What's wrong with this picture? A "Locally Grown" sign over clearly imported apples...even if the sign doesn't specifically say the apples below are local, its placement is deliberately misleading. What's most infuriating about this is that it's at the Kapahulu Safeway. Safeway has the least amount of locally-grown produce of all the supermarket chains (I can get more local stuff at Costco even!). This day, in all of the produce section, the only locally-grown items were the pineapples. Safeway obviously sees a growing market in consumers interested in purchasing local, but instead of actually trying to source local produce, they resort to shady marketing tactics.Other disheartening news: stolen tomatoes at Jeanne Vana's North Shore Farms, right before the farm fair. Not only do farmers here have to contend with year-round diseases and pests, when crops are actually healthy, they're vulnerable to thieves. Based on conversations with farmers here, theft is a serious issue. One farmer talks of needing dogs, guns and alarms to try to protect his property, but is afraid of the fallout should he actually catch a thief. Gustavo Diaz, of Kapalua Farms in Maui, who used to farm in Virginia, says it was never a problem there because of the remoteness, but on Maui, he's considering giving up the fruit orchards because he loses so much to theft every year. Like a lot of crime, it's hard to tell whether the best solution is a reactive (tighter security with government funding because small farms don't have the resources) or a proactive stance (developing community around the farms so to discourage theft? Sounds a little too idealistic to me...would need to see it in practice on a for-profit farm) or a mix of both.
