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Today's Date
July 31, 2010
• • •
The Fall Trade Directory is now available.
Click here to find out where to get a copy.
• • •
The next steering committee meeting is October 28 in Cascade Locks. Contact the GLCC for more information.
• • •
Now is the time to order your display ad for the winter trade directory. Contact the GLCC
for more details.
Summer 2008
by Stacey Shaw
Wow. The price of regular gas at the Hood River Chevron yesterday was posted at $4.21 per gallon; up several cents in a few days. It’s getting spendy to drive these days. Not only that, the cost of shipping and transport are skyrocketing.
It’s not that we didn’t see this coming. We did, right? Most of us knew that eventually peak oil, combined with ongoing political tension with oil producing nations, would start to hit us all in the wallet with some serious intensity. We are all also smart enough to know that the price of most imported goods would sharply rise along with the transportation costs.
So here we are.
We have several issues converging rapidly- food costs rising sharply, gas prices rising daily, obvious climate changes…
So it is really time to use local currency, as one tool to help cope with these issues at the regional level.
Let’s look at the issue of food. It is amazing to me just how much has changed in the past 80 years, in terms of how most people source their food. When my grandparents, for example, graduated from high school in Washougal, Washington in 1927 or so, every student in their class would have sourced the majority of their diet from within 10 to 60 miles from their house.
By the 1980’s, after the rapid collapse of family farming in the 70’s, we had moved to a society where the majority of people ate food that had traveled hundreds to thousands of miles to reach their table.
Here are a few examples of the impacts of large scale food export and import systems:
— In 1988, the average distance a truck of produce traveled to reach Chicago, was 1,518 miles. That was a 22% increase over the 1,245 miles the produce traveled in 1981. The study then figured the cost of utilizing three local food projects, where farmers sold to nearby institutions, restaurants and conference centers, and found the food traveled an average of just 44.6 miles. (iptv.org)
— At the 2007 North Dakota Dairy and Pork Producers Convention, it was stated that one of the biggest issues in the dairy business is transportation. Taking the milk out and bringing products in are becoming increasingly expensive with the escalating fuel costs. (foodandfuelamerica.com)
— In an Iowa study, a conventional non-local food shipping system used 4 to 17 times more fuel than an Iowa-based regional and local system. The same conventional system released from 5 to 17 times more CO from the burning of this fuel than the Iowa-based regional and local systems. Growing and transporting 10 percent more of the produce for Iowa consumption in an Iowa-based regional or local food system would result in an annual savings ranging from 280 to 346 thousand gallons of fuel, depending on the system and truck type. The high end of this fuel reduction would be equivalent to the average annual diesel fuel use of 108 Iowa farms. Growing and transporting 10 percent more of the produce for Iowa consumption in an Iowa-based regional or local food system would result in an annual reduction in CO emissions ranging from 6.7 to 7.9 million pounds, depending on the system and truck type. (leopold.iastate.edu)
With all of the food we produce in the Gorge, we can meet many of our food needs within the region. RiverHOURS naturally support local food producers and local business that purchase goods and produce from the region. Spending RiverHOURS is a viable way to help us become less dependent on food imports. This will be increasingly important as transportation costs increase and pollution reduction becomes more imperative.
We may all strive to become ‘localvores’, a term coined in 2005 to describe people who seek out local food. The New Oxford American Dictionary chose ‘localvore’, as its word of the year 2007.
I encourage you to get involved with our growing network of groups that are helping to create a sustainable future for the Mid-Columbia region. RiverHOURS, Gorge Grown Food Network (GGFN), the many businesses that are actively buying locally. If you are a food producer, please advertise in the trade directory and accept RiverHOURS.
Please pick up a RiverHOURS Trade Directory! Visit our new website (riverhours.org) to find locations as well as GLCC members accepting RiverHOURS! Pick up the GGFN publication, Who’s Your Farmer? You can stop by the Yasui Building in downtown Hood River to talk to me about RiverHOURS, and while you are at it, talk to Sarah Hackney about Gorge Grown Food Network, we are both on the 3rd floor most days.
© 2004-8 Gorge Local Currency Cooperative, Columbia River Gorge, USA
The Local Currency Education Project is a joint venture of
the Columbia Gorge Earth Center and Gorge Local Currency Cooperative
updated
June 22, 2008
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