The Kingsolvers Do Locavore

The Times has a piece on the problems Barbara Kingsolver, or rather her husband Steven Hopp, is having running an upscale locavore restaurant in their area of Virginia.  On the good side it's been in operation for 4 years; on the bad side it apparently is being subsidized by Ms. Kingsolver's income, since it hasn't made a profit.  Mr. Hopp is having to expand into some farming, because he can't get local farmers to produce everything he wants when and how he wants it.  And the locals would really prefer a Pizza Hut or McDonald's because the prices are too high (and I suspect the calorie count too low) for Mr. Hopp's food. 

You've got to credit their good intentions, and the money they've sunk into the place, and the jobs they've created, but I'm too mean and evil to resist a little schadenfreude.

Globalization and Locavores

Stumbled across this quote in Recollections of Troubled Times in Irish Politics By Timothy Daniel Sullivan: "Recollections of Troubled Times in Irish Politics By Timothy Daniel Sullivan: Sullivan is quoting an Irish nationalist, circa 1845+ [had to repunctuate the context while bringing it over from Google book search).

"When an Irish gentleman rises in the morning, he is lathered with a brush and shaved with a razor made in England, he is probably washed with a soap and combed with a comb made in England, for though soap and combs are manufactured at home one trade is conducted with no spirit and the other is nearly extinct. He is braced with suspenders of sitk Indian rubber or doe skin brought from Lancashire. He puts on a stock or neck tie woven by Englishmen in Manchester. His shirt was probably sewed in England, for thousands of dozens of shirts, shirt fronts, and shirt collars made from Irish linen by English hands are sold in this country, the very studs of mother of pearl bone or metal were fabricated in England. His stockings are perhaps Irish, for the Balbriggan stockings are the most durable in the world, but his vest came from Leeds, his coat by bare chance may be Irish, but the velvet on the collar the serge in the lining and the silk that sewed it belong to trades which have long disappeared from Ireland. His pocket handkerchief came from India or Glasgow, and if he is effeminate enough to perfume it, the perfume was made in England or France and sold at thousands of pounds annually to Ireland. His shoes may be sewed at home but probably the leather and certainly the bindings come from England. And yet there is nothing on this man from the shoe tie upwards that could not be made at home before the new year dawns"

I think one can sense in the passage the same particularistic emotion often found in today's anti-globalist, pro-locavore writings, even though the focus is not food, but clothing.

Analyses of Locavore and Organic

James McWilliams analyzes problems with locavore logic at Freakonomics, Stephanie Page Ogburn analyzes the problems with making a full-time living from organic gardening at Grist.

Both are valuable correctives to books such as Kingsolver's and McKibben's, which tend to play up the possibilities and play down the problems.

Review of Barbara Kingsolver

John Phipps has his review of Barbara Kingsolver's book. I recommend it highly.

Environmentalism versus Locavores

Farmgate has an article on the complications of corn after corn. Someone like Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, or Bill McKibbern would read it and say--you see, industrial agriculture, tweaking the inputs of chemicals, not natural at all. But the article is based on the higher price for corn, which is based on ethanol, which is a result of environmentalism.

Some times you just can't win.

Happiness and Homemaking

David Leonhardt in the Times reports on studies of happiness:

Over the same span, women have replaced housework with paid work — and, as a result, are spending almost as much time doing things they don’t enjoy as in the past. Forty years ago, a typical woman spent about 23 hours a week in an activity considered unpleasant, or 40 more minutes than a typical man. Today, with men working less, the gap is 90 minutes.

These trends are reminiscent of the idea of “the second shift,” the name of a 1989 book by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild, arguing that modern women effectively had to hold down two jobs. The first shift was at the office, and the second at home.

But researchers who have looked at time-use data say the second-shift theory misses an important detail. Women are not actually working more than they were 30 or 40 years ago. They are instead doing different kinds of work. They’re spending more time on paid work and less on cleaning and cooking.

This fits with several other posts. We've turned to fast food and eating out, not because people schemed to force feed us with bad food, but because it was fast, convenient, and saved time for doing other things that "we" (i.e, women) wanted to do. It doesn't hurt that sugary and fat food tastes good and the typical fast food meal tastes better than much of the home-cooked food of the 1940's and 50's. After all, specialization means that someone can learn to do things well. And in our market economy if one can earn money and buy a million-dollar house by selling food through franchises, there's nothing wrong with that. (There is, but that's another subject.)

The French Get Fat

The LA Times has an article reporting that French people are starting to get as fat as Americans. They just started later. Don't know what this says for the Kingsolver thesis.

Errors in Kingsolvers' Book: I

My previous post on "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" indicated some slight degree of skepticism as to some of the assertions made, particularly by Dr. Steven Hopp, Ms. Kingsolver's husband. I need to back up the skepticism:

A nit:

Ms Kingsolver discussing the loss of regional food cultures:

"Certainly, we still have regional specialties, but the Carolina barbecue will almost certainly have California tomatoes in its sauce (maybe also Nebraska-fattened feedlot hogs)... page 16

In 1969, when my first boss sent me to North Carolina to learn the field operations of FSA (then Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service) the good people of the state office in Raleigh carefully explained that Carolina barbecue is vinegar based, not tomato-based. And very hot, I might add, at least to my then inexperienced palate. North Carolina is now the second hog producing state in the country, so they don't need to import Nebraska hogs--they have their own big confined animal operations.

Professor Tyler Cowen often expounds on how we've gained great diversity in food cultures over the last 30 years, as immigration has enriched our nation.

A biggie:

Dr. Hopp discussing the Farm Bill:

"These supports promote industrial-scaleproduction, not small diversified farms, and in fact create an environment of competition in which subsidized commodity producers get help crowding the little guys out of business. It is this, rather than any improved efficency or productiveness, that has allowed corporations to take over farming in the United States, leaving fewer than a third of our farms still run by families." p 206

I find it very hard to imagine where he got this from. It sounds like a factoid floating around the world in which he moves. What possibly happened is someone looked at very large farms which follow the 80/20 rule (20 percent of farms produce 80 percent of the production), looked at the paper organization of them, and conflated the legal organization (i.e., corporation, often a necessity because of the estate tax, aka miscalled the "death tax" by the right wing) and the real power. Anyhow, here's a quote from the USDA's Economic Research Service:

Most farms in the United States—98 percent in 2003—are family farms. They are organized as proprietorships, partnerships, or family corporations. Even the largest farms tend to be family farms. Very large family farms account for a small share of farms but a large—and growing—share of farm sales. Small family farms account for most farms but produce a modest share of farm output. Median income for farm households is 10 percent greater than the median for all U.S. households.