The question now is, what to do about this great withering away of the means of food production? The response from conventional economists is: Let the market fix itself. If people want local, pasture-raised meat and dairy, they’ll flock to the farmers market to buy it, and farmers will take their extra profits and invest in their own facilities. But people are flocking to farmers markets; the problem is, profit margins on small-scale farming remain so tight that few farms have cash to spare on such investments.

We’re moving towards a classic market failure: We see increasing demand for locally and sustainable grown farm products, increasing desire among farmers to meet that demand— and an infrastructural gulf separating them.

Time for the public to reinvest in food-system infrastructure | Grist

This sort of crystallized for me what bothers me about the idea that you can locavore your way out of food issues. The demand IS growing—even shutupfoodies folks like me prefer to hit the farmer’s market instead of the grocery store. But what happens when the local farmer can’t produce enough to feed the folks who want to eat the good stuff?

-Julia Childless