The Need for Broadband Networks in Local Food Systems

Although some "local" farm telecommunications can take place with relatively slow speed private networks (such as those which support remote low data rate sensors for water or nutrients) and basic "telephone" calls, the bulk of the information needed for the Local Food farmers and eaters has trended along with the Internet traffic patterns generally: more and more information comprises richer media: video and audio.

"Digital Divide" has been used to describe the disparity of computer and network access - typically in the context of relative incomes. In other words, poorer people use (or have access to) significantly less computing (and networks) than wealthier people. With respect to Local Food Systems, the Local Food System digital divide breaks along geographic disparities - especially population densities - and the willingness of incumbent network providers (telephone companies and cable companies) to provide access to the "thinner" parts of their service areas.

And these poorly served areas are rural, holding farmers, ranchers, and consumers who cannot reasonably gain access to higher capacity networks. The network potential benefits resemble the effects of Rural Electrification during the 1930s. Illinois citizens - particularly at the south end of the state - are merely one generation removed from kerosene lanterns and battery powered radios.

History Does Not Repeat Itself But It Often Rhymes

Attributed to Mark Twain

Regarding Rural Electrification from http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm

"In 1935 the Rural Electric Administration (REA) was created to bring electricity to rural areas like the Tennessee Valley. In his 1935 article "Electrifying the Countryside," Morris Cooke, the head of the REA, stated that

In addition to paying for the energy he used, the farmer was expected to advance to the power company most or all of the costs of construction. Since utility company ideas as to what constituted sound rural lines have been rather fancy, such costs were prohibitive for most farmers. [ footnote]

Many groups opposed the federal government's involvement in developing and distributing electric power, especially utility companies, who believed that the government was unfairly competing with private enterprise (See the Statement of John Battle ). Some members of Congress who didn't think the government should interfere with the economy, believed that TVA was a dangerous program that would bring the nation a step closer to socialism. Other people thought that farmers simply did not have the skills needed to manage local electric companies.

By 1939 the REA had helped to establish 417 rural electric cooperatives, which served 288,000 households. The actions of the REA encouraged private utilities to electrify the countryside as well. By 1939 rural households with electricity had risen to 25 percent. The enthusiasm that greeted the introduction of electric power can be seen in the remarks of Rose Scearce.

When farmers did receive electric power their purchase of electric appliances helped to increase sales for local merchants. Farmers required more energy than city dwellers, which helped to offset the extra cost involved in bringing power lines to the country."

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).

The New of the New

If one looks at the real and virtual "stuff" we produce and consume, one of the big state changes comes from new economies of scale mediated by networked information.

Adoption rates for all sorts of things begin more and more to look like vertical lines (e.g., faster broadband versus slower) and better product architectures afford no small degree of modularity and component based systems.

What used to be called information float has become, to a great extent, less of a factor because federations of "smart friends and strangers" can rapidly vet vapor and mojo.

This new "component based and interoperable" lot of hardware, software, bio, and info means that the friction of creation and status quo form less of a barrier than before. This is the kind of environment that welcomes punctuated equalibria (evolution by jerks, as they say!) and disintermediation.

Removing (or mitigating) other frictional issues such as health care in turn improves the formation of new, and I assert, generally smaller organizations. From personal experience, I can say that the 1990s recession spawned a good number of high quality companies and think tanks.

With the provisioning of fractional services (payroll, HR, storage, webservers...) that reflect almost atomistic (and often "free") marginal costs compared to the big box running at 1% capacity, the formula for the production function begins to take rational, versus whole number or integer, steps. Again, with health care, the exploitation of the quaint statistic of large numbers in a common pool.... well, you do the math.

Trust in God but lock your car... I do believe that opportunities will be exploited if only from the fatigue of status quo and the inertia of the known.

Conservation Economy (via Ecotrust)

Portland Oregon's Ecotrust.org has made extensive use of a pattern language (see Christopher Alexander Pattern Language) as a design framework for sustainable systems.

"A Conservation Economy

When the health of ecosystems and communities is not integrated into economic activities, all three suffer. In turn, economic dependence on destructive activities creates apparent conflicts between work, nature, and community. How can we create an economy that effectively meets human needs while regenerating natural systems? An economy which grows organically — and fills new niches — by working with nature and enriching human capacities?

In A Conservation Economy, Economic arrangements of all kinds are gradually redesigned so that they restore, rather than deplete, Natural Capital and Social Capital. This will create extraordinary opportunities for those who foresee and drive these changes. The Fundamental Needs of people — and the Ecosystem Services which sustain them — are the starting point for a different kind of economic prosperity that can endure generation after generation."

The details can be found at http://www.conservationeconomy.net/conservation_economy.html

Destination Cloud Computing

Just a lead in: cloud computing will be vital for "small" businesses because "a man's got to know his limitations."

Now we might twitter, and for all that companies growing from startup to second stage, usually around 5+ employees, all at once notice a rumble in the fuselage.

We had service bureaus, used ADP for payroll, and edge into Quicken to run the books. Cloud computing, next big thing (and has been for years).