29 August 2008

Another Argument for Local Foods

"Eating locally not necessarily better"

Another article that fills me with raging annoyance at the complete lack of insight of most paid journalists. Way to miss the point, Mr. Commentator.

First, there seems to be a mistaken belief that buying local foods doesn’t actually help the local economy. I’m puzzled about this one. If I buy a tomato in Fountain Park for $1, then the farmer I just bought it from gets $1. If I buy a tomato at Superfresh for $1 (or less), then Superfresh gets about 10 cents, the oil used to transport the tomato (by truck and by ship) sucks up another 40 or so, marketing gets a good 10, another 35 or so goes to line the pockets of the big international company that’s shipping the tomatoes into the states in the first place, and finally about a nickel ends up with the farmer. That’s a rough estimate, mind.

Allow me to point out that none of that helps the local economy. Except maybe the 10 cents that went to Superfresh. Here’s an article that explains it well.


AS for the carbon footprint of locally grown food- well, here’s another place where this man is vastly mistaken. I don’t care HOW efficient cargo container ships are, they are still cargo container ships. They burn a hell of a lot more fuel than my neighbor’s pickup. He has a point about how food is produced- you are going to lower your carbon footprint a lot more by eating veggies than eating beef, no matter where the veggies are produced- but he misses the profound point that in common sense terms, shipping tomatoes across the ocean when you can grow them perfectly well in your own region is entirely pointless. There are some arguments to be made about suitability of soil types, but he fails to address this, so I’m not going to get into it. This commentator also fails to realize that by dint of the fact that they are growing locally, most local farmers grow more sustainably BECAUSE they aren’t mass producing and shipping their produce all over creation. They are smaller scale, use more labor and fewer pesticides, and are typically more considerate of their location- because their consumers are their neighbors, after all, and they will complain.

This, I think, is the biggest benefit of buying locally. It also ties in to the last point in this article. When I buy a tomato locally, I usually know the person I’m buying it from. If I really wanted, I could ask them politely if I could see their farm, and they’d probably say yes. At the very least they’d bring me some pictures and happily describe their operation. When I buy a tomato at Superfresh, I have no idea where it came from. None. California? Mexico? Hell if I know. I also have no idea how it was grown, who grew it, if they were paid properly, if they are going to die an early death thanks to pesticide exposure, if their land was mercilessly ripped away from them by an international food distributor- oh, wait, I forgot, we aren’t supposed to talk about the new colonialism. Underpaid workers in Mexico and South America grow our food, we celebrate the efficiency of container ships, and enjoy our tasteless tomatoes on our tasteless “beef” patties. Don’t for a minute imagine that the people growing your food would be better off growing their own food, for their own consumption. No, keep patting yourself on the back for supporting poverty stricken countries with a few pennies from your imperial dollar. Mr. Commentator: there’s a big difference between having no money and being self-sufficient, and being in poverty because you don’t see any of the profit of your labor.

The man got one thing right. It is important to pay more attention to how your food is produced. And the only way to do that is to buy from a farm where you KNOW how the food is produced. And that would be local.

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