Earthtalk: Why Eat Locally?
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 10. 4.06
Dear EarthTalk: Why do environmentalists advocate that people “eat locally?” I don’t understand the connection between patronizing local food producers and environmental quality.
-- Timothy Douglas, Burlington, VT
In our modern age of food preservatives and additives, genetically altered crops and E. coli outbreaks, as with the recent spinach debacle, people are increasingly concerned about the quality and cleanliness of the foods they eat. Given the impossibility of identifying the pesticides used and the route taken to grow and transport, say, a banana from Central America to our local supermarket, foods grown locally make a lot of sense for those who want more control over what they put into their bodies.
John Ikerd, a retired agricultural economics professor who writes about the growing “eat local” movement, says that farmers who sell direct to local consumers need not give priority to packing, shipping and shelf life issues and can instead “select, grow and harvest crops to ensure peak qualities of freshness, nutrition and taste.” Eating local also means eating seasonally, he adds, a practice much in tune with Mother Nature.
“Local food is often safer, too,” says the Center for a New American Dream (CNAD). “Even when it’s not organic, small farms tend to be less aggressive than large factory farms about dousing their wares with chemicals.” Small farms are also more likely to grow more variety, too, says CNAD, protecting biodiversity and preserving a wider agricultural gene pool, an important factor in long-term food security.
Eating locally grown food even helps in the fight against global warming. Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture reports that the average fresh food item on our dinner table travels 1,500 miles to get there. Buying locally-produced food eliminates the need for all that fuel-guzzling transportation.
Another benefit of eating locally is helping the local economy. Farmers on average receive only 20 cents of each food dollar spent, says Ikerd, the rest going for transportation, processing, packaging, refrigeration and marketing. Farmers who sell food to local customers “receive the full retail value, a dollar for each food dollar spent,” he says. Additionally, eating locally encourages the use of local farmland for farming, thus keeping development in check while preserving open space.
Portland, Oregon’s EcoTrust has launched a campaign, the Eat Local Challenge, to encourage people to eat locally for a week so they can see---and taste--the benefits. The organization provides an “Eat Local Scorecard” to those willing to try. Participants must commit to spending 10 percent of their grocery budget on local foods grown within a 100-mile radius of home. In addition they are asked to try one new fruit or vegetable each day, and to freeze or otherwise preserve some food to enjoy later in the year.
EcoTrust also provides consumers with tips on how to eat locally more often. Shopping regularly at local farmers’ markets or farmstands tops the list. Also, locally owned grocery and natural foods stores and coops are much more likely than supermarkets to stock local foods. The Local Harvest website provides a comprehensive national directory of farmers’ markets, farm stands and other locally grown food sources.
CONTACTS: Center for a New American Dream; EcoTrust Eat Local Challenge; Local Harvest.
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F**k pesticides, 'eat locally' means 'don't waste god-knows how much gasoline/oil transporting a strawberry from southern mexico to china for processing, to new york for storage to canada for consumption, even if it's cost effective to do so.' Our food, the packaging it comes in, and so on and so forth, in many cases travels thousands of miles before it reaches us, and those miles have to be paid for by a price in gasoline. Pick your favourite reason not to overuse gasoline for the rest.
Don't forget that food grown locally doesn't need to be transported by fossil-fuel burning trucks, ships, and airplanes.
Even though the blueberries you might buy from New Zealand are organic, if they were shipped to the other side of the earth, this, according to most, would generally negate the environmental benefits from the reduced pesticides, etc. of the organic farming.
Many would say Local, Organic, Seasonal is best, both for the health of the community and and the health of the earth.
Failing that, some would say local and seasonal trump organic for many of the above reasons.
Enjoy your food!
Beyond fresh food, even buying locally produced items (aka beer, chocolate, bread) are better for several of the same reasons.
A good example is locally brewed beer ... despite the fact that the hops and malt may not be a local product, the final product does not have to travel that far before being used. This is besides the much better quality and larger variety of products that local producers create.
I'm sorry, but I simply don't buy the argument about the energy use of transporting food.
While it may take a energy to transport food, the Cooking of the food post purchase is likely to use more energy than the transportion of it.
Also, Remember that buying locally for some foods means buying foods that don't grow well in the local area--meaning that the farmer would have to use MORE energy to grown them.
It's more feel good than anything substantive.
Last I looked what's on the end of your fork or the bowl of your spoon travels, on average, 1400 miles to get to your table.
In case of emergency, you think supplies will still arrive on time? It's good to have a local agricultural infrastructure for many, many reasons. Not the least of which is resilience for local security and civil defense.
Funnily enough - I live right next to a large organic blueberry farm - in New Zealand. Lucky me!
I agree with gmoke... and also because after peak oil, who knows if we'll still be able to get those grapes from Chile?
So the only justification is the speculation that there will be an 'emergency' that would shut down this nation's transportation system?
Eating locally is better for a number of reasons but let's not lapse into sentimentality. Having access to food from distant ecosystems is a boon to human health, especially in climates where there is a very short growing season and limited choices even at the height of the growing season. There is rarely a better use for transportation or fossil fuels than transporting food to where it is either needed because of crop failure or starvation or wanted to increase the variety and nutritional value of the food selection in winter and early spring.
I think some of the people who write in praise of local food are enjoying and assuming the benefits of a globalized food economy which they will miss if it ever ceases to exist. Maximizing the richness of the local food economy doesn't mean demonizing global trade in food products.
Reducing petroleum consumption in all phases of the economy doesn't mean singling out the use of petroleum to transport food as the problematic element in our food economy. Remember local farmers are almost as dependent upon petroleum to create their products as a farmer around the world.
I agree with Mike Z that having a globalized food economy can be of some benefit in terms of crop failure or starvation and may be of limited use to human health (I don't think that food that is picked unripe in California and travels across the country before being eaten necessarily has the same nutritional value as the same thing picked ripe and eaten), but I think that this is taken to the extreme in many northern areas of the US. I live in Detroit and was recently in New Hampshire for vacation. During June and July, strawberries are in season in this area. Major grocery stores in both of these places had piles of strawberries for sale, but they were from California. I can understand that they might feel that local suppliers can't fully supply them even during the natural growing season, but it seems unreasonable to not sell ANY local strawberries. Sadly, I can't say that the strawberry is the only local produce that is subject to this fate.
I personally have switched to mainly buying from the farmer's market (I am very fortunate to live by a fairly large one where I can get fruit, veggies, eggs, cheese, bread and meat and seedlings) and have found a huge improvement in taste (including comments from others who don't know where I shop)
Have people forgotten how to garden? There is no petroleum used in my backyard garden because I stick the seeds in the ground, water them myself and pick them vine fresh.
Global warming is not going to be of any consequence once oil is so expensive no one has jobs to buy a car or fill the tank.
Our only hope for keeping the lights on and maintaining an economy is to build nuclear power plants and transition to electric cars.