Supply lines

At one time everyone ate local. Now it's trendy again and that's a good thing. Here in New England the number of small farms is actually growing. Young people are getting into farming. I like having local produce, eggs, and meat. When the farmer's market is open they get most of my grocery dollars.

As much as I love local foods, there are some things that just are not available locally. For me, citrus fruit is a big one. We've got other things like pears and apples, but a nice ripe orange has always been a treat. One nice thing about wintering in Florida is that eating local down there means citrus. Nothing beats picking fruit right off the tree and popping them in my mouth.

Another thing sadly lacking in the local foods department is coffee. Worse than that, there are no local plants, as far as I can figure out, that contain caffeine. There is an old French Canadian tradition of starting the day with a shot of home made whiskey, but coffee works better for me. Unfortunately, coffee comes from a long ways off.

Coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world. Even in a petroleum scarce world, it would still pay to transport coffee by sailboat. After all, that's how it used to travel. Coffee is a excellent trade item. People want it and it ships well, no refrigeration needed.

I bet citrus could travel pretty far up the coast in the hold of a sailboat before going bad. Of course, if that's how it was shipped, it'd be a rare treat for most people. It wasn't all that long ago when getting an orange in one's Christmas stocking was a big deal. Those days could come back again.

Even if there was a world wide oil shortage and major shipping shutdown, some things could still get though the old fashioned ways.

-Sixbears