Rochelle's critique
From CyberOne Wiki
Rochelle Lee
Fall 2007
CyberOne Review:
Kathleen Gray’s “Fight McFarming”
Overall, I think that “Fight McFarming”—the idea of fighting industrialized agriculture and developing local food systems—is a great idea. Kathleen’s project supports an important cause that has been gaining momentum and visibility. Growing up in California’s Bay Area, I heard a lot about the so-called “slow food” movement, and many of my neighborhood restaurants prided themselves in using locally grown ingredients. However, I understand that the local food and farming movement has only started to garner renewed national interest in the last few years.
First impressions are everything, and I think that the cause’s title—“Fight McFarming”—makes a great one. Not only is the title catchy and easily remembered, it also perfectly describes the goal of the cause: to raise awareness about increasingly industrialized agriculture. The “Mc” prefix conjures up the negative connotations that have plagued McDonald’s in recent years—globalization (and Globalization), corporate greed, mass-produced flash frozen food, rat meat in its burgers (made public by Fast Food Nation), increasing population obesity—and links them to industrialized agriculture.
“Fight McFarming” effectively utilizes online networking to spread the message to the global online community. The Facebook page is especially effective—it allows Kathleen to invite all of her friends to join the group, and once they have, those friends can also spread the word about supporting small farmers because links to the group are posted on their profiles. Facebook also allows group owners to send upcoming events and news to its members. I think that Facebook is a good way of attracting and assembling a group of individuals interested in the issue and giving them a forum to communicate with one another. However, it can be difficult to draw unconnected visitors (those who are not in the same networks as Kathleen’s friends) to the site.
The website offers a clear, basic introduction to the local food supply movement. The homepage offers enough information to make someone feel like he has an understanding of the issues and goals of “Fight McFarming,” but is also brief enough to be accessible to the casual reader. The language is perhaps a little bit too academic for the average reader—for example, I had to look up the meaning of the word “bucolic,” and I suspect that the average visitor to the site will also. I like that the site links to the “Community Alliance with Family Farmers” site, so that interested readers can get involved in an organization that helps the cause. I also like the link to localharvest.org (a searchable nationwide directory of small farms, farmers’ markets, and other local food sources)—readers can use the site to find their local food suppliers and start directly supporting the local food supply movement.
I also thought that the site’s use of the recent spinach E. Coli outbreak example was good because it addressed the local food supply issue in terms that would appeal to even the strictly self-interested readers—those who don’t care about environmental issues unless it directly affects their personal well-being. The well-known spinach scandal emphasizes the tangible dangers that “McFarming” poses to the health of the consuming public. It brings to mind the point that, had the spinach been produced by a small farm, it is likely that the E. Coli outbreak would not have spread as far as it did. However, I would suggest expanding the section to focus more on the health benefits to consumers of local farming and consumption. For example, locally grown fresh food is sold fresher and riper than food that is grown in large crops and shipped across the country or from other countries. Moreover, locally grown foods usually contain fewer chemical preservatives and irradiation which are normally used to artificially extend their shelf-life.
I do not think that the website addresses the issues in a way that would persuade skeptics of the movement to join the cause. If I were a skeptic, my primary hesitations on supporting the cause would be: (1) it is expensive to buy locally, (2) finding local farmers to buy from is more effort than its worth to me, and (3) I am only one person and cannot make a difference in the movement.
On the first point, the site does not sufficiently address the economic criticisms of the local farming movement: (1) locally grown food costs more for the consumer, or, more generally, (2) industrial agriculture is better for the economy. Opponents of the local food movement might argue that local food costs more to grow than large-scale industrialized production, and that these costs will be passed onto the consumers. Mass production of food is more economically efficient then local production, lowering both the costs to the producer and the consumer. Practically speaking, opponents will argue, only the wealthy are able to afford locally grown food at farmer’s markets—everyone else shops at WalMart. Also, critics might also argue that the local food movement will potentially damage the economies of third world nations, which often rely heavily on food exports because consumers in developed nations will stop buying food produced by the third world. Critics of the local food movement point out that transport is only one component of the total environmental impact of food production and consumption. Distance is not the only factor—consumers need to account for how the foods have been produced and how much energy was consumed in producing them.
To address these economic issues, I would suggest adding in a section discussing the economic benefits of the local food movement, both in terms of the individual consumer and in terms of the larger economy. The spinach E. Coli example is a good start. In addition, for example, I would argue that, with fewer middlemen to transfer food from one distant location to another, costs will be reduced, without sacrificing food quality. I would also emphasize non-environmental factors, such as community building through buying locally and encouraging local relationships.
On the second point, I would include a section on how to find locally grown foods—localharvest.org is one place to look, but the site might also suggest other websites, weekly newspapers for farmer’s markets, or the numbers of local interest groups. I also would suggest adding a few more links to related sites about the local food movement so that visitors to the site know where they should go if they want to learn more about the movement. After doing a quick search on Google, I found two sites that might complement “Fight McFarming”: (1) Wikipedia’s entry on the local food movement, which provides the background, history, and basics of the movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_food), and (2) 100milediet.org/--a site that promotes an experimental effort to eat only foods that have been grown within one hundred miles of where you live.
Finally, on the third point, I was not entirely sure what actions “Fight McFarming” ultimately encourages me to take to support the cause. How should I support my local farmers? Should I start trying to buy locally? Should I try to convince my congressman that they should sign a bill distributing subsidies and funding to local farmers? When looking at the site, I get the sense that there is very little that I, as a mere single individual, can really make a difference. Perhaps adding some facts about how much each person can help merely by taking small steps like buying his fruit at a farmer’s market once a week, or doing a little research into where the food he is buying is coming from.
In addition, generally, the website would benefit from sharpening its focus a little—although the site professes to focus on marshaling support for the small farmer, it addresses some aspects of the issue (e.g., governmental regulation of farming) fairly specifically, but touches on other parts of the issue very generally in a somewhat disorganized manner. Addressing these issues more evenly would strengthen the impact of the message on the average reader.
I think that adding more details and facts will improve the impact of the site, and will make visitors to the site really care about the issue. Overall, I think that Kathleen did a great job on the project, and effectively conveyed a discrete message focusing on small farmers in support of the larger local food movement.
