Little luxuries

Willow Wisp Farm in Abrahamsville, PA is joining a growing list of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in our area. Whole, fresh milk from Jeffersonville, NY’s Tonjes Farm can now be found at Peck’s Markets. Plans are under way for a new cider mill opening in the Roscoe, NY area. A micro-distillery to be built in Kauneonga Lake just received a $250,000 grant, and the proposal for an agricultural park in Liberty, NY, with facilities to process locally produced foodstuffs, has come a step closer to reality with the securing of a $50,000 federal grant to help plan for a meat processing plant.

There is only one fly in the ointment: how will all these initiatives fare in the face of the current economic slump? Conventional wisdom says “badly.”

The problem is with what people can afford. Food production in this area is geared toward “slow food:” food raised and processed by small-scale enterprises with a minimum of the chemical interference and unnatural conditions prevalent in large-scale commercial production. If it is processed at all, it is processed at locations near enough to both its source and its markets that preservatives, packaging and transportation are kept at a minimum. While all this guarantees quality (and health for both the diner and the planet), it also means that the food is more expensive than mass produced and highly processed “fast” foods found on supermarket shelves. In a recession, that means some people can no longer afford it and will stop buying it.

But there is another phenomenon that affects demand for any product during a recession. In some cases, people who used to be able to afford something more expensive and no longer can, may “trade down” to the product in question—in this case, slow food.

Slow food is expensive relative to other food at home. It is not, however, expensive relative to most food away from home, or other expenditures that many middle-class households became used to during the ‘90s and early ‘00s: buying every new electronics upgrade from video game platforms to cell phones, getting a new wardrobe every year, regular visits to the spa or tanning parlor, or even a movie and popcorn with the family every week.

People who still have their jobs but have had a loss of investment income or bonuses, or just have a feeling of insecurity, may feel the need to give up some of these pleasures, but still have enough income to look for less expensive ways to pamper themselves.

That’s where slow food comes in—or can come in, if it can be promoted as an enjoyable luxury and not merely a noble but austere duty.

Slow food can be seen as a means toward an end, a virtuous investment in a healthier body, community and planet. As admirable as that is, it’s a hard sell during tough economic times. But slow food can also be seen, and promoted, as an end in itself. Start a dinner with a salad of baby greens, home-pickled beets and goat cheese; move on to a main course of whey-fed pork roasted with heirloom fingerling potatoes; finish with a course of baked apples caramelized with maple syrup, all of it fresh from the farm and unadulterated with preservatives. Seat a family and friends at the table in an intimate setting, throw some candles on the table and some music on the stereo and you have the ingredients for an almost sinfully satisfying luxury.

Admittedly, there are probably many households that will never see food this way. And those who can only afford slow food if they eat it at home may not be willing or able to do the cooking, providing another obstacle. But the slow food sector is still small, which means an increase in demand from even a small percentage of the total population could result in a solid rise in the market for local food products. Maybe that’s why demand for natural/organic food in this country rose 15.8 percent last year in the heart of the financial crisis—down from the 17 to 21 percent annual gains of the prior decade, but still nothing to sneeze at.

Reflecting the growing interest in this type of food, there’s even a national organization called Slow Food USA, with a local chapter in our area ( slowfoodupderiva.org ). We think it represents a trend that has the potential to bring new, “trade down” customers into the slow food

market in pursuit of life’s little luxuries, even in a weakened economy. If so, those bold souls who are entering into or expanding in our local agricultural sector may find that their risk-taking will be well rewarded, conventional wisdom

notwithstanding.

Dr. Punnybone

Head Trip