EAT LOCAL THURSDAY

With the average of about one per cent of retail food being sold in locally owned businesses, there's a hell of a lot of food being retailed in externally owned enterprises - supermarkets. The effects of this may not be as obvious in cities but, in country towns, this means DEATH for small businesses.

Yes - when applying the mantra 'time is money' most people don't have time to make more than one or two stops to purchase local food....the baker, butcher, green-grocer, service station, pharmacy, newsagent or hardware store. How convenient to park once, pay once and acquire all you need in one location.

BUT - the longer term consequences toll the death knell for small town economies........ unless......an alternative is created.

EAT LOCAL THURSDAY is an iniative to bring locally owned businesses, growers, cooks,  backyard gardeners and EATERS to the one location one day for four hours one day every week; think of a Farmers Market one a week instead of only once a fortnight or month.

The difference between a Farmers Market and EAT LOCAL THURSDAY is that existing local food enterprises are included so their support of local produce and goods can be displayed in another forum, too.

Open from 2.00pm until 6.00pm, mums can shop for dinner before picking the children up from school and people who work in the town can buy local tucker for dinner instead of calling in to the supermarket.

The most important element is the organisation of the back-end.... co-ordination, perfect location, acquire the necessary council approval (if required), contacting the suppliers, and promotion and marketing of the event to possibly the most important people -

 .......the eaters........

This isn't difficult, it simply takes a person with excellent organising skills, a welcoming smile and attention to detail.  Promoting via social media, leaflets to work places and schools, arranging to meet friends there, liaising with suppliers and creating a special dish from the available ingredients and radio, TV and newspaper interviews uploaded onto You Tube are all doable and effective.

The website www.eat-local-thursday.org.au is (at this stage) mythical, and will be the point where all locations will be recorded. Each location is unique, specific, important and, dare I say it, has its own flavour  :-)

EAT LOCAL THURSDAY is a simple, inexpensive and effective way to commence Our Local Food Economy, a few mouthfuls at a time.

Thanks to the fabulous Joel Salatin who has a knack of wiring words together in his indefatigable manner.........

YOU, AS A FOOD BUYER, HAVE THE DISTINCT PRIVILEGE OF PROACTIVELY 

PARTICIPATING  IN SHAPING THE WORLD YOUR CHILDREN WILL INHERIT.

Please contact me for assistance in creating EAT LOCAL THURSDAY in YOUR town.

Feast locally, and often.....your economic future depends on it.  

  

Our Local Food Economy

Organising a public event always has its share of trepidation .......you put yourself into the public realm, appear confident and hope for the best.  At the end, you hope the outcome is worth the effort.

And  so it was for the very first Public Meeting in Australia to gauge interest in establishing Our Local Food Economy in Wagga Wagga, in southern NSW.  A city of 65,000 people including Army and Air Force bases, the largest campus of the Charles Sturt University (CSU), a well populated industrial precinct, innumerable schools, a record of outstanding sporting talent and located on the iconic Murrumbidgee River, this area in the Riverina region is blessed with diverse geographic micro-climates capable of producing a vast array of foods.

However, trying to find locally produced goods in retail food outlets is very tricky as supermarkets dominate this scene. Wagga is typical of all Australian cities in that almost all food is sold through supermarkets, mainly Coles and Woolworths (80%), 19% via Aldi and the IGA / Franklins network, and the final one per cent in locally owned bakers, butchers, green-grocers, and maybe a health food shop or two. Coupled with this are dozens of national-chain fast-food outlets (doing this research I was staggered to discover brands I thought were local and original, are actually franchises). The back-end supply of these outlets come from centralised manufacturing plants a long way from Wagga!

Once when in the shopping centre known as The Market Place, I was temporarily disoriented as this retail centre was a carbon copy to the ones in Bathurst, Orange, Albury, Dubbu and Armidale, places I had visited recently. For a few moments I had to trawl through my memory wondering where I actually was as every regional Market Place is identical. There was no clue on any of the national-chain shopfronts to remind me that I was actually in Wagga Wagga. Talk about identity theft!

This incident raised questions in my mind as to what are the constituents of a thriving local economy? What actually is 'economic development' from the perspective of the local council, an independent shop owner, a person who is a franchisee and consumers?

Inspired by E.F. Schumacher's "Economics as if People Matter" and his "Small is Beautiful" this focus requires us to stop thinking in mass generalisations (macro-scale) and instead slow down, take out our magnifying glass and really see all the minutae in operating systems. A small or micro-business shares some similarities to an ant-nest or beehive; busyness to create business. Effort for rewards. Resourcefulness. Co-operation and collaboration. Quality relationships. effective communiciation. Respect for the environment which provides the necessary resources to create an enterprise. These are characteristics which can - need - to be replicated for a diverse and strong local economy.

Thirty people attended the meeting, there were 20 apologies and a delicious shared supper enjoyed by everyone there. The final outcome demonstrated, for me, the success of the event; more than a third of the attendees committed to being involved in the next steps.....now underway.

The first of The General Stores will soon be underway.......watch this space!

People-scale economies

What interesting information disclosed by the UK Institute of Mechanical Engineers today.
 

Their research calculated that half....... fifty per cent - yes, 50% of all the food produced in the world, is wasted.......not eaten.......thrown out (to landfill, probably)....unavailable to those who could do with it.......and causing undue pressure on farmers to increase productivity to 'feed the starving millions'.

This information turns the predictions that the capacity of the world is unable to feed all the inhabitants, on its bloody head....something many of us have known for years. This information also contradicts Peter Landridge's recent comments -  http://theconversation.edu.au/australia-cant-feed-the-world-but-it-can-help-11269#comment_104837 where macro-economic decisions usually result in dastardly micro-effects on those interesting things known as people, families and communities, far, far removed from where the original decisions were made.

The proponents of 'we need to produce more food to feed nine billion people' will have to think up a new mantra as this issue isn't about quantity; it's always been about distribution, globalisation, competition, exploitation and control.

It's interesting to ponder which tact Monsanto will now take instead of the tired old 'GM is necessary to increase food production'....? Yeah, right! So if the issue isn't about a lack of food, how will the promoters of commodities justify their positions now? Is this an opportunity to reduce the quantity of food stuffs on the planet which may, just may, actually increase the price of what will be scarcer items? (Just applying the old demand-and-supply elasticity concept.) Ultimately, this outcome is the result of globalisation of food and its production in a globally competitive market place.

Calculate the cost of producing the goods which actually aren't used by the end-eater and there are billions of dollars revolving around the gloablised world which have to end up somewhere, don't they? So, where do they eventually end?  I don't know but I suspect the cost of wastage would be greater than the combined GDP's of many countries - combined - and worth serious consideration.

Lately I've been reading a new book "Linchpin: are you indispenasble?' by Seth Goden and his take on the global market places for labour. "Organisations turn employees into replaceable cogs in a vast machine...the easier people are to replace, the less they need to be paid. And, so far, workers have been complicit in this commoditisation.'
.....and.....
'If you build a business filles with rules and procedures that are designed to allow you to hire cheap people, you will have to produce a product without humanity or personalisation or connection. Which means you'll have to lower your prices to compete......which leads to a race to the bottom'.
....and.....
'Consumers are not loyal to cheap commodities. Sure, you can always succeed for a while with the cheapest but you earn your place in the market with humanity and leadership.'

I think this describes the globalised food system quite well.

An old favourite I re-read last night is 'Only Connect: soil. soul, society' and an essay by David Korten titled "Ecology of Money'. Some excerpts.....

'The vocabulary of finance and economics is itself a world of doublespeak that obscures the real nature and ways of money....'

'We now live in a world ruled by a global financial  casino. It is staffed by faceless bankers, money managers anmd hedge-fund speculators who operate with a herd mentality and send exchange rates and stoack prices into wild gyrations unrelated to any underlying economic reality.'
(My comment - what is the ultimate computer game? Playing the money market with someone else's moolah and not having to wear any of the bad decisions.)

'While modern capitalism involves and unconscionale concentration of wealth by the few to the exclusion of the many, it is (now) more than a system of rule by human elites. It has evolved into a system of autonomous rule by money and for money that functions on autopilot beyond the control of any human actor and is largely unresponsive to human needs and sensibilities.'

And now some heartening ideas.......

'In a healthy market economy, enterprises are human-scale and 

predominantly locally owned. Econmic exchanges are shaped and 

controlled by people through the expression of their cultural values, 

their purchasing decisions, their democratic participation in 

setting the rules by which the market will function, 

and their ownership of local enterprises. 

It is a dynamic and interactive system in which people participate 

in many roles and bring their human sensibilities to bear on 

every aspect of economic life.'

A real-life example of small is beautiful is in Vermont, USA. http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/coming_home_the_reinvention_of_localized_economies/ 

Based on British economist F E Schumacher's economic concept, this is what is possible all over Australia. On the south coast of NSW is the South Coast Producers Association which I suspect is the closest to the Vermont example we have. Visit www.scpa.org.au and you'll be inspired by the range of activities, people, plant communities, markets, sharing and commerce taking place in and around Bega.

  

The time is ripe for changing the entrenched and very few systems available for people to obtain food.

If we want to eat ethically and locally grown foods all we need is a vision, some clever organisation, persistence in the face of resistance, ear-plugs to ignore those who'll tell you "It'll never work" and a few friends who love to feast on local foods.

Seth Goden refers to the artist in each of us......busting to break out of confinement and express who we are and what we are capable of.......living humanity and leadership and not being content to be a hamster on someone else's wheel.

 

The intimate life

Possibly for the first time in my adult life, I am in true holiday mode.....so much so that my mind feels as though it's in free-fall and I'm tempted to see what happens if I don't pull the 'chute cord!

We are farm-sitting friend's 100-acre property on the Murrumbidgee River just east of Wagga and it is so beautiful to see the full moon without light pollution.....with Venus hovering just above her at 1100 as she reaches above the horizon at dusk. The range of pinks in the sky are reflected on the quiet river with the statuesque river red gums silhouetted against the water punctuated by small eddies and patterns as it flows over barely submerged snags.
Watching the currents and under-currents reminds me of the parallel universes we all live in; there are the bleeding obvious activities we participate in (how often are we the hamster on someone else's wheel...?) and then there are the barely perceptible murmurings of happenings literally outside our vision and perception but there none-the-less.
The levels in which we engage in life and the plethora of details associated with each engagement provides the intimacy which provides meaning and purpose to our existence.
Holidays always include reading and the list this time includes two rich in explicit detail.
FOOD HEROES: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Traditions is written by Georgia Pellegrini (2010) published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York, and describes the lifelong passion and expertise of the selected foodies. Chapters include -

• The Potato Breeder (from Ireland)
  
• Healing with Olive Oil (from France)
• The Seed Saver (from the USA)
• Butter Poetry (from the UK) and 
• The Persimmon Masseuse ( from the USA)

The intimate details of each person's life of dedication to their art reveals how sensory this connection and knowledge is and dares the reader to bare their own heart and underbelly where vulnerability lies. Emotions fuel the fever for more understanding and contact with each of these beautiful natural offerings which provide sustenance and nourishment for us. These foods are not commodities - they have names and idiosyncracies and moods and responses to external stimuli. These are the fortunate ones unlike their cousins who are grown as commodities and nonconformity is discarded and reviled. Yes, I include animals and plants in this prose.
The other treasure with numerous paper tags hanging from its borders is FOUR SEASONS on HENRY'S FARM: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm by Terra Brockman (2009) published by Agate, Chicago). This author is gifted in describing every season's changes and nuances so that when reading about harvesting the last of the vegetables for the last Farmers Market prior to the big cold settling in, I had to don a woolly beanie and a scarf! 
It is the detail of how a drop of rain pauses on a leaf before toppling to the ground that can influence how quickly that drop may infiltrate the vegetation....and the soil; if there isn't any vegetation, that drop could be one of millions which becomes surface water and flows off to contribute to the formation of a creek or rivulet.
The human interactions with Nature are so respectful, cautious and apprciative. The ebbs and flows of each season inform the activities for up to the next 12 months in order to have continuity of produce in harmony with the conditions which change from year-to-year. 
This is the detail I love knowing and experiencing so my ignorance is diminished and my appreciation for who grows our food increases exponentially.
Here on the river, under the north-facing verandah, more of Nature's miracles are hatching.

This female restless flycatcher (and her mate) have built a nest from fibres, spider webs and mud on the branch of a climbing rose bush, about 3 metres from the ground. I'm always in awe of the design, engineering and construction skills of birds (who don't need architects, building inspectors or approval) to build these exquisite structures with their beaks and two tiny clawed feet! Perhaps there's something we humans can learn from birds about the design and construction of dwellings?
Another beautiful day is drawing to a colourful close with yet another dramatic sunset waiting to draw our breaths away. The sulphur-crested cockatoos are communicating with each other with a host of messages in nuanced shrieks, and the flycatchers, fairy wrens and silver-eyes are darting expertly around us catching those last tasty insects in the evening air.
Being intimate is to take risks - that we may reveal so  much of ourselves we appear to be human. Emotions are the glues which bind us together yet are derided in a linear, rational market economy-driven culture. As Seth Goden writes in  Linchpin: are you indispensable? being an artist in every facet of life is now a standout feature and requires emotional labour in the face and world of ridicule and quantification of everything.
This life of pleasure in every facet or our world is so darn precious.....and I am so grateful for those who cherish their intimate relationships with their, and my world.
Thank you.

Why young people aren't becoming farmers

Well, why would you?

There's presently an enquiry being conducted by Professor Jim Pratley as to why the numbers of students into courses in Agriculture in Australian universities is in rapid decline so the following information may help inform him.

In spite of exhortations that 'agriculture is now a sexy technologically based industry' the numbers of enrolling students continue to drop.

In spite of agriculture graduates being snapped up by corporate farms and agri-chemical companies, still the numbers decline.

What is missing?

Perhaps the charm isn't in the combination of the words 'agriculture' and 'science'....?

With forecasts of food production needing to double by 2050 to feed the nine billion people on the planet, 'there's been no greater need for agricultural scientists, as now'.

One reason I see for the lack of interest is the disconnection between the growing of highly nutritious food and people. Up until the last three generations, ordinary people - backyarders, farmers, children, anyone and everyone, really, has been responsible for producing at least some of their own food. There has been a generational transfer of knowledge through stories and experience, such as saving seeds, harvesting pumpkins,  spotting the desirable attributes of an excellent milking cow or the perfect time to slaughter that sheep for the family.

Agriculture and especially the addition of science has removed the everyday access to  growing food so that is now seen as a technical specialist's profession.....and you require university training to be able to do that.

I recently saw the home page of an Australian university's Faculty of Environmental and Agricultural Science. There were four pictures and in every one, the humans all were clad in protective clothing - to grow "food".  How natural is that? How safe is that?

 Growing food, just like saving seeds and genetics has been a normal part of life processes yet commercial intervention (patented genetically engineered seeds) is preventing this from occurring.

Another reason why young people aren't becoming farmers is because of the commodity-production-economic model.


How atrractive is the following scenario?

You're going to grow wheat, and sheep for wool and meat. To sow the crop, you have to buy the seed, diesel for the tractor (assuming you have equipment already) and if you are in the high synthetic input sector, herbicides, fertilisers and possibly fungicides if there's an outbreak of crown rot. All this has to be paid for before the crop is harvested so about four to six months out.

These are the costs of production which, in every other manufacturing sector, 

are added to the final sale price of the goods.

Then, there's the really odd situation of sometimes not even knowing how much per tonne the actual crop is worth until harvest. The variables which can affect this aspect include how much wheat is already in the global pool (more equals less $/tonne), if you have on-farm storage, if there's been rain prior to harvest which causes the shot-and-sprung scenario, and  the percentage of screenings which can downgrade to feed-grade, to name a few.

The final price received does not take into account the costs of production which, 

IN THIS SYSTEM CANNOT BE ADDED SO A PROFIT CAN BE MADE.

How can you run a viable and reliable enterprise without all the information?

Then there are the sheep producing wool and meat. With the traditional auction selling systems, again you don't know the eventual price offered and the costs of production cannot be added into setting a final price.

While commodity farmers remain price-takers, young people will not enter the industry as this economic model is a ticket to insolvency and perpetual debt.

A recent report from the Chair of the Northern Australia Beef Research Council includes the vast levels of debt most of the producers carry and the difficulty to be profitable, despite productivity gains over the past decade.

Why would anyone, least of all someone under the age of 30, want to be saddled with debt when the first $200,000 always goes to the bank?

How can any sector progress while this is the traditional economic model?

Reality is - it can't and won't.

If we want more young people to become farmers there has to be a 180 degree change from the status quo where it is acceptable and expected that farmers will be price takers. In this situation there is little repsect for the products or the producers.

Farming - not just agriculture - but the full and beautiful gamit of growing food needs a serious make-over, starting with new ways of selling goods so (at least) the costs of production can be added into the final price received. Lowering the costs of production is always a critical component of running a viable business and will always be important. BUT, farming cannnot be a viable economic activity (for farmers) while commodities focus on quantity, not quality and there's no opporunity for growers to make regular profits.

Time to step off the commodity treadmill and do things differently.

Welcome to the exciting world of food!

Feasting Locally, and Often

When I sign emails I add the salutation "Cheers, laughing and feasting locally and often' which makes perfect sense to me.
Laughing is a serious matter for some and in the often micro-managed halls of the Australian Public Service, it is a rare occurrance as 'governing the country is a very serious business'. Laughter and flippancy are often nobbled together - a misleading assumption which needs to be revolutionised and the sooner the better. (Did I mention I live in the national capital of Australia?)
Anyway, back to the topic of feasting locally.
One tactic is to patronise locally owned eating houses in preference to national chain operated outlets and by doing so, you are contributing significantly to the local economy. Last week I did some research into the real dollar value when purchasing from a locally owned cafe, restaurant or supermarket as opposed to buying from a national chain store.
Outcome?
Staggering.

Sadly there isn't (yet) any Australian data on the value of feasting locally so I used information from US based www.civiceconomics.com demonstrating -

"In the food sector, local restaurants re-circulate 79% of their turnover back into the local economy whereas national chain eateries return only 30%’

Local (non-food) retailers returned (an average of) 52% of turnover to their local economies in the form of –

                  1.  Profits to local workers. 

                  2.  Wages. 

                  3.  Procurement of local goods and services for internal use.                                      4.  Procurement of local goods for resale and,

                  5. Charitable giving within the community.

Alternatively, national chain operators returned 14% of turnover to that local economy.

So, time for some quick-and-dirty-on-the-back-of-an-envelope calculations to get an idea of the quantity of economic leakage in the regional NSW city of Wagga with a population of 65,000 people. There are 13 supermarkets in town already (Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Franklins and IGA) with another two approved for construction in 2013. (In Australia, 80% of retailed food is through two supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths and their subsidiaries. Nineteen per cent is via the IGA chain supplied by Metcash with the remaining one per cent independently and locally owned.)
 

Using the data in the table below and assuming that 98% of the food in the meals consumed in Wagga have been bought from a supermarket and applying the same ratio as above, the economic leakages from Wagga in one year are considerable.   

We are talking SERIOUS money here.

WAGGA WAGGA		EST  $ OF MEALS	TOTAL MEALS	PER DAY $	PER WEEK $	PER YEAR $
POPULATION	65,000	$2	195,000	390,000	2,730,000	142,350,000
MEALS PER DAY	3	$3	195,000	585,000	4,095,000	213,525,000
TOTAL MEALS / DAY	195,000	$4	195,000	780,000	5,460,000	284,700,000

Now is the time to ask a few 'What If' questions.

What if there was an increase to 10% of locally owned food retailing enterprises? (Level playing fields are another equation altogether.) These types of businesses include butchers, bakers, green-grocers, delicatessens, milk bars, patisseries and charceuteries sourcing 50% of their ingredients from local suppliers and growers?

What if all schools, the council, pre-schools, factory canteens, TAFE, the University, Kapooka Army base,Forest Hill Air Force base, nursing homes and hospitals committed to procuring 50% of their food needs via locally owned enterprises?

What if  preference was given to foods grown within a 200 kilometre radius of Wagga by the above institutions and enterprises? 

What if employment and enterprises in the food growing and processing sector  increased by 34% in 12 months as a result of the above activities?

With even a ten percent buying switch to local food retailing enterprises, this represents a return and recirculation of revenue to the local economy of at least $25 million.

What could be achieved with an economic transfusion of this proportion?

A feast can be anywhere! Taste Riverina 2012

October 2012 was a month of and for Feasting with the inaugural Taste Riverina involving ten council areas and thousands of visitors experiencing memorable events.
This event highlighted the vast diversity of regional foods, clever and passionate people and the support from 'locals' who patronised the dozens of events.
Committment was evident BUT the big question for me is "What happens on the 1st November after the feastival is over?"
Why can't the Taste Riverina festival be all year 'round? Why does it have to be only a once-a-year event? This should be normal so local food is accessible all the time.
The dollar value of the event is still being calculated and I suspect there will be pleasant surprises when the figuring is completed.
    
Part of our challenge to feast locally and often is to actually locate local tucker when the Farmers Markets aren't on and that is time consuming. Another aspect of the challenge is to use imagination and create meals using ingredients which haven't been imported - either from overseas or interstate. The Riverina has incredible geographic and (micro) climatic diversity and can grow almost anything. 
When I ask people why they don't purchase locally produced goods, the usual answer is "I don't have time to go and find them' and this is a real dilemma. In spite of the Riverina producing vast quantities and diversity of food, the present retail food system does not / will not purchase directly from a small-scale grower. The present consolidation and re-dsitribution system sees hundreds of trucks hurtling around the country carting produce away from where it was grown, to a central location then carting it back again to the supermarkets.
 
What if there was a system where locally grown produce was consolidated and on-line purchasing was available?  What if local knowledge was captured and fertilised to inspire and produce a new generation of growers, cooks and social enterprises? What if the Wagga economy could recirculate $25 million a year into securing employment, enterprise, food supplies for all the population and avoid the risks of people going without food in the event of more floods and weather variations?

Rural and regional economies are negatively impacted by globalisation and so called 'Free' Trade Agreements. The World Trade Organisation's charter is destructive to localised economies so perhaps now is the time to reject the free-market economic model and adopt (embrace) the economics of happiness model.  If we do, what's the worst thing that could happen?  We could laugh more  :-) increase our sense of wellbeing and, feast locally and often.

Feasting material from the Canberra Farmers Market, March 2012