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\pard \qc 
{\plain \b Doesn\'92t Everyone Major in Economics?}{\plain \par
}\pard 
{\plain \par
}{\plain \b Importance of Scale: }{\plain \par
}{\plain \tab Domestic\par
}{\plain \tab Local\par
}{\plain \tab Regional/National\par
}{\plain \tab Global\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b Economies of Scale}{\plain \par
}\pard \fi-720\li1440 
{\plain Occur when mass producing a good results in lower average cost (includes time, labor, 
other kinds of  energy) per item.\par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab What examples can you offer for mass production at each of these scales?  \par
}{\plain \tab What differences are there in the composition of the work groups?\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b Is it cost-effective to raise livestock and grow your own food?}{\plain           (thanks to James Miller)\par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab A farmer can very easily be working hard from morning until dusk and think he is doing 
great and in actuality be working stupidly.  He may in reality be working for little or nothing or 
even running a money-losing operation.  Whatever you do, even if you are running a homestead in 
the country, it is important to work smart, not stupidly.  That means you have to think, figure and 
calculate.  You have to know how much your operation is really costing you in time and money 
and if what you are getting out is worth the cost.  \par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab To do this you have to keep detailed records and know the cost in both money and time.  
And that adds a lot of overhead in itself.  It may not always be practical, in which case there may 
be some ambiguity as to how well you are doing.  If you are producing things like meat, milk, 
eggs and other kinds of food it is important to produce only as much as you will use (unless you 
are able to sell the excess that you produce for a profit --- which requires that you have a market, 
and may not be practical).  If you produce more than you can use the excess is wasted and you 
are expending money and work that is going down the drain. \par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab  If you raise goats, for example, that produce more milk, meat, etc. than you can use you 
must either be able to sell the excess at a profit or you may be deceiving yourself with an 
operation that is returning you very little or nothing on your labor, money, etc. --- a system whose 
input is greater than the output.  If you are raising animals the animals are supposed to be 
supporting you.  They are supposed to be not only paying their own keep but providing you with 
a decent return on your time and labor.  If you are calculating wrong, you may indeed be 
supporting the animals in the same way you do children or pets.  It may indeed be more sensible 
to buy meat and milk on the market (that has been produced by modern, efficient, mechanized 
methods).  The same thing applies to raising potatoes, tomatoes, melons, etc.  Grow only what 
you will use (unless you can sell the excess at a profit).  Otherwise you may be working for 
nothing, investing a lot of work and money, when it would have been more cost-effective to just 
buy on the market.  \par
}{\plain \tab Many things can be produced so efficiently by modern mechanized means that the smartest 
thing to do may often be to simply buy it on the market.  You can't compete.  If, for example, you 
attempted to raise rice or wheat, you would likely spend many hours of work in raising a dollar's 
worth of grain (as much grain as could be purchased for $1.00 on the market).  You can't afford 
to invest in the big expensive equipment required to raise it by modern mechanized means and you 
can't compete with them. \par
}{\plain \tab  Let us examine a specific example.  Suppose you and your spouse were living on a 
homestead.  Would it be cheaper for us to raise chickens or to just buy chicken and eggs in the 
supermarket?   Answer: It would be cheaper and much easier to just buy in the supermarket at 
current supermarket prices. \par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab How much chicken would I estimate that we would consume in a year?  Even if we were 
consuming a lot of meat we wouldn't have chicken for dinner more than three times a week (on 
average). Other days of the week we would have some other kind of meat (i.e. ham, turkey, tuna, 
salmon, etc.) or have a meatless dinner.  Three times a week amounts to 3x52 = 156 days a year.   
Assume a serving size of 1/4 pound.  That comes to 2x156/4 = 178 pounds of chicken a year for 
the two of us.  Assume a price of $1.80 a pound (although you can often find it on sale in the 
supermarket for half that).  That comes to $140 a year.  We don't eat many eggs.  Assume ten 
dozen a year at $1.00 a dozen.  That comes to $150 a year for meat and eggs.  Can you raise 
chickens for that price?  No. First you need a chicken coop.  Assume a cost of $1200 for an 8'x10' 
chicken coop built on a slab.  If you assume a 5% interest rate you are losing .05x1200 = $60.00 
per year on interest.  Assume a 20 year depreciation on the chicken coop.  That gives a 
depreciation cost of 1200/20 = $60.00.  So lost interest plus depreciation adds to $120.00 per 
year.  That leaves $30.00 per year for the cost of chicken food and other expenses.  And you 
haven't even tried to put a cost on all the labor involved in raising chickens --- feeding and 
watering them, cleaning the chicken coop, slaughtering them, defeathering them, cleaning them,  
cutting them up, etc..  Suppose your labor amounts to 30 minutes per day.  That is 182 hours per 
year.  How much do you want to allow per hour for your labor?  $6.00 per hour?  That would 
come to $1095 per year.    \par
}{\plain \tab Another problem:  Who would take care of the chickens if you wanted to take a trip or 
vacation?  You could apply this same kind of analysis to raising rabbits (or anything else for that 
matter).  How much rabbit are you likely to consume in a year?  How much would it cost you in a 
supermarket (it or an equivalent meat)?  How much would it cost you to raise the rabbits?  How 
much time would you spend on them in a year in feeding, watering, cleaning, slaughtering, 
dressing, etc.?  What dollar value would you wish to put on that time spent?  Would you average 
15 minutes a day on them?  At $6.00 per hour that would be $547.50 a year.  If you averaged 
only 7.5 minutes a day on them it would be $273.75 per year just in the value of your labor.  Then 
there is the question of who would take care of them if you wanted to take a trip or go on 
vacation. \par
}{\plain \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab (thanks to James Miller)\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b But contrast these arguments}{\plain  with those on this website: }{\field{\*\fldinst  HYPERLINK "http://www.verdant.net/food.htm" }{\fldrslt{{\*\cs55\ul\cf2 http://www.verdant.net/food.htm}}}}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b AND}{\plain  read}{\plain \b\i  \'93Garden to Globe\'94 }{\plain paper on the course website\par
}{\plain \par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab Learn how to grow some or most of your own food.  This is not as complicated as you 
might think. If you have access to a deck, a roof, a patch of ground no larger than a flower bed or 
far more space, you can, with just a few of the resources listed on this page learn to feed yourself 
and others. Any reasonably intelligent person can learn as much about soil and gardening as the 
most experienced farmer knew a hundred years ago--putting it into practice takes time however, 
today is the day to begin a garden.\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \par
}\page {\plain \b Some Questions:}{\plain  \par
}{\plain \tab What are the advantages of just buying at the grocery store?  \par
}{\plain \tab What are the disadvantages?\par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab What considerations are missing from the first account?  \par
}{\plain \tab What are the advantages of the second account?\par
}{\plain \tab What are the \'91hidden costs\'92 of the second account?\par
}{\plain \tab How are these issues different today than they were 100 years ago?\par
}{\plain \tab How are these issues different today than they were 10,000 years ago?\par
}{\plain \tab How, then, is domestic consumption a global issue?\par
}{\plain \tab Is this true everywhere in the world?\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b Urban/Industrial Economies}{\plain \par
}{\plain \tab Few \'91eat local\'92 or grow their own food\par
}{\plain \tab Food Security: availability, access, transport, quality, health issues,  etc\par
}{\plain \tab Who controls resources?\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Land: common property (usufruct = use rights); private property\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Labor\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Tools & Infrastructure\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Plants and Animals\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Capital\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b Some Long-Term Processes of Cultural Change in Food Production}{\plain \par
}{\plain \tab Intensification (requires more energy to maintain)\par
}\pard \li1440 
{\plain Means increasing the product per unit of land or labor, the amount of land under 
cultivation, the number of animals, and the number of crops per year, as well as the 
use of fertilizers, pesticides, etc.\par
}\pard 
{\plain \tab Specialization\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Increases the \'91splitting up\'92 of important knowledge among members of the group\par
}{\plain \tab Centralization\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Concentrates decision-making spatially and politically in hierarchies\par
}{\plain \tab Stratification\par
}{\plain \tab \tab Power in fewer and fewer hands results in social and economic inequality for many\par
}{\plain \par
}{\plain \b What are the Implications for Contemporary Food Procurement?}{\plain \par
}{\plain \tab In industrialized nations?\par
}{\plain \tab In agrarian, horticultural, pastoral, fishing, and other societies?\par
}{\plain \tab \tab \tab \par
}{\plain \pard 
}}