Seattle Times: "Organic coffee: Why Latin America's farmers are abandoning it"
The short answer: There aren't enough Uptight Seattleites willing to pay a high enough price for organic coffee to be a worthwhile crop for the Latin American farmers to grow. Sadly, a number of these poor farmers became poorer after the promises of "economic benefits" made by organic coffee activists failed to materialize.
Ironically, this road to an unsustainable business was paved with the good intentions of those whose grand vision is: "sustainability".
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 07, 2010 09:25 PM | Email ThisOrganic food sales have been growing much faster than food overall during the past 2 decades. (The latest data I found was for 2008; it's possible they've declined since, since premium products suffer in a recession.) The fact that some producers overestimated the market is an inevitable part of economics, and says nothing about the general trend.
Posted by: Bruce on March 7, 2010 10:53 PMIf understood to be linked (imperfectly) with fair trade, it would appear that the market for self-righteousness is out of equilibrium.
Posted by: gulliver on March 8, 2010 01:52 AMJust sayin'...
Dig deep... there might be a brain in there somewhere.
Posted by: KJ on March 8, 2010 08:09 AMYou might want to read up on Dr. Norman Borlaug who is credited with saving more than a billion people through high yield crop and more advanced farming techniques that are NOT organic. Organic costs a lot more because of lower yields, and less use of safe and effective techniques for better farming. If you want to pay too much, that is great if you are a trendy Seattle liberal that gets paid way too much for a government job, lives in Fremont and shops at PCC. But if you are in India and part of a starving poor, your going to take any food over organic food. If you waited around for "sustainable" crops, you'd be dead.
You mean the one produced by the same company that produced Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"?
You mean the movie that condemns free and efficient agricultural practices and endorses the entire spectrum of discredited--but heartwarming--liberal "economics"?
And I went to farmers' markets almost every Saturday when I lived in eastern Washington, and I can tell you most of them have NOTHING in common with the prescriptions of Food Inc.
@Lisa: if liberals ever applied a fixed meaning to their buzzwords, like "sustainability" and fighting the "status quo," they wouldn't be a political force. It is only because they hide behind deceptive euphemisms that they have any traction in society. Here are some examples:
By "sustainable," you mean you want to execute measures which are economically unsustainable and would drastically reduce the measurable quality of life for everybody.
By "helping people," you mean voting to take my money against my will and giving it to someone else, then congratulating yourself on your "charity." I'll give of my own volition, thank you.
By "status quo," you for once accurately mean just that. But there's no problem with the status quo--more often than not, things are the way they are BECAUSE THEY WORK. In your insecure lust for cosmic meaning and "change" of any kind, you are willing to destroy what works and replace it, like a bored little kid with an ant farm.
Posted by: gulliver on March 8, 2010 10:56 AM@Gulliver any defense of the practices that destroy mom & pop independent businesses is fundamentally evil. I'd think that mom & pop businesses--farms, stores, etc.--were more valuable than big business like Conagra, Monsanto, and Walmart, right?
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on March 8, 2010 11:16 AMany defense of the practices that destroy mom & pop independent businesses is fundamentally evil.
Great! So I expect to read you condemning the activities of the Obama Administration with regards to taxation - business, health insurance, estate, income - as that is one of the biggest problems for small business.
I'm sure you're completely opposed to the cap-and-tax plan because it will cause small businesses to die since they cannot compete, they cannot shift "carbon costs" overseas like the big companies.
Glad to know you're coming around!
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on March 8, 2010 11:47 AMYour take on protecting mon & pop businesses is a little over extended. As long as the marketplace is a Free competitive market place which means free from price fixing, monopolies, unfair practices, etc. then, let the competitive forces give the best results in services and products to the consumer.
"Sustainability" is a joke. As one dairy farmer who decided to try his hand at organic milk told my dad... if not for his "real" farm, he never would have been able to survive as an organic farmer without charging exorbitant prices. And since they aren't within easy driving distance of Seattle, no one would want to pay those prices (or couldn't afford it). The cows produced less milk, they didn't look nearly as good, and the instant they got worms or some sort of infection, they had to be transferred to his "real" farm for treatment because he couldn't give them anti-biotics and still call them "organic".
Jeff B. is exactly right. "Sustainable" agriculture requires more land and more resources per pound of food. That land and those resources have to come from somewhere. Since I don't see the uppity liberals rushing to sell their land for farmers to use, then in order for all agriculture to be "sustainable", you need to take the land and resources out of nature. All those folks freaking out about the cutting of Amazonian rainforests? What do you think those rainforests are being cut down for? Imagine how much more would need to be cut down in order to support "sustainable" agriculture.
Joe, city farmers markets work because you have a relatively small pool of producers, and a large enough customer base willing to pay the premium for what they sell. That flies in Seattle. That won't fly in Omak, or Everson, or India. most people are either unwilling or unable to pay for the extra premium "sustainable" agriculture.
How in the world is something that takes up more land, more resources, and requires people to pay more than they want to or can afford "sustainable"?
Posted by: Mike H on March 8, 2010 11:50 AM@Daniel the problem is that pure unregulated Free Trade has been an unmitigated disaster. Just look at the ruins of the rust belt. Just look at how much damage NAFTA has caused. Just look at all the profiteering happening in the defense industry. Look at how many American nations freely trade with Iran through subsidiaries.
@Mike my simple point is that centralized control of our entire agricultural industry is not a healthy thing at all. Do you disagree and think that the massive monopolization of agriculture is good?
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on March 8, 2010 11:56 AMYet, like every leftist, you are economically ignorant and you believe trade can be a matter of coercion rather than a matter of mass choice.
The only "right" any business--big (and thus evil), or mom-and-pop--has to survive is to sell goods that people want at prices people are willing to pay. If they chronically fail to do so, mom-and-pop establishments do not have a "right" to survive.
But as a predictable leftist, your anger is directed at the wrong people. You should be angry at the free people in the marketplace who choose not to indulge the inferior business model of the mom-and-pop establishment.
So no, they're not "more valuable." What a bizarre, twisted statement. Is there a precedent for this in your nominal Catholicism? In terms of production and consumption, it is clear that Walmart etc. are more valuable--together they benefit billions, rather than the thousands of economically superstitious elites who pay more to get less from mom-and-pops.
Read Mike H's post--he describes the producer surplus inherent to urban farmers' markets.
Your NAFTA hysteria is utterly laughable. Even free market economists (see Russ Roberts, Mike Munger, etc.) concede it was utterly feckless. And the "rust" part of the Rust Belt might as well be a euphemism for "Unions." The Rust Belt is a Democratic stronghold, yesterday, today and forever. Don't blame FREEDOM--which is what free trade is--for the consequences of Marxist union policy.
Posted by: gulliver on March 8, 2010 12:19 PMOrganic farming costs a lot more, takes more resources, takes more land, and often produces an inferior product that is covered in e. coli. All of that is the opposite of what is actually "sustainable." In the real world, sustainable means that a service or product can be offered at a workable profit such that a business can continue to exist and provide those products. Using more land, more water, and getting less in return is not sustainable for the business or for the planet. And by the way, the planet doesn't need saving. It's going to spit us out and pave us over with ice ages, volcanic flows, and everything else it can and has produced over it's four and a half billion year existence.
I'm not advocating for the abhorrent practices of China where industrial chemicals are dumped in to food in place of actual edible matter. But, it's a complete myth that the majority of US food is unsafe due to "unsustainable" farming, processing, packaging, etc. As with anything, there are better and worse quality products. There are ground up bits of chicken parts stuffed in to nugget shapes and marketed as chicken, and there are whole chicken breasts. Certainly there is a difference in quality and taste. Nutritionally in the proper portions and balance with other foods, they nearly identical.
But there is nothing unsafe or wrong about making nuggets as they have a lot more nutrition than no food at all. And by contrast, an Indian child surviving on a small allotment of rice would be ecstatic to get a Chicken McNugget.
Bottom line, as usual, liberal ideas such as sustainability, are actually the opposite. They are unhelpful, and are hurting our economy by driving up costs. They are simply mythical constructs programming you with marketing and emotion and not reality.
It's only through good marketing by companies like PCC, and uneducated people that believe in trendy buzzwords like "sustainability", that so many are willing to pay too much for food. I shop for and pay a lot less to eat than almost everyone I know, because I am not dumb enough to pay too much for nothing. And I'm in great shape, below average weight, and perfectly healthy.
So yes, if you think shopping at PCC is sustainable, wonderful and organic, you are unfortunately, an indoctrinated idiot willing to pay too much for food that is sold to you in a wonderful and soothing setting, but that is really no different from what you could buy at Fred Meyer for a lot less.
Posted by: Jeff B. on March 8, 2010 12:44 PMLisa are you a victim of an Evergreen college education?
Posted by: juandos on March 8, 2010 03:07 PMWho said anything about big business? Not I. You brought up the concern of small business, so I took you at your word. You're not concerned with regulation and taxation of small businesses? Or the estate tax which does break up small, family owned businesses like farms?
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on March 8, 2010 03:13 PMIt has nothing to do with food. Sustainablity is and always has been a buzzword in the UN for political tyranny. The globalists want control of your land. Read the UN treaties.
If the sustainablity people get their way, someday a secretary sitting at her desk will fill out a long wordy form, and tell you what vegetables you are allowed to grow in your backyard. and how much water you can use to irrigate them. and fertilizer. It will be enforced by law.
That, my friends, is sustainablity.
Cheers
TeaPartyGrandma, you got it 100% right - it's about control, not about feeding - or in this case, caffienating - people.
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on March 8, 2010 10:45 PMDuh. When the idiot politicians tell you that laws designed to control the earth's temperature will create jobs, don't believe them. I'm appealing to liberals, of course, because conservatives already know this.
Ah yes the ugly fascist leftist comes out. It's all for own good of course. We'll be made to be better, especially us middle class status-quo loving racist/sexist/homophobic men right?
Posted by: Crusader on March 9, 2010 12:04 PMGuess what eventually happens? Consumers vote with their wallets. We buy our meat at a wonderfully politically incorrect old fashioned meat market. We haven't been to PCC in years. The meat is far less expensive and the best we've ever tasted.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on March 9, 2010 05:48 PMOrganic Farms = family operations that support American families
Factory Farming techniques= create pesticide and fertilizer runoff that is killing streams, rivers, and oceans.
Organic Farms= relatively minimal impact to the surrounding area. If I had a choice of which one I would want to live next to, it would be organic every time.
This is coming from somebody who worked on an organic farm last summer and I can tell you first hand, we generated a ton of food on sweat and llama manure.
Oh nevermind, let's start thumping the bible and killing people for Jesus.
Oh nevermind, let's start thumping the bible and killing people for Jesus.
Since the vast majority of Christians donate time blood and money to help the less fortunate and that virtually none (except maybe a few crackpots that most other Christians would denounce) pretty much tells me you are a brainwashed lefty with zero credibility making any arguments you have suspect to say the least and thus easily dismissed as irrelevant.
Posted by: eyago on March 10, 2010 06:55 AMMeanwhile we ate one of those Columbia River salmons that the left has declared to be extinct last night. It was delicious.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on March 10, 2010 07:50 AMWhen us evil, polluting right wing nuts hold a tea party there isn't so much as a piece of paper left when the event is over.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on March 10, 2010 08:08 AMCleaning up after an event? That's because we're uncaring, heartless, conservative SOBs. If we really cared about our fellow man we'd trash the place so that there would be extra jobs created to clean it back up.
Hmmm... I wonder about bricks through windows... That could make some work, too!
Sounds like a jobs stimulus plan to me!
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on March 10, 2010 08:15 AMI've sure seen this attitude in my business. It's the Prius driving Green liberals that are the most difficult customers. They will nickel dime you to death, and complain about everything. By contrast, conservatives are usually very good about paying on time and friendly.
Posted by: Jeff B. on March 10, 2010 09:46 AM