Skeptical

<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/12/01/news/state/25-farm.txt" >Farm-to-Table Perspective: Glendive project would boost local agriculture</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Bruce Smith, a farm boy from Dagmar, shipped food all over the country during his career in the corporate commodities business.<br />n<br />nOne of his employers sold frozen broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and Brussels sprouts. Another produced margarine, and a third had the second largest french fry factory in the country.<br />n<br />nNow that he's back home in Eastern Montana, working as a Montana State University Extension agent, Smith is trying to find ways for farmers and ranchers to make more money by selling their products locally, which will in turn give people better, fresher food to eat.<br />n<br />nThat system worked once and it should work again, Smith said, pointing out that 70 percent of what Montanans ate in the 1950s was grown in Montana.<br />n"Now, if it's 10 percent, we'd be lucky," he said. "That tells me there's a huge market out there."<br />n<br />nSmith and some like-minded people in Glendive are hoping to tap that market. They are planning to open a restaurant and microbrewery that would be supplied by local agricultural producers, and to build a commercial kitchen where local foods could be processed for retail sale.</blockquote><br />n<br />nSounds like a great idea but I wouldn't invest money in it. People are too wed to the cheap, tasteless food they can get at <br />n<acronym title="Wal-mart">Wally World</acronym> and aren't going to be inclined to spend the extra money. Even their marketing consultants tell them that.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>A consultant turned in a feasibility study on those projects last week, concluding that the brewery and restaurant would most likely be profitable, while the commercial kitchen would be a more questionable proposition.</blockquote><br />n<br />nQuestionable proposition. That's the way I would term this whole thing. The problem is in the lifestyle today.<br />n<br />nMost people want pre-prepared food at the cheap prices and aren't going to be willing to spend the money for something local. Buying local usual means preparing and cooking the food yourself which most people today aren't willing to do that much of. I'm assuming the commercial kitchen proposal is their way of hitting this market but I don't see how it can be priced to compete with the <acronym title="Wal-mart">Wally Worlds</acronym> of the world. All it would take is a slight downturn in the economy or energy prices to shoot up high and people would abandon the higher priced local foods for the cheaper stuff.<br />n<br />nI know there has been tremendous growth in farmers markets around the country which indicates a desire for local foods and this idea works on that. To get it to work in Montana though will be an interesting proposition. If you follow food issues at all farmers markets and ideas like that are a niche market and I don't know if Glendive has a big enough niche to make it work.<br />n<br />nI know, I'm a cynic on this. I wish them all the luck in the world but I have my doubts.<br />n<br />n<strong>Cynic, n: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Ambrose Bierce</strong>