Willingness (and ability) to pay is what’s desperately needed!
Simply difficult times ahead or perhaps worse? It’s hard to say that all is well in our food future—extreme weather, climate disruption, natural resource declines, as well as social and economic uncertainties. Those willing to think about such things have a variety of views on where we are heading, ranging from difficulties that we can readily overcome if we put our minds to the task, to much harsher times that will challenge our abilities to adapt (see The Lloyd’s Scenario). Some see us making sufficient progress, others frankly see major disruptions in the near term. Most people recognize significant challenges right now for both growers and consumers, and concern for the future.
Personally, I see it as a matter of probabilities—a small chance of us escaping current trends without major consequences (a very small chance), a chance—undetermined but well worth considering—of major crashes of food and related economic and social systems, and a big chance of increasing challenges and difficulties that diminish our livelihoods and quality of life if we don’t act decisively now.
Most importantly, I see a near certainty that we can avoid many, many hardships if we get busy now and prepare for a bright local food future.
Local food as a sustainability tool: As you probably know by now, we see local food as a strategy for seeking deep sustainability. Committing to pursuing as much localization of our food systems as possible, protecting our local foodsheds, and insisting on sustainably produced foods—whether local or that food which we still must get from elsewhere—is the path forward if we are to achieve a bright local food future. Ultimately, this pursuit can help us find our appropriate place as humans on the landscape and on this planet.
‘Foodability’—how much can we sustainably grow locally? If we are serious about localizing our food systems while protecting and restoring local foodsheds and the surrounding ecosystems on which they depend, we need to consider how much of our food we can, sustainably and appropriately, grow locally. We need to be responsible not only for our local ecological footprint, but also for our impacts—as we import the food that we can’t grow locally—on other people and their foodsheds around our region, nation, and the planet. We can’t sacrifice other foodsheds for the sake of our own. Wonderful work is being done on localizing sustainable food, but much, much more must be done and much, much more quickly if we are to be able to cope with current and emerging challenges, and to shape our future for the better.
Carrots: To check our assumptions and start percolating these ideas here in Southwest Colorado, we have done some “back of the envelope” calculations for a single product with many attributes—the humble carrot— tasty, nutritious, and easy to grow, store and eat. How many of the carrots we eat (or should eat) can be grown here? What are the limiting factors? What is keeping us from just growing them all here? How can this extend to other foods we enjoy here?
In Let Them Eat Carrots, you will find all the details and assumptions that I made, but the bottom line is that only an amazingly few acres of carrots are needed here—and in spite of more than a mile of altitude and being in a water-challenged part of the West, it appears that we could readily (it’s never easy) grow what we need. We grow carrots well now, but far fewer than we consume. Not everyone has the access to land and water needed, but overall those don’t seem to be the biggest limiting factors for such few acres.
Willingness (and ability) to pay: As I see it, this is what remains as the key challenge to achieving a significant amount of local food consumed in a community. “Paying” not only means putting forth the money to keep growers in business, but also the time and effort to buy local. Obviously, we don’t all have an equal ability to pay, and social programs should be aimed at helping everyone access healthy local food through public assistance in the short term, but also help them get to a reasonable income so they can afford such foods in the longer term. If those (large numbers of people) who are able to pay a fair price to growers actually do so, the market can support more growers with prices adjusting to a level that is fair to both grower and consumer. Institutions should be funded so they are able to pay as well.
If growers are paid a fair price, they should be much more able to cope with, and adapt to, weather extremes, climate disruption, access to water and land, and other challenges.
Growing one’s own food should be seen as a critical contribution to this overall effort, and not as a threat to commercial growers. If larger numbers of people spend the time and effort to start growing a substantial amount of their own food, this should make them determined to buy local for those foods that they don’t grow since they have become accustomed to high quality foods and more aware of how much growers need their support. Paying attention to nature and how it is doing in our gardens, farms, and ranches adds to our understanding of producer challenges and the need for fair prices and sustainable food.
Enlightened self-interest & the moral imperative: Willingness to pay is a matter of priorities and to what extent it is important to a person. Local food tends to be tasty, nutritious, and fun for the individual and their family—but saving money can be rewarding as well. Enlightened self interest may prompt one to extend caring and fairness to others—people less fortunate, future generations, other species, and the natural world—since we know that a healthier world will benefit us in the long run. Worldviews don’t change easily, but they can change. Ultimately, one might conclude that caring and fairness and making the world more sustainable is simply the right thing to do, even if we are not sure how successful we will be. I see this as perhaps the ultimate self interest—being at peace with oneself and the world around us.
Looking Forward to More Healthy Local Food from Healthy Local Foodsheds (LF3):
We have gathered our suggestions to address these issues in our Looking Forward project described as:
A positive, yet serious, proactive look into the future. We look forward, with hopeful anticipation, to more and more good local food. We look forward into the future at increasingly serious challenges, especially the connections between the climate and biodiversity crises and food. We look forward to a bright future for our children and our planet as we take the necessary actions now to ensure it, starting with food in our case and extending to all aspects of a sustainable future.
We encourage you to consider this call to action aimed at increasing the “willingness to pay” as outlined, with many resources, on our Looking Forward project page:
- Grow as much of your food as possible—gardens for the future!
- Buy as much from local growers as possible—ramp up the local food system!
- Pay attention to the health of our local foodsheds—monitor foodshed health!
- Support climate- and wildlife-friendly food locally and globally—buy sustainable!
We need to do this as quickly and thoroughly as possible—our future and that of our children and planet are at stake. What part can you play in this effort?
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