On Job Creation—Local Fruits and Vegetables vs. Corn and Soybeans | CommonDreams.org

On Job Creation—Local Fruits and Vegetables vs. Corn and Soybeans | CommonDreams.org

Informative writing on regional economics (upper midwest) and the driving potential of local production.

From CommonDreams.org's blog:

Some key findings on the economic impacts on the region as a whole:

• Increased fruit and vegetable production in the six states could mean $882 million in sales at the farm level, and more than 9,300 jobs. Corn and soybean production on that same acreage would support only 2,578 jobs.
• If half of the increased production was sold in farmer-owned stores, it would require 1,405 such stores staffed by 9,652 people.

The full study new study by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.


This is consistent with findings in numerous local food studies: economic, profitable, sustainable, and not requiring extensive subsidy beyond instantiation of infrastructures (say, processing facilities). 


See also Grower To Grower from cais.wisc.edu for some of the dynamics of smaller scale farms. Big bucks from small acres. University of Illinois Extension circa 2002 found a lot of "takers" for small scale farming; some of it purpose-driven, funding college, a new boat, or to pay down a mortgage, etc. I don't have a link at hand for that one.


Photograph: Mike Glodo, Small Jonathan and Stayman Apples from Southern Illinois

"Local and Regional Foods in Community and Economic Development" from Cornell et.al.

Well crafted presentation. Concise tutorial.

Cornell Presentation

View more presentations from Ed Morrison.

Kudos to the authors, Rod Howe, Katherine Lang, Bernadette Logozar, Heidi Mouillesseaux-Kunzman, and Duncan Hilchey

My friend Dayna Conner at Food Works here in deep Southern Illinois pointed me to an upcoming webinar on Local and Regional Food Systems by Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD) that led me to that presentation. Her organization's blog is here.

Heartland Papers - policy wonking on rural development

Heartland Papers

Excellent papers on rural economy development (stop chasing smokestacks) and Mexican immigration in the Midwest (3rd rail, but data are data.....)

Read at least the executive summary of "Transforming the Rural Economy in the Midwest". 

Very consistent with good practices/emerging wonking on building sustainable local economies.

The USDA has started a new series of reports on Micropolitan areas (above) link at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Rurality/MicropolitanAreas/ and also analysis reflecting the influence of Urban areas, notable "no town no center" for the SE corner of the bootheel, for example. Link at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Rurality/UrbanInf/

Heartland Papers - Midwest Economic Issues

Heartland Papers

Excellent thinking about the rural economy here in the Midwest. Strong sense of regionalism. 

Issue 2 - "Past Silos and Smokestacks: Transforming the Rural Economy in the Midwest," by Mark Drabenstott, director of the Center for Regional Competitiveness at the Rural Policy Research Institute and chairman of the Territorial Development Policy Committee for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Get People to Food to People

Transportation systems for schools have high utilization at peak times and no utilization at others.

The Gothamist reports "Real Seniors Take School Buses To Buy Fresh Food"

This has been a recurring issue for me for a couple of years now: how to use things like transportation systems more intelligently.

Other things to fix:

• Integrate scheduling for county-based transportation systems in Southern Illinois (now only 5 days a week, inter-county complexity in routes/fares/extra fees/etc.
• Examine more efficient utilization of transport (for example, to pick up or deliver food) and manage health and safety issues through "intelligent boxes"which have telltales regarding handling of foods. These could even have features to allow only a certified operator to open the box (e.g., with a little bluetooth app for the food person at either end).
• Design for multi-use (buses with removable seats, etc.)

Ok. Time to weatherstrip the front door.... chilly day here.

Oh yeah. Most of the code for this exists in open source, I'd wager. Google Apps work too.

Will Allen: Urban Farming

Good summary article of Will Allen's commitment and innovations in urban local food in the New York Times Magazine, 5 July 2009. Good summary article of Will Allen's commitment and innovations in urban local food in the New York Times Magazine, 5 July 2009.
Street Farmer
By ELIZABETH ROYTE
Published: July 5, 2009
Can Will Allen make the inner city the next front in the good-food movement?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05allen-t.html

Small Business Econometric Study / Trends From SBA

Highlights from " An Empirical Approach to Characterize Rural Small Business Growth and Profitability"

• Education was a significant explanatory variablein assessing the growth of rural small businesses.The number of high school graduates increases thenumber of rural small businesses. Moreover, one of the challenges facing rural communities is how to retain a younger, more educated population.

• The amount of “natural amenities” available in an area can impact rural small business growth. This is defined as the attractiveness of a place to live,based on factors such as climate, topography, and proximity to surface water.

• Rural areas have difficulty attracting profitable,high-tech businesses, primarily because of a lack ofboth an educated labor force and necessary infrastructure.

• Rural policy initiatives are geared primarilytoward specific topics or regions, which often proveseffective when there are sufficient resources to helprural small businesses. According to individualsinterviewed on the topic, rural development centersand non-profit organizations are vital components foreconomic development.

• Some explanatory variables were specific to particular states. These range from the number of ruralprimary care physicians per capita in North Carolinato immigration growth in Maine.

Interesting read (for wonks and mortals).

Why regional markets matter: Driving Distance and Times. Chicago's 35 minutes closer than Kansas City

From Goreville, IL	Miles	Hours:Minutes
	Paducah, KY	45	0:50:00
	St. Louis, MO	131	2:08:00
	Evansville, IN	144	2:21:00
	Nashville, TN	180	2:50:00
	Springfield, IL	201	3:20:00
	Memphis, TN	205	3:00:00
	Louisville, KY	232	3:33:00
	Chicago, IL	332	5:18:00
	Kansas City, MO	379	5:53:00

Hi gang, I'll pretty this up at some point but the message is clear: we have export markets which have little to do with upstate. Louisville's about 2 hours closer than Chicago. Nashville, TN is closer than Springfield, IL. Memphis is 2 hours closer than Chicago.

This matters, and I want "regional" to get into the vocabulary ASAP. Geography's a hard thing to grasp, and when any of us (me included!) say Illinois it means a lot of things that I, for one, don't always understand it to mean. The latitude down here is the same as Roanoake VA and San Francisco..... It matters. Thanks.
Yours for good eats,
Mike (Born in Memphis, raised in Grand Tower Illinois, boomerang and proud of it!)

Growing Startups

So, how to encourage early stage knowledge based companies?

Specifics change, but the necessary conditions for success seem constant. For example:

• Great Ideas,
  
• Commitment,
  
• Community, and
• Infrastructure

"Europe has all the right ingredients – environment, talent, capital and role models - to build world beating technology businesses. It’s hard for young entrepreneurs to secure funding, develop the right connections and build teams to supercharge their business."

"So Europe is a few cycles in the entrepreneurial ecosystem
behind silicon valley, but if you are an opportunist that
should set off alarm bells."

From Seedcamp's blog.

Seedcamp itself identifies "venture side" criteria as applicable to Southern Illinois as they are to Romania.


NB: Seedcamp was influenced by the American venture work by Y Combinator. Note especially the emphasis upon early stage companies.

Quick summary at www.e-consultancy.com/

Market Information Networks For Local Farm Products

As an example of the pervasive effect of information networks, a Google search of "Black Locust Flooring" produces links to WoodPlanet.com, a national electronic for buyers and sellers of all types of wood products.

The point: even "old timey" businesses may benefit from networked exchanges, whether for growth or survival.

This piece is, frankly, a placeholder dealing with the issue of "how big" and "what tech" and "who plays" in the context of Local Food issues.

There seem to be emergent "big dogs" in the link lists (notably, Localharvest.org has the attraction of being, as a rule, pretty agnostic and having enough scope to have some effect) and the technology promises to be très amenable to Web 2.0 mojo.

Local Harvest's underlying data sources also leverage non proprietary CSV (comma separated value) files; sort of a lingua franca for data visualization.

Current Limitations and Issues

One notable affect of the listing systems: minimal transparency and problems with authentication of participants.

While limiting, I'm thinking we'll see more "regionalism" for the information, with some accommodation of bid/ask mechanisms (eBay4Beets) and some other incentives to increase the participation of regional, many times (but my no means always) technology averse producers and consumers of Local Good Eats.

The idea of local, well, it has a lot to do with local.

There seem to be systemic disincentives for collaboration from the perspective of public funding sources (grants) and the Jack Russell terrier behavior involving "turf".

So, an organizing cry around this issue validates the IWW and One Big Union vis a vis regional and US Domestic market opportunities.

Ok. Time to think.