There was a really good interview

[hippywife]

with Alice Waters on 60 Minutes. I was a little disappointed when asked about the price of eating organic that she didn't mention that it represents the cost of real food grown the way it should be and that the government subsidizes the other stuff so heavily that we're paying the cost in our taxes for substandard nutrition to be produced. But all in all it was a good interview.

[Tab]

1. A lot of it is economies of scale, I think.

With the big producers (e.g.: corn) that stuff is either quickly transformed into another product (corn meal, corn syrup, niblets, whatever). I won't get into the politics of the farm bill, but generally they feed (albeit poorly) large quantities of the population and their stuff isn't as perishable.

Alice Waters made her mark by advocating local produce (local "bounty", if you will, waffles excluded); it's great because it's fresh, but it's simultaneously highly perishable. By definition, it's confined to small producers, because otherwise you have to harvest, package, and ship all that stuff, and then you're into the bagged-lettuce market or frozen food market or whatever, which defeats the objective of buying local for maximum freshness.

The government doesn't want to subsidize tiny little places with relatively tiny little crops. It's just too much work. It's like when you work with a venture capitalist - they don't want to fund tiny little projects ("I only need $200,000") because it's just as much work to keep track of a $200k investment as it is a $20 million investment - in fact, the $20 million ones are probably easier to monitor. The gov can inspect the big agribusinesses, but there's no way they could go around to a zillion little producers of highly perishable food.

As a result, a lot of small producers (for instance, small dairy farms) go out of business or are supplanted by the big places. Good local supplies becomes just that much harder to acquire, and it costs more.

The best option for a top restaurant - everything from The French Laundy in California to a local Italian farmhouse on this coast - is to grow their own stuff. I haven't eaten at The French Laundry (I wish I could) but I have at this place over here - they run a greenhouse year-round and grow all their own herbs and veggies and whatever. That seems to be the most economical way to do it. It doesn't carry over to things like seafood, but that's another story.

[hippywife]

2. Well, yeah.

If everyone ate as locally as possible, small family operations who farm responsibly would be able to survive, the land and water wouldn't suffer like it does, and people would have the freshest, tastiest product at the peak of it's nutritional value.

I absolutely love having the coop we do. It makes all that possible. We've even found an organic citrus grower in TX which is nice because, while it's not local, it is at least regional. We get the stuff in like 2 days UPS ground.

We have yet to wean ourselves off of things like fresh pineapple, tho. :eyes: I did find out there's a variety of kiwi that will grow here and someone is trying to get in touch with the grower and get them into the coop.