Citations

Introduction

1

When the government holds a majority stake in a company, it is, in our view, no longer a private enterprise. Since our focal point is community food enterprises, we consider government-run companies to be beyond the bounds of the study.

2

U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2007, available at www.bls.gov/cex.

3

U.S. Census Bureau, North American Industrial Classification System, County Business Patterns 2007, available at www.census.gov/econ/cbp/index.html .

4

U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract 2009, Table 722, p. 483. The data cited are the most recent available, from 2005.

5

David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Osgood, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1992).

6

Corporations, of course, are free to create multiple classes of shareholders with different kinds of voting rights, which may alter the one-dollar-one-vote principle. And cutting edge cooperative laws, such as those in Wisconsin, are allowing cooperatives to create a nonvoting class of members for private investors.

7

For a deeper discussion of this point generally, see Michael H. Shuman, Going Local (New York: Free Press, 1998), pp. 83-105.

8

Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (New York: Penguin, 2008).

9

See, e.g.: C. Wright Mills and Melville Ulmer, “Small Business and Civic Welfare,” in Report of the Smaller War Plants Corporation to the Special Committee to Study Problems of American Small Business, Document 135. U.S. Senate, 79th Congress, 2nd session, February 13. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946); and Thomas A. Lyson, “Big Business and Community Welfare: Revisiting A Classic Study,” monograph (Cornell University Department of Rural Sociology, Ithaca, NY, 2001), p. 3.

10

The best studies in this area have been done by two economists at Civic Economics based in Austin. See, for example: “Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study,” monograph (Civic Economics, Austin, Texas, December 2002); and “The Andersonville Study of Retail Economics,” monograph (Civic Economics, Austin, Texas, October 2004). Both can be downloaded for free at www.civiceconomics.com. Discussion of other studies can be found in: “The Economic Impact of Locally Owned Businesses vs. Chains: A Case Study in Midcoast Maine,” monograph (Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Friends of Midcoast Maine, September 2003); David Morris, The New City-States (Washington, DC: Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 1982), p. 6; Christopher Gunn and Hazel Dayton Gunn, Reclaiming Capital: Democratic Initiatives and Community Control (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Gbenga Ajilore, “Toledo-Lucas County Merchant Study,” monograph (Toledo, OH: Urban Affairs Center, 21 June 2004); Justin Sachs, The Money Trail (London: New Economics Foundation, 2002).

11

Michael H. Shuman, The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2006), pp. 39-62.

12

World Resources Institute, World Resource 2000-2001 People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life (Washington: Elsevier Science, 2000), p. 56.

13

The growing, harvesting, raising, or capturing of specific foodstuffs are all dependent on many natural endowments – water, climate, ecology, genetics – that are not universally available. But technology is steadily leveling the playing field to the point where there are compelling examples of communities feeding themselves in every extreme—cold or hot, wet or dry, high or low, urban or rural. The development and spread of better and cheaper greenhouses, hydroponics, rooftop and suburban lawn gardening, and urban farms will hasten this equalization. A further point is that even if a community is capable of produce no raw foodstuff, it still in theory can find, from other communities, excellent models for small-scale food processing, distribution, retail, and restaurants. From a value-added standpoint, these may be by far more important than raw food production.

14

See, e.g., Paul Samuelson & William Nordhaus, Microeconomics, 17th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2001), p. 110.

15

See Shuman, The Small-Mart Revolution, pp 225-29.

16

Stewart Smith, e-mail to Michael Shuman, 2 December 2005, updating Stewart Smith, “Sustainable Agriculture and Public Policy,” Maine Policy Review, April 1993, pp. 68–78.

17

See, e.g., Christopher Steiner, $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009).

18

Brian Halweil, “Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market” (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 2003) (Worldwatch Paper #163).

Findings and Analysis

19

National Federation of Independent Business, “Charitable Contributions Comparison,” January 2003.

Case Study: Lorentz Meats

20

According to the Agriculture of the Middle Task Force—a collaboration of academics and industry experts—the term “agriculture-of-the-middle” refers to “a disappearing sector of mid-scale farms/ranches and related agrifood enterprises that are unable to successfully market bulk commodities or sell food directly to consumers.” Available at http://www.agofthemiddle.org/.