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Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

nytimes.com

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Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#241

Post by late2part »

core-questions wrote: post #225
bgorman wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we be subsidizing rural communities with free services that are terrible for the environment? If people want the benefits of modern civilization like air travel and grocery stores, they should move to cities. We are doing enough harm to the world in cities, we don't need to encourage sprawl even more.

Have you ever, like, left the city, man? Do you really think everyone can just live in the city without anyone out in the rural areas, you know, growing your fucking food?

Can't they use the Essential_Air_Service and then fly back home to needleville SFO? (j/k)

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#242

Post by dsfyu404ed »

gerbilly wrote: post #117

I grew up in a very small town (pop ~300) where I pumped gas in the summers. Guys would roll up running on fumes and ask me to put two dollars of gas in it so they could drive one town over and save a few pennies a gallon on gas. Pretty soon after, the owner of the station stopped selling gas entirely. Yay! If you weren't a farmer with your own tanks on site, you were pretty much forced to drive 6 miles to go get gas…

6mi in the context of places where a town population is in the hundreds really isn't much at all. No wonder people were buying just enough to get to the cheap station. I drive 2mi to get gas and that's in a city.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#243

Post by graycat »

nmcfarl wrote: post #84

Grocery Stores closing really is happening, and really is a problem. And it's part of what's killing towns - if only because attracting new folk without one is hard. We live in John Day, Or (pop 1700)(County pop 7200, area: about 2x Delaware), which we chose partially because of it's supermarket. The next closest supermarket is 90min away. (Walmart: 2h). Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is…

Maybe form a local consumer's coop: Say, once a week, say, Saturday, refrigerated truck makes the run to one or a few good local grocery stores. The truck takes with it specific orders. Or for some grocery stores, they have Web sites where can order items ready for pickup.

Actually, have the truck start in the city, get the grocery lists or pick-up orders via e-mail, get the groceries, drive to the small town, off load everything, and return empty.

For the off-load, maybe the small town has an old building with some refrigeration that can store fresh/frozen foods for, say, 24 hours.

For the truck, maybe just find someone in the town just to DO this service -- they rent a truck for, say, six hours, pickup the groceries, drive the two hours, and then return.

If once a week has the trucking cost be too high compared with the grocery costs, then make the deal each two weeks: Most fresh foods will keep a week, maybe two. Frozen foods can keep months.

Good way for everyone in the town to meet!

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#244

Post by Retric »

core-questions wrote: post #225
bgorman wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we be subsidizing rural communities with free services that are terrible for the environment? If people want the benefits of modern civilization like air travel and grocery stores, they should move to cities. We are doing enough harm to the world in cities, we don't need to encourage sprawl even more.

Have you ever, like, left the city, man? Do you really think everyone can just live in the city without anyone out in the rural areas, you know, growing your fucking food?

Everyone hates government spending, until they want another handout.

We already massively subsidize rural living costs, stop that and the free market would raise wages to compensate without the need for government intervention.

Subsidized, farms, roads, healthcare, telecoms, deliveries, airports, etc etc it’s just wasteful.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#245

Post by dsfyu404ed »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #14

I kinda felt like this was an article that had a missing Character, like covering the 2016 election but not mentioning Bernie or Comey. The reality is that Walmart's Chinese-sourced non-food goods (including clothing, auto parts, and general household supplies) were priced 50+% cheaper than many non-food (and higher profit) items one could get from a grocery store, once you're at Walmart then, well you're at Walmart.…

>The reality is that Walmart's Chinese-sourced non-food goods (including clothing, auto parts, and general household supplies)

A surprising amount of stuff in home good stores is US/Canada/Mexico made. The production of many home goods is a natural fit for developed nations (this is way outside the scope of this comment but they're generally highly automated and clean eroding the two primary advantages of offshoring) and then when you tack shipping on top it makes sense. North America makes a heck of a lot of stuff, it just doesn't employ many people to do it.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#246

Post by Aperocky »

stevehawk wrote: post #100
genieyclo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity: why did you choose to live in such a remote/rural place?

As a nerd who also married a doctor and went rural - 1) Doctors tend to make more money in rural areas. Hospitals/practices tend to offer higher salaries/bonuses/etc in order to draw talent. My wife makes roughly 50% more in an area of 30,000 people (mind you, we're talking a pretty large geographic area) than she would in Miami. 2) Money goes further. My 4500sq ft home on 1.2 acres of land is worth considerably less…

Glad it worked out for you, currently still stuck (near) a city. But at least it's an hour from downtown and parking a truck is not a problem at all.

I wouldn't mind at all to live in the remotest of nature, as long as there is internet. My SO would probably be bored shitless.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#247

Post by Aperocky »

Animats wrote: post #177

Think of it as the end of rural sprawl. Most small towns were built to support surrounding farming and ranching. Once that stopped being labor-intensive, the small towns lost their economic reason for being. Farming today is something like 1.2% of the US workforce. Most of the income in many small towns is now from Social Security, disability, and welfare for the people who didn't leave. In time, they will die off. T…

There need to be towns in picturesque locations (Been to western Wyoming, it's basically that non-stop) supported by industry other than agriculture.

The ability to remote work should draw a subset of developers and other workers into the area as long as the corresponding infrastructure has been met. Especially for self contracting / employed software engineers.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#248

Post by gerbilly »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #242
gerbilly wrote: post #117

I grew up in a very small town (pop ~300) where I pumped gas in the summers. Guys would roll up running on fumes and ask me to put two dollars of gas in it so they could drive one town over and save a few pennies a gallon on gas. Pretty soon after, the owner of the station stopped selling gas entirely. Yay! If you weren't a farmer with your own tanks on site, you were pretty much forced to drive 6 miles to go get gas…

6mi in the context of places where a town population is in the hundreds really isn't much at all. No wonder people were buying just enough to get to the cheap station. I drive 2mi to get gas and that's in a city.

This way of thinking would make sense if the only thing that mattered in life was money.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#249

Post by scarface74 »

nexuist wrote: post #199
nmcfarl wrote: post #84

Grocery Stores closing really is happening, and really is a problem. And it's part of what's killing towns - if only because attracting new folk without one is hard. We live in John Day, Or (pop 1700)(County pop 7200, area: about 2x Delaware), which we chose partially because of it's supermarket. The next closest supermarket is 90min away. (Walmart: 2h). Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is…

> Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is being able to get vegetables of season - and in the rural west these things not a given. What you are describing is a de facto food desert: https://www.cdc.gov/features/FoodDeserts/index.html There might be an easy (albeit costly) way to fix this. Just today I learned about a govt agency called the Essential Air Service: > The United States Department o…

How many of these same small towns that will gladly take government subsidies scream “socialism” anytime someone mentions government provided health care, increasing the earned income tax credit, education subsidies etc?

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#250

Post by PeterisP »

msla wrote: post #190
AgloeDreams wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, by locally produced, I'm referring to (mostly) foodstuffs, additionally, local small retailers that were resellers.

> Sorry, by locally produced, I'm referring to (mostly) foodstuffs, additionally, local small retailers that were resellers. A town in the Great Plains doesn't have a climate fit to make most foods locally, unless you call taking shipped-in ingredients and cooking them "making" food.

It certainly can (and did) make most food locally, it's just that it has to be different food - you eat what you can make from locally produced ingredient and don't eat what you can't. The type of food we eat has changed a lot, and the expectation to have "ethnic" food with products grown on another continent, or to have the same vegetables available year-round instead of them being seasonal - that's a relatively recent thing.
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