Showing posts with label local production. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local production. Show all posts

Sunday, February 18, 2024

When "demand can't keep up with supply"

Headlines catch my eye more often than subheadlines, but the story below was the exception that proves the rule (a confusing saying in itself, until you realize that "proves" can mean "tests" as in proof reading...) 

The WSJ reports that pork producers are having a problem that is usually associated with some kinds of production in planned economies: demand can't keep up with supply of pork. It makes you wonder if prices are also an issue...

We’re Not Eating Enough Bacon, and That’s a Problem for the Economy. The American pork industry has become so efficient that demand can’t keep up with supply.  By Patrick Thomas

"The American pork industry has a problem: It makes more tenderloin, ham, sausage and bacon than anybody wants to eat. 

"From giant processors to the farmers who supply them, they are in a predicament largely of their own making. They made production so efficient that demand can’t keep up with supply. "

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Policing the lobster commons

Lobsters are caught in traps that sit on the sea floor, marked by (and recovered via) buoys that float above, connected to the trap by a rope. Lobstermen in Maine are known for policing who sets traps where by cutting the lines (or threatening to cut the lines) of lobstermen who set traps outside of their territory. From time to time there's a question about whether the state should limit certain areas to local lobstermen. Now is such a time:

In Maine, Tensions Over Ailing Lobster Industry
"Officially, anyone with a Maine lobster license can set traps almost anywhere in state waters. Most lobstermen are allowed 800 traps each, making for a crowded ocean floor.
But unofficially, each harbor has its own boundaries, determined by local lobstermen over the decades. Newcomers often find their buoys snatched or their trap lines cut. The lobstermen who live on Maine’s rugged islands are especially territorial and known for practicing frontier justice; in one notorious case in 2000, two lobstermen fought over turf with a pitchfork and a fish gaff."
...
"The idea of a resident-only lobstering zone is not without precedent. The state approved a two-mile “conservation zone” around Monhegan Island in 1998, restricting access to local lobstermen, who had complained about interlopers from the mainland. "
...
"George Lapointe, the state’s commissioner of marine resources, said he had not yet decided whether to endorse a resident-only zone for Matinicus and had to consider the constitutional rights of all of the state’s roughly 5,800 licensed lobstermen.
“I’ve had three other islands say they’re interested in getting their own zone if we create one for Matinicus,” Mr. Lapointe said. “One of the concerns is the balkanization of lobster territories along the coast.”
He said that enforcing the zone around Monhegan had proved expensive for the state, and that while the shooting on Matinicus had put the island’s problems under a magnifying glass, lobstermen up and down Maine’s coast were hurting."

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Made in the USA, but also sold in Canada

We're advised to "think locally and act globally," and the product labels on my new shoes illustrate some of the tension between those mandates.

This label strikes a balance between the wish to be local (and sell to those Americans who prefer to "buy American"), and the wish to be global (and to sell in Canada, where the labelling laws require two languages). And the issue isn't that Canadians are (North) Americans too:



So, I'm happy to show my Solidaire des Travailleurs Americains, whose products, Fabrique aux Etats-Unis, compete in the fairly free global marketplace.