Book Log 2010 #60: The Town that Food Saved by Ben Hewitt

On the face of things, Hardwick, Vermont is a depressed little town. It's unemployment rate and per capita income are both well below the state average. But in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, the town and its immediate environs saw a huge growth in food-related businesses, from a purveyor of heirloom seeds to artisinal cheese producers to a guy trying to start a soybean industry. And while this hasn't solved the town's problems, it's a start that a lot of towns aren't getting.

Hewitt sets out document this turn of events, but is struck almost immediately by the complexity of defining just what is going on. Are the new businesses actually helping when they mostly focus on value-added products rather than primary ingredients (cheese versus milk, for example)? How will the new businesses interact with older ones? Can food really have saved the town when many of the products are priced well above similar items produced by the industrial food system? He does set up a framework for answering the main question about food saving Hardwick, but by the end it's no clearer if there's actually an answer.

Which in and of itself is OK, given the people we meet along the way. They provide an intriguing cross-section of the community, which helps to put some of the questions into starker relief. By the end of the book I didn't think that Hardwick was being saved, but did believe that the area is developing into an example of how we can move away from corporate agribusiness and towards something more personal. It's just not clear how long it will take to develop completely.