The Occupy protest movement creeps the way of the farmer

Lyons, Neb.,  resident Steph Larsen gained national attention when several environmental Internet news sites featured her singular movement to identify with the Occupy Wall Street protesters 1,300 miles away: Occupy the Pasture. “I came to the conclusion that if I believed that the current economic system was unjust, then the most rebellious thing that I could do was grow my own food,” Larsen told the Internet blog Living on Earth. “That way, the primary means of my own sustenance would be out of the control of corporations. The message of Occupy the Pasture is do what you can to grow your own food. And what you can’t grow yourself, support the locally owned businesses that can do it for you."

It may strike some that a protest movement of one small, Nebraska sheep herder painting cardboard signs and posting photos to Facebook has little in common with the crowds of disaffected youth marching on the nation’s financial district. But consider these developments:

Why one expert argues supermarkets will never graduate to sustainable local food sales, and why it doesn't matter

A new U.S. Department of Agriculture study, issued in early November, documents the increase in local, direct food sales. For year 2008, the latest data available, such sales through both direct-to-consumer channels and intermediaries, including grocers, totaled an estimated $4.8 billion in 2008. USDA predicts that figure will rise to about $7 billion in sales for 2011.

The number of farms selling direct has increased from 86,000 in the early 1990s to about 136,000 now, the report says. Alongside that growth, the number of farmers markets has grown from 2,756 in 1998 to 5,274 in 2009.

Grocers who see promise in local foods to boost produce and private-label sales may find the statistics promising, but they have to be taken with care. Here's why:

You have been formally invited to the revolution

More fair warning to those "agvocates" who believe defending the modern food system is only as simple as tweeting and You-Tubing details about how food is grown and raised. Included in Occupy Wall Street's long, petulant and not all inclusive (they caution) list of mass injustices committed by the world's corporate forces, comes you, America's corporate farmer. Dutifully recounted here by former MSNBC commentator Keith Olberman, your sins come in at the 1:24 mark.

A vocal segment of the New Food Movement argues that for-profit supermarkets can't be trusted with something as important as feeding their communities

We've cautioned before that even though the "local, sustainable" food movement offers opportunity, on a broader regional and national level, local and “community supported agriculture” are highly politicized movements which, in many cases, don’t recognize a valid role for the free market. Two recent examples demonstrate how the political movement is hijacking the identity of "community grocer."