Article in High Plains Reader this week

I am not sure how many of you have had the chance to read Abby Gold's "Local or Organic" article in the High Plains Reader Febuary 28th 2008, but it is quite intersting and eye opening. I thought of our english 120 class as soon as I saw the title. I tried to find a link to the article but it was an older article so the High Plains Reader website dosent have it up anymore. I am sure that you could find an old paper laying around somewhere on campus though. If not I will have the article with me in my binder for class if anyone is interested.
The article was broken into several columes: the intro, our industrialized food, industrialized organic food, and a local food economy.
The intorduction for the article simply talked about farmers and how hard it is to sell their products, in this case beef, locally. It also touched on how obtaining an organic liscence was lenghtly but worthwile as Lynn Brakke, a Moorhead beef producer pointed out. I bet that most people in the F-M area didnt even realize that a local organic beef farmer was so close to home and yet he has to ship his beef 250 miles southeast to sell it. How depressing is that.
The 'Our Industrialized Food' section of the article explained how most people today have lost touch with where their food comes from and even though we may live in one of the richest soil areas of the world, many of our foods are shipped from many miles away. This section also talked about the different food selections and costs when it came to poverty vs none poverty regions of cities and communities.
The 'Industrialized Organic Food' section talked about the incredible distances that food travels today and what that does to the value and overall nutritional value of our food. This section also examined the large food corporations taking over the small local mom and pops places and who ownes who today.
The end of the article was the 'A Local Food Economy' section with basically summed the article up and stated that here in the Red River Valley we need to start to use our local food system and allow our local farmers the opportunity to sell local and save fossil fuels and other resources by not having to ship their products to opposite ends of the country or world.
We have the resources right at our finger tips, its up to us to do something and make a difference.
This article was very interesting and thought provoking. I just thought that it would be a good conversation piece to go along with our classes organic and local food topics.