Wal-Mart’s Heritage Agriculture Program
After reading the series of articles linked below I wanted to do a bit more research into Wal-Mart’s Heritage Agriculture program, which was established to support local foods. Does this represent a significant change in the retailer’s corporate culture, or is it simply a case of “local-washing”?
Background Articles:
- Sustainability Faceoff: Walmart vs. Target - Fast Company
- Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy? - The Atlantic
- Walmart’s Farm-Fresh Produce: ‘Local-Washing’? - The Atlantic
Additional Reading:
A quick Google search turned up an article in Food Safety News (Heritage Agriculture…at Wal-Mart?) that shed some light on the project. Importantly, it links to an internal presentation by Wal-Mart executives called Heritage Agriculture: Revitalizing and Energizing Historical Agricultural Economies (PDF) that is worth scanning.
Deep in the presentation are two slides that refer to the MarketMaker Pilot Project, a website that was created by the University of Illinois Extension. Here’s the description they provide:
MarketMaker is a national partnership of land grant institutions and State Departments of Agriculture dedicated to the development of a comprehensive interactive data base of food industry marketing and business data. It is currently one of the most extensive collections of searchable food industry related data in the country. All the information can be mapped and queried by the user.
The site was created in 2004 by a team from University of Illinois Extension with the intention of building an electronic infrastructure that would more easily connect food producing farmers with economically viable new markets. The site would also serve as an aid in the development of quality driven food supply chains.
MarketMaker is hosted and maintained by University of Illinois Extension and is guided by an advisory board made up of representatives from among participating partner states
Now, although the Food Safety News article claims this is a Wal-Mart pilot project, I didn’t see any mention of the company as a partner or sponsor on the website. Regardless, each state-specific site (here’s Illinois), seems to have plenty of resources for producers and retailers interested in the local food chain.
None of this answers one of my main questions, which is, “does my local Wal-Mart already source local foods?” I’ll try and find a produce manager when I’m there and see if they can provide more info. Perhaps those interested in the local food system are already familiar with these resources, but if not I thought it would be worth passing along.
