The Seattle PI ran a cover story yesterday about Nalley Foods shutting down their local pickle plant and cancelling their contract with northwest cucumber growers . Although the jars say "Northwest Grown", soon the product in the jars will have been grown in other parts of the country, and some will even come from India.
Here's my vision of a positive outcome for this story:
The farmers who lost their contracts will use their land to plant crops that they can market directly to consumers, charging a higher price per pound than they were getting from the pickle manufacturers. Maybe some of them will even start pickling their cucumbers themselves, creating a local, artisan product.
They'll transition their land to organic agriculture, again enabling them to earn more money for the work they do. They'll diversify their mix of crops, making their land healthier and ensuring they won't have to rely so heavily on a single type of plant, or a single buyer.
And maybe the Nalley company will discover that this wasn't a good move after all, once northwest shoppers stop buying their product, and they get hit with the price of shipping cucumbers from India.
No comments:
Post a Comment