Confused about the Local Food Movement


With all due respect to my many friends who are into the local foods movement, I have to express my puzzlement. I am not nearly as informed as I should be, given the circles I run in, but as I understand it, the push to produce and consume food locally boils down to the following:

1. Transporting food far distances is bad for the environment.

2. Locally produced food tastes better because it gets eaten faster and doesn't have to pumped up as much with preservatives.

3. Producing food locally creates jobs locally.

4. If we don't preserve our local farms, the big guys win.

5. In an increasingly shaky geopolitical world, you don't want to depend on others for food.

I don't think these are completely invalid concerns. And I certainly give anyone the right to believe and do whatever they want. But I'm not sure if top-down mandates concerning the production and purchase of locally grown foods is the way to go:

#1 is solved by pricing gas more accurately, and then the environmental impact is either minimized (by less travel) or mitigated (by more tax revenues to do things that reverse the effect of travel).

#2 is a matter of personal choice.

#3 is a pure Ricardian "comparative advantage" story - market forces efficiently determine whether it's in our best interest to be a net importer (we can buy and use our extra time for more productive use) or a net exporter (we can sell and use our extra money for more productive use) of food.

#4 is similarly Ricardian - if the big guys can offer us all more quality and/or more choices and/or lower prices, that represents huge gains for all of us.

#5 is a little too alarmist for me, given how fertile a breadbasket the middle of our country is. (Although we Philadelphians had better remember to be nice to any tourists from Iowa and Nebraska, lest we end up having a civil war with the heartland.)

Again, nothing against someone who, on principle alone, wants to make a certain set of choices concerning his or her own consumption and life patterns. But if you want to accrue those principles to a broader sphere of influence, I just don't see how top-down regulations to that effect are the way to go. But believe me, I am open to hearing otherwise.

Comments

Nicholas said…
For me, the local food idea in itself isn't scintillating, but a few ideas which go along with it are quite palatable:

(1) More information and options concerning food production methods. I have no idea where the meat in the Fresh Grocer comes from, but I do know that (a) it's usually red on the outside and brown on the inside, a classic sign of age and preservation and (b) it's probably produced according to the standards described in books like The Omnivore's Dilemma and therefore (i) arguably unethical and (ii) worse for you than meat produced other ways.

With local food, there is no mystery - there is much better information available about how food is produced. And if I want to, say, pay more for beef from a grass-fed cow given a life of pasture, then I have that choice.

(2) Seasonal eating. In the "old days," I'm told, menus were tied to the seasons outside. Local food movements restrict food available to things which can naturally be produced at those particular points through the year.

Sure, there's nothing forcing me to eat guacamole in February in the Northeast, and indeed I am quite glad for the opportunity to do so when I so choose. But I also like the idea of being more tied to the rhythms of the seasons outside my door.

--

Ultimately, I think organic and local food markets should have to compete with the big boys in order to survive. If what they provide isn't a good enough service to draw consumers' dollars, then I am not in favor of artificially tilting the playing field in their favor.

That in itself is a bit of a fantasy, however, because the playing field is already tilted considerably against local producers. For example (drawing from The Omnivore's Dilemma), the USDA system for grading beef depends on marbling of fat within the muscle, a phenomenon which occurs when you keep a cow from moving and feed it nothing but corn, but not so much when you raise a cow according to its natural inclinations.

In another example, a man who attempted to start a small-scale slaughterhouse for local food operations spent many tens of thousands of dollars and jumped through many regulatory hoops before the USDA pulled their inspector and rendered the entire operation useless.

In short, there already exists an institutionalized prejudice in favor of industrialized food production methods to which many take issue. To give alternative methods and markets a legitimate chance to compete, legislative reform is necessary. There's a moving sidewalk, and standing still perpetuates the status quo.
LH said…
Nicholas, thanks for this . . . it's a subject I'd like to learn more about but haven't yet, so I appreciate the insights.
Daniel Nairn said…
I try to hold a moderate viewpoint on local foods, at least relative to the people I consort with (who are very interested in this topic). I think it would be nice if a larger proportion of the food supply could be provided regionally, but I also recognize that certain crops are much more easily produced, even produced more energy-efficiently, in particular soils/climates. Those should probably be shipped around.

I agree in principle that local should compete in the market with the big producers, but I don't think the market is currently very balanced. The Farm Bill regularly doles out favors to massive commodity crop producers, and many aspects of the food regulatory system are greater hurdles for small-scale farmers than giant agribusiness. Often you even see the groups like Monsanto lobbying for more regulation.

I guess I would add three more benefits to local foods:

6. They can be a natural growth management tool. As farms in the region become more profitable, they will be less likely to sell for sprawling development.

7. The business models for smaller producers naturally tend toward more traditional/sustainable methods. Less pesticides, less antibiotics, better treatment of animals, more biodiversity, etc. Not always, but more likely. (Sometimes they have to or the neighbors will come beating down there doors. Some accountability?)

8. The whole Wendell Berry "Know your Farmer" thing. There is something satisfying about matching the economy with community, esp. for something as fundamental as food - although I fully understand this is not always attainable.
LH said…
Daniel, thanks for your comments. You're right that sometimes it's better (in terms of food quality, financial efficiency, AND environmental impact) to specialize. You're also right that there's all sorts of distortions in food production that make returning to a level playing field difficult. I need to get more informed here, as there's a lot here; thanks for helping fill in some of the pieces.

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