Validated by BusinessWeek

by Julie Cummins

This one’s for locavores with friends and family who still think you’re off your rocker. BusinessWeek now officially sees us as a market force to be reckoned with. Next time your investment banker brother or your recent MBA friend tells you to shut up and eat, you can recite a quote from BusinessWeek.com: “This is not a fringe foodie culture.”

The article goes on to say, “It's a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20% in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept.”

The article also points to the locavores' impact on food retail, where even “the giants are devoting a small but growing share of shelf space to locally bought produce.”  And “it’s showing up in unexpected places. Corporations such as Best Buy in Minneapolis, DreamWorks in Los Angeles, and Nordstrom in Seattle are providing local options in their cafeterias.”

Click here to read The Rise of the 'Locavore.'

Go us!

Julie Cummins lives in Oakland, CA and is Director of Education for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA).

 

Comments

[Juliana]

This is great news. Not because we needed "validation" from Business Week, but because where we're putting our money is gradually making a change...and money is the only way I know how to "vote" these days.

[Julie Cummins]

Just to clarify: I don't think we need any validation from the business community. Tongue-in-cheek humor doesn't always work in the absence of facial expressions and tone of voice. Someone posted this article on a listserv with the note "We have arrived!" I was carrying on the spirit of irony here. I find it ironic that the eat local movement is getting recognition from the sector of our society that promoted globalization of the food system in the first place!