A tale of two markets: Part II, Newton County, Arkansas

In my prior post about the farmers markets in Telluride and Mountain Village, Colorado, I promised to compare and contrast those markets with the one in Jasper, Arkansas, my home town.  Both places are similar in some ways, dramatically different in others.  First, both are rural/nonmetropolitan by most ecological measures, e.g., population density and size.  Indeed, both have similar total populations-- San Miguel County just over 7000, and Newton County just over 8000.  Both are also mountain towns (San Juans of the Rockies on one hand, Ozarks on the other), which benefit from ecotourism.  In fact, both are amenity rich in terms of scenic beauty and outdoor activities, but Telluride has many more "built" amenities, and is quite cosmopolitan culturally.  This distinction and the crowd each county attracts is reflected in the annual accommodation and food service sales for 2007:  $77 million in San Miguel County, $3.2 million in Newton County.  That and the relative affluence are also reflected in retail sales per capita in 2007:  $13,114 in San Miguel County, $1,596 in Newton County.

Tensions between old timers and newcomers are evident in both places.  In Telluride, those tensions often play out in planning battles, but presumably also in other ways.  Newton County does not engage in any planning or regulate building in any way, so these tensions are manifest in other ways.  In fact, my sense is that these conflicts have seemingly dissipated over the years, perhaps because long-time residents have come to see newcomers as a net gain to the community.

Beyond these similarities, the differences between the two places are more apparent.  Telluride is an extraordinary example of rural gentrification and is so obviously affluent, Newton County is a persistent poverty county, which means it is characterized by entrenched, inter-generational poverty.  I provided some socioeconomic data about Telluride and San Miguel County in my last post.  Here's some about Newton County:  Its poverty rate is 22.5%, and it's median household income is $27,441.  Whereas nearly half of San Miguel County residents have a bachelor's degree or greater, only 12.2% of Newton County residents do.  Newton County is a Federal/State Government dependent economy, while San Miguel County has a Service-dependent economy.

Tomatoes available July 6, 2012

How is this very different demographic profile reflected in the two places' farmers markets?  I already provided lots of information about the Telluride and Mountain Village markets, and at least the former is fairly long standing.  The Newton County farmers' market, in contrast, started only this year, with a push from the Newton County Agricultural Extension Office.  (I don't even recall much of a tradition of farm stands in Newton County--just neighbors sharing the fruits of their gardens with others).  Whereas the San Miguel County markets take place weekly, spring through fall, the Newton County market takes place only on one Friday evening a month, from 4 pm to 6 pm (aiming to catch people passing the courthouse square on their way home from work), with the last market of the season likely to be this week (though in future years it might be in August, absent present doubt conditions).  I don't know the cost of participating in the Telluride market, but participation in the Newton County market costs just $5/week, and the Extension Office is considering the option of an annual fee.  I'm not sure what participants get for that -- presumably the benefit of a sign announcing the market, which I saw in a newspaper story about it.

The vendors don't pay too much attention to presentation

While vendors at the Colorado markets were numerous, only five vendors showed up to participate in the Newton County market on the Friday in early July when my mom took these photos as my proxy.  She found four fruit and veg vendors and one craftsman.  One of the food vendors had not only fresh produce, but also home-baked goods and jams and relishes for $5 each.  That's less than half the $11/jar cost at Mountain Village.  Tomatoes were $6/lb in Colorado, but only $2.25 in Newton County (and my mom declared them the best she's ever eaten).  The selection wasn't extensive -- certainly none of the kohlrabi featured at the Mountain Village market--but it included some potatoes, peppers, and squash in addition to the items noted above.  I suspect most vendors simply brought excess bounty from their own gardens, and that they did not decide what to plant because of the existence of the market.  I don't believe any of the vendors are engaged in agritourism, but I suspect those selling jams and relishes don't also market those at the nearby gift shops on Scenic Highway 7 (see the figures below).  No one at this market is making a living off the market, which is quite different to what I learned about the Colorado markets.

All of the vendors at the Newton County market were from within the county, population 8,264.  I suppose it is not a sufficiently attractive market in terms of income potential to draw vendors from a wider area.  And I suspect most if not all vendors brought excess bounty from their own gardens, that they had not decided what to plant because of the existence of the market.  I don't believe any of the vendors are engaged in agritourism, but I'd be surprised if those selling jams and relishes don't also market those at the nearby gift shops on Scenic Highway 7.  Unlike in Telluride, none of the vendors had signs or brochures indicating their names or that of their farm; certainly, these Newton County farmers had not invested as much as the Telluride vendors in display aesthetics.

Meanwhile, I note that the USDA is supporting farmers' markets through the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which is being administered in a nine-county area including Newton County by the Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Arkansas.  The program provides a $50 coupon book to each eligible household with a senior adult 60 years of age or older.  The coupons can be used to purchase locally grown fresh vegetables, fruits, herbs and honey at "local farmer's markets from approved vendors."  Income eligibility is $1,723/month for a family of one, $2,333/month for a family of two, $2,994 for a family of three and so forth.  The Newton County Times story about this program does not indicate if any vendors at the Newton County Farmers' Market are "approved." 

I recently came across U.S. Government data on some of the very questions I was addressing.  Here's the county-to-county comparison on a range of agricultural data points, from the Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America:

• Principal Operator 10 years or more on same parcel:  San Miguel County, 87; Newton County,  439
• Principal Operator 2 years or less on same parcel:  San Miguel County, 1; Newton County, 35. 
• Number of farms:  San Miguel County, 123; Newton County, 636.
• Percentage of land being farmed:  San Miguel County, 18.3%; Newton County, 21.5%.
• Average market value of product sold:  San Miguel County, $27,235; Newton County $29,907.
• Percentage of farms with sales below $10K in 2007:  San Miguel County, 71%; Newton County,  68%.     
• Average government payment 2007:  San Miguel County, $9230; Newton County, $1756.
•  Percentage of farms with income from agritourism:  San Miguel County, 4.87%; Newton County, 0.47%.  
• Percentage of farms engaged in value-added production: San Miguel County, 8.9%; Newton County, 5.3%.
• Percentage of farms using CSA:  San Miguel County, 1.62%; Newton County, 0.
• Percentage of farms with high speed internet:  San Miguel County, 48%; Newton County, 24%.
• Percentage of operators working off farm:  San Miguel County, 38%; Newton County, 46%. 
• Percentage of farms with woman operator:  San Miguel County, 18%; Newton County, 14%. 

I acknowledge that this county-to-county comparison is a bit misleading about the markets because, as acknowledged in my earlier post, food at the Telluride area markets actually comes from many neighboring counties, not only from San Miguel County.  Nevertheless, I find it an interesting comparison. 

Note the small size of the market, which is held on the courthouse lawn.

Cross-posted to Agricultural Law Blog.

My Rural Travelogue (Part XXXV): A farmer's market in Prague

Ok, it isn't exactly "rural," but the farmer's market I visited last week in Prague brought the rural to the urban, which is what many (if not most) farmer's markets do.  (About a decade ago, I blogged about farmer's markets before, this one in my home town and this one in posh Telluride, Colorado).

Last Saturday, I visited the much touted Naplavka Farmer's Market, in Praha 2.  At least I thought that is what I was visiting.  It appears on reflection that I didn't travel far enough south on the Vlatava River embankment, because when I reached the intersection of the embankment with Na Morani at about 7:45 am, I saw vendors setting up in the little park and stopped to peruse the goods.  It featured perhaps a dozen stalls, which included a few flower stalls, a cherry stand, a strawberry booth, a coffee stand, a few bakeries, one egg stand, one chicken stand, a stand dedicated solely to kolach (the sweet Czech pastry), one with wine, and several with a variety of vegetables.  

Lots of potatoes and onions, along with
more colorful vegetables and herbers.

The egg vendor had 
a photo her chickens 
roaming free.

The poultry vendor from Holysov had photos of 
the types of poultry he was selling. He chopped 
the chickens in half right in front of customers, for those
who didn't want an entire bird.  
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2023

A dairy stall, with yogurts, cheese and milk

The coffee stand was popular.  There were no disposable cups so a 50 kr. deposit was required for those who didn't bring their own cup.  Only whole milk available for lattes and such.

The wine stall was guarded by a friendly dog. 

One of several bakeries. 
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2023

The name and address of each
vendor was displayed.  This was 
for the baker.  

This sign was at the juice stand.

Milovice is northeast of Prague, perhaps an hour away

This vendor had beautiful white and green asparagus, 
the former in its short season right now.
"Chrest" is the Czech word for asparagus.

This stand was all Kolach.

The cherry vendor had a few varieties. 

Strawberries in season from this farm, which has an address on
the southeastern edge of Prague 

Oh, and there was a woman and what appeared to be here two teenaged children selling various pestos, as well as what her sign called "fried green bread."  This was toasted bread smeared in the pesto(s) and herb butter of the patron's choosing.  She made me the striped one below, so I didn't have to choose.  The pale green at the top was with horseradish.  The bottom stripe is the melting herb butter.

A tale of two markets: Part I, Telluride, Colorado

As some of my recent posts (here and here) suggest, I've been thinking about the farmers' markets in relation to the slow/local food movements and, in particular, how local--and affordable--the food at  farmers' markets really is.  

Stall of hole foods farm, La Sal, Utah,
at Market on the Plaza

As a ruralist, I'm interested in what the farmers' market phenomenon says about our interest in/connection to rural places and the extent to which rural people and economies benefit from farmers' markets.

This week I had the opportunity to visit two markets in southwest Colorado, one in the posh town of Telluride and the other in the equally posh (but more obviously nouveau riche and glitzy, with less of the old West cowboy patina) neighboring town of Mountain Village.  In a two post-series, I am going to compare these markets with a newly established one in my hometown, Jasper, Arkansas.  This initial post will be dedicated to the Colorado markets. 

High Wire Ranch booth, TFM, July 13, 2012.

Before I get down to what I saw at the markets, let me provide some background on Telluride, which I have written about previously here and here.  As these prior posts indicate, I see Telluride as a prime example of rural gentrification.  With a population of 2,221, Telluride is the county seat of tiny San Miguel County, which has a population of 7,490, a very low poverty rate of 9.8%, and a median household income of $66,399.  (To put this in perspective, the median household income for all of Colorado is $56,456, and for the nation it is $51,914).  Another demographic feature that really stands out is that nearly half of the county's residents have college degrees, whereas the national average is only about 30%. Many of the homes in Telluride and Mountain Village are second homes, occupied only part of the year.  Telluride in particular is a rigorously slow/no growth community, and nimbyism is rabid there.  On both days last week when I read the local paper, it featured front-page stories covering San Miguel County Planning Commission news. 

It is not surprising given the demographic profile of Telluride, Mountain Village, and the surrounding county that the offerings at these markets were, well, upmarket.  Lots of organic produce and grass fed beef, lamb, elk, and bison were for sale.  Both weekly markets--Wednesday afternoons in Mountain Village and Fridays in Telluride--also featured pottery, jewelry and other such artisinal wares from places as far away as Durango.  Prepared food was for sale, too, and at the Mountain Village market, you could even get a massage.  In fact, the Mountain Village market is called "Market on the Plaza" rather than farmers' market, and it offered far less food than other stuff.  Perhaps 4-5 stalls/tables out of 15 or so featured fresh fruit and veg, beautiful flowers, and one offering grass-fed beef.   The Telluride Farmers' Market (TFM) was much larger, with perhaps half of the several dozen stalls featuring farm produce.  Plus, as many of the food vendors were offering meat as were offering fruits and veg--something I don't see so much in California.  This meant that most of the meat vendors had brought entire display freezers, plugged in to central electricity outlets.  One stall had its organic whole chickens on ice.   

Canyon of the Ancients near Cortez offered
wild apricots and grass-fed beef. 

As for the provenance of the food, the TFM website indicates that it all comes from within a 100-mile radius, and the same is probably true of the Mountain Village Market.  At the latter, I chatted with one vendor, hole foods farm (highly recommend the sugar snap peas at $4/pound!), out of La Sal, Utah.  As the crow flies, that is certainly within a hundred miles, though it's no short journey through the mountains into Telluride's box canyon.  The same is true for the vendors from Cortez (population 8.482), Paonia (population 1,497), Hotchkiss (population 968), Norwood (population 438), and Colona (population 30).    

The vendors included:

• Buckhorn Gardens 
• High Wire Ranch 
• White Buffalo Organics 
• Indian Ridge Farm and Bakery
• Tomten Farms 
• Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch

James Ranch, a farm stall, "Harvest Grill & Greens," guest ranch, and all around agritourism operator was at TFR promoting their operation, which is north of Durango.

Parker Pastures of Gunnison was at the Telluride market offering eggshares, CSA, and sales of meadow-fed bulk meat.  Parker also offers herdshares for purposes of providing raw milk because simply selling the milk is illegal in Colorado, as it is in California.  The brochure they provide indicates that if you buy in, "we will present you with two legal documents, the Bill of Sale and Boarding Contract."  The cost for a half gallon of raw milk each week is $35 for the share and $5.50/week to cover the cost of feeding, housing and milking the cows.  The milk can be picked up on certain days in either Crested Butte or Gunnison.  Their motto is "Nourishing our Community.  Nourishing our Lands."

Mesa Mix is offered by TomTen Farms, Placerville

I talked to several of the meat vendors.  One told me that he and his wife make a living from what they sell at the Telluride market on Fridays and the Aspen market on Saturdays.  Their farm is about half way between the two. Of course, they also acquire customers at these markets, customers who then place mail orders.  A lamb vendor told me she was there for her daughter, a recent college graduate who raises the lambs (and began doing so as a 4-H'er) but whose day job as a supervisor at a meat packing plant in Durango prevents her from being at the market herself.  The 20-something lamb rancher wasn't the only youngster represented at the market.  I also talked to three young farmers from Buckhorn Gardens, Colona, whose motto is "feed the soil, feed the body."  Their blog features photos and bios of their "New Agrarians," who come from around the country to work on the farm.   Other farmers and ranchers I met were a bit longer in the tooth, but one of the things I really enjoyed was actually meeting some farmer/entrepreneurs, not just their marketeers.  

It was hard for me to assess the price points on the meat offered at the markets since I rarely buy meat.  The brochure I took away from High Wire Ranch, however, put the price of a pound of ground elk or ground bison at $9, while elk tenderloin is $50/lb, bison tenderloin is $40/lb, and elk skirt or flank just $10/lb.  Sausage ranged from $10-$12/lb.  These folks also sell duck eggs for $6/half dozen, and they feature Wild Alaskan halibut and salmon--presumably caught and packaged by someone other than themselves.  It all looked terrific and tempting even for someone like me who doesn't eat red meat and who had not place to cook it.

Stall of hole food farms, La Sal, Utah, at Market on the Plaza

The fruits and veggies were perhaps more expensive than what you find in local grocery stores in the area--which are already quite pricey because of the place's remoteness and the size and demographic of the population.  One stall at the Mountain Village market featured tomatoes at the especially dear price of $6/lb, and the going price for cherries and apricots was $6/bag.  Japanese cucumbers were $2/each and Sweet Walla Walla onions, $3/lb.  Greens tended to go for about $5/bag, and prepared sauces for more than $10 a pint.  Still, these upscale Colorado produce markets were only marginally more expensive on most items than what I find at farmers' markets in greater Sacramento--except on items like tomatoes, which are quite a bit less expensive down here in "Sacatomato" land.     

The TFM website enumerates the following goals for its market, which it calls a "living, evolving event that actively and tangibly enhances the quality of life in Telluride":

• Fresh, local foods for residents and visitors
• Supports organic agriculture and environmental issues
• Improves community spirit
• Additional attractions for tourists
• Improve/maintain bioregional biodiversity
• Reduced environmental impacts with shorter transportation of local foods
• Increases rural/urban links
• Invigorates secondary shopping areas
• Educational--awareness of farming, sustainability, etc.  

Farm stand of Buckhorn Gardens, Colona, at TFM

As this small sampling of photos indicate, both markets offered very salubrious experiences--come rain (Telluride on Friday) or shine (Mountain Village on Wednesday).

In my next post, I'll compare these markets to a new one in Newton County, Arkansas, a persistent poverty county in northwest Arkansas whose agricultural history runs primarily to subsistence farming.    

Cross posted to Agricultural Law Blog. 

Market on the Plaza, July 11, 2012

   

Saving rural economies one farmers market at a time?

NPR ran this interesting story earlier this month (the broadcast is available here). The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a pilot program that enables participating farmers markets to accept food stamps as part of its “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program. Not only that, but the food stamps are worth twice as much at the farmers markets than elsewhere.

While President Obama has been an outspoken supporter of the slow food movement and changing America’s eating habits, many questioned his appointment of Tom Vilsack as the Secretary of Agriculture due to his supposed agribusiness leanings as the governor of Iowa (think corn subsidies). Today, however, Vilsack is calling for a “diversification of agriculture” — and this pilot program is a small step toward changing how food is produced and distributed in the United States.

And Obama, Vilsack and the USDA are certainly bringing a visible change to Washington.

One participating farmers market, the White House Farmers Market, which, as the name implies, is just steps away from the White House, is the first market of its kind since Thomas Jefferson was in office. And, so far, vendors are reporting positive results:

"I have seen women walk by with extremely expensive St. Johns suits, and then all of these great professionals pour out of these federal office buildings," says Mary Ellen Taylor, who sells vegetables from her farm in Purcellville, Va., at the market. "But along with that woman who has that suit, I also have redeemed more WIC coupons here at this market than any other market that I am in."

For Vilsack, this program is about more than helping Americans eat better. It’s about “rural economic development,” “creating wealth in rural communities” and “repopulating rural communities”:

“Ninety percent of farmer family income comes from off the farm. They are required to work off the farm in order to keep the farm. It is important for us to have additional markets that make it easy for them to improve their bottom line and at the same time creating jobs. So ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ is focused on creating wealth in rural communities.”

I think it is wonderful to hear members of the Obama administration supporting sustainable farming and distribution, not to mention the talk of reshaping struggling rural economies. But perhaps Vilsack is being overly optimistic and a little disingenuous in his assessment of the extent to which the slow food movement can help rural places.

The potential beneficiaries of the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program appear to be “rural” persons who live in micropolitan areas and rural communities adjacent to metropolitan areas. Otherwise, one of the central tenets of the slow food movement — minimizing the environmental degradation created by current production systems — will be undermined by the high transportation costs associated with linking rural and urban places. The farther a farm is located from a metropolitan center, the less likely the food will be considered "local."

While touting the benefits of sustainable farming and its transformative potential for rural America, Vilsack notes that he does not want to challenge the hegemony of large corporate farms that produce the vast majority of the food Americans consume, choosing to refer to agribusinesses as "family" operations. Yet the rise of large corporate farms has dramatically decreased the number of rural persons who work on farms. Today, the figure is roughly seven percent of the rural workforce. The growing market for slow food that Vilsack identifies can hardly compete with the low prices offered at supermarkets absent some sort of fundamental restructuring of our food system — making it unlikely that slow food will drive a rural economic recovery.

The “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program certainly has laudable intentions, but I’m concerned that the revitalization of rural America Vilsack discusses is not a realistic expectation.

Can urban farmers claim badge of virtue by differentiation from rural ones?

I know the association of urban ag/slow food/organic/locavore movement with all things virtuous has been going on for some time, but just because the movement has proved so self-congratulatory (and mostly bourgeois) didn't necessarily make rural farmers the "bad guys."  I figured that, more than anything, the slow/local/urban ag craze was, at worst, implying (if only to those too myopic to look beyond their own food needs) that large-scale farmers (and, by extension, rural communities and populations) were (becoming) obsolete.  

But a story in the New York Times a few days ago left me wondering if the urban ag trend (the fruits of which I admit to regularly indulging from my suburban home in greater Sacramento, where many posh farmers markets surround me) also makes rural farmers look less virtuous, even a bit like "the enemy."  Kirk Johnson's story focused on what he called a new business model of farming, one marked by smaller-scale farms on the outskirts of cities, producing food primarily for metropolitan areas, including their fine dining establishments.  Johnson asserts:

[T]he movement toward local food is creating a vibrant new economic laboratory for American agriculture.  The result, with its growing army of small-scale local farmers, is as much about dollars as dinner:  a reworking of old models about how food gets sold and farms get financed, and who gets dirt under their fingernails doing the work.  

* * * 

Economists and agriculture experts say the "slow money" movement ... a way of channeling money into small-scale and organic food operations, along with the aging of the farmer population and steep barriers for young farmers who cannot afford the land for traditional rural agriculture are only part of the new mix.  

OK.  That's an interesting business story.  I have written here, here and here of some of these phenomena, e.g, the obstacles facing new farmers and the aging farmer population in the United States.

But then Johnson goes on to suggest that this small farm/locavore phenomenon is not only in opposition to intensive production agriculture, but also in opposition to rural places, which he seems to collapse into "big ag." Johnson writes

A looming shortage of migrant workers ... could create a kind of rural-urban divide if it continues, with mass-production farms that depend on cheap labor losing some of their price advantages over local grown food, which tends to be more expensive.  

[While] big agriculture ... struggle[s] to find willing hands ...[l]ocal farm sales are becoming more stable, predictable and measurable.

Johnson goes on to note that the USDA has adjusted upward the value of "local revenues" from food sales to $4.8 billion.  The adjustment came from including sales to stores and restaurants and not only those at "road stands and markets."  (I wonder if that prior accounting included urban farmers markets.  I've written some about the distinction between road stands and farmers markets here).  Johnson notes that the economic pathway for these small scale farms that sell their food locally is somewhat supported in the new farm bill (which a NYTimes editorial recently labeled "mediocre").

Certainly, a lot of locavore/organic/slow and boutique food is grown in urban, suburban and exurban locales.  Read more here.  What Johnson overlooks--especially in writing of a "rural-urban divide"--is that these more "virtuous" types of food are also grown in rural places.  I (and my students) have written of instances of this here, here, and here.  Also illustrative is Low Gap, Arkansas, shown in these two photos I took in May, 2012.  Low Gap is a wide spot in the road in Newton County, where I grew up.  Low Gap is not even a Census Designated Place; nor does it have a wikipedia entry.  (As the top photo indicates, it's near Shiloh, a similarly obscure place).  So I was surprised a few years ago to see it listed as the provenance of food on the menu at the Greenhouse Grille, 80 miles away in Fayetteville, where I doubt that even 1 in 100 diners had previously heard of Low Gap, let alone know where it is.  Surely this is not a lone example of a small, rural farm producing organic food for an urban population (yes, Fayetteville is urban, part of the Northwest Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area) and--if the sign above is any indication--for its rural neighbors, too.  Ditto Rivendell Gardens, also in Newton County, pictured in this post.  It is probably not appropriate, then, to suggest that urban/suburban farmers have cornered the market on either virtue or small.

One thing seems certain:  If urban farmers are now sole (or even primary) bearers of the badge of agricultural virtue, we have come a long way not only from the rural yeoman farmer of Thomas Jefferson's day, but also from that of my grandparents (read more here) and a fair number of rural folk still operating smallish farms across America.

Yes, I know I am a little sensitive about this, but food and ag are two of the only justifications that rural people and places have for their existence these days.  If they lose the virtue associated with these--if only rhetorically--to "the city," they arguably lose a lot.

Plus, I just think Johnson's invocation of the rural-urban binary in this context is misplaced.  Or maybe his use just reflects a common lack of precision in how the terms "rural" and "urban" get used.  Many of the farms Johnson refers to are far enough outside the cities they serve to be in places that are rural by several definitions, or at least exurban.  Alternatively, when Johnson talks about small farms and urban ag, he may actually be thinking less about where the food is grown and more about who is consuming it.  And that is as much a matter of class as it is geography.

P.S.  On July 8, 2012, the NYTimes published this story on the front page of the Business section, "Has Organic Been Oversized?" which disputes the popularly held connection between small and organic.  It also disputes, in a sense, the authenticity of the designation.  Here's a key paragraph:

As corporate membership on the board [that sets standards for organic labeled products] has increased, so, too, has the number of nonorganic materials approved for organic foods on what is called the National List.  At first, the list was made up of things like baking soda, which is nonorganic but essential to making things like organic bread.  Today, more than 250 nonorganic substances are on the list, up from 22 in 2002.  

Cross posted to Agricultural Law Blog.

On California's farmers markets (all 700 of them) and the legal changes that made them possible

Farmer's Market, Nevada City, California
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

Shawn Hubler writes in today's New York Times from Sacramento (which happens to be my home) in what reads a bit like a love letter to the state's farmers markets.  But the piece also includes this interesting back story on how changes in legal regulation permitted the revival of these markets in the Golden State.  

Common in the 1930s, [farmers markets] were all but wiped out in the 1950s and ’60s by the regulations that helped make California agriculture a phenomenon worldwide.

Sorting, packing, transportation and sales were so thoroughly geared to the mass market that it was all but impossible for farmers to bypass wholesale distributors and packing houses. Small growers were sacrificing much of their profit margins. Tree fruit was going to waste by the ton because it could not be sold unless it conformed to strict standards governing its size, color and ripeness, the better for shipping and supermarket display.

That changed in the 1970s as small farmers, consumer activists and anti-hunger organizations lobbied to move agricultural policy, even if only a little, at the federal level and in California. The state’s Direct Marketing Act of 1978 — signed by Jerry Brown, then in his first stint as governor — was a tipping point as public opinion shifted.

Here are two posts I did a decade ago (!) about two very different farmers markets, one in my hometown (Newton County, Arkansas), which is a persistent poverty county, and the other in posh Telluride, Colorado, an example of rural gentrification.  Enjoy the photos!  

Nevada City Farmer's Market, Nevada County, California
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

Farmers markets vs old fashioned farm stands

This story about people growing vegetables in the Appalachian foothills appeared in the New York Times a few days ago. The main point of the feel-good story, "Vegetable Gardens are Booming in a Fallow Economy," is that more folks in this region are self-provisioning by growing vegetable gardens and selling the excess, often informally. The story's dateline is West Liberty, Kentucky, population 3,363, in the Appalachian part of the state where the economy has long been depressed. Sabrina Tavernise writes:

Garden plots are dug into the green hills, laid out in fuller force than people have seen in years. People call them sturdy patches of protection in uncertain times.

Tavernise makes the point that while many farmers' markets have sprung up in Kentucky in recent years, people buying food there tend to be looking for bargains, buying in bulk to can and preserve. This is in contrast to farmers markets in urban areas, where the "words 'locally grown' conjure images of affluent shoppers" buying pricey, beautiful food. Speaking of beautiful, don't miss the slide show accompanying the story.

The casual way some of these farmers sell their overflow produce reminded me just how far some contemporary, urban farmers markets are from what I consider to be their forerunner: an old fashioned farm stand (sometimes the back of a pick up truck) where a farmer sells her/his own stuff. Indeed, sometimes the stand is right next to or on the field where the food is grown, which takes the locavore idea to a new height. I'm posting a few photos of how producers sell the fruits of their labor right from their homes, as it were. The top photo is from just north of Polson, Montana, along Flathead Lake, where a family was selling cherries from its orchard, summer 2011. The bottom photo is from near Collinsville, Oklahoma, summer 2011.

Farmers markets--at least those I frequent in greater Sacramento--are, in contrast, highly commercial. As Tavernise points out in her story, part of the draw is the array of goods they offer--not just fruit and veg, but flowers, dried herbs, wine, jams and jellies. Some even have musical performers each week. (And don't forget the fresh--make that live--fish). And the fare isn't necessarily local. Some produce, avocados, for example, may be trucked in from as far away as Southern California, which undermines any claim to being particularly environmentally friendly. I love urban farmers markets, but we should admit that, among other things, they are a form of agritourism.

Farmer suicides in Australia, old news down under but now in the New York Times

The New York Times today includes a long-ish feature story on farmer suicides in Australia.  The headline is "A Booming Economy with a Tragic Price," which hints at the story's inequality and globalization angles, but not the mental health/rural services angle which is also a key component of this excellent reporting:

Family farms like Mr. Guy’s [who committed suicide in 2016] have been the producers of Australia’s agricultural bounty, and the bedrock of its self-image as a nation of proudly self-reliant types, carving a living from a vast continent. But as Australia’s rural economy has boomed on the back of growing exports, small farmers have not always shared in the bounty, with many forced into borrowing money or selling their farms.

This is old news "down under," according to my Aussie friends, and I've seen some coverage of similar trends in the United States, as here and here.  (This is also reminiscent of the deaths of despair associated with rural folks in the U.S., though in Australia it is men who are disproportionately dying). One reason, it seems, that this trend is now attracting so much attention in the NYT (this is part I of II in the NYT, on "Regional Australia," a term used to connote "rural" in that nation) is the family murder-suicide that occurred a few weeks ago in Western Australia.

Here's a further sobering, data-dense excerpt from Jacqueline Williams' feature story in the NYT:

Nationwide, people living in remote Australia now take their own lives at twice the rate of those in the city: Every year, there are about 20 suicide deaths per 100,000 people in isolated rural areas, compared with 10 in urban communities, according to independent studies of local health figures.

In very remote parts of the country, the figure is closer to 23, the studies say.

Data out of the state of Queensland are even worse, also indicating that the more remote the farmer, the higher the suicide risk.  

Williams then takes up that which differentiates what is happening in Australia from what is happening in other nations where farmers are experiencing higher rates of suicide:

[T]he crisis seems to be worsening at a time when, at least on paper, the [Australian] rural economy is quite robust.

* * * 

There is a painful irony here, they say, since Australia has embraced free trade in farm goods, and even pressed other nations to liberalize their markets, in the belief that agriculture is one of its most competitive industries. 

And Australian farm exports are growing: Last year, they totaled 44.8 billion Australian dollars, or $33.5 billion, up more than a fifth from just six years earlier, according to the National Farmers Federation. 

But many experts say the biggest beneficiaries are larger corporate farms. Family farms are less able to ride out fluctuations in far-flung global markets that can drive down prices of their crops while raising the cost of tractor fuel. 

 So, neoliberalism does a number down under, too.

As I hinted above, this story also includes important information on the dearth of services in rural Australia, and how mental health services are being delivered there--sometimes in innovative fashion.  The story is well worth a read in its entirety.                                                                         

How farmers feel about Trump's trade wars

I've seen two pieces on this topic recently, one today from Bloomberg news by Mario Parker and Mike Dorning, and the other a few weeks ago by Jennifer Rubin, columnist for the Washington Post.  The pros and cons of Trump's trade wars are a complicated story, and I'm only going to focus on one issue:  evidence that farmers--a constituency associated with support for Tump in 2016--may be shifting that support (or, more precisely, presumed support) away from him.  The two headlines speak volumes.  For Parker and Dorning writing for Bloomberg, it's "Farmers Say Trump's $28 billion bailout isn't a solution."  Rubin's headline is "Trump has angered the wrong people:  farmers." 

Here's a salient excerpt from the Bloomberg story:

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue was fielding questions at a farm show in Decatur, Ill., in late August when his boss rang his cellphone. Perdue put the call on speaker and placed it next to the microphone so the crowd could hear Donald Trump speak. During the almost seven-minute call the president defended his handling of the trade conflict with China, which has cut off American farmers from one of their most important export markets. Yet he was quick to remind them that he’s tried to salve their pain. “I sometimes see where these horrible dishonest reporters will say that ‘oh jeez, the farmers are upset.’ Well, they can’t be too upset, because I gave them $12 billion and I gave them $16 billion this year,” said Trump, who then added, “I hope you like me even better than you did in ’16.”

A couple of years ago, a pep talk from Trump might have drawn raucous applause from one of the president’s key constituencies. This time the crowd was subdued. “The aid package that has come in is a relief, and it softens the landing, but it’s not a solution, it’s a Band-Aid,” says Stan Born, a farmer who attended the event. When asked if the payments make him whole, Born, who grows 500 acres of soybeans near Decatur, responds, “Of course not.” He’d rather have free trade, he says.

That's broadly consistent with what Rubin wrote in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, which included this excerpt suggesting--like today's Bloomberg story--that farmers are fed up with Trump's trade policies:

We have gotten so used to the formulaic story — interview member of President Trump’s base, find he still loves Trump, conclude Trump is invincible — that we wind up surprised when the logical and predictable laws of political gravity hit. This is certainly true of farmers. 

You know the setup — a sturdy farmer suffering from Trump-imposed tariffs grits his teeth and says he’s hurting but, by josh, he’s not parting with Trump whom he trusts to do the right thing. We are to conclude that Trump possesses magical political power, that farmers are too dumb to know what’s good for them or both. 

Well, it turns out Trump has no magic, and farmers know exactly what the president is doing to them. MSNBC on Monday interviewed Bob Kuylen, vice president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, who explained that his wheat farm, which depends on overseas markets, has lost $400,000 because of the administration’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and subsequent trade wars. During another interview, Christopher Gibbs, a soybean and corn farmer in Ohio, ridiculed Trump’s farm bailouts — which he called “hush money” intended to “sedate" farmers — and made clear that taxpayers are paying for this, not China. He, too, is losing money.

I admit to hoping that Rubin, along with Parker and Dorning, are spot on in their speculation that farmers who previously supported Trump are abandoning him.  But I want to highlight one other issue:  what happened when I Tweeted an msnbc story with a message similar to Rubin's a few weeks ago--that message being that farmers were hurting and some saw Trump's "bailout"--now valued at $28 million--as hush money.  Indeed, it is a story Rubin had referred to in her column.  The only responses I got to the Tweet boiled down to this:  It's farmers' own damn fault because they voted for Trump.

I'm pasting in two screen shots: 

Twitter Screenshots taken September 8, 2019 in response to
@lisareneepruitt's Tweet of Jennifer Rubin story 

My point:  how can Twitter responses like these possibly be helpful?  And, how is the left going to respond to people like farmers once Trump is defeated (IF he is defeated)?  Will the left be less inclined to help farmers--and other groups presumed to have monolithically supported Trump?  Sadly, that's what my Twitter feed often makes me expect.

Rural morality and the left

Western Norway

Source: Wikimedia Commons (2016)

Internationalism, the idea that people and states should organize across borders, is a popular organizing principle on the political left. It takes two related forms. Liberal internationalism promotes rule of law, open markets, and free trade as a path to peace through multilateral governance. Socialist internationalism emphasizes solidarity among workers across nations, rather than competition between them. Both tend to replace an emphasis on local community with an abstract political identity that isn’t rooted in any particular place. 

International governance creates a layer of authority that communities cannot meaningfully influence. The resulting cosmopolitan governing class (sometimes pejoratively referred to as “globalists”) are socially and geographically distant from communities affected by their policy. Meanwhile, international economic integration guts local economic prospects so that multinational firms can thrive. After China's accession to the World Trade Organization, imports of Chinese furniture surged, leading firms that once anchored the manufacturing economy of High Point to shut local factories and source production abroad

This process spreads similar models of education and culture, eroding distinct regional identities and traditions. In the name of internationalism, many have advocated for cultivating cosmopolitan “citizens of the world.” Within this frame, local or regional culture is something to be overcome, not preserved. Is rural culture something that needs to be overcome in pursuit of a more equal society? 

French philosopher Jean-Claude Michèa offers a critique of liberalism that bears directly on this question. Until recently his work was unavailable in English. Michael Behrent, a History Professor at Appalachian State University, published a collection of his works titled Toward a Conservative Left. Don’t let the title put you off. What the title evokes is the way in which Michèa combines a critique of capitalism with a suspicion of "progress". Michèa says little about American politics in his work, but his analysis maps uncomfortably well onto the contemporary Democratic Party, which has become a party of urban educated professionals. 

Michèa’s personal background is relevant too. Born in Paris in 1950, he was raised in public housing by parents who were both members of the French Communist Party. The Party was central to his childhood. It employed his parents, with his dad working as sports reporter for the Party newspaper. It was a community of working-class people who looked out for one another. Today, Michea lives on a farm in southwest France. 

At the center of Michèa’s work is Orwell’s concept of “common decency,” developed in the 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier.  For Orwell, common decency is the moral intuition observable in tight-knit communities built around face-to-face interaction. In his 1939 essay on Dickens, Orwell argues that Dickens owed his popularity to a rare ability to give comic, memorable expression to the native decency of the common man. It is the instinct “that makes a jury award excessive damages when a rich man’s car runs over a poor man.” 

Michèa takes this concept further,  giving it anthropological character. Working people, because of their way of earning a living and social status, tend to exhibit a form of solidarity and spontaneous ethics. Working people rely on one another out of necessity. It is a set of habits that arise through family life, neighborhood association, and shared work. Common decency requires social relations through which people experience themselves as dependent on and responsible for one another. Capitalism, Michèa argues, is breaking down this social fabric. As the market relentlessly expands into every area of life, relationships once governed by reciprocity become self-interested transactions. 

This maps directly with the concept of high density of acquaintanceship associated with rural communities. In a small agricultural community, a neighbor’s failed harvest is visible. Decency is not an abstract value, but a material reality that rural people navigate on a daily basis.  Michèa argues that modern society has removed people from the social relations that foster this common decency. 

Here is where Michèa’s argument becomes uncomfortable. He contends that economic liberalism, meaning the spreading of free markets, free trade, and global integration of markets-- are not in tension with cultural liberalism . He believes these two liberalisms actually operate in concert. He writes, “a right-wing economy cannot function in a lasting way without a left-wing culture.” It is well documented that economic liberalism has devastated rural communities by financializing land, offshoring manufacturing, and consolidating agricultural markets. 

Cultural liberalism, for Michèa, works in parallel. It elevates individual autonomy and the right to choose one’s lifestyle over inherited social norms or traditions. Institutions that once anchored rural life: stable family, religious practice, the local community, have all been delegitimized over time in the name of individual emancipation. Rural communities are left with a social and moral vacuum at a time when economic liberalism has taken away their material foundations. For Michèa this is not a coincidence, capitalism prefers autonomous individuals without a sense of rootedness to a place and an inherited way of life. The tech worker who relocates for opportunity is a more compatible economic subject than the farmer who will not leave because his family has worked the same land for three generations. 

While Michèa’s argument is not without its blind spots, he invites the left to take working class culture seriously. To be clear, I don’t believe the left should abandon a commitment to individual freedom. However, a politics aimed toward a more just society cannot organize against rural morality. To me, this is what is intended by the provocative title. The social fabric that allows for the cultivation of common decency is worth conserving.