"most farmers aren’t naturally value-added producers"

Um longo e interessante artigo sobre o by-pass à distribuição grande em "From Farm to Table", um tema abordado ainda há poucos dias aqui no blogue.
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A descrição de um estado de desenvolvimento em que os mercados de produtores locais já estão saturados e é preciso dar o passo seguinte:

"“Farmers’ markets aren’t sexy anymore,” ... “The problem is that we were really good at launching farmers’ markets, and we launched a whole bunch of them, and we gave them just enough rope to hang themselves. So now there’s all these farmers’ markets that have really low capacity.”
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Farmers’ markets account for less than 1 percent of food sales in the United States. They are the window dressing. If the sustainable food movement is to become a true movement with any measurable impact on the way America feeds itself, it must find a way to reach beyond the early adopters. It must make it much easier for local producers and consumers to find each other. It must restore the regional infrastructure that withered with the rise of the national distributors, who have little interest in working with local operations. What we need is a system of local “food hubs” that can process and bundle local foods and deliver them to the places where America eats."

Interessante:

"“The farmers were complaining about not making enough money. The only way farmers are going to make more money is by getting more value out of their products. But I think it’s fairly safe to say that most farmers aren’t naturally value-added producers.”
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How do you “value-add”? “Through processing. Through delaying the availability of a product until you can get a higher price—storage. By getting your product to places that you haven’t had it in the past—distribution. And by running your business better—incubation.”"

E claro, uma filosofia que se saúda neste blogue:

"In fact, Robin purposely founded the Mad River Food Hub as a for-profit enterprise. “One of our core values was that we would not take any public funds for operations. If you have grants coming in, then your organization is sustainable only as long as the grants are coming in. We live and die on our own. There’s no one here to save us. The only way we can bring money into the organization is by adding to the success of companies using the food hub.”"