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Eating locally not necessarily better
Commentator Will Wilkinson
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Scott Jagow: The two food stories of the past year have been prices and the environmental impact of food production. One of our commentators, Will Wilkinson, just moved from Washington, D.C. to America's heartland, Iowa. The "eat local" movement he discovered there got him thinking.
Will Wilkinson: The food co-op in my new hometown offers buttons, bags, and newsletters coaxing customers to "eat local." The deli counter helpfully enumerates the "food miles" of the various goods on offer. That's the distance traveled from farm to market. The New Oxford American Dictionary's "Word of the Year" for 2007 was, yes, "locavore."
Local food is often better-tasting and more nutritious. That's a pretty good reason to pay more for it. Maybe you want to support small local farms. Go ahead, if that's your bag. But don't think going local does much to reduce your carbon footprint. And it shouldn't do much to ease your conscience.
How far your food travels matters a lot less than what kind of food it is, or how it was produced. According to a recent study out of Carnegie Mellon University, the distance traveled by the average American's dinner rose about 25 percent from 1997 to 2004, due to increasing global trade. But carbon emissions from food transport saw only a 5 percent bump, thanks to the efficiencies of vast cargo container ships.
A tomato raised in a heated greenhouse next door can be more carbon-intensive than one shipped halfway across the globe. And cows spew a lot more greenhouse gas than hens, or kumquats, so eating just a bit less beef can do more carbon-wise than going completely local. It's complicated.
But one thing is clear enough: the farmers in Mexico, China, and Brazil, who produce a lot of the imported food Americans eat, are poorer than the farmers here in Iowa. A lot poorer. The corollary of "eat local" is "don't eat Mexican," so to speak. But the way poor people get less poor is to do business with people who have a lot of money, like us. If the local stuff is mouthwatering, you might as well pony up. But if your salad is made with Mexican lettuce, savor your righteousness.
Jagow: Will Wilkinson is a research fellow at the Cato Institute.
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Mike Jorgenson says, "Eating locally and seasonally keeps more of the food dollar in the local economy." This is false. First, it's irrelevant how much money is kept in the local economy. What's more important to wealth creation is taking advantage of those who can produce the most efficiently.
But suppose your goal is to keep more money in the local economy. If so, then don't forget that when I spend less to buy remotely produced food, I keep money in the local economy. Suppose a locally produced food costs $2 and the same remotely produced food costs $1. Buying the remote produced food immediately keeps $1 in the most local economy possible: my own. Now it's highly unlikely that a local producer could come anywhere near matching the economies of scale that a large remote produce can take advantage of. So it's highly likely that the profit margin of the local producer is lower than $1.
So if I buy remote I keep $1 in the local economy. If I buy local, I keep less than $1 in the local economy.
But like I said, keeping money local is irrelevant. What matters is efficiency. If the local producers are more efficient than remote producers, then buy local. If not, then don't. How do you know which is most efficient? The one who can sell their product for the least price is the winner. Buy from that person. That's the best way to make yourself and your neighbors wealthier.
Thanks to all of those listeners who disagreed with Will and support "Buy Fresh Buy Local." He was wholly uninformed about the core issues- learning to eat seasonally and supporting our local communities, especially the farmers who work hard to produce our food.
This is not just about a trend, it is about food security and justice, as well as reducing food miles and saving our precious farms/farmland and open space.
I want to know where my food comes from and there's nothing more rewarding than feeling as though you have a relationship with the source of your food. A couple more e-coli outbreaks and we will all go back to having our own "victory gardens."
It's also about creating connections for our inner cities- people (yes, poor people!) have been fed cheap, processed product for far too long- we all deserve access to fresh, affordable and nutritious foods.
Keep your eyes (and mind) open, Will- BUY FRESH BUY LOCAL IS HERE TO STAY!
In Lawrence KS people will skip the locally-owned franchise in order to shop at locally-owned extremely expensive non-franchise restaurant. My stepson works at one of these expensive places, and the employees almost never get raises. Every dollar that the owner keeps out of his employees pockets goes into his own. Not the case with corporations. Investors and executives usually get rich buying and selling stock, while a large part of actual revenues goes to actual employees, and these companies often have explicit policies about raises and promotions. Either way these are real people working real jobs, and they really belong to your community. The local people here are simply prejudiced against one group of them. You can't avoid the corporate world, and you can't avoid our global marketplace. Where do you think Mrs. Local Farmer buys her equipment and fertilizer from?
Mexico, China, and Brazil are growing middle classes, and that is because we buy goods there. At this point that's an historical fact. Middle classes are necessary for peaceful democracy. You can make the world a better place regardless of where you buy your lettuce.
Corporations are people. Third world workers are people. You are not helping people by being prejudiced. Is there some us-or-them genetic tendancy that must be exercised, so that some folks always have some group to hate?
Local isn't always better for your carbon footprint. That can be shown simply by comparing the efficiency of ship and rail, against that of trucks and cars.
"The Inconvenient Truth" compellingly showed one possible scenario where rising temperatures kick off an ice age, but even if the scientists are correct, is CO2 poison? Has anyone suggested removing all the fizzies from soda? That's CO2.
Carbon gets transferred from the atmosphere to plants via photosynthesis (plants breath CO2). This is the ONLY way that it gets into living things. Carbon gets transferred from plants to animals through eating. This is the ONLY way that it gets into animals. Therefore ALL of the CO2 that we could possibly put into the atmosphere came out of the atmosphere in the first place. That is the source of CO2. All of the carbon in fuel came from the atmosphere. Remember: oil is plants and dinosaurs. Ethanol doesn't solve anything, because the fields that were used to create it would have created other plants for people to use. Either way the carbon-sync-abilities of the grown plants are similar. Not driving would help though. Higher fuel prices, in fact, would be good for lowering our carbon footprint, but who is asking for higher fuel prices again? (sounds of crickets)
The real problem causing global warming is that there are too many people, and too many farm animals, using too much energy. Having less babies, eating less meat, and using alternative energy would help, but most real solutions are not acceptable to most real people, even those that believe that they care about this issue.
wow that was an oversimplified poorly thought out story! you're comparing apples to radiators. Try getting some data on carbon footprint of an in-season tomato next door and one shipped from mexico. try comparing pasturefed local beef to cafo beef from 1000 miles away. the listener is less educated having been exposed to your information.
Wil, you need to do a little more research into Buy Fresh, Buy Local before you get on your soabox. Eating locally and seasonally keeps more of the food dollar in the local economy. In western Minnesota where I'm from that is very important. Local foods will keep more people on small farms and help decrease our national dependence on petroleum. Modern corn and soybean production puts money in Monsanto, Archer Daniel Midland, and the other conglomerates pockets at the expense of local economies. Local food puts the food dollar into local farmer's and grocer's bank accounts.
The movement Mr. Wilinson refers to is not just "eat local" at whatever cost. The national movement is known as "Buy Fresh Buy Local." Buying fresh and local food has a significant impact on one's carbon foot print because buying fresh, local food means buying food that is in season and able to be grown locally, anturally. That, of course, is a change in our eating habits. It means eating tomatoes when they are in season, not hot house tomatoes. Anyway, the Buy Fresh Buy Local movement is about a lot more than reducing carbon emissions. It is about becoming a part of your local community, eating healthier foods, discovering new foods and new ways to prepare local foods.
The impacts of our eating decisions on global and local ecologies; as well as global and local economies; is indeed complicated.
So Wilkinson should not have used a simplistic and moralistic economic argument to trump the ecological conundrum of our eating choices.
But sorry: Poor people do not get richer by doing business with rich people. They get richer by making more than they spend to live on; just like anyone else. The global food economy has done far more to impoverish poor farmers than local, community based agriculture ever could.
Go ahead and savor both your imported lettuce and your self righteousness, Wilkinson. I'm guessing you've never tried to make a living as a farmer, eh?
But from my experience, I'm guessing most poor farmers in the world, both in developing and in wealthy countries, will be far better and more justly served through local food systems. And so will our common ecologies.
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