This article about squid just amazed me:
The long journey of 'local' seafood to your plate - Los Angeles Times:
90% of the 230 million pounds of the squid caught off the coast of California are frozen, shipped to Asia, processed, refrozen, and sent back to the US for consumption. It seems crazy to ship them 12000 miles round trip only to save a little on labor. The labor to clean and prepare the squid seems almost trivial and not terribly labor intensive. I can envision a lot of automation that could be employed to do the processing with very little labor.
Squid processing would probably be considered a "manufacturing" job and would be good, steady employment. It also seems that processing could be done a lot closer in Mexico with relatively inexpensive labor.
I have the feeling that the US lost the leadership because the fishing industry got lazy, didn't reinvest and let the foreign competition take over. I would bet that the foreign companies have relatively modern shipboard pre- processing, and fairly modern processing in their native countries too.
I also fault our California Coastal Commission -- I'm sure it would be extremely difficult to build a new processing plant somewhere along the California coastline.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Organic marketing: Not truthful, often misleading
Organic food, to me, means food that probably has a few more bug bites, mars and marks on it, and possibly has a few actual bugs on it. The food probably has a little less residual pesticide on it or in it. However the marketing machines have tried to portray the food as being more healthful. This article points out that there probably are problems with that concept.
Organic marketing: Not truthful, often misleading: Many people have written about the "facts and myths" about organic food and related marketing. We all want healthy food, we want to protect the environment, we want to keep people employed, but is organic farming on small farms the best way to do it?
The organic farming revolution really got moving with the 1990 farm bill where Title 21 set out the definitions and guidelines for organic food, and established the "National Organic Program.". The standards have gradually evolved with significant changes made in April 1995, and international standards established by the UN in 2001. To be certified as organic, the food must be raised without use of poisons and most chemicals, and must be grown in soil that has been somewhat purged of poisonous residue. There is no guarantee, however that some windblown dust from miles away might bring trace amounts of poison or chemicals, or that irrigation water might contain dangerous forms of e-coli, or other dangers. Organic crops also aren't supposed to be GMO crops, so have to be grown from seeds that were produced "naturally" -- which is also difficult to determine or verify.
One of the original concepts of organic farming was that it could be done by the very small farmer, using "green" technology with lower carbon footprint, and more use of recycled materials, such as composting. The "vision" was that this type of growing would return America back to the era of the small farmer, and allow citizens to get their hands dirty growing healthy foods. On these many small farms, children can share in the experience of growing food, and will eat healthier because of that experience. Is that really happening? Since organic farming that way is very labor intensive, it would keep more people employed. In order to make even a little profit from that type of gardening, the organic farmers would have to sell their crops at higher prices than the larger, industrial size farmers would charge. That required building a market for these specialized crops. The organic food marketing focused on trying to convince people that their food is healthier and fresher. That is difficult to do, because the organic food generally doesn't look as nice, and the time from field to consumer isn't all that much shorter, even when grown locally. The other problem with local-grown food is the relatively short season for organic crops. In each area only a few crops will be ripe. If you want peaches in May or September the only choice is importing them from another region. When those are grown organically, they will have the same shipping time as the non-organic crops. One of the romantic notions in the organic movement is that of being able to buy organic food from local growers in farmer's markets. The problem is that the local crops they can offer are limited to very short seasonal crops, and are often required to buy from other (hopefully organic) suppliers in order to keep their loyal customers happy and coming back. They also are even less efficient from an energy and use of their time standpoint. The farmer's market vendors in my area often spend hours on the road driving to various markets around the region. Their small vehicles are much less efficient than the huge trucks used by the large "big box" distributors. The farmer's market vendors spend long hours selling from their stall, which nets them a very low profit per hour expended. It is much more difficult to inspect thousands of very small farms for meeting standards, than a few large farms. So, it is likely that smaller farmers get away with "cheating" on their use of pesticides, or even buy non-organic crops and sell them as organic.
The market for organic food has grown, so the marketers have been successful! Larger-scale growers are getting into the business and they can be much more efficient in their handling of crops. These larger-scale growers are able to price their crops lower than the small farmer, so in some ways the original organic farm "vision" is fading. The small farmers now have an even tougher time at making their business profitable. Now that WalMart has announced they are going into the organic food business, they will need immense amounts of product and they have always worked very hard at driving down the costs from their suppliers. It is likely that only the very large organic farms will be able to provide enough organic food, and will drive down the prices even further. In many ways this is good! Improved availability of foods without poisons, will result in lower prices, more people using them, and healthier citizens. However I can see that the small farmer will now need to fight back to maintain their business. Will their attacks be counterproductive to the organic farming industry?
Do we need more, or improved "national standards" for organic food? Do we need more Government enforcement of those standards? Do we want to encourage the growth of the small farmer industry by protecting small farmers from industrial farm competition? Or would the country be better off if the large, efficient farms would grow their food with less poisons? All tough questions!
Organic marketing: Not truthful, often misleading: Many people have written about the "facts and myths" about organic food and related marketing. We all want healthy food, we want to protect the environment, we want to keep people employed, but is organic farming on small farms the best way to do it?
The organic farming revolution really got moving with the 1990 farm bill where Title 21 set out the definitions and guidelines for organic food, and established the "National Organic Program.". The standards have gradually evolved with significant changes made in April 1995, and international standards established by the UN in 2001. To be certified as organic, the food must be raised without use of poisons and most chemicals, and must be grown in soil that has been somewhat purged of poisonous residue. There is no guarantee, however that some windblown dust from miles away might bring trace amounts of poison or chemicals, or that irrigation water might contain dangerous forms of e-coli, or other dangers. Organic crops also aren't supposed to be GMO crops, so have to be grown from seeds that were produced "naturally" -- which is also difficult to determine or verify.
One of the original concepts of organic farming was that it could be done by the very small farmer, using "green" technology with lower carbon footprint, and more use of recycled materials, such as composting. The "vision" was that this type of growing would return America back to the era of the small farmer, and allow citizens to get their hands dirty growing healthy foods. On these many small farms, children can share in the experience of growing food, and will eat healthier because of that experience. Is that really happening? Since organic farming that way is very labor intensive, it would keep more people employed. In order to make even a little profit from that type of gardening, the organic farmers would have to sell their crops at higher prices than the larger, industrial size farmers would charge. That required building a market for these specialized crops. The organic food marketing focused on trying to convince people that their food is healthier and fresher. That is difficult to do, because the organic food generally doesn't look as nice, and the time from field to consumer isn't all that much shorter, even when grown locally. The other problem with local-grown food is the relatively short season for organic crops. In each area only a few crops will be ripe. If you want peaches in May or September the only choice is importing them from another region. When those are grown organically, they will have the same shipping time as the non-organic crops. One of the romantic notions in the organic movement is that of being able to buy organic food from local growers in farmer's markets. The problem is that the local crops they can offer are limited to very short seasonal crops, and are often required to buy from other (hopefully organic) suppliers in order to keep their loyal customers happy and coming back. They also are even less efficient from an energy and use of their time standpoint. The farmer's market vendors in my area often spend hours on the road driving to various markets around the region. Their small vehicles are much less efficient than the huge trucks used by the large "big box" distributors. The farmer's market vendors spend long hours selling from their stall, which nets them a very low profit per hour expended. It is much more difficult to inspect thousands of very small farms for meeting standards, than a few large farms. So, it is likely that smaller farmers get away with "cheating" on their use of pesticides, or even buy non-organic crops and sell them as organic.
The market for organic food has grown, so the marketers have been successful! Larger-scale growers are getting into the business and they can be much more efficient in their handling of crops. These larger-scale growers are able to price their crops lower than the small farmer, so in some ways the original organic farm "vision" is fading. The small farmers now have an even tougher time at making their business profitable. Now that WalMart has announced they are going into the organic food business, they will need immense amounts of product and they have always worked very hard at driving down the costs from their suppliers. It is likely that only the very large organic farms will be able to provide enough organic food, and will drive down the prices even further. In many ways this is good! Improved availability of foods without poisons, will result in lower prices, more people using them, and healthier citizens. However I can see that the small farmer will now need to fight back to maintain their business. Will their attacks be counterproductive to the organic farming industry?
Do we need more, or improved "national standards" for organic food? Do we need more Government enforcement of those standards? Do we want to encourage the growth of the small farmer industry by protecting small farmers from industrial farm competition? Or would the country be better off if the large, efficient farms would grow their food with less poisons? All tough questions!
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