nosh nook #142 - tuesday, september 29, 2009

new documentary on local food movement has oregon-heavy cast (link)
09.28.09 - the oregonian - by scott learn

oh oregon, bastion of progressiveness, lover of ducks, home to the most strip clubs per capita in the country. i visited you for a month back in 2002 & from what i saw of your quaintish downtown area, you were fairly green (colorwise) & relatively artsy looking. i've always heard good things about you & for a brief while, i even considered moving across the country & becoming a portland resident. you have free downtown public transit & make an effort to limit sprawl & keep your boundaries intact. as part of the 2008 veggie awards, you were named "veg city taking over the world." i love junk like that. you're so durn progressive, portland!

case in point: the film ingredients, which is a "who's who (of) oregon's locavore movement" & made its debut in portland this weekend. as the oregonian's scott learn writes, the film has strong roots in oregon. the producer & cinematographer, brian kimmel, is from portland. in the film, there are appearances from a range of oregon farmers, chefs & agricultural specialists who paint a picture of the "benefits and challenges of buying food from local producers." there have been a million-and-one films about food recently, so i'm interested in seeing whether they cover any new ground or just reinforce what's already been said.

either way, it's a cause i'm fully behind. as learn mentions, larry lev, a "specialist in agricultural marketing and alternative food systems" who's in the film, lays out the benefits of eating locally. lev notes that "some local products may cost more than food transported from large-scale commercial operations...but the products can have superior taste, and the money shoppers spend stays in the area. shopping locally also helps keep agricultural land from being developed...and leads to closer relationships between farmers and consumers." one of the clips in the trailer points out that there are now so few independent farmers in the u.s. that it's no longer listed as an occupation choice on the u.s. census forms. it's sad that we've become so removed from our food sources, but what's even sadder is that until recently, most people didn't really care. maybe another film will change that.

nosh nook #43 - wednesday, may 13, 2009

when ‘local’ makes it big (link)
05.12.09 - the ny times - by kim severson

if there's one thing that big business likes doing, it's co-opting stuff. as long as you can be one of the first to cash in on the latest trend, even if it's with a mediocre facsimile, you're golden, much like a pair of arches. take the grunge look. that is so not cool any more. the fashion industry wore that out quicklike. on a related note, for every nirvana, there were ten candleboxes. anyway, now, since we americans are so fickle, buying organic foods has moved out of the spotlight & being a locavore (buying locally) has stepped in to become the hip new food trend. it doesn't hurt that the word "locavore" sounds wolflike or at the very least, something with fangs. the big food corporations are already lining up to cash in.

kim severson really breaks it down quite well for the ny times in her story. yesterday, the NYSE had five potato farmers ring the bell in lockstep with a lays (frito lay/pepsi) marketing campaign aimed at promoting the localness of their potato chips. basically, they're airing spots in each of the five farmers' home states, explaining how they grow potatoes there & lays makes potato chips there, so it's local. then the ads go national soon after, promoting the idea to the entire country. apparently frito-lay has a "sustainability program" also...how quaint. hunts (conagra) has also jumped on board, promoting the proximity of their tomato farms to their cali processing plants. if they can promote that to local consumers, there's a good chance they'll buy, since they have a clear picture of the distribution chain.  it's all about how you spin it.

i am all for locally grown food, co-ops getting veggies & whatnot from local farms...our little socialist colonies. i've seen king corn & i'm hip to the evils of the huge, guvment sponsored, commodity crop farms. i'm assuming that guvment money has something to do with pepsi wanting to merge with frito-lay in the first place. hell, i'd get in bed for what's probably trickling down to them.

the spread of the locavore mentality isn't all evil. as severson explains, in central cali, there's a "grow & buy local" initiative, which is taking part of a county grant & urging farmers to replace commodity crops with grocery crops, which can fill local needs & farm stands. trickle-down!  she spoke with the director of guv relations for the virginia farm bureau, who said, "if promoting local agriculture will help america to become food independent, that’s what we want."  i agree.  as a non-practicing locavore, other than the freshness of my foods, shifting dependence to local sources is the main reason i have for wishing i bought entirely locally.  all i can say is, hopefully there's a potato farmer in my state so i can get me some local lays real soon.