The Locavore's Dilemma

by Pierre Desrochers

  —JOHN ATKINSON HOBSON. 1910.

  The Industrial System: An Inquiry into Earned and Unearned Income.

  Longmans, Green & Co, p. 320

  From the beginning of markets and civilization, intermediaries have been engaged in the assembling, grading, packaging, processing, storing, transporting, financing, distributing, and advertising of goods and services of all kinds. As a result of their activities, primary producers and final consumers quickly lost track of each other. Writing more than two millennia ago, Plato described in his Republic a class of “retailers” who “sit in the market-place [and] engaged in buying and selling.” These individuals proved especially useful when a farmer brought “some production to market . . . at a time when there is no one to exchange with him.”1 Closer to us, in an economic fable written in the 1840s, the economist Frédéric Bastiat described a French shoemaker who could not identify the countries of origins for the wheat that fed him, the coal that kept him warm, and the leather, nails, and hammer that he used in his trade.2 In Tess of the d’Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel, two protagonists talk about the milk they have just loaded onto a train in the following way:“Londoners will drink it at their breakfasts to-morrow, won’t they?” she asked. “Strange people that we have never seen.”

  “Yes—I suppose they will. Though not as we send it. When its strength has been lowered, so that it may not get up into their heads.”

  “Noble men and noble women, ambassadors and centurions, ladies and tradeswomen, and babies who have never seen a cow.”

  “Well, yes; perhaps; particularly centurions.”

  “Who don’t know anything of us, and where it comes from; or think how we two drove miles across the moor to-night in the rain that it might reach ’em in time?”3

  By the early 1920s, the geographer Ray Hughes Whitbeck documented how “one or more railway companies, several truckmen, a wholesale dealer or two, a retail dealer and his clerks, a delivery boy, and perhaps several other persons or corporations” along with perhaps even “one or more brokers” stood between a grapefruit grower and his laborers and his final consumer in a northern American city.4

  Not surprisingly, these activities have long been decried as superfluous and parasitical by critics who, as Bastiat observed in 1848, “would willingly eliminate the capitalist, the banker, the speculator, the entrepreneur, the businessman, and the merchant, accusing them of interposing themselves between producer and consumer in order to fleece them both, without giving them anything of value.”5 Antipathy against intermediaries was always heightened during food crises. Writing in the early years of the Napoleonic wars, a time of rapid price increases, the political economist Robert Thomas Malthus observed that the general indignation of common people had fallen upon “monopolizers, forestallers, and regraters—words, that are . . . applied indiscriminately to all middle men whatever, to every kind of trader that goes between the grower of the commodity and the consumer . . .”6

  Today’s locavores are but the latest activists to echo this sentiment with their contention that direct relationships between producers and consumers will improve a community’s social capital while putting more money directly into farmers’ (as opposed to intermediaries’) pockets. Another frequent claim is that the prying eyes of nearby consumers will drastically accelerate the adoption of more sustainable farming practices than if food is sourced from distant producers subject to impersonal competitive pressures. To quote activist Jill Richardson:At its heart, the [local food] movement is about relationships. When you buy food at the store, your purchasing decision rests mainly on marketing claims. But when I pick up my weekly box of produce from Farmer Phil, I know exactly how and where he grew my food, and that his values are consistent with mine. Organic certification alone does not certify anything other than a minimum bar of standards; by buying from farmers who are part of my community, whose farms I’ve visited, I am contributing to my local economy, supporting my friends’businesses, and getting great, fresh food. And the farmers from whom I buy are taking care of the land right near where I live.7

  Despite its appeal, the locavores’ well-meaning longings for direct relationships will prove inherently expensive and wasteful—and, as such, unlikely to promote the creation of much social capital. Our point here is not that all intermediaries necessarily add value; rather, what we challenge is the belief that the elimination of intermediaries will in itself benefit both producers and consumers.8 In order to make our case, though, a few words are warranted on some underappreciated mechanisms and institutions that underpin modern market transactions.

  Grades, Standards, and Brands

  Consumers can typically learn about the variety, quality, and countries of origins of the fruits, vegetables, meat, and farm-raised fish and seafood they purchase on a regular basis, but not necessarily the name of specific producers.9 So why do we buy specific grades of different types of apples rather than the offerings of farmer McDonald? Simply put, because the advantages of such a system were too great for both consumers and the most efficient producers to be ignored. Think of it this way. While most apples in retail stores have become “undifferentiated” as far as their appearance and quality are concerned, not all apples - even if grown on the same tree—are treated the same. In our country, they are classified according to quality and consistency: Canada Extra Fancy, Canada Fancy, Canada Commercial, Canada Hailed, Canada Commercial Cookers, Canada No. 1 Peelers, and Canada No. 2 Peelers. Depending on their grade, apples will be sold directly to consumers or to food manufacturers who need “good enough” apples for making juice, pie and pastry fillings, jelly and other products rather than the perfect apples sold directly to consumers.

  Grades and standards help to ensure that producers of quality output obtain maximum value; that buyers of all kinds of agricultural commodities know exactly what they are getting without having to inspect every shipment; that handling (regular size and shape are essential for most efficient and secure packaging) and transportation can be done more effectively by combining the production of similar goods from different producers; and that commodities not deemed suitable for human consumption are nonetheless put to other appropriate uses (from animal feed to industrial grade alcohol). This system had many pioneers, but Danish pig producers were once among the most celebrated. As the geographer Joseph Russell Smith wrote admiringly in 1917, the “marvelous [standardized Danish pig] is a certain cross of breeds being grown by thousands of farmers, fed in approximately the same way, slaughtered at the uniform size of maximum efficiency for food consumption, cut up and cured in the prescribed way so that a piece of Danish bacon is a piece of Danish bacon, and you can buy it with your eyes shut.”10

  One often-highlighted advantage of product standardization in its early days was that it significantly reduced food waste. Manufacturers were able “to pack the produce of a hundred gardens from a hundred nearby farms or backyards, freely commingling them if need be, and put up standardized packages of peas, beans and beets of the same variety, picked in the same degree of ripeness and thus acceptable in any market to which they could be easily sent.”11 By facilitating sales in a wide variety of markets, grades and standards ensured that orders could be made in advance and perishable produce shipped around most efficiently where there was an effective demand.12

  Predictably, the geographical origins of standardized commodities became increasingly distant from their points of sale. In 1925, the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture of Pennsylvania observed that, despite the initiatives of local food activists described in chapter 1, chain stores had from their beginning been “more inclined to buy in carload lots from the large producing centers, where they can get a standard grade of product which will run more uniform than the seasonal output of local producers.” Nonetheless, local producers who could supply a “substantial quantity of graded, dependable products” were able to thrive. He further added that through modern methods “the number of intermediate handlings are reduced very greatly and tran
sportation charges are at a minimum with the result that both producer and consumer find the outcome satisfactory.”13 However, as could be expected of all public officials whose support relied to some extent on local farmers threatened by “outside” competition (in this case, mostly from Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland), he insisted that a “better balance between local production and consumption is in the interest of society as a whole” and that it would “seem desirable from many standpoints for our population to spread out in more moderate-sized centers, within easy reach of extensive food production areas, rather than to further congest in large cities.”14 As we now know, none of this happened in following decades as customers typically insisted on maximum value for their dollars rather than giving priority to geographical origins.

  Greater quality, convenience, affordability, and reduced waste are not the only tangible benefits of modern retail food practices. Through the development of brands for mass-produced commodities and products (brand-name reputations for luxury products go back at least to Antiquity), consumers were able to economize on the time that would have otherwise been required to establish the trustworthiness of multiple suppliers. Of course, marketers rarely refrained from simultaneously using both technological novelty and pastoral nostalgia or to stretch or bend the truth as much as possible in order to promote their products. For instance, the Quaker Oats man came to symbolize a firm with no connections to the Society of Friends, but whose founders liked the values associated with the group. Nonetheless, individuals who purchased Quaker Oats products could be assured of their quality, uniformity, and reliability. Large businesses that claimed too much for their products were always kept in check by trial lawyers and competitors on the lookout for deep pockets that strayed too far from truth-in-advertising. Some readers might remember the case of the Papa John’s chain, which got into legal trouble in the late 1990s because of its slogan “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza!” something the firm obviously couldn’t prove. Small firms and fly-by-night operations, on the other hand, rarely if ever face such constraints as they are not worth their competitors’ and trial lawyers’ time and resources.

  Interestingly, 19th century food activists were forever denouncing the shady dealings of local businesspeople whom they accused of adulterating food in various ways, be it by adding water to milk, wine and beer; roasted chicory roots, peas, beans, and other grains to coffee; poppy seed oil to olive oil; leaves of all kinds to tea; floor sweepings of pepper houses into pepper; alum, chalk, white clay, bone ashes, field beans, and copper sulphate (to mask its spoiled character) to flour; rice powder and arrow roots to cream; crushed olive stones in pepper; starch to sausages; spurred rye to bread; glucose, sorghum, corn, and boiled brown sugar to maple syrup; and of artificially inflating the weight of wheat by keeping it in humid conditions; feeding salt to cattle in order to get them to drink plenty of water and artificially increase their weight, and tampering with weighing devices, among others.15 A classic 1820 treatment of the issue is entitled Treatise on the Adulteration of Foods, and Culinary Poisons, Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spirituous Liquors, Tea, Coffee, Cream, Confectionery, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, Cheese, Olive Oil, Pickles, and Other Articles Employed in Domestic Economy, and Methods of Detecting Them.16

  Not surprisingly, such accusations were always easier to direct at foreign than local producers. For instance, a French Inspector General at the Paris Customs, Jacques Savary des Brûlons, observed in the late 18th century that Irish producers had “no scruples about adding all matter of substances to increase the weight [of goods] such as… tallow in butter, pebbles in tallow and the horns and feet of cattle in barrels of salted meat.”17 Of course, it is probably worth keeping in mind that because of the inherently protectionist bent of the French administration at the time, Savary des Brûlons might have had a vested interest in denigrating foreign goods or keeping silent about the fact that French merchants might have been just as bad in this respect. Be that as it may, as the author of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry on “adulteration” observed, the practice was “as old as commerce itself.”18

  Lest we convey the mistaken impression that most agricultural producers, intermediaries, and merchants are inherently dishonest and have no interest in building repeat business, the fact remains that not everyone who welcomes customers with broad smiles and open arms at farmers’ market might be telling you the truth. Indeed, the determination of local food activists to purchase as much as possible “beyond the barcode” rather than from “brand bullies” greatly facilitates the shady or unprofessional dealings of unscrupulous and inefficient producers and retailers.

  The Pitfalls of Farmers’ Markets and CSAs

  Farmers’ markets—while often limited in terms of convenience (from out-of-the-way locations and poor parking conditions to restricted hours and a lack of protection from the elements) and typically offering slim pickings at the beginning and end of growing seasons—often provide enjoyable shopping experiences. If busy and tired farmers (as they often are when their produce is in season) can muster the energy to engage in long conversations with inquisitive customers, then so much the better.

  One recurring problem at these markets, though, is that some merchants are actually resellers peddling nonlocal products under false pretenses. 19 Sometimes, as we observed on a couple of occasions at a Mississauga, Ontario, farmers’ market, the brand-named boxes in the back of their trucks will give them away. Of course, other dishonest sellers are regrettably cleverer in this respect, but some investigative actions can nonetheless expose them. For example, in 2010, an NBC News team in Los Angeles paid a visit to the farms where vendors claimed the food at their stalls had been grown. In some cases, the investigators found “fields full of weeds or dry, empty fields. The vendors were selling vegetables and fruits they had bought wholesale, and were selling it at premium prices at local farmer’s markets, claiming it was locally grown and organic.” Several “organic” and “pesticide-free” items tested positive for chemicals at a level that could not be accounted for by pesticide “drift” from nearby farms. Commenting on such occurrences, a food activist who acknowledges that similar problems are “happening all over the country” makes the following recommendations: • Research, research, research. Try to get to know a few vendors really well. Ask where their farm is located, how long they’ve been farming, how they handle pest and disease issues. See if they’re listed on sites such as Local Harvest—not all farmers are, but it doesn’t hurt to check. Ask them the specific variety of whatever produce they’re selling. If they really grew it, they should be able to tell you that those are ‘Emerite’ filet beans, not just “green beans.”

  • Look over the display. Really look . . . Are all of the tomatoes the exact same shape and size? Do the apples have that waxy supermarket look? Are the cucumbers all perfectly uniform? Are they selling “local” watermelon in Detroit during the first week of May? If so, they probably went to the warehouse club and bought produce to sell at a premium at the farmer’s market. Steer clear.

  • Know what’s in season! If you see watermelon in April or peppers in December in Minnesota or Michigan, chances are good that they have not been grown locally. While some farmers have large heated greenhouses to grow produce year-round, not all do, and it pays to ask questions if the vendor is displaying a lot of out-of-season produce.20

  Good advice, if you can spare the time and are really passionate about local agriculture and farmers . . . Yet, it can be problematic on a few levels. A food policy analyst acquaintance of ours was thus told by some farmers that they now send their worst produce to farmers’ markets because customers think that imperfections and blemishes are an indicator of authenticity. According to Linda Crago, a Niagara peninsula organic producer, local farmers will not always give truthful answers to customers. Besides, even a local certified organic producer who knows what he is talking about might have resorted to using other technologies to address a recurring pes
t problem or simply to increase his yields and profits. This problem is made even worse by the fact that certified North American organic farms are never field-tested, let alone randomly tested. Ms. Crago personally witnessed her vegetables listed on the menus of restaurants she had never sold to, even sometimes in May when the produce is a long way from being ripe. She had been invited “to appear at events in restaurants so there is the appearance of a close relationship with a chef. Sometimes there is no relationship . . . only for the event, but not before or after.”21

  While alternative producer Joel Salatin is fond of saying that “you can’t legislate integrity,”22 the fact remains that small operators have much less at stake than bigger ones in this regard as they have small pockets and are not worth suing. And unlike full-time buyers and food safety inspectors employed by large corporations, locavores can only ask superficial questions, rarely if ever spare the time to inspect agriculture operations and virtually none of them could recognize Salmonella under a microscope. Can the old-fashioned locavore’s way ever deliver greater honesty than brand names and legal actions? If this were the case, there would have been no need to develop brand names in the first place.

  Small local farmers, like large commercial ones, may also select the most lucrative path above the ethos of locavorism. The issue was given some prominence a few years ago at the renowned Santa Monica Farmers’ Market in southern California when home cooks began to complain that purchasers employed by local high-end restaurants would show up at the crack of dawn and quickly whisk away the best of the most exotic produce. Soon after, produce companies did the local chefs one better by ordering items in advance and selling them to high-end restaurants and markets across the country.23