Packaged Produce

 My local Safeway is selling more and more produce in packages.  Corn is no longer on the cob, so you don't have the job of husking it.  Salad is shredded and mixed, just open the package into the bowl and put dressing on it.  

What the Safeway buyer wants is convenience, saving time by having someone back in the chain do the work. It's all part of work shifting by the upper middle class--we have money but, unless retired, not the time so we pay others to do stuff.

This trend, which has been going on for decades (think TV dinners in the 1950's), poses a big problem for the advocates of organic farming, CSA's, and similar ideas. You can't ask the farmer to do the packaging, but your market share will be limited if you don't.

Tecnology Review and Food

Since I don't get the hard copy version of Technology Review, I'm not sure whether it's one issue, but this is the notation they attach to the beginning of a number of posts on their website:

"This story is one of a series about how hidden innovations produce the foods we eat at the prices we pay."

The big story seems to be: How to train a weeding machine. Does the work of 30 people. It broadens into a discussion of the problems of digitizing vegetable production, starting with Landsat back in 1972 (I remember ASCS had a guy in Houston working on Landsat for a while--big dreams back then.) 

There's also  one on GMO maize in Kenya A comment here--the farmer notes in passing:

"But I still have more crops than some of my neighbors, who sometimes recycle seeds and don’t have very much at all."

That one sentence seems to me to encapsulate the challenges for the small farm/food movement people.  It points to an evolution over decades which will lead to modernized production ag growing the bulk of our calories, with smaller operations producing for the niches. 

Improving Rural Life--Butchers and Regulations

Posted earlier on the need for Democrats to address rural issues.  

Here's another one, which fits with the liberal position about favoring small farmers, etc..  (Yes, you can take the "etc." as indicating I've some reservations about the food movement.) Better yet, it's an opportunity for a bipartisan play, as deregulation will appeal to the Republicans.

I've mentioned Walt Jeffries in this blog before. He used to post regularly at Sugar Mountain blog.  It may be now that he's switched to Facebook.  He and his family built their own butcher shop over a period of years, which was documented at the blog.  Had to go through the Vermont and USDA inspection and licensing process, which took a while but, somewhat surprisingly since he tends to the libertarian, which seemed to go relatively smoothly.

Meanwhile the Foothill Agrarian, a California sheepgrower, has lost the butcher  which used to process his lambs (as opposed to buying the lambs--the distinction is important).  His post here describes the problem.

I commented on the post with some questions, but it seems to me both Democrats and Republicans could agree on carving out exceptions to national or state regulations to ease the problem for local butchers.

Revising the US Food System

In the wake of the pandemic I'm seeing calls for the US to change the way we produce and distribute food.  Some of the proposals are intended to make it more resilient to disasters, some just hope for environmental friendlier ag.  See this piece and this 

I've doubts.  The way our food system currently works was never planned, but evolved. The forces at work were economic,governmental, social--the market system meant rewards for greater productivity and lower costs; the government ensures uniform food regulations for the country, government programs have eased the dislocations caused by the growth of more productive agriculture, the society as a whole values education, science and technology and the new, people place less of a priority on the taste and provenance of food and more of a priority on fast, cheap food which they don't have to prepare themselves.

Can these forces be changed, even if you have a popular cause that supports government action? Tastes can change, norms can change, but I'm not sure how well any social movement can manage such change.

The Market in Farmer's Markets

The market in farmer's markets is not good, according to this NPR story.  Too many markets chasing too few buyers.  Another case where the free market in agriculture is overly productive.

Haspel on Greenberg's Mistaken Times Op-Ed

Tamar Haspel should be followed by anyone interested in food policy. Here she offers good criticism of a Paul Greenberg op-ed in the Times.

I do want to comment on Greenberg's idea that specialty crops should return to the Midwest from the South and the coast.  The problem I see is that the South and coasts (and Central and South America) have natural advantages for growing fruits and vegetables--specifically their growing seasons are longer and/or opposite to the season in the central U.S.  Transportation, specifically the interstate highway system and air, has obliterated the advantages of growing locally. 

Technology to the Rescue?

This Technology Review piece outlines the possibility for technology replacing mass application of herbicides.  Using Moore's law means we can reduce the use of both chemicals and energy.   That should make the food movement happy.

Jobs, Automation: Craft Brewing and Women's Cheesemaking

Had lunch Wed in a Herndon strip mall, next door to a craft brewery which throughout our lunch had a long line of people buying their new release.  That's new, at least new to me.  Back in the day we had a bunch of companies each brewing their own brand.  Then the whole industry consolidated into a couple/three big conglomerates, killing most of the brand names.  Then we saw the gradual growth of micro-breweries, and then a rapid expansion.  See this page for statistics from the brewers association.  It's going so fast wikipedia can't keep up.

Meanwhile the paper (NYTimes?) recently had an article on women farmers making cheese.  Also a new thing. And finally today the Post has a piece on new young farmers, who are described as being part of what I'd call the "food movement" (i.e., small, organic, community supported ag).

Seems to me in the recent debate over AI and the likelihood of robots replacing humans in all jobs we forget the ability of humans to invent new desires and to invest their time in uneconomic ways.  Can we create robots which are irrational?

Defining "Organic": "Good" Versus "Not Bad"

A report here on the controversy over whether hydroponic, etc. ag is really "organic".

As I see it, it's a debate between the old-line organic affiliated with the food movement, who often (yes mom, thinking of you) romanticized family farming and producerism, versus the high-capital people who can fund hydroponic agriculture.  Or, to put it another way: a contest between the "good" of naturally grown food and the "not bad" of unnaturally grown food which excludes all the bad 'cides.

Or, a third way: between the romantics and the rationalists.

Chicken Bones Are "Food Waste"?

A discussion by Caitlin Dewey at the Post on why Americans don't eat left-overs any more.  This bothers the food movement, as embodied in the NRDC, who dug through our garbage and analyzed the results.  As someone who is the designated left-over eater for the household it bothers me. 

But--consider this: "The average person wasted 3.5 pounds of food per week. Of that, only a third consisted of inedible parts, such as chicken bones or banana peels."

Do the foodies really want me to eat my banana peels and chicken bones?  Seems they're cheating on their stats--including inedible waste boosts their headline figure of how much we waste.  Shame.

The analysis goes on to say: 

"... many consumers appear to stash Tupperware containers in their fridge and then forget to excavate them before the food goes bad. Other times, consumers grow bored of eating the same food on multiple occasions.“There were two big reasons people threw out edible food,” Gunders said. “They thought it had spoiled, or they just didn’t like leftovers.”

We've done that, but we should blame our huge refrigerators (in huge houses--have you ever noticed the refrigerators in the kitchens of British houses in their murder mysteries--usually the size of the fridges for college dorm rooms these days) and Tupperware.  :-)

Big Chickens: Taste and the Globe

Interesting piece in today's Times on chickens.  Scientists are trying to develop a chicken which tastes better and grows more slowly, and also is more active:

Today’s conventional broiler chickens have been bred over the years to produce the most amount of meat in as short a time as possible, reducing a farmer’s costs and increasing profits. In 1935, the average broiler chicken reached the slaughter-ready weight of 2.86 pounds in 98 days, according to the National Chicken Council. Today’s broilers are an average of 6.18 pounds at the time of slaughter, when they are about 47 days old.

 My uncle was a research scientist at the ARS Beltsville MD center, working on nutrition, which adds to my youthful exposure to chickens on the farm.

The food movement faces a conflict here:  on the one hand this fits the current emphasis on moving from "industrial agriculture" to more focus on taste and nature; on the other hand a slow growth chicken means a bigger impact on the environment because it eats more grain over its lifespan.

Complications of Organic Farming

Extension has a piece where they analyzed the phosphorus and potassium added to an organic farm (since 1985) and the adverse effects of excess P and K.

Perhaps I'm too skeptical of the food movement but I suspect some of the adherents believe that "natural" equates to "easy".  After all, if you don't have to hassle with herbicides and pesticides and just rely on Mother Nature how difficult could farming be?  But as shown in the piece, if you want to maximize what you produce you're faced with the problem of analyzing and adjusting your inputs.

A New Front for Animal Rights--Voluntary Milking?

Modern Farmer has a post describing the voluntary milking robot systems being installed on big dairy farms.

DeLaval has a set of photos -- sure don't look like dairy barn I grew up with. 

If I understand "voluntary" means a cow can walk into the robot and be milked whenever she wants.  While I've always believed dairies generally took good care of their cows, the voluntary aspect is something entirely new.  There would seem to a tension between the food movement, which likely disapproves of the size a dairy needs to be to justify such a robot system, and the animal rights movement, which should see a gain to animal welfare from the voluntary milking.

The Romantic Virtues of Dirt

The NYTimes had an article on the definition of "organic": specifically can vegetables grown through hydroponics be considered "organic"?  There's different views, particularly the big hydroponic growers who can get premium prices for their hothouse produce as compared to the dirt based organics.

Back in the day there would have been no question:  the organic movement had IMHO a romantic view of the virtues of dirt: there was a magic in the dirt, perhaps embodied in the bacteria and organisms present in natural soil, soil which had not been denaturalized by the repeated applications of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.  (Though back in the 1950's it was mostly fertilizers, not so much herbicides and pesticides.)  The organic people had a faith in nature, usually "Nature", that exceeded their faith in man.  It's partly the old top-down, bottom-up dichotomy.  If you believe in human reason you think people can figure out anything and then improve on what's developed from the past.  If you have a less strong belief, either in the strength of reason or in current development of understanding of natural phenomena, or if you want to avoid the work of understanding, you trust in nature.

I see a similar dichotomy in the controversies over GMO's or the precautionary principle.  I'd generally expect the Trump USDA to go with the hydroponics people, but maybe I'm just using the stereotype of Republicans favoring business people.

Dairy: Supply Management Versus Organic

NYTimes has a story on Canadian dairy farmers and their relationship to the EU (remember the Canada/EU treaty which was delayed for a bit by Walloon dairy farmers (i.e., Belgium).  Their concern is that more cheese may be imported from the EU into Canada. Two paragraphs:

The way the country’s “supply management” system works now, Canadian dairy farms are almost guaranteed to prosper. Milk production is controlled by quotas, marketing boards keep prices high and stable, and import duties of up to 300 percent largely shut out competition from abroad.

But after the deal, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which was signed on Sunday, comes into effect, much more imported cheese will be allowed to enter Canada duty-free from the Continent. And farmers worry that this one dent in their defenses could be the beginning of the end for supply management.

Later the article cites an estimate of over $200 per year in additional costs for dairy products for the average Canadian farmer, or roughly $.50 a day.  Some speculations:

So the Canadian system probably maintains a lot of smaller family dairies, farms which have been lost in the U.S. as dairies got bigger and bigger.  (Maybe I'll get ambitious and research the point--looks like 11,000 farms averaging about 90 cows.  It's hard to get comparable data but a quick skim of this says my generalizations seem valid. This seems to say that there's proportionately more organic dairies/cows in the US..)  The food movement would like that.  But the dairy products in the grocery stores are likely rather generic; with supply management protecting a farmer's place in the economy, there's little incentive to experiment with organic milk, raw milk, or niche cheeses.  The food movement won't like that.

The bottom line, very tentatively, is: families can pay more to preserve family farms or pay more for choice of milk products (i.e., organic).  The downside of supply management is the higher prices apply to all; the upside of the US system is consumers can choose whether to pay the premium prices for organic.

Small Gardens in the UK

The "allotment" in the UK is like a plot in a community gardens in the US, except with a much longer history..  It's a reflection of the difference in the two nations that a scholar is able to come up with estimates of the total number of allotments over more than a century, up to a million such gardens in a nation of maybe sixty million people.  Also in the UK, unlike the US, the national government had legislation on the subject, dating back to 1907, with allotment gardens dating back to the early or mid 19th century.

According to the linked piece, the evolution of allotments in the UK involved differing motivations and rationales: supplying the needs of the working class; serving as a hobby for middle classes; a focal point for socialization; and finally the trendy ecological concerns of recent times.

I show my prejudices by noting this long historical perspective should serve as a caution to US enthusiasts.

Urban Density Versus Urban Farming

Many people, Matt Yglesias  for one, believe in urban density, arguing that it's efficient, supports interesting lifestyles, helps the environment, etc. etc.  Many of the same sort of people (i.e., highly educated types) believe in the food movement, some of whom believe in urban farming.   There's tension between the two principles.  This piece in Modern Farmer on the battle over converting an urban garden to an urban hospital shows the tension.

The Lesson of Self-Sufficiency in Food: Boredom

Modern farmer describes an attempt by a man to eat only food grown on his land.  Some caveats: some grocery items and the trial lasted only 100 days.  His family was less enthusiastic.   The big downside: boredom.  100 broilers were to provide meat for a year, but his kids got tired of a chicken and veggie stir-fry after 3 days.

That's the point of our modern food system: incredible variety.  Back in the day we ate lots of potatoes, a lot of roast beef, and a lot of overcooked vegetables.  No more.  No more that is unless you voluntarily trade variety for other benefits.

Haspel on Vertical Farming

I respect Tamar Haspel's work, so I buy her conclusions on the tradeoffs involved with indoor, vertical farming.  Bottomline: because of the energy involved, the carbon footprint of current day vertical farms (of lettuce) is much bigger than for more conventional operations.  Efficiencies might import, and the lettuce produced has some advantages.

I've mocked vertical farming before, but that's the plans relying on sunlight.  I'd observe that growing lettuce is, I'd guess, the choosing the easiest path for artificial light farming.  And while these operations fit the locavore template, they don't fit the organic template.

Strange Bedfellows: Farmers Union and Crunchies

The crunchies, the food movement, generally like to criticize "corporate farming" and praise the family farm.  That's in line with the populism of Great Plains farmers, which were able to get passed bans on corporate farming years and years ago.  See this Blog for Rural America post on the renewed fight in ND.  (I don't see the ND food movement weighing in .)