2000 mile journey for spuds. (rant)

[trof]

We were at our local Winn-Dixie in Foley, Alabama yesterday.
Potatoes were on the list.
I picked up a 10 lb. bag.
We've become very conscious about supporting local growers, so I turned the bag over to see who the supplier was.
Some farm in Simi freaking Valley California!
That's over 2000 miles away.
http://maps.google.com/
This is crazy.

We live in a farming community.
We're surrounded by farms.
Some of our farmers grow potatoes.
Are they shipping our spuds to California?
What gives?

I picked up a bag from a different pile.
Monte Vista, Colorado.
Well, that's only about 1400 miles from here, so I picked the CO spuds.
:-(

The yellow onions came from Monterrey, CA.
:wtf:

I wonder just how much fuel it took to get those basic foods from field to processor/packager to regional distribution warehouse to local warehouse to store?
:grr:

[Squatch]

1. No Idaho potatoes?

What the hell is going on in this world?

[nichomachus]

2. Same problem here -- but I'm in CA

I live within a few minutes drive of huge agricultural fields. However, we don't get any of the produce from there. We get to watch it go by on the interstate, so it can be shipped to you.

We get stuff from Mexico and South America -- or some of the stuff gets shipped back to us after the best stuff is sent to you.

And it's all overpriced.

Also, we have a humongous windfarm for generating electricity -- seriously thousands of windmills -- except that the power they generate is shipped off somewhere else and we have to pay the sky high prices for power that were extorted by Enron during the phony energy crisis. The Bush energy department ruled that the contracts were valid even though they were the result of massive fraud.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Farming is a corporate enterprise

I have been trying to do the same thing and having about the same luck. I had dinner last night with a friend who was telling me all about Monsanto and their terminator seeds. Really scary stuff. Lots worse than shipping potatoes 2000 miles, but that is definitely part of the nightmare.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Buy locally-grown stuff whenever possible.

Farmers markets, roadside stands, places where it's not trucked in.

[trof]

7. Our farmer's market closed last year.

I have no idea why.
There's one in a neighboring town on Saturdays. We're going.
There's also a large 'farmers market' about 25 miles away, but a lot of their produce isn't locally grown.

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. Up in New England, they pop up all summer long.

The stuff seems so taste much better, and when fall comes it's sad to see them close down.

[SteelPenguin]

5. You sometimes have to go out of your way to support local growers

either by finding and getting your produce from local farmers markets, or by finding a grocery store that has a 'locally grown' section.

Scarier than finding California produce, to me, is when I find produce from other continents. is it really cheaper to ship grapes up from Chile, or potatoes up from Argentina than it is to get them here?

sometimes certain crops don't grow well, or in enough abundance to feed the local population and they have to be shipped in. Other times it's because the local growers are producing feed grain rather than produce for actual people. My guess is the majority of growers in your neck of the woods are growing corn, soy, and/or feed grains for pigs/cow/etc.

[trof]

8. Yep, cash crops and sod.

But the higher cost of food/transportation may get some of them back into table crops.
I hope.

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. Economies of scale

It is entirely possible that because of scale economies, it is actually cheaper to grow spuds in one corner of the country and
ship them to another, on a per bushel basis.

It's great to support local growers, but when an entire region is known for growing tubers, it shouldn't be an outrage that they
turn up everywhere.

What mystifies me is how a bottle of wine from Chile can cost $3.

[trof]

9. Where will my spuds come from when diesel hits $6 gal.?

And how much will they cost?

[Dreamer Tatum]

11. Gee, wherever is cheapest, I suppose. Maybe your backyard?

Just because someone far away can do it cheaper doesn't mean all prices won't be going up...relative prices are all that matter.

[Elidor]

12. You can search out some local growers here:

http://www.localharvest.org/

With the price of everything going up, I often wonder why grocery stores don't make arrangements with local growers to keep costs down. But, you know, the bigger the chain, the greater the number of suits who have to think something is their idea before it can happen.

[trof]

14. Yes, I've been using that.

Found a co-op in nearby Pensacola.
And I found this place:
http://www.dauerwalden.com/

We visited it yesterday and it's fantastic.
The guy has a real dream of preserving 1100 acres of natural habitat.

[logosoco]

13. Lots of fishy stuff going on....

A few years ago while on a road trip, we saw a truck full of cut trees heading one way and a few minutes later there was another truck loaded with trees heading the other way . There were no off ramps between seeing these trucks, so that really made me wonder.
I think it all has to do with greed. Common sense has no stand against greed.
Can I add to your rant...
Last night i was getting contact solution (or as my kid calls it contact fluid) and i was checking the origin of the products (as i do more and more often) and one was the ambiguous "packaged in tenn." and the other was "made in spain". This is confusing...i thought so many things were made "elsewhere"(i.e.china) because of the money saved by labor (slave labor!). Now, i don't know much about Spain, but i assume they use euros(?) so how could that be cheaper?
I don't know anymore. But i sure am buying less, and not just because i don't have the money, but because I'm tired of not being able to buy american produced things. Or at least canada or mexico even.

Thank you for opening up this rant. A lot of this is confusing for me. I may not understand the economy, but i sure can't see where spending so much on shipping is helping anyone.

[trof]

15. Welcome to DU.

:hi:

[amandabeech]

18. All trees are not equal.

Some are good for framing houses, but other may end up in furniture or at the paper mill.

It's hard to generalize without knowing more.

[Lex]

16. Please go to this site

http://www.localharvest.org/

and see what you can find locally.

And tell the grocery store manager you'd like to see more locally grown produce available. Likely s/he can't do much about it, but if enough people demand it . . . it gets attention up the line.

[trof]

17. Been there, as I said earlier. Good info.