Ultimately, Berry would see the tariff debate as a distraction from the real issue: we have become too reliant on distant, faceless systems to meet our most basic needs
I ran into friend Linda Best, originator and managing-director of FarmWoks Investment C-op @ Lunenburg Farmers Market this morning. FarmWorks is all about this substack subject, the need to relocalize essential goods & services. FarmWorks has done a great job in a short time. The org connects ambitious people with great and often new ideas for food production with capital from a broad range of small, local investors. FW does an amazing job of getting around the Province, soliciting loan proposals & then rigorously selecting, vetting & coaching the proponents AND finding investors to fund the projects. Follow through is thorough and pay-back has an astonishingly good record. Awesome. But, as Linda pointed out this morning, NS is still only producing (and eating) 10% local. It was something like 65% 60 years ago. A combination of market forces and government decisions to prioritize export production and efficiencies of scale over local sufficiency are a couple of the misdirections that brought us to this vulnerable position. Relocalization of food production and processing is totally possible in Nova Scotia and would be better for the health of the consumer, the environment, the economy and the climate.
That’s a cool group. I’m going to follow up on them. 10% seems low. Houston brought the ‘buy local’ promo idea to the party personally and he’s pushed it through personally. But at this point it feels like a passion project more than a plan.
I’ve looked at what Quebec and Vermont have done to try and push up their numbers. Some stuff is obvious, like requiring to buy local on government school, and hospital purchases.
I think the bigger swing would be to hire or incentivize distribution agents… I know it doesn’t sound cool, but distribution chains are much in the news fo a reason. They are the systems that connect buyers and sellers. And even though in a local market it seems simple enough… farmers sell to grocery stores or restaurants, that’s not how the world works. Farmers, lobster fishermen, wood harvesters… they’re not salespeople, they’re not truckers, they’re not bankers, they’re not account receivable clerks, they’re not even business people in the traditional sense of that word… proudly not.
IF we want local sales their has to be local sales systems, but as the market starts off so small our little mini distribution chain can’t sustain itself. IF government incentivized and kick started that missing ingredient it could grow to be a real business locally. The only trouble would be keeping a lid on it. Making sure that local distribution was more attractive than global distribution for everyone.
Ironically, do you know the traditional government tool that would be just right for that job. They been using it for thousands of years…
I ran into friend Linda Best, originator and managing-director of FarmWoks Investment C-op @ Lunenburg Farmers Market this morning. FarmWorks is all about this substack subject, the need to relocalize essential goods & services. FarmWorks has done a great job in a short time. The org connects ambitious people with great and often new ideas for food production with capital from a broad range of small, local investors. FW does an amazing job of getting around the Province, soliciting loan proposals & then rigorously selecting, vetting & coaching the proponents AND finding investors to fund the projects. Follow through is thorough and pay-back has an astonishingly good record. Awesome. But, as Linda pointed out this morning, NS is still only producing (and eating) 10% local. It was something like 65% 60 years ago. A combination of market forces and government decisions to prioritize export production and efficiencies of scale over local sufficiency are a couple of the misdirections that brought us to this vulnerable position. Relocalization of food production and processing is totally possible in Nova Scotia and would be better for the health of the consumer, the environment, the economy and the climate.
That’s a cool group. I’m going to follow up on them. 10% seems low. Houston brought the ‘buy local’ promo idea to the party personally and he’s pushed it through personally. But at this point it feels like a passion project more than a plan.
I’ve looked at what Quebec and Vermont have done to try and push up their numbers. Some stuff is obvious, like requiring to buy local on government school, and hospital purchases.
I think the bigger swing would be to hire or incentivize distribution agents… I know it doesn’t sound cool, but distribution chains are much in the news fo a reason. They are the systems that connect buyers and sellers. And even though in a local market it seems simple enough… farmers sell to grocery stores or restaurants, that’s not how the world works. Farmers, lobster fishermen, wood harvesters… they’re not salespeople, they’re not truckers, they’re not bankers, they’re not account receivable clerks, they’re not even business people in the traditional sense of that word… proudly not.
IF we want local sales their has to be local sales systems, but as the market starts off so small our little mini distribution chain can’t sustain itself. IF government incentivized and kick started that missing ingredient it could grow to be a real business locally. The only trouble would be keeping a lid on it. Making sure that local distribution was more attractive than global distribution for everyone.
Ironically, do you know the traditional government tool that would be just right for that job. They been using it for thousands of years…
Tariffs.