Posts Tagged ‘farming’
cattle clubs »
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
Delicious
Most people eat questionable meats processed by questionable means in factories of questionable cleanliness by underpaid (or illegal) workers with questionable hygiene practices. That’s not an issue if you can ignore bacteria in your spinach or poisonous tomatoes and milk. (Or, if you’re like me, you overcook everything to the texture of damp charcoal.)
But what if you want something that won’t have a tenuous link to your pending bout with cancer? Why don’t we promote quality goods over low-cost carcinogens shipped thousands of miles? Or give incentive not to house your-future-chicken-breast in a too-small cage slathered with avian infection?
Food industries have built their irresponsible practices on the assumptions that consumers can’t buy better for cheaper and oversight is easily skirted. Both are true because most of us are poor and stupid (not you readers, though). We may not be changing (fuck me why aren’t we changing?) but there are existing tools that could change things.
- Farmers (dairy, produce, poultry, etc.) get together using online groups/forums
- Pool their resources
- Create a website with member logins, small monthly dues for local consumers
- Run funding drives ($10 donation, get 10% off next order) and forums to keep members informed, announce specials
- Monthly dues go to feed/slaughter/shipping/misc costs (reduces cost per pound)
- Per-pound profit for farmers would (likely) be more than branding themselves under Cargill, Tyson or [insert megafood company]
They’d provide quality not because of an underfunded, understaffed government office (which would still provide “grades”) but to avoid the backlash if someone’s irked. (Think of the digi-bomb dropped by just a few moms that strapped their children into kiddy-packs.) Such things would kill membership and, subsequently, the cooperative.
To-market cost would shrink while establishing consumer loyalty and involvement. Cavernous consumer meccas like Costco or Sam’s Club already use the idea. Folk wouldn’t necessarily get sushi in Oklahoma or out-of-season fruit in Illinois but maybe they shouldn’t. (Our culture of convenient consumption leaves a lot to the imagination.)
Butchers would be in demand again, small shipping companies could form and all the jobs would be localized. Area crops would be more diverse to meet demand and thus less suseptable to disease-sparked mass failure. Members would get discount, quality meats while putting more into their community.
For those scared shitless of Jan20, 09, this doesn’t rely on government handouts or profit distribution. Farmers won’t be paid not to grow crops or to grow specific crops to help regulate pricing. (Sounds sort of socialist doesn’t it?) Growth is limited by how cost-effective and high-quality the product is.
And no worries, this will never happen. Well, unless there’s total infrastructure collapse, but that’s for posts over at SD&IF.