Web2.0, data, and food supply

September 25, 2009 by Colby
Filed under: Local/sustainable/organic Resources, Nutrition 2.0 

Here is a great article by Harlan Hentges that I managed to miss from July: http://www.organiclawyers.com/blog/farming-and-ranching/17-are-we-headed-for-a-food-fight.html

It is a brief piece on big agriculture versus the alternative food movements, and how they are intertwined and need to capture the big picture from data available from both market perspectives.

A couple of points I want to highlight:

While some farmers and consumers have come together, the process is not efficient or profitable. The demand for food of greater value remains unmet because there is simply no easy way for the farmer and the consumer to connect and exchange the information necessary information to coordinate the supply chain and exchange money for products. Coordinating a new supply chain is a daunting task. There must be enough farmers and enough consumers to be economically viable.  This will require very efficient access to information that is easy and inexpensive to process, but there is no easily accessible market information about farmers, processors, transporters, retailer, distributors or consumers for food of great value.  Thus the demand remains unmet.

Some projects are taking it into their own hands to promote alternative foods with social tools, some of which are highlighted in our Local/sustainable/organic Resources category.

Industrialized agriculture will not destroy the cultural value of local, farm-raised food. An alternative food system will not destroy the economic profitability of industrialized agriculture. The industrial model and the alternative model do not embody each others destruction.
Instead, each embodies the key to the other’s success. An alternative food supply chain now appears to be possible due to information technology. In the way that social networking sites have transformed the coordination of our social lives by giving us extraordinary ability to access, process and exchange information, related technologies could enable the coordination of new, smaller and more valuable food supply chains. On the other hand, the existing food system could be transformed it recognized the usefulness of data related to farms and farmers, the welfare of animals, and the environment.  If consumers, farmers and all supply chain participants were provided with the data and permitted to respond to social and cultural values the industrialized system would change and produce food of greater value.
The local food movement understands the information related to the values of producers and consumers, and will soon have access to technology needed to gather and process this data. The information age is reaching the food industry.

(via @MiNutrition)

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