ECD

A Farmer-less Farmers' Market?

The LA Time's Russ Parsons has an interesting article (here) pointing out that the rapid growth of farmers' markets is having an unintended consequence - farmers' markets without any farmers. They can't be everywhere at once and if they are running around to markets all week long, who is tending the farm? 

Deep Economy

To be completely honest, I think some of us who do local community and economic development work, get a little weary of hearing about the global economy. Sure, most of the manufacturers in our communities are smack-dab in the middle of a world-wide economic chain and a disruption in another hemisphere has immediate ramifications here at home, but what about the local mainstreet merchant who's just trying to make a few bucks or the farmer trying a new value-added venture. Do they have a chance in a global economy? Is there such a thing anymore as a local economy? Author Bill McKibben tells us there is and that we better start paying attention to it.

His book, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and he Durable Future is a provocative manifesto pointing out that for the first time in history, "more" is no longer synonymous with "better" and that for many us they have become almost opposites. McKibben proposes a new way to think about the things we buy, the food we eat, the energy we use, and the money that pays for it all.

The big idea behind Deep Economy is that that we need to pursue prosperity in a more local direction, with local and regional communities producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment.

This is good reading. You might want to put it on your summer book list.