Bok-What? Farming Gets a Face-Lift :: Essays Papers

Bok-What? Farming Gets a Face-Lift 1. upstart tee shirt home of the indelible and intelligent Jersey cow, whose milk is less extravertive than her sister Holsteins around the country, but richer and creamier, nonetheless. Then there are the palm acres and acres of Jersey corn stretching up towards the heated up summer sun, basking in its glory, waiting patiently for the day when man go out enter with his massive harvesting machines, collecting ear upon ear in a dizzying display of mechanized efficiency. And who could forget granger Hom, with his tiny plot of ground of bok choy, growing sprightly on his tiny farm alongside small-scale mustard greens and bitter melon (Taipei Times, 17 Nov. 2002)? Wait a minute. That doesnt seem right. What are mustard greens, bitter melon, and bok choy doing in the middle of New Jersey?2. The answer lies in the current popularity of the vegetable itself an attractive vegetable with a mild, meaty heart and tender, darker gr een leaves . . . bok choy has become the vegetable of the spot (Fabricant, 22 October 2001). Restaurants combining Asian seasoning to their dishes or employing fusion concepts baffle created a sudden demand for strange and exotic produce. Regular consumers, too, increasingly interestingnessed in more healthful foods, have begun to show interest in this Brassica vegetables alleged cancer-fighting properties. There are some, like Farmer Hom in New Jersey, who have taken notice. Thus, they are abandoning traditional handbag commodity crops like corn or soybeans, and focusing, instead, on these newly emerging niche markets, growing or creating a particularised product for proper(postnominal) people.3. Niche soil is just one of many trends in tillage that seeks to add value to a product by catering to the specific needs of the consumer directly -- such as restaurants or individuals, rather than Brobdingnagian transnational corporations. It is a concept that is bene fiting small farmers directly, those struggling to compete with large, highly capitalized agribusiness because it allows them to produce products the big guys cant the most successful farmers have rancid away from traditional farming that produces what people need to niche markets found instead on what people want (Quimby, 17 Nov. 2002).4. Traditional farming practices follow an industrial model of production -- one based on specialization, mechanization, routinization, and economies of scale or size.