I know, I know, it's fatally easy to laugh at rich people who want to be locavores, but don't have time to garden or to go to the farmer's market, and who therefore hire people to do it for them. But think twice: if this stuff goes mainstream, it helps farmers, and makes it more possible, and likely, for more people to eat this way, and even to embrace DIY gardening and farming. Barbara Kingsolver has the right attitude:
The author Barbara Kingsolver, whose book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" was a best seller last year, did not have the lazy locavore in mind when she wrote about the implications of making her family spend a year eating local. But she celebrates the trend."As a person of rural origin who has lived much of my life in rural places," she said, "I can't tell you how joyful it makes me to hear that it's trendy for people in Manhattan to own a part of a cow."
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Well, the local banker in 1850 did not pay someone to come to his urban house and put a garden in his yard for him, then come back to tend it every week and even harvest the vegetables for him.
Posted by: MJS | July 22, 2008 10:16 AM
Not really all that different than hiring someone to do lawn care, is it? And gardens are more useful than lawns.
Well, the local banker in 1850 did not pay someone to come to his urban house and put a garden in his yard for him, then come back to tend it every week and even harvest the vegetables for him.
Posted by: MJS | July 22, 2008 10:16 AM
No, the local banker in 1850 would have had a live in staff of more than 2 and they would have taken care of it.
I live in an apartment and can't garden, not even on the porch (only a couple of hours of early morning sunlight and neighbors that would probably rob me blind - I'm on the ground floor) I do belong to a group that gathers local produce and artisan products (breads, cheeses, etc) and delivers them to my front door.
Some people are buying shares of farms and "reaping" the benefits of fresh produce. Some "cowpool" and/or "pigpool" for a share of the animal when it's slaughtered.
I don't think any of this is really new. I grew up in a small town in a rural area and my dad would "cowpool" and my great-uncle would deliver produce from the family farm. That was back in the 70s.
As for the lazy locavores...really, how is this different from hiring a gardener to prune your hedges, mow your lawn and weed your flower beds?
PP
This is a win-win for all. It puts gardeners to work. Once the backyard garden is established and the homeowner sees what's involved in organic gardening, he can carry on where the gardener leaves off, so to speak. What a great way to learn and spread the word about organic gardening. And there's the good food.
The really 'green' thing to do is to forget the meat and stick with local vegetarian fare, but if you have to eat beef, this is a better way to do it.
Viva locavores.
I'm with Who Knew: I want to find me some of these rich people!
I think it's a brilliant business plan -- a way to get into farming without most of the up-front capital costs. This is an idea worth pondering.
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