Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance 0

Wednesday, 4 Oct 2000

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.

One of my goals today is to finish writing an article for the next issue of our quarterly journal, The New Rules.

I am writing about the Slow Food movement, an international effort to protect local foods and culinary traditions from mass standardization and industrial agriculture. In the words of its founder, Slow Food is an "eco-gastronomic" movement that sees small-scale local food production as essential to maintaining both biological and cultural diversity.

Slow Food now has more than 70,000 members organized into 400 local chapters in 40 countries. Initially I expected Slow Food to primarily be a European thing. It does have deep roots in that continent, but Slow Food is flourishing in the United States. Interest in this movement has gone hand-in-hand with the growth of organic foods, farmers markets, microbreweries, and artisan bread and cheese makers.

People involved in Slow Food, as you might imagine, take a fairly leisurely approach to returning phone calls, but hopefully I'll finish up the interviews and the article in the next day or two.

Tomorrow we have a meeting to finalize some of the shorter pieces for the magazine. Most of the journal is staff written, though we periodically publish articles from outside writers. This will be our sixth issue. We've worked out the kinks and have developed a fairly smooth editorial and production process.

The New Rules focuses on solutions. The feature articles generally provide an in-depth analysis of a particular issue and outline various policy approaches for addressing the problem.

The upcoming issue will include a feature article by ILSR researcher and website manager Simona Fuma Shapiro on the global entertainment industry. She examines how big budget Hollywood movies are dominating distribution networks in other countries and squeezing out local films. Many countries have adopted laws that ensure that space and opportunities are reserved for homegrown cultural products. Simona takes a look at how these laws work and the threats posed to them by trade agreements and the WTO.

Another feature article by Brian Levy, our expert on farm policy, will explore supply management, a Canadian system for maintaining stable production levels and prices for farm products like chicken and eggs. Brian found that, although it is not without its flaws and challenges, the Canadian system is superior in many ways to the U.S. system of contract farming. Family farmers have a far more stable market, remain independent, and receive a fair price for their products.

We are also looking at several medium-length pieces for this issue: one on how state and local governments should embrace the Kyoto Protocol goals in publicly financed facilities; another on the Canadian health care system; and finally an article on devolving authority to local governments.

The hardest challenge in launching a magazine we've found is spreading the word and building a subscription base. Without advertising, we have a limited marketing budget and have had to be creative about finding ways to let people know about the journal. A number of the articles have been picked up and reprinted by other publications, which has been a big help.

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