Higher transportation costs are forcing Wal-Mart into the locally grown food business.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Wal-Mart stores in Arizona now stock Grand Canyon sweet onions while aisles in New York display state-grown eggplant, as the world’s largest retailer says it has become the nation’s largest buyer of locally grown fruits and vegetables. . .
Because of that, the company estimates it saves about 100,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year and cuts away 672,000 food miles — the distance produce travels from farm to a customer’s plate. That adds up to $1.4 million in annual savings, Galberth said.
What about all those cheap manufactured goods from East Asia? How much longer will Wal-Mart be able to afford its “warehouse on wheels” balancing act?
Wal-Mart might be going semi-local to cut a few expenses (this is good news), but suburbia is apparently still moving forward…in Montana? And unfortunately in a REAL BIG way up there in Big Sky Country.
“MISSOULA, Mont. – The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation’s largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.”
– http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25537068/
Yes, that’s right — unless these suburbs are going to be planned differently than most others (which is doubtful), hundreds of thousands of acres of forests are going to be leveled and turned in to soulless subdivisions full of vinyl boxes. Oh joy.
Will Americans (especially White/European Americans) ever learn about the pitfalls of suburbia, or will they simply continue their lemming-like slide in to these hellholes of dependency, conformity, and loneliness?