, there are a lot of people arguing that glyphosate doesn't degrade quickly enough, and that's fair, but it's still pretty good as far as these things go.
Finally, you need to have a resistance gene to use in the first place, which glyphosate had.
So, assuming an input-intensive monoculture, glyphosate is easily a lesser of evils. The argument then becomes that it enables a broken system of monoculture, which is a quite a different issue than what most argue.
As for the other arguments, the IP issue is a longstanding one, nothing new to GMOs. Plant patents are one of only 4 types issued in the US; it goes way back. Since the advent of hybrid crops, everyone farming has been at the mercy of the companies with the best inbreds. The 'bug' issue isn't that compelling, either; we've been testing and vetting new hybrids for decades, and the risks are very similar. Biology is often 'fuzzy', but when it gets down to it, you can see what pathways are effected, look at metabolites, etc. It's quite easy to look at two similar things and see exactly how they differ.
I wouldn't say "dislike" but "distrust" a little, for these reasons:
Modern industrial agriculture is both a triumph and a tragedy of optimization. It is now possible to buy a cheap, beautiful looking, round, red tomato any day of the year in most supermarkets near me - and they all taste like crap. At the same time it is getting more and more difficult to buy a good tomato when they are in seasonal around here. Many groceries store chains can't be bothered to move off their large distributors for a product like that for 3-4 weeks, and consumers have stopped being aware of the times when it really matters. I'm willing to say it is more triumph than tragedy, but the tragedy part is real, and it matters.
GMO as a tool allows for quicker iteration on optimizing various aspects of a crop - my distrust lies in the fact that I already think we have over-optimized some aspects at the expense of things that are important but more difficult to measure directly. So long as downward price pressure exists we are likely to continue this trend.
The other problem is hubris. GMOs tend to lead to more monoculture and more drift from naturally biologically stable systems around them. In this we are messing with complex systems we don't really understand that well, and I'm not sure it's worth the efficiency gains. At the very least, it's not clear...
Transgenics enable some solutions to what you're talking about, though. You can breed in disease resistance to your gourmet line of choice over a decade or two at considerable expense, or pop in an R gene for pennies, relatively speaking.
There's absolutely nothing about transgene technology that implies monoculture; if anything, it dramatically lowers the barriers for breeding and developing new and interesting crops. Traditional breeding, driven by huge and colossally expensive GWAS studies, only benefits the biggest, most economically productive crops.
The issue we have right now is that stigma prevents all but the most 'serious' transgenics to come to market. Fortunately, what we have so far are good transgenics, albeit ones that propagate monoculture. The future could look really good, quite disappointing, or even scary, depending on how we approach transgenics, both for regulation and as a culture.
> modern human medicine seems to include techniques that are similar to or just-short-of "GMO."
I think that is actually the root of the problem for some people, including me. I have seen what modern medicine does to people. "You cholesterol is too high, take this statin and your number will get better. Don't take it and you will have a heart attack". And then you have family members and friends take the drugs, and start having side effects.. random pain, random problems that stop them from being physically active. So then they go back to a doctor and get some new medicines, that maybe fixes the pain, but then adds a new side effect. And pretty soon they are bed ridden and taking 14 pills to stay alive. What a bunch of crap.
I am not anti-medicine, but I am anti-cutting-edge-for-margain-gain medicine. If you have AIDs, you probably should take some medicine. I vaccinate myself and my children. However I think that if you are active and eat well, I don't care what my cholesterol is. Maybe it is high, maybe it isn't. And if you aren't active or eating well - you need to fix that (not take medicine). If I start dying of cancer, I will throw every medicine I can find at it. But if I am good and healthy, I am going to leave well enough alone.
So to tie this back to food... I don't have a big desire to be a food beta tester. I am sure 75% of GMO is fine. Could some cause something horrible to your health in 20 years, like increased cancer risk? For sure. In fact we are seeing that a lot of the veggies we grow now through traditional breeding practices have reduced the vitamin content compared to the same veggie 20 years ago. But if I can pay a few pennies more for stuff that has a 100 year track record vs something that came out of a lab a month ago? Yes please, sign me up.
Let there be GMO. Let me be able to pay to not beta test food. I like beta testing software, I don't like beta testing food and drugs when I am otherwise healthy. It is insane that there is such resistance to putting a label on food telling me the GMO status. GMO status is just the start, I would love to know 100 more things about the food I eat. Fertilizers used? Harvesting technique? Etc. Let me have more info and make an informed choice about what I put in my body. It may be a bunch of busywork for no gain, but that is my choice.
Sorry for the free plug for a guy who comes off as (and in many ways is) a crank, but that's almost verbatim the health policy preferred by Nicholas Taleb (of Black Swan /Anti-fragile fame):
- Be very conservative in what foods/medicines you use, limiting yourself to those with a proven track record.
- Ignore warnings about specific figures (e.g. cholesterol, blood pressure) if you're otherwise healthy and active.
- If you have a terminal condition, take risky treatments since you have little to lose.
i've had doctors surprised that i refused to take opiates to treat some pain. and what do you know, there was an alternative medication that was way less harmful, and only required a $25 shot.
it's fucking ridiculous how hard they push expensive pills.
I would have no problems with people advertising (truthfully) that a given GMO is FLOS. I have not a lot of knowledge in this area, does such a thing exist? I know government does some breeding work (UIUC had the famed morrow plots), but I haven't heard much about research of GMOs and release into the wild.
Based on what the average person cares about FLOS software, I am not holding my breath.
It does sound like a "throw the baby out with the bath water" scenario.
In theory, GMOs could be more healthy than not GMO.
In practice, this has not happened. The objectives instead have been to increase crop yield. The side effects have been to make the plants more toxic in very subtle ways that are hard to track and take decades for people to show symptoms.
Maybe in a few more decades we'll see "good" GMOs.
It should also be noted that many of the problems with GMOs are shared by crops that have simply been selectively bred for a long time... which is most crops that we eat a lot of...
Do you have something I could read for that claim regarding toxicity? I'm not super up on the debate surrounding GMOs, but I have a few friends who have scientific backgrounds and are interested, and I've never heard anything quite like what you're saying.
Probably my favorite book is "Death by Food Pyramid". I can't remember if she went into this particular topic though.
I don't know of any definative proof, which I think is what makes issues like this so dangerous. Scientific proof is a high bar when dealing with something this complex, pit that against powerful food lobbies and truths can stay buried for a long time.
For me, it's been an observation of many cues, then making a personal decision about how I eat from that. One interesting place to start is corn: Most corn that you eat isn't the sweet corn you buy in the store and cook on the grill. It is very hard and must be broken down with lye before being eaten.
Things you put in your body can have a pretty massive effect on you. I would rather err on the side of paying $.05 too much for the corn that people have been eating for 50 years over the newest GMO strain.
You only get one body. I do not want to beta test things in my body if I don't have to.
This might be right, but it's irrelevant to the thread you're in, which is about whether the claim about subtle toxicity is something we should believe.
Yeah, if you google it, a lot of stuff comes up. I'm sure if you google "GMO's are not toxic" you'll find a lot of stuff supporting that claim too. My advice would be to start paying attention to nutrition in general, then over time you can draw your own, educated conclusions. Unfortunately I don't think is a topic that you will be able to find a black-and-white answer to.
I think golden rice has been around for at least 20 yrs now.[0]
Also serious question, What evidence do we have for "toxic in very subtle ways"? I wasn't aware that this actually exists.
Goldren Rice has made no significant progress even though we have extensive use of Glyphosate-resistant GMOs.
From what I've read the people behind golden rice have yet to release their product for 20 years now, while at the same time in the US we've switched the majority of our largest crop yields to GMO products with wheat being the major holdout.
GMO corn, soybeans and sugar beets aren't being produced for health, they are being pushed to keep the American diet of highly processed sweets and oil cheap.
The rise in gluten allergies is what jumps to my mind. I've heard a lot of people deny they exist though. And I'm sure other people will claim they are attributed to different factors.
A lot of people with gluten allergies can eat older strains of wheat that haven't changed since the early half of the century. The theory is that these are strains from before GMO time and were also not subjected to heavy selective breeding over the past century (of course it would have been selectively bred since the dawn of the fertile crescent 13,000 years or so ago).
How is that evidence that GMO's are toxic? It doesn't mention GMO's at all. I guess I am supposed to just speculate? "connect the dots" as Jesse Ventura would say?
Edit: I gave you an upvote tho, because you did go thru the trouble of finding a link. (Even if it missed the full context of the thread, imo)
1900s science has a number of well publicized tragic tales relating to scientists promising something and missing side effects; or government/business entities misusing scientific products.
It thus behooves us to be have some concern and caution regarding the food supply.
I was at a demo farm once, where a set of 5-6 corn plots were laid out in farming practices from 1850 to 2000. While the 2000s plot had almost no weeds, very little pest damage, had tall and strong stalks, closer together, with high levels of nutrients, the 1850s plot had far more weeds and a large amount of pest damage. Now, what struck me the most was that the 1850s plot was integrated into the ecosystem in a way the 2000s plot wasn't. The modern view is "kill weeds, kill pests", because that increases yield. Much like we view software bugs and filing pointless paperwork. But I think that there's an ecosystem problem arising with the giant fields of corn that are hostile to other life. This is understood by the US Federal government: "Refuge" crops must be planted in the field to help keep native life around.
So I'm very ambiguous about this approach, recognizing the advantages of cheap food, but concerned about the second and third order effects on the flora and fauna of the farming regions.
GMOs are a form of proprietary lock-in backed by legal restrictions.
The underlying problem with almost all GMOs is that they are tied to a particular chemical combination, and the seed must be re-purchased every year (the harvested seed is sterile and/or you cannot (legally) re-seed).
Those chemical/GMO businesses then have a strangle-hold on the farmers. Farmers are enticed by low prices until a substantial percentage are 'hooked' and then the prices rise - just like Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy.
Here in the E.U./U.K. we've resisted GMOs but the pressure (mostly from global/U.S. seed/chemical producers) on the politicians to allow them is constant.
Until these global seed producers emerged (latter half of the 20th century in concert with the chemical manufacturers) farmers either kept back some of their own harvest for seed or bought at-will from other farmers without restriction. Such seed sells for a slight premium (due to quality and cleanliness - low numbers of alien species) over other seed.
Ask your folks about the hybrid seed they've been buying since before you were born. GMOs didn't change a thing about the economics of seed because hybrid crops have been around for a lot longer.
It's only when you recognize this that the decline of seed co-ops makes sense. It didn't just start to happen recently, it's been going on for decades.
As long as GMOs are so expensive to take to market (and they're dirt cheap to develop), then they're only available to the big companies. Open up the market, and you can have GMOs that serve other interests.
I was born in the mid-60s and my memories go back to 1970 when I first helped 'dress' the seed corn (wheat and barley). My grandfather was using much the same process when he began farming around 1910.
Seed wheat, barley, potatoes and oil-seed rape (Canola) are still produced using the same breeding process we've used for several generations, but with the added benefit of having very much more accurate technical support for measuring the benefits (or lack thereof) of new strains.
Hybrid seeds through selective breeding is something very different from a single human-engineered genetic intervention.
Even if there's nothing wrong with GMO produce, consumers shouldn't be lied to. If they want something, pay extra for it, and are told they should get it, then they damn well better get it.
I tend to think GMOs are fine, but at the same time, I understand why one might be skeptical. Humans are pretty great at inventing toxic consumer products (e.g. plastics, lead pipes, asbestos) and even "health foods" that later turn out to be disastrously unhealthy (e.g. trans fats). Sometimes the lag between invention and the confirmation of deleterious effect is many decades.
There are two reasons I've seen for objecting to GMO, one unreasonable and one reasonable.
The unreasonable objection, which is probably the most common, is based on the belief that there is something inherently dangerous about GMO.
The reasonable objection is based on the belief that there is nothing wrong with GMO itself since it is just another tool and so whether it is good or bad in a particular instance depends on the user rather than the tool, but many (most?) of the current users do not have the inclination and/or wisdom to only use it for good.
Many of the interests of food producers (I'm including everyone in the chain before the food actually reaches the eater) are not aligned with the interests of food eaters. For instance a producer of a vegetable might prioritize uniformity of size and shape and predictable growing rates over taste and nutrition, because the former directly affect how effectively he can automate production. As an eater, I care a lot more about nutrition and taste than I care about having all of my vegetables be the same size and shape.
We've seen what happens when food manufacturer interests get too far out of alignment with what is healthy and nutritious--just look at all the health issues we have in the US that are reasonably attributable to our poor national eating habits.
> GMO seems like a great idea -- modern human medicine seems to include techniques that are similar to or just-short-of "GMO."
Medicine is highly regulated. You can't just make a new medicine and start selling it. Not so with food.
For a worst case scenario from an eater point of view, suppose you've got organism X and organism Y. These are very different, and cannot be crossbred. Suppose that Y produces something that has health benefits, but that some people are allergic to. X does not produce this substance.
A person allergic to that substance has a simple strategy for staying safe: do not eat Y.
With GMO, in theory some X manufacturer could modify X to include the genes from Y that produce that substance. For most people this would be a benefit--they are now getting that healthy substance from Y when they consume X.
For our person allergic to that substance, this sucks.
Now our allergic eater has to worry about both X and Y. And since GMO foods do not have to be labeled currently, he cannot simply avoid GMO X. He now has to avoid all foods with X. (And if our allergic eater is particularly unlucky, the maker of GMO X does not announce they are doing this, and so the allergic eater first finds out about it the hard way).
Manufacturers like to tout health benefits. For our poor allergic eater, those genes from Y for that substance he is allergic to might end up being put in all kinds of foods.
My opinion is that we should go ahead with GMO, but not blindly. As a first step, it needs to be labeled, and longer term we need to develop some regulations to make sure it is used safely and wisely.
Its just like "I don't swim because of sharks"... You are going to get a list of fears that are perfectly understandable, yet irrational due to lack of evidence. Its a shame because of the huge potential GMO's have to positively impact so many of our current global problems. (malnutrition, water shortages, carbon footprints, etc)
A great bit of journalism here, hopefully it reaches a lot of eyes.
I think that the fines levied on restaurants that are knowingly deceiving their customers should be much higher. The articles states $300 is the fine for first-time offenders, this is hardly much of a deterrence considering the premiums placed on 'locally sourced' dishes.
If you want to get a good feel of how much proper locally grown food is, pop in to a butchers. It costs £15/$21 for a single t-bone, but man is it worth it. I think we are too used to eating sub-standard meats/fish as we want to consume it more often.
>It costs £15/$21 for a single t-bone, but man is it worth it.
I've had plenty of local meat, and I'm in a rural setting known for its farming. I'm skeptical.
I'd love to see this actually tested, because I think this is an alternate view of the article; the "hipster" crowd is so keen on getting locally sourced food because it just tastes oh-so-much better (and they're more than happy to tell you). Half the time they're not even eating locally sourced food.
The global food supply chain is pretty amazing. Why do we assume that Joe Schmoe farmer down the road is automatically "better" at food production? Outside of the fact that some produce can lose nutrition in transport, I'd bet 90% of people couldn't tell the difference between garden fresh or grown-in-China...or that if they identified a difference they'd necessarily choose the former as a preference. Taste (in the literal sense) is a funny thing.
'global food supply chain' is off-shoring; think of it in the same way as the mis-use of H1B visas and transferring I.T. work to low-wage economies, leaving 'local' I.T. workers out of a job.
Much of the unstated benefit of locally produced food is in a shorter time between harvest and plate (fresher), less handling (bruising), less transportation (ecological), less packaging (resources + cost), shorter supply chain (less middlemen; farmer/producer should receive higher % of retail price), generally more pride and care involved (better quality) plus of course supporting the 'local' economy by keeping the money circulating locally and local smaller family farms in business.
For animals it should mean quicker time-to-kill (less stress) due to less travel and coral-ling at abattoirs, and, depending on the butcher, better cuts of meat (less mechanical cutting) due to following the grain.
In the U.K. the biggest immediate benefit is the farmer receiving a greater slice of the retail price, which is essential in some sectors (such as dairy) where many farmers receive less than the cost of production, and certainly not enough to protect against poor years.
Combined with low investment returns pushing capital into land 'investment' which is driving land price growth to ridiculous levels; subsequently driving rents for farmers who don't own their own land to bankruptcy levels (we recently sold 10 acres @ £10,000/acre which was bought for around £2,500/acre 15 years ago [0], but the gross yield hasn't moved from around £400/acre).
Even amongst farmer land-owners many are selling off small parcels in order to cover shortfalls in farming income or to invest in new facilities and equipment.
The big farming agri-businesses (10,000+ acres) are about the only ones that have the production scale to make profits and invest in land.
Born-n-bred and still living on a 1,000 acre farm, but hacking code.
Well, I'm not really sure that the local guy deserves a job any more than the guy in India does.
I do agree with your post, generally, though I remain skeptical about certain things, like "more pride and care", for example. Remember, this argument is about "buy local", as in radius. It isn't about factory vs small-farm. As a Canadian, I can buy Alberta beef in my grocery store. When I'm in Alberta, that's top quality local. When I'm elsewhere, it's suddenly...bad?
I'm not arguing factory vs small-farm; the system processes imposed by factory methods can maintain consistency of production even given lower-skilled, lower-waged, less personally invested, employees.
Generally though family farms are more personally invested in the quality of their produce (and treatment and health of their animals) especially if it is being sold direct locally rather than into some anonymous wholesale system.
For example, when selling locally, we'd hand-pick the best produce whereas the bulk production would be loaded into 30 tonne bulk trailers and sent off to some factory for additional processing. In the U.K. there has been a resurgence of farm-outlets and farmers markets to help local producers reach local customers directly.
People tend to remember details of locally produced products due to its local association and so a bad experience is more likely to cause a direct negative impact on sales the producer understands.
A related benefit of local farmer-direct outlets I overlooked is that there is often much less wastage (more variation in the size and shape of the produce, which reflects what nature provides).
Most bulk wholesale product has to meet minimum and maximum sizes so large percentages of produce (10%+) can be discarded and dumped [1] especially in poor growing years, or because it is the wrong shape [2]. Thankfully there's been recent public, media, and political pressure on the wholesale buyers to reduce this but it is still a significant problem.
Another benefit (for producers) is direct local supply is less susceptible to large wholesale buyers arbitrarily forcing the farm-gate price lower in order to maintain the wholesale pipeline profit margin without regard for the needs of the farmer.
If other industries were as efficient and productive as farms have been over the last 50 years we'd be in a very different world. For example, in the 1970s we had 8 full-time workers and over harvest we'd have another 15 or so (mostly women or students). In 2016 we have 1 full-time and 1 'apprentice' (who is paid about 1/3 of the national minimum wage!) all year round.
So now we're less connected to the local economy and community due to the price pressure.
In the 1970s we were banking enough profit in the good years to carry us through the poor years and still maintain investment in equipment and buildings. Now its a constant battle of attrition to maintain the status-quo.
It never ceases to amaze me that people are willing to pay out ridiculous sums for luxuries like 'smart' phones, TVs, vacations, etc., and yet begrudge paying a reasonable price for a life-supporting essential - especially when it is freshly harvested (as opposed to processed) food.
All seemingly great reasons to buy local produce, but you failed to answer his question. How do you know local-joe-schmoe actually has "more pride and care"? I've don't buy apples with bruises, despite them travelling thousands of miles. Better for the environment, economy, etc sure, but his questions was purely about the quality of the product.
>You're asking why Joe Schmoe's cows from a local field taste better than those of a factory feedlot standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their own muck?
I'm not really asking. Where do you live, might I ask?
I'm looking out my window at Joe Schmoe's local field with the cows standing shoulder to shoulder in their own muck. Do you think all "non-local" meat is from a factory feedlot? That's a strawman.
Do you have any evidence, or just like the idea of Joe Schmoe's meat tasting better?
I've never understood what "farm-to-table" means. Doesn't all food come from a farm? Is it supposed to mean "farm owned by a stereotypical farmer, not by a corporation?" If so, that's pretty vague and subjective.
If done accurately it means that the food is produced using the most unsustainable and inefficient ways possible so that only the most privileged can partake. Other than that its just marketing that is targeting people that either want to think of themselves as upper class or have been falsely led to believe that this type of food production is actually eco-friendly and more healthy. (Also see "Organic" food)
Inefficient? Yes. Unsustainable? No way. We've been farming the old-fashioned way for thousands of years with exponential increases in population. If that's not the definition of sustainability I don't know what is.
Also, modern cultivation techniques can strip the produce and soil of essential vitamins and nutrients. So yes, in some cases, the "inefficient" and "unsustainable" farms yield more nutritious and eco-friendly foods.
The notion that these facts are purely a fabrication of marketing companies is total bullshit. There's tons of research out there supporting this (nb4 WHO SPONSORED THE RESEARCH??), you just have to look for it.
> We've been farming the old-fashioned way for thousands of years with exponential increases in population. If that's not the definition of sustainability I don't know what is.
Just because a technique is sustainable at prior population levels doesn't mean it will be sustainable in the future. Slash-and-burn was used for thousands of years and is now one of the main causes of deforestation. Bottom trawling has been used for almost a thousand years and is now considered directly responsible for fishery collapse. Humans have been responsible for the extinction of thousands of animals through unsustainable hunting practices that occurred thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago.
> Also, modern cultivation techniques can strip the produce and soil of essential vitamins and nutrients. So yes, in some cases, the "inefficient" and "unsustainable" farms yield more nutritious and eco-friendly foods.
Actually modern farmers are very, very careful about keeping high quality soil because it results in higher yields and spending less on fertilizers and pesticides. 60 years ago, farming "the old-fashioned way" we had things like the dust bowl.
<"We've been farming the old-fashioned way for thousands of years with exponential increases in population"
Almost, but not exactly true. Farm tech like all tech is more and more efficient as it improves. The more efficient it is the more it can scale, boosting populations by staving off famine.
<"There's tons of research out there supporting this"
I think it is a noble cause. You are correct in that it means the price of some of the food groups increases dramatically, so many people are left out of regularly consuming it. I believe that 50/60 years ago, people did not expect to eat meat/fish every night due to the price.
I would like to know why you think farm-to-table is inherently unsustainable? Many farmers in the Highlands of Scotland make a good living selling superior beef to restaurants and butchers in the UK. They do this without regular factory farming methods. Is it less efficient compared to clearing thousands of acres in order to grow a single product which is fed government subsidised corn? Pound for pound, absolutely. Which is why some people decide to eat meat less regularly, but eat the best when they do.
I see it as unsustainable because it doesn't scale and the results don't produce any actual benefit. I see it in the same light as a golf course... a huge waste of resources so that someone has something silly to throw away their money on. Not saying that it shouldn't exist, per se... but it is at odds with the greenwashed way it is marketed.
Farm to table generally (or ideally) means the restaurant deals directly with smaller local farms for seasonal produce (rather than buying everything from a distributor).
It means traceability in the supply chain. E.g. all meat in Europe has to be traceable to the farm as a consequence of the BSE outbreak / horse meat scandal. [1]
Big cases in the US were the Peanut Corp of America [2], Jack in the Box E Coli [3] and the most recent Chipolte [4] and more [4].
Supply chains are protecting themselves through tractability and this is being turned into an opportunity.
It doesn't mean that the food is wholesome, just that if you get poisoned, the origin of that poison can be determined.
As other people said, it generally is supposed to mean the food came from a nearby farm that the restaurant can identify.
In these cases, though, restaurants weren't just saying "farm-to-table"--they were making specific claims about what farms were supplying the food that just weren't true. In some cases, they weren't even correctly identifying the species involved, like saying cheap fish was something more expensive or even that pork was veal.
In my area, I see some chefs at the weekly farmer's market buying meat, fish, and produce directly from local farmers. To me, that is 'farm to table'. Anything else is questionable, but could be.
I believe buying from wholesale distributors would be the opposite of farm to table.
I don't buy pretty produce at the farmers market because I've suspected that a lot of it is just distributors for a long time. The out of season produce that looks picture perfect that isn't quite ripe, just screams large scale commercial grower.
Its the stalls with the ugly produce that I look at, as my own gardening experience, and that of an actual farmer attests. The best produce is the stuff the bugs want to eat. Cut the ugly part off, and what remains is the good stuff.
I also don't buy stuff that doesn't smell like actual food. Its pretty amazing how we have grown accustomed to produce that doesn't smell.
One time I saw a farmer's market stall being set up. The people were taking produce out of bags that looked a lot like what they sell at Costco, and repackaging it into cute little bundles and crates. (NOT trying to say that they all do this)
You're right about that. The same thing happened with the name "organic".
Sadly, some restaurateurs have been taking advantage of the "farm-to-table" terminology.
In France and Italy some foods and wines have AOC/DOC designations meaning that the food item's name means was produced in a geographically defined place, usually with traditional methods and NOT from some random factory in another country. There are penalties in place for people that attempt to label a product with a controlled name.
"Farm-to-table" has a different definition than AOC/DOC, but there's a lot in common in spirit.
it's super subjective until the government defines it and regulates it (read penalize mis-labeling).
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Yeah, once the government gets involved, it'll still be all lies, but it'll be legal because somebody paid off the right regulator, or because the regulator owns shares in the restaurant, etc. And then this kind of thing will be used as a weapon to inhibit the entry of new competitors into the market, to the benefit of the entrenched players.
You're overly cynical. Nobody in the United States worries about buying adulterated milk, or medications that are actually mixtures of flavored syrup and radium, or bread that uses sawdust as a cheap filler, because there's clear standards for what something labeled as "milk" or "bread" means and regulators with the power to enforce those standards.
Isn't the some kind of Government Agency that buys random stuff from supermarkets/suppliers, tests the food and inspects the label?
The same for restaurant inspections? Its not that expensive and it sends a clear message to these people.
For 40,000-some Florida restaurants, 191 inspectors from the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation oversee them all for safety, sanitation and — occasionally — lies. By comparison, Georgia, with about half the population, has 300 inspectors. Ohio has 637 for about 22,000 restaurants.
In the past two years, Florida inspectors found roughly 750 food misrepresentation violations. Of them, 123 restaurants were fined, with an average fine for first-time offenders between $150 and $300.
The state could beef up the number of inspectors and the fines. Should they? I'm not sure. Certainly I don't support lying to consumers, but it isn't exactly the crime of the century. I'd be much more concerned about safety and sanitation, though some mislabeling has safety implications (e.g. whether nuts are used).
There's a concept in false advertising law called "puffery" under which obviously exaggerated representations are not considered false advertising. Think "best chicken in the world". This isn't exactly that, but you really should know that your $11 Caesar salad with shrimp isn't using local, sustainable caught shrimp that goes for around ~$1/shrimp wholesale.
Even just from an economic standpoint, I think such fines should be far higher. Sometimes it takes lab tests to determine fakes from real foods.
Also, I disagree - consumers shouldn't have to know the market. One could argue that they should, but they should not have to.
I don't believe anybody does that, let alone the government. Restaurant inspections check to make sure the restaurants are hygienic and safe, not that the food matches the label.
All these things get gamed. If you don't know something about your supplier, its probably getting gamed.
My Sister sells chocolate. She gets it from Winan's from Ohio. Knows the supplier folk; visits the place they make all the stuff. Knows their supplier. They get chocolate in liquid form from their plantation in Nicaragua. Folks there grow it, process it and ship the liquor to Ohio. So verified fair trade.
Also, its healthier. Imported beans (like everybody else) have to be fumigated upon import. Agricultural product. But the liquor is a finished product; no fumigation! SO that makes some people happier.
Anway she only knows all this (and trusts it) because she knows the Winans personally, and visits the plant regularly.
Totally expected. Our current food model, and the American conditioned mindset, is bigger is better, cheaper is better, and when selling food you must maximize profits, while reducing costs - no exceptions. Americans need to be brought down a peg or two (myself included!) that size and cost does not equality quality, cleanliness, or health.
I thought the whole point of the "local" movement is that cheaper is not better and bigger is not better, as people are willing to pay more for less food because it is supposedly "local".
If we are really serious about local food then we need a much more significant set of changes. I have integrated some ideas into this site: http://tinyvillages.org
You can tell what's probably NOT 'farm to table' by the pricing of dishes. Many restaurants would not be in business selling food at the prices they do if were actually farm to table direct from local farmers who uses the growing/raising practices the restaurants claim. If you buy meat or veggies of this quality, you already know - it costs a LOT.
I think a better potential "red flag" is more things present that are clearly out of season, as some restaurants clearly use trendy market jargon like "farm to table" simply to boost prices and/or for marketing.
Central Florida's season for vegetables is the winter. Summer is too hot for growing most things, the main things in Central Florida that are in season during that time are citrus. Some vegetables and fruits don't really grow here at all. Some do grow but do kind of poorly.
Sure, a climate controlled indoor hydroponic farm can grow produce that is an "exception to the rule", but the Tampa area only has a couple (one?) of those. Definitely not enough to cater for all the restaurants that claim "farm to table". So seeing out of season "farm to table" vegetables would be a bit of a red flag.
The same with animals. For instance the trout mentioned in the article would be a potential red flag of sorts, as Florida doesn't have rainbow trout. Florida does have "spotted sea trout" but that's a different species of fish, and the commercial harvest of that in Florida is rather limited.
You can apply this rule to other climates, of course.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
I think many hackers (myself included) find this interesting.
