The Artisanal Economy – Food
by Rob Paterson
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It is not news that most farmers cannot make a living anymore. It’s not that they are not efficient. It’s that they are usually restricted to selling only to one or two wholesalers. We in turn buy food that is usually industrially processed where safety and quality are now becoming a concern.
It’s not even about organic or not. Much of the Organic Produce is grown and packaged industrially and sold via a global distribution chain. The small local farmer hasn’t a chance. We buy food that is ever riskier and from a process that harms our world. But there is an alternative – it’s the local Farmer’s market.
Griggstown has added three Philadelphia market days to its schedule this year – Clark Park on Saturdays and Thursdays and Headhouse on Sundays (starting July 1). They will also be at five of the Whole Foods farm markets, and will continue their participation in five New Jersey community markets – Bernardsville, Lawrenceville, Montgomery, Moorestown (starting in June) and West Windsor.
“Farmers markets are a trend that is only going to get bigger,” said Matthew Sytsema, Griggstown’s executive chef and store manager.
“Consumers want to know where their food is coming from and what goes into it. They want to talk to the farmer, to the chef.”
I suspect that this is a huge trend that has the power to transform not only our food system back to being more local and back to offering a farmer a living but to help re-establish our local communities as well.
The Department of Agriculture pegs farmers-market sales at $1 billion of consumer spending annually, a small but, for many, a very significant part of the food business. But farmers markets bring more than economic growth, more than meaningful interaction between farmers and consumers.
They bring a sense of community, reviving a “town square” tradition lost in many urban neighborhoods.
It is evident at Clark Park and markets throughout the region; at mobile “street corner” markets, where single vendors sell produce from the back of a truck; and on Sunday mornings in Washington, D.C., at toney Dupont Circle, where farmers occupy most of a city block, selling fresh local and seasonal foods.
Food markets become community gathering places, not just for farmers and shoppers, but for artisans, neighborhood bake sales, street musicians, and vendors who offer crafts, flea-market finds and miscellany, as is the case at Clark Park.
The importance of farmers markets was nowhere more evident than in New Orleans, where the Crescent City market was one of the first traditions restored, reopening little more than a year after Katrina hit. It provided hope, as well as one of the few fresh-food sources for struggling survivors.
In an article in the current issue of Grit, the rural lifestyle magazine, vendor Lucy Capdebos is quoted:
“The reopening was a wonderful day in New Orleans. Grocery stores didn’t have any fresh produce, and people came from all over,” she said.
“Some people had never been to a farmers market before and experienced how much better- tasting everything is. Now the market is bigger than ever.”
I think that Social Software can offer this movement a lot of help and so make a major contribution to the overall health of our world – for better profitability for farmers means that they can be better stewards of their land.
The farmer’s market is a return to how business was conducted for all time until recently. At its heart is community – local community – the juice is socialization – the transaction is all about the relationship between the buyer and the seller. When I was in Arras in France this spring, we went to the market.
[photopress:300px_Arras_Petite_place.jpg,full,alignleft] This market has been going for maybe a thousand years. I bet that if you were local, you would be buying meat or cheese from the same family for generations. No need for external quality control here. No need to find a community here. Even strangers like us were treated as guests and were routinely offered tasters.
I think that the new Artisanal online community will be like this. There will be “Markets” that have a wide range of goods – not just food and not just items. They will be rooted in something – maybe a place. You will go to have a social time as much as to buy things. You will get to know both the sellers and the other buyers well.
As I look backwards over the millenia, it is clear to me that how we get our food drives the nature of human society. Hunter Gatherers gave way to agricultural societies and to hierarchies. Agriculture gave way to Agribusiness and to a dietary and environmental crisis that could be the end of us. Re-establishing viable local food systems could save us and social software could be the technological catalyst that drives this trend.
Sounds like a great spec for a community to build online to add power to the physical reality. What do you think would be a great add on to your local farmer’s market?
