Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Another Eating Local Venture

This article describes a NC venture. Because the article is limited in focus, it misses some bits of information. It doesn't say whether the nonprofit organization is paying market rental to the parents. (Presumably the parents are still getting tobacco buyout payments.) It repeats unchallenged this statement:
“It’s one of the big problems for farmers that they don’t have health insurance and retirement plans,” Alice Brooke Wilson said. “That’s why farms get sold.
In fact, farmers are covered by Social Security and Medicare, assuming they've been conscientious about paying in.

The five people are not taking a salary. Actually four people, because one has left during the 3 years it's been in operation.

All in all, the mixture of idealism and naivete means to me that this is more likely a niche than a great new frontier. Of course, the nice thing about a free society is that you can have lots of such efforts, a handful of which may hit upon the right formula.

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