Local food takes another hit - when will it end?

I just hope that this by-design de-localization of food production results in more people taking an interest in small-scale homesteading as a protest response. Hell, it might even have some good side effects - like getting us off the hamster treadwheel lives that so many are leading.

I'm not an economist but the way I look at it, food is NOT just a commodity. What on earth is the sense of importing things from halfway around the globe that can and already have been grown locally for ages? There is something utterly stupid and nonsensical to this by-design globalization and commodification of food.

Eat Local While You Still Can - link to article in the Star

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One only needs to look to "The Law of Comparative Advantage" to see that eventually ALL fresh fruits and vegetables as well as meat, fish, and dairy products will be sourced from elsewhere in the world ! Grain crops, on the other hand, will most likely continue to be produced in the North American continent ... see

http://www.unc.edu/depts/econ/byrns_web ... mp_Adv.htm

The key sentence is found at the bottom:

"Comparative advantage is also molded by: (a) climate and location, (b) institutional and cultural factors, (c) government policies, (d) the skills and education of the populace, (e) the vigor of internal competition and size of domestic markets, and (f) the ability of domestic entrepreneurs to innovate and cultivate global markets."

Your Ontario industry was, in effect, shut down by "government policies" that don't exist in China ! Minimum wage laws, workman's compensation laws, insurance laws, labor and immigration laws (or the lack thereof), food safety laws, food security laws - I could go on and on ... your industry was trying to compete with a country that doesn't have the same laws if they have ANY of those laws at all ... your "comparative" advantage disappeared and became an "absolute" advantage for China !

Initially consumers should be worried ... more and more of their food is going to be sourced from outside their borders ... in the future, EVERYBODY in your country as well as ours should be EXTREMELY worried ! When we become "beholdin'" to others to feed us, watch out ! Didn't Japan start WWII because they were being starved and frozen to death by oil being blockcaded from being delivered to their country ?

Just my $0.02 ...

Clink !

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Thanks Bill.

Well this is just totally ridiculous ... Local food production should never be "sold out" like that - what kind of public policy is it that makes an idol of globalization at the expense of local food producers?

I wonder what the reaction would have been if this happened in France ... I think that in general Europeans are still rightfully wary of such fruits (pun intended) of globalist policy.

What we are seeing is in effect the very sly and quiet circumvention of standards that were put in place with good reason! Shameful.

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Just heard on the news on the radio on my way back to work that the American Olympic team is going to import from the U.S. EVERY bite of food they intend on consuming during the Summer Olympic games ... they are not going to eat ONE single bite of food if it was produced in China !

BUT Chinese peaches are o.k. for Ontarians !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Duh ! The U.S. Olympic teams believe FIRMLY in food safety and food security but the everyday American and Canadian consumer doesn't ? Or is it that our capitalistic systems and forms of government in general and our retailers specifically won't give it's people the choice ? "Money makes the world go 'round ..." SICK !

Clink !

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In principle I believe in the local food concept. However, in a month or so I will run to the store to purchase Vidalia onions grown in Georgia rather than purchase the hard yellow keeper onions that may have been grown locally. Some things are better locally some things are not. As we know concerning wine location and climate make a difference. I prefer our local apples but frankly in Minnesota our local apricots suck as does most of our wine.

Concerning food from China I avoid it. In a few years if and when they get their infrastructure concerning product safety and heath issues firmly established I will revisit the issue.

My son, a plant and animal scientist, has been doing a tremendous amount of research on dog foods since the problem with the Chinese gluten. Many small American dog food producers have seen this as an opportunity and are reformulating their blend to include nothing from foreign or questionable sources. This included the expulsion of meat tankage products from their foods. They see this as a great opportunity. After all the money, time and energy we have in our dogs we don't want to risk losing them to bad food. Much less our own health. Some stores are making an effort to not reorder Chinese foods. Trader Joes is an example. If we all made it a point to write or comment to our local grocery stores and chains we can change the mix.

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While we were outside after work throwing the ball to the dog, Kathleen commented that she'd been to the grocery store earlier in the day and that the bill came to slightly over $120.00 ... she said she remembered going to the store for many of the same things just before she went back to her seasonal job last September paying just over $80.00 for just about the basket of similar goodies ... the $120.00 stop at the store was most of what we will need for the week but not all ... Kathleen will make another run close to/during the weekend to pick up a few more things before heading back early next week to re-stock ... bottomline is that between the two stops we are no where close to the dime on the dollar for food we've been used to for a long time ...

What are the rest of you finding out there ?

Clink !

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