Today, E is for Economy

by Michelle Lasley


March 30, 2011

Previously, a frequent theme has been money and how we spend it.  While I was studying at Portland State, Prof. Messer reminded me that Sustainability holds three major tenants, economy, equity, and environment.  I have always had a pretty good handle on equity and environment, bu the economy has usually been something that brings me down. But, as I’ve been writing about money, how tight it has been, which is tightens our economic belt as the pants become a better fit.

I’ve been there, chiding people to buy organic, even though they couldn’t afford it.  How does that fit with the economic aspect of sustainability?  It doesn’t, and it doesn’t balance with the triple bottom line.  So, what can we do about it? How can we get the economy and the environment and equity to all balance? If they are all important on the grand scheme, how can in our microcosm of the home, we balance the 3es?

I can talk about what we’ve been doing.  My husband thinks about economics before he thinks about the environment.  Whereas, I think about the environment before I think about economics.  So, how can we merge the two?  Equity comes into play in our microcosm in how we treat each other and others, not how the man may or may not be bringing us down.

Some people think we should never make any concessions.  Some people think we should be eating, for example, farmer’s market certified organic all the time.  One simple question to help debunk this theory is the certification processes themselves.  Sure, they help the end-consumer more quickly identify a product that could suit their moral proclivities, but does it really do anything for the farmer?  Farmer A never uses chemicals on his produce, but he serves a smaller clientele than Farmer B and cannot afford the leg work and money it requires to get the certification some of his customers would like.  Farmer B can afford the certification because for other reasons he has a larger more profitable outfit than Farmer B.  Who does certification serve in instances such as these?  Farmer B, the potential big guy.  This is one reason why buying local is more important than buying organic.  Often buying local gives you a more validated organic product than the same product with the label.

Okay, but this post is entitled “Today, E is for Economy.” So, what does that organic example have to do with economy? It’s a linked system, no matter which way we slice it, and we cannot vote completely by one instance alone. We cannot rule by environment, or people, or money alone. We must consider the system. Both Farmer A & Farmer B serve the local area where you live. So, for a family, it might be better to opt for Farmer A based on cost. Farmer B has the certification others demand, and it’s not a budget buster. If they like his product, they should certainly buy from him. This does a few things. First, it keeps a diversified food economy. We need our farmers to be plentiful and compete. It doesn’t serve our interests to buy from the Wal-Mart of farmers, for example, because it decreases the number of people farming in our own locales. We need our farmers to supply us with food, not other countries. We need the food to be created locally, so that in the event of economic or environmental disaster, we can have secure sources of simply food.

How do we balance these 3 es? An ongoing conversation, certainly. But, I also think that we’d benefit ourselves by finding some food buddies – that is others who are interested in working with the local farmers who supply our food. We’d be strengthening our local economy, our local food systems, and our local equity – buy supplying from the poeple who work the farms – locally.

That’s really all I have to say about economy. Buy local. Know local. Grow local.


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