Day 23: Delusional People

Today's visit got me completely fired up. We visited a small grocery store called "Terre et Terroir". It's products come only from local and/or organic products. Local farmers bring their products to the store and are paid if and only if their products sell. The store is a non-profit organization so they only take a small percentage of the sales out for themselves. The purpose behind this is to give farmers an alternative to selling to major super markets. The founder was our lecturer in the store. We sat on the store floor and listened to her speak. Surprisingly, she had an american accent and was from the united states. This got me excited. However, she basically told us that she grew up on a 200 acre farm (quite small) and joined the peace corps out of college in Africa. She then met a french man and jumped ship from the United States to become a french citizen. Now, everything in-between this time is where she gets crazy. First, she told us that big businesses and super markets destroyed farmers lives. In essence, she told us that as farmers acquire contracts with super markets, they become solely reliant upon them as their only customer. Then, the super market has total control of the farmer because if the farmer doesn't drop his prices, his only customer will leave. So, the farmer is obligated to lower his prices for competitive standards until he is "barely able to survive." My argument for this? Why did you put all your eggs in that basket. Diversify your customer portfolio. She then proceeded to tell us to go back home and "beg our farmers to stop overproducing" because we dump corn in africa, which is really cheap, and run african farmers out of business. My argument? Africa has barely any arable land. They couldn't survive without international food support. They're overpopulating un-arable lands and need better education on not doing so. This paired with the fact that companies like Monsanto (seen as a modern day devil, in the flesh) is creating GMOs to allow crops to be grown in these harsh environments, to feed people, yet so many of these left-minded people hate GMOs. You cant win for losing with these people. She then proceeded to tell us that cows here are much happier (California?) and don't MOO because so! She then told us Americans don't even know the taste of fresh produce and certainly for good organic produce for that matter. What a fallacy and generalization. I was so angry and frustrated with her anti-American, anti-business, anti-production comments that I couldn't say a word or else I'd explode. I left and only bought a 20 cent slice of bread. I refuse to support anyone who is so closed minded. Does she even know about this concept of H-E-B and Whole Foods, both of which buy locally grown products yet are big and make good profit to create more jobs? Any person who literally gives up on America doesn't deserve my attention in the least bit. On a lighter note, I can't wait to get home!