Home Grown Economy

Research by the University of Minnesota shows that 95 percent of shoppers surveyed prefer to buy local foods, according to Robert King, economics professor at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. Their key motivation is to get better quality and freshness. The study was conducted last summer and included 500 respondents at six locations — farmers markets, supermarkets and a natural foods store — in the Twin
Cities area.

How “local” is actually defined is up to consumers, he added. Most consumers surveyed in the Twin Cities define “local” as all of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but some also thought “local” was only the Twin Cities
metro area. “The definition of local is really up for grabs,” he said. “That definition needs to be consumer-centric,
not producer-centric.”

On the other side of the dinner plate are farmers, who in most regions of the country are producing billions of dollars’ worth of food, but are losing money doing it and making up the difference in federal farm payments and off-farm income, according to Ken Meter, president of the Crossroads Resource Center, Minneapolis.

“It is very difficult for farms to make it on growing crops alone,” Meter said. “We have a subsidy program that extracts wealth from rural communities.” Each year, a billion dollars leaves the 12 counties in west central Minnesota from Renville and Yellow Medicine counties north to Traverse, Grant and Douglas counties, he said. Farmers lose $150 million raising crops, spend $600 million on farm inputs per year from outside suppliers and consumers spend $250 million on food from outside sources each year.

“The average food item travels 1,500 miles from farmer to consumer,” he said. “As energy prices increase, so will our food prices. There is every reason to build an infrastructure to connect farmers and consumers,” Meter said.
There are local, direct-selling farmers in the region, research shows, including 271 farms that sell $870,000 worth of food directly to consumers.

If consumers in the region bought 20 percent of their food directly from farmers. it would bring in $70 million in new farm income to the region, and cut the distance food travels and energy used to feed the 173,000 people living in the region.

The university is one of the driving forces in creating demand for local foods. In 2001, the university sought a new food supplier for the 1,800-student campus in Morris that would include local foods, according to Sandy Olson-Loy, vice chancellor of student affairs. “We were looking for ways to connect to agriculture,” she said. “This is one of the ways we can connect.”

UMM was the first of many area universities and colleges to seek locally grown foods for its food service program, according to Sodexho district manager, Don Kulick. Now many schools and corporate food service clients are seeking vendors of local, sustainable foods. The local foods movement needs to be market-based and could be, based on growing consumer demand, Congressman Peterson said. “There are more opportunities out there than there are resources to fill them.”