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January 30, 2012

Buying locally appears to be making a comeback

BY GREG KLEIN

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

They may be the most commonly used and despised  three words in the English  language: Made in China.Try this game. Go through your house looking at clothing lables. Or go to a department store and look at boxed appliances. Or try looking at your children’s toys. Chances are you won’t be able to do it without finding that many, if not most, of your possessions are not made in America.

It isn’t just China either, although that country seems to produce the majority of the goods sold in the country, and cause the most anger. However, is it really any better if a product is made in Malaysia, or the Philippines, or even Mexico rather than in China?

Believe it or not, there is an alternative. Central New York is a hub of buy-local activity and there are plenty of local merchants, artisans, farmers and craftsmen who are producing and selling locally made goods. “Which economy do you want to flourish in 2012,” reads a piece of art on the Facebook page for Savor New York, the Main Street store and internet company owned by Brenda Berstler. The art shows two arrows representing the United States and China,  pointing at one another. Theimplication is clear.

Savor New York sells a wide verity of locally made goods; everything from food to dog toys, jewelry to clothing. Berstler said that 99 percent of what she sells is made in the  United States, and a majorityof those things are from New York.

“They say that all politics are local, right? Well, all economies are local too,” she said.

“It comes down to a pretty simple choice of where you want your money to go. If you want to send it overseas, you can do that, and if you want to keep your money here, you can do that too.”

Despite some of her rhetoric, Berstler is pragmatic. “I know that it is a choice made difficult because certain things are not made here, but when they are made here, the effort is worthwhile. A dollar spent on products made here is a dollar that stays here,” she said.

“The key is don’t beat yourself up, if a toy or something else is made in China and you have to buy it,” Berstler added. “It’s like computers. I don’t think you can buy a computer that isn’t made in Asia. It is getting to be the same way with textiles. Most textiles are made in Asia.”

But when people have a choice to buy American, she said, they should be conscious of the choice they are making.

Sometimes that choice is about food and supporting local farmers or brewers as the growth of the beer industry in the area has proven  and it is a simple one that is being played out in many areas around the country. On the Gulf Coast, for instance, or the Atlantic seaboard, local fisherman are working hard to educate consumers about buying seafood caught locally rather than, say, shrimp from southeast Asia. New York farmers have been making a similar case for home-grown products such as apples, garlic and, yes, beer. Other times, the debate is about quality. Berstler said that one of her criteria for selling products is that it is of top quality.

Not every merchant feels the same way. In her book, “The Story About Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change,” Annie Leonard details how certain box stores manufacture their  products to be of substandardquality. The price is low, the wages paid to the people who made the product is heartbreaking low, and when the product breaks or is worn out quickly, the store can then sell the same product again to the same consumer and double its profits.

The book, and the Internet film that preceded it, can be hard to stomach at times for some. Reading or watching may change your life, but the question may be, how much are you willing to change?

Local products, in general, do cost more, but they are also arguably of better quality. “It didn’t used to be that way,” Berstler said. “In the `50s, you went into a Sears and Roebuck, and everything was made in America. Obviously, it isn’t that way anymore.”

Another aspect of the locally made movement is the local artisans themselves. From paintings to pottery, baseball gloves to clothes made from alpaca wool, local crafts people are producing goods that are also fun to use or beautiful to look at.

Like Berstler, Ellen White Weir once sold locally made goods at her Cooperstown store, Homescapes. Now Weir works from home making aromatherapy oils, lotions and other body products from flowers she grows at her Fly Creek home, and sells under the business name Goldpetals. Her products are all natural. Weir said she sees a small, but meaningful shift in the way people are shopping.

“You have to work to find products made in America, but they are out there,” she said. “There’s a place in Vermont that makes cotton clothing for kids. There are stores here that sell locally made toys for kids. There are people here who make wooden toys for kids. So it is out there, and I think people are looking for that.”

Part of the problem, she said, is that the makers of such goods are running small businesses and don’t have the marketing or advertising reach, or perhaps savvy, of chain stores and mass-manufactured product makers.

“A lot of these people are artisans, or craftsmen, or you could call them boutique businesses.

It is hard to connect with other people and they can feel pretty isolated in what they do. I know I feel that way. I am thankful for the farmers’ markets; they really help me feel connected,” she said Cooperstown has its own farmers’ market during the winter it is open every first and third Saturday and it is filled with local farmers and businesses who make and grow their products locally. Jams, syrups, soaps, fruits, vegetables, meats and clothing  are all available currently; inthe summer, the number of vendors, products and customers is larger.

Both women are optimistic, despite the challenges. Weir said that her business is doing well on a small scale; selling at the markets, on the Internet and at a few local stores. Berstler said that business was up in 2011, in part because of what she believes is the desire of local people to buy local products.

“Definitely, it is getting better, and I am positive about it,” she said. “We have a lot of people come into the store and they tell us how grateful they are to find products made here.”

The words “Made in America” are rarer these days. There’s no denying that. But here in Cooperstown, and in upstate New York, those words are making a comeback.

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