{"id":2034,"date":"2010-05-03T15:08:14","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T19:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2034"},"modified":"2010-05-03T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T19:08:14","slug":"a-20-million-food-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/05\/03\/a-20-million-food-market\/","title":{"rendered":"A $20 million food market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=125905759\">Good report on Morning Edition this morning<\/a> on the challenge the local food movement faces to grow beyond its niche market status.  Here we&#8217;re calling it <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/04\/26\/local-food-the-farms-in-the-middle-2\/\">&#8220;occupying the middle&#8221;<\/a> between micro-farms and big Ag.<\/p>\n<p>Schools and hospitals increasingly want produce and meat from their local farmers, but they also don&#8217;t want 30 different trucks pulling up to their loading docks with lettuce, each with their own invoicing, quality, etc.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Bob Golden, an industry analyst in Chicago, says that while food safety is a concern, it isn&#8217;t the main barrier to offering more local food. &#8220;The major distributors are trying to gauge demand, and adjust their orders and offers accordingly,&#8221; Golden says. &#8220;It&#8217;s very complex and complicated, adding a whole realm of locally sourced foods.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Local organizations like the <a href=\"http:\/\/northcountrygrown.com\/\">North Country Grown Cooperative<\/a> are trying to cope with this very issue.  According to Coop director Lynda Bage, the four colleges in Canton and Potsdam <strong>alone<\/strong> buy $20 million a year in food.  Imagine if local farmers could capture even 10% of that.<\/p>\n<p>The Coop &#8211; and many others, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodshedbuyingclub.com\/\">this one in the Mohawk Valley<\/a> &#8211; is bringing together farmers so institutions only have to deal with one supplier.  But it&#8217;s a slow process.<\/p>\n<p>This month, the Coop is taking a big step.  It&#8217;s freezing its first crop of asparagus, so it can make the seasonal vegetable available to the colleges year-round.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s music to many institutional buyers&#8217; ears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good report on Morning Edition this morning on the challenge the local food movement faces [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}