Ken Meter’s Posts

• Growing community by selling local foods

  Minnesota food system study -- building trust is good business 0

  Posted 1 month ago

  Minnesota food system study -- building trust is good business

   

  I just published a new study of the Minnesota food system.  The main take-home message is that building trust is good for business.  Close relationships with suppliers and customers are exactly what allow food firms to respond to changing conditions.

   

  The report, "Mapping the Minnesota Food Industry," was commissioned by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota's Center for Prevention, which has launched a Healthy Eating Minnesota initiative.  The full study is available for free download at http://www.crcworks.org/mnfood.pdf.

   

  My… Read More

• Grow your farmer ...

  USDA to unveil "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative 2

  Posted 2 months ago

  As I prepare for five days of announcements next week, when USDA plans to unveil its new "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative, the buzz across my desk is about the potential for urban agriculture.

• Do you carrot all about local food?

  Tell USDA to add urban farming to the Ag Census! Deadline is Friday. 5

  Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago

  If you care about eating healthy food, you are probably already hard at work to build a better food supply for yourself.  You already know that raising food in our cities will be increasingly important.  Yet getting political support for this requires making a convincing case, and this means having compelling numbers. How can you encourage the government to collect more data that will help the cause?

• (Soy)bean counting

  Direct and organic farm sales rise rapidly, new census shows 0

  Posted 9 months, 1 week ago

  Direct sales from farmers rose 49 percent, and organic farm sales more than tripled from 2002 to 2007, new USDA farm census data show.

  USDA released the 2007 Agriculture Census data today, giving Americans a far more detailed understanding of agricultural trends -- just as interest in local foods expands dramatically.

  For me, one of the key indicators of the growth of interest in community-based foods is the rapidly rising sales of food direct from farmers to consumers. Direct food sales rose a whopping 49 percent to $1.2 billion in 2007, up from $812 million in 2002. This includes farmstand,… Read More

• Organic food sales slow a bit

  Just as large retailers enter the market 5

  Posted 3 years, 6 months ago

  Although a recent Wall Street Journal report properly touts the impressive upward trend of organic-food sales, data cited in the story show that the actual rate of growth in organic sales is falling slightly, just as mega-retailers poise themselves to enter the organics market.

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Ken Meter’s Recent Comments

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  For "Foodprovider", my source is Tyrone Hayes at Berkeley, one of the foremost experts on atrazine.  Exactly what you mention is why this scares me so much.  Just as we have heavy metal pollution landing in pristine northern waters (such as Isle Royale in the middle of Lake Superior) from coal plants in the Four Corners area because of wind patterns and long-distance deposition, it seems atrazine is spreading all over, whether used locally or not.  It has been banned in European countries, and seems unlikely to last in the US.

  On The way we eat is trashing the fragile conditions that make human life possible posted 2 months, 1 week ago 22 Responses

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  Great story, Tom, with important insights all people who eat should work to overturn.  All I want to add is the fact that atrazine is routinely showing up in rainfall -- so even those of us who purchase organic foods have chemical residues to contend with.

  On The way we eat is trashing the fragile conditions that make human life possible posted 2 months, 1 week ago 22 Responses

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  Thanks Howard!, The proper link to the memo is:

  http://www.crcworks.org/crcagcensus.pdf

  On Tell USDA to add urban farming to the Ag Census! Deadline is Friday. posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago 5 Responses

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  Data source for US subsidy of Wal-Mart

  Greenfish asked about the source of this data.  See:

  Democratic staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce (2004).  "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart."  U.S. House of Representatives, February 16, pages 4,5,7.

  Note that these federal calculations do not include local subsidies that are often given to big box retailers to locate in a given community, which adds to the public subsidy.On Just as large retailers enter the market posted 3 years, 6 months ago 5 Responses

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  December trade data is in

  USDA has now posted the December agricultural trade data on its web site (http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FATUS/index.htm#value).  Not quite a deficit, but still a huge erosion of our trade balance.  The December, 2005, data show a small surplus of $205 million, 76% lower than for the month of December a year before.  Overall, the U.S. trade balance plummeted $5 billion last year, a decline of 50%.
  On Food imports may force new food policies posted 3 years, 8 months ago 7 Responses