In the late 80′s and 90′s, farmers, food manufacturers, distributors, retailers asserted that their products were “organic”. There were multiple standards that were voluntarily adopted and hopefully posted as the basis of assertions on product labeling (sometimes). In the 90′s, the USDA finally realized that distinctly “organic” food was desired, demanded, by many consumers, and [...]
Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
What is a Local Product?
Posted in Food, General economic, Locus, Regional Economy on May 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Locus
Posted in Food, General economic, Locus, Regional Economy on February 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
What is sustainability? As a definition, I like the one articulated by the 1987 Brundtland Report, “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.“ My own definition: http://rwitty.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/sustainable-societyeconomy-definitions/ In the few cases where I’ve been engaged to conduct “sustainability audits” for small companies, the criteria [...]
Local Food
Posted in Food, Regional Economy on February 6, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Some friends have organized a local food gathering next week in Holyoke. If you can go, go. I’ve worked in the food business a few times in my life, as an alfalfa sprouter in Ossining, NY serving the New York area, as the bookkeeper for a prominent food cooperative in Washington, DC, as a landscaper/urban [...]
Have You Noticed – Food Prices
Posted in Food, General economic on November 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Food prices are going up. There are many causes. One primary cause is that food commodities are genuinely global commodities and are affected by changes in demand and in supply anywhere on the planet. A component cause of very current food price swings is the relatively rapid decline in the value of the dollar. In [...]
Sustainable Product Disclosure – What Belongs There
Posted in Food, Locus, Regional Economy, Sustainable Economics on April 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
If we were really interested in some indication of whether a product or service complied with a definition of “sustainable”, what would that include? When people speak of sustainable currently, most people think of something comprehensive, more than one characteristic. So what characteristics would that entail? How important is each characteristic to consumers and to [...]
Product Disclosure
Posted in Food, Locus, Sustainable Economics on April 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Currently there is no product or supplier designation for compliance with comprehensive sustainability definitions. Its hard to know if that is because the definition of sustainability is difficult to articulate and/or difficult to define a consented universal definition. There are ISO type certifications of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, etc, and those aren’t used as widely [...]
Sustainable Society – How do We Get There – Food
Posted in Food, Sustainable Economics on October 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In looking at my family’s expenditures, I would have expected food to be at or near the top of the list. A sustainable society includes how I live, how simply and fully I and my family are able to meet our needs, and how society is structured to optimally realize live and let live. Please [...]
Food – Current Action Plans – What we CAN do
Posted in Food on September 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
1. Eat together. (Family rotas, and community festivals and potlucks) 2. Buy staples collectively (Food buying clubs) 3. Develop and encourage CSA’s and CSA membership. (Insure their contracts though, so that there is no risk of failure due to environmental and/or farmers mistakes). 4. Garden. Encourage and teach urban gardening and garden alternatives to lawns. [...]
Food – Living Lightly (Planet)
Posted in Ethics, Food on September 10, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The planet is its own. It is more whole than any of the other scales (person, family, community, region). More resilient, providing to all of us, but also less forgiving. When the planet shifts its response to a disturbed homeostasis, we get run over. Hurricanes seeking to exhaust differences in air pressure. Volcanoes and earthquakes [...]
Food – Living Lightly (Region)
Posted in Food, Land Use, Regional Economy on September 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
What do we mean by “region”. A community is a family of families. A region is a community of communities. A region is by definition, geographic, but could also refer to a non-geographic “nation”. The regional scale is the optimal scale of definition for most economic/market approaches. A region (say 30,000,000 people) should be largely [...]
