Time Out Takes Swipe At Localvores

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles ... e-movement

In taking aim at the Green City Market localvore challenge, Time Out writer, David Tamarkin, characterizes the movement as "ill-conceived." What is more, he argues that the economic argument put forth by localvores -- i.e., by eating local, you are supporting your local economy -- is shortsighted, given that other global economies (Chile?) may be needier. He quotes the authors of The Ethics Of What We Eat as follows: “A decision to buy locally produced food,” Singer and Mason write, “is a decision not to buy food from countries that are significantly worse off than our own.”


Also, he attempts to poke holes in the localvore environmental argument, which is that, by buying local, you are reducing the detrimental environmental effects of shipping food around the world:

David Tamarkin wrote:Local foods that are raised in environmentally unfriendly ways are sometimes more detrimental to the earth than nonlocal foods that have been raised responsibly. Studies at Lincoln University in New Zealand show that the way apples, lamb and dairy items are produced in New Zealand makes them more energy-efficient to buy in the U.K. than those same products grown on British soil. A similar situation in Chicago might look like this: While a tomato that was organically grown on an Illinois farm has a low impact on the environment, an organically grown tomato raised in an Illinois greenhouse—like some of the tomatoes sold in June at the Wicker Park Farmers’ Market—can be deceiving. They may be locally grown, but that term fails to reveal they were grown in a heavily heated, gas-guzzling greenhouse.

Based upon what Tamarkin believes to be those two flaws, he shoots down the localvore philosophy.

I wonder what others think of this. To me, the arguments regarding the "needier" economies seems particularly specious. I never viewed the rise of the global economy as one that was founded to help needier countries. Rather, it was developed because labor, natural resources, etc. were cheaper in other places than they are here. I can't help but think that his argument that we should feel good about buying, say, Chilean apples because we're helping the needier Chilean farmer, isn't going to fly. That seems as shortsighted as anything else Tamarkin has pointed out.

Just wondering if anyone else caught this and what they thought.

I should add a link to Tamarkin's blog where he clarifies his essay somewhat:

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/blog/out ... #more-8781

In this he comments that he's not totally against eating local, just that he's against the absolutism of eating local.

Anyhow, worth a read.

I've knocked holes in the anti-food miles argument before. I'll search for the link later, but one thing struck me, or let me say this:

Has David visited an Illinois tomato growing farm in June. What evidence can he point to of gas guzzling. See, I have been to an Illinois farm that grows tomatoes in hoop houses to get a jump on the season, and I have been there in May and June. In the one I went to, there was no gas used at all. The hoop house stays warm due to the poly vinyl material used, not due to any heating system. Show me the gas David.

OK, here's a bit more. In Salon.com, a few months ago, an author tried to make arguments about food miles too. Her argument was that farmers at her market all drove to the market in small trucks, and these trucks carried less stuff, so that more energy was used per apple (so to speak) than when the apples were shipped in big trucks. On one level, the writer was correct, ships and trucks and rail can be more efficient. Still, the math does not always hold up. A lot of stuff carted efficiently can still use more energy than less stuff carted ineffiently. But the case really fell flat when I started paying attention to what farmers drove to farmer's markets. I did see the farmer or two who drove all her stuff in a pick-up, but the vast amount of farmers I've seen, truck to the market in big ol gas guzzling trucks. So, the Salon's writer study just did not fly for me. Just like the example above, I find that you cannot extrapolate out some study that negates food miles with all local food systems.

David Tamarkin wrote:They choose to eat locally for two main reasons: (1) They believe it’s better for the local economy—the money spent on local food ostensibly goes to local farmers, thereby helping those farmers thrive and keeping the area flush with crops and money; and (2) They believe eating locally is better for the environment (in theory, local foods eliminate the need for long, gas-guzzling deliveries and high-emission plane rides).

This is a bit reductionistic. I eat local (when I can) primarily because (a) it tastes better, and (b) I like knowing the source of my food and being able to talk to him/her/them. I may be an outlier (and I would not consider myself a full-fledged localvore), but I would expect that these other motivations are strong for many who try to eat locally.

I just put up a blog post about this, and don't want to plop 1200 words right here, but here's the locally sourced nutshell version:

* * *

Tamarkin’s argument is basically founded on this:

People who become localvores—whether for two weeks or 200—are likely well-intentioned, considerate citizens of the Earth. They choose to eat locally for two main reasons: (1) They believe it’s better for the local economy—the money spent on local food ostensibly goes to local farmers, thereby helping those farmers thrive and keeping the area flush with crops and money; and (2) They believe eating locally is better for the environment (in theory, local foods eliminate the need for long, gas-guzzling deliveries and high-emission plane rides). In short, localvores make sacrifices, severely limiting what they eat for the benefit of the land and the people around them.

Sorry, you lost me at your basic premise. Yes, locavores would like to do both of these things, and undoubtedly feel good (and sometimes smug) about it. But first and foremost, every high-profile locavore I know eats locally first because it tastes good. In-season fruit or vegetables grown a short distance away, as a class, taste 100 times better than stuff that’s been bred primarily to survive the flight from Chile in visually pristine condition. Farmer’s market eggs beat Jewel ones. Chicken tastes like chicken. Beef tastes like beef. Peaches taste like childhood. Grapes taste like wine. Without that, none of the locavores I know would follow it for two weeks. But the fact is, the principles underlying local eating are the principles that result in better-tasting produce. Far from being severely limited, locavorism seems fundamentally rooted in sensual pleasures.

That these principles do some good, kind of probably maybe, is a bonus. Tamarkin trots out some contrarian arguments suggesting that a peach that flies in on a 707 is better for the planet than one that drove down from Michigan. But even if that’s true, the peach will still suck. So put me on the record right now as someone who will still be buying local peaches even if each one kills a polar bear and melts a fjord.

Mike G wrote:So put me on the record right now as someone who will still be buying local peaches even if each one kills a polar bear and melts a fjord.

Yes, but do you really think that eating local does that?*

*I mean, I understand your argument -- you're saying, if you accept everything Tamarkin says as true, you'll still eat local because it tastes better. And you can't really argue taste (although we do all the time here), so you win! I just think that his contrarian arguments are not good or good enough to call the entire movement "ill-conceived," which is a sweeping accusation.

Well, I go into that a little more in the blog post in a more philosophical way I won't drag out here, but basically, I have a lot of doubt about these arguments, that anything that involves a plane and 6000 miles can really be better than driving down from Michigan, but even if it were, well, then I'm still doing what we all always did when we simply bought for taste and didn't fret over where it came from, so how much worse can it really be?

The argument that I have a moral responsibility to buy from THE single poorest farmer on the planet, which Tamarkin quotes from Peter Singer, quite possibly the silliest man alive, I do not take seriously. It is enough for me to help a farmer with cash in hand, not to remake the whole global system of farming every time I want a goddam peach, thank you very much.

Mike G wrote:The argument that I have a moral responsibility to buy from THE single poorest farmer on the planet, which Tamarkin quotes from Peter Singer, quite possibly the silliest man alive, I do not take seriously. It is enough for me to help a farmer with cash in hand, not to remake the whole global system of farming every time I want a goddam peach, thank you very much.

Yes, I agree.

If you don't mind, I'll quote from your blog because you say it in a wittier fashion that I could:

Sky Full Of Bacon wrote:But in fact, I find the contrarian arguments stoned-dorm-room-discussion sophomoric:

David Tamarkin wrote:"If the first goal of buying local produce is to help farmers in need, it would stand to reason that localvores should seek out the neediest farmers they can. If they did, they would not find them in an incredibly wealthy nation like ours. As philosopher Peter Singer and cowriter Jim Mason write in The Ethics of What We Eat (Rodale, $15.95), the profits a farmer in a developing country earns from selling his wares in America—even if it’s as little as two cents—will go further toward helping that farmer combat poverty than those profits would for a Midwestern farmer. “A decision to buy locally produced food,” Singer and Mason write, “is a decision not to buy food from countries that are significantly worse off than our own.”

And you know what? My son can already read pretty well, and it seems like he has a pretty decent moral sense for a 9-year-old. So it stands to reason that I should seek out the neediest housing project children I can, and raise them instead.

There’s a fine movie from the 1930s about Weimar Germany called Little Man, What Now?, in which one of the supporting characters is a socialist crank who supposedly loves humanity— but can’t be bothered to adequately care for his own wife, who eventually sickens and dies of neglect. It’s absurd to think that I have to scour the world for the peach from the absolute worst-off farmer— and help him a little and a shipping company a lot— or else admit I’m a hypocrite. That’s a real example of the kind of hypernarrow absolutism that no locavores I know actually practice. It is enough that I can help a farmer, and eat a better peach, and all in all it was a good thing, whether or not it was the best possible thing. Il faut cultiver notre jardin

More here.

his website says he writes for rachel ray's magazine. yum-o!

If I'm not mistaken, David Tamarkin was the writer who took a restaurant to task because he noticed the patrons taking too much notice of the patrons at other tables. When, er, in order to notice that, he had to be taking too much notice of the patrons at other tables.

Tamarkin's article contains almost every classic flaw of argumentation. He's got contradictions, errors of fact, distortions, appeals to widespread beliefs, arguments by incorrect analogy, sweeping generalizations, appeals to dubious authority, straw man arguments, and appeals to entities with known bias. In an essay writing class, it would deserve no better than a D grade. Against any decent debate team, he'd be ripped to shreds. His Rush Limbaugh style of criticism ought to be an embarrassment to a usually-decent local publication.

I've been working on my response to Tamarkin this afternoon and it basically echoes what a lot of people have said here already.

Beyond his fallacies and false reasoning, ultimately, I'm disappointed at his vitriol. Its mis-placed and harmful and doesn't foster the "reason" he finds lacking in the locavore movement or any serious discussion.

My full post from The Local Beet follows:
***********************************************************************
In a recent article, David Tamarkin of TimeOut Chicago joins the ranks of pundits launching full-fledged attacks at the concept of eating locally. His hypothesis rests on a fallacy where he states that people who choose to eat locally “choose to eat locally for two main reasons”, economic and environmental. He then goes on to attempt to trash these two motivations.

I list five reasons on this site which include cultural reasons and simple taste as well. Eat Local Challenge links to ten reasons for eating local. On this site, I list my main reason for eating local as a pure love of “seasonality and small-batch, locally-produced foods”, a love I found through travel. By ignoring these primary motivations behind many locavores that I know, Tamarkin is guilty of two logical fallacies right off the bat: hasty generalization and cherry-picking.

First he re-hashes Will Wilkinson’s argument that we should first buy from the neediest if we are economically well-intentioned. Nichol’s farm doesn’t need my five bucks that I spent on tomatoes today. By Tamarkin’s logic, the Mexican farmers need it more so I should buy Mexican. How far does this logic extend? Clothing? Cars? The workers in the U.S. manufacturing industry get significantly better wages and benefits than Chinese workers. Should I turn all my buying power towards Chinese-made products to ensure they continue to receive their wages? Or is it more ethical for me to withhold my purchase and say that I do not support a corrupt system that profits on the backs of its impoverished workers? These decisions are not as simple as saying, “They’re poor over there. Buy from them first.” Just as Wilkinson (and Tamarkin) state, it’s very complicated. Ultimately, I think it’s simply foolish to suggest that we out-source our food supply on a moral basis.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the moral desire to support struggling farmers in other far-flung locales. Equally, there is nothing wrong with the moral desire to support your own local economy where your friends, family, and neighbors all live and work.

When it comes to economics, Tamarkin is appealing to emotion, effectively saying, “but what about the starving babies overseas?” This is not proof, but an appeal that doesn’t hold much water. I would still be interested in evidence that a percentage reduction in the import of Australian-grown oranges or Chilean-grown grapes would adversely affect the quality of life in those countries.

Secondly, Tamarkin attacks the environmental argument that locally-grown food does not necessarily have a smaller carbon footprint than imported food. He points to an oft-quoted study that shows efficiencies in New Zealand-grown lamb are greater than that grown in England, a large lamb importer. Perhaps this makes sense if the British chose lamb to replace lamb, or never decided to implement any efficiencies locally. All things being equal, it may make sense to keep importing lamb. But a local eater will tell you to substitute some of your lamb eating with something efficient and bountiful from your own backyard.

Finally, Tamarkin sets up a wild hypothetical as reason to question eating locally in Chicago:

A similar situation in Chicago might look like this: While a tomato that was organically grown on an Illinois farm has a low impact on the environment, an organically grown tomato raised in an Illinois greenhouse—like some of the tomatoes sold in June at the Wicker Park Farmers’ Market—can be deceiving. They may be locally grown, but that term fails to reveal they were grown in a heavily heated, gas-guzzling greenhouse.

I would like to know exactly which farms use gas-guzzling greenhouses. Even if he can come up with one, which I doubt he can, I would say that there are dozens and dozens who use nothing more than a heat-efficient, zero-energy hoop-house. The movement toward eating local goes beyond blindly choosing something with a “local” sticker on it, but getting to know your food and your farmer. Pointing out a pitfall doesn’t invalidate the path taken. Should a vegetarian give up their eating choice because it’s hard to tell which foods might have used chicken stock in a sauce? Or should they learn more about what they’re eating? I say the latter. Make informed choices.

The fact of the matter is, and I dare anyone to dispute this, that if I choose to bring home Michigan peaches and Wisconsin cheese and Illinois beer from the market, that food didn’t travel nearly as far as Chilean grapes, California cheese, and New York wine. If it travels less, it uses less fuel. Even if those Chilean grapes are efficiently shipped in large containers, they still have to be grown, harvested, shipped to port, shipped, brought from port to distribution, and stocked. My peaches have to do the same thing, except you can cut out the entire trans-oceanic shipping process. Even Wal-Mart has recognized the fuel and cost savings in sourcing their food closer to their stores.

Overall, Tamarkin’s attack borders on vitriolic at times, which is disappointing, painting locavores as selfish and lacking reason. Unfortunately his arguments are completely devoid of reason. To attack with such anger with hypotheicals and appeals to emotion is specious at best. His argument is flawed from the beginning by making a false statement about the motivations of locavores and he does a poor job of knocking down the motivations that he picked like ripe Michigan cherries.

Mr. Tamarkin, to use your words, this article was “completely ill-conceived”.

I haven't read Tamarkin's article, but someone else posted an interesting link to the Freakonomics blog, which has a number of posts on aspects of this issue. They aren't quite as interested in the deliciousness aspect (though acknowledge it), but do get into the economics (of course) and food miles-type arguments. I found it pretty interesting, if not entirely sure what to make of it.

LTH thread

Freakonomics posts:

The Illogic of Farm Subsidies and Other Agricultural Truths

Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores?

Echoing the thoughts of others here, my interest in local eating is almost entirely aesthetic (even more than strictly delicious). Economic and environmental benefits, if they exist, are gravy. And speaking of local, we had a terrific meal last night at Justus Drugstore, which I'll get around to writing up a little later.

aschie30 wrote:In taking aim at the Green City Market localvore challenge, Time Out writer, David Tamarkin...

Wasn't he the host of Press Your Luck?


No whammies, no whammies, STOP!

RAB wrote:

aschie30 wrote:In taking aim at the Green City Market localvore challenge, Time Out writer, David Tamarkin...

Wasn't he the host of Press Your Luck?


No whammies, no whammies, STOP!

Uh, I believe that was Peter Tamarkin. Nice try, though.

aschie30 wrote:Uh, I believe that was Peter Tamarkin. Nice try, though.

Um, kidding. My apologies for not including a winky with my whammy.

RAB wrote:

aschie30 wrote:Uh, I believe that was Peter Tamarkin. Nice try, though.

Um, kidding. My apologies for not including a winky with my whammy.

Kidding myself. No apologies or winky needed.

I found particularly interesting this part of the freakonomics post linked to above -- quoting from a recent article in Environmental Science and Technology by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie-Mellon:

"We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."

JamPhil wrote:I found particularly interesting this part of the freakonomics post linked to above -- quoting from a recent article in Environmental Science and Technology by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie-Mellon:

"We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."

And installing solar panels, new windows, and new insulation in your home is more effective than changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Does that reduce the effectiveness of the bulbs? Are these efforts mutually exclusive?

JamPhil wrote:I found particularly interesting this part of the freakonomics post linked to above -- quoting from a recent article in Environmental Science and Technology by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie-Mellon:

"We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."

I find that excerpted quote hardly persuasive. The underlying premise makes sense, that there other other factors beyond transportation that have greater GHG emission (which I confess I have no idea what that means per se). Yet, it seems like a, so what to me.

Yes, if your diet was wholly local meat centered, as compared to a "regular" diet, than maybe it would make sense to (maybe) ease up on the meat because of the issues related to meat production. But what local eating is advocating is an apples to apples comparison. I mean that literally! It's not local meat vs. out of state chicken. It's saying pick local chicken over out of state chicken. In a matter where all other factors are equal, would not tranportation costs matter?

Yeah, it's totally moving the goalposts. It's basically saying:

"Should I eat a Michigan peach or a New Zealand one?"
"You should eat chicken instead of hamburger."
"Um, can someone else help me here?"

Meanwhile, in the real world, if you join a CSA to eat locally, you will almost certainly wind up eating more vegetables, one, because they're arriving on schedule and you need to do something with them, and two, because you're being forced out of your conventional cooking habits by the arrival of all this strange stuff, and will wind up trying and liking new things you wouldn't have otherwise (and they'll actually be good, unlike their supermarket versions). So "don't eat local, do this instead" is less likely to get you to the instead than a pleasure-driven change in eating habits will; that's my problem with looking at each of these pieces in isolation.*

* Especially after reading Michael Pollan on how dubious most human nutrition studies are, given that you can't keep humans in a cage and just feed them X till they keel over, but have to let them live their lives and trust that what they report to you bears some resemblance to the truth

JamPhil wrote:I found particularly interesting this part of the freakonomics post linked to above -- quoting from a recent article in Environmental Science and Technology by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie-Mellon:

"We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."

The problem isn't the quote above, it's the non sequiter that follows in the freakonomics post:

This is a pretty strong argument against the perceived environmental and economic benefits of locavore behavior

Quite the contrary. We eat tons of beef and heavily processed foods in this country precisely because we do not eat local. Raising beef requires more land and significantly more capital than does raising chicken. It's an endeavor that's ready made not for your local farmer, but for corporate giants with customers that can't see the inhumane way animals are treated to shortcut the land and capital challenges. Similarly, processing foods increases their shelf life - something way more important for corporate shippers than local farmers. The argument for shifting to less beef and fewer processed foods is an argument for eating local, not against it.

Kennyz wrote:The argument for shifting to less beef and fewer processed foods is an argument for eating local, not against it.

Absolutely. And more to the point:

Mike G wrote:Meanwhile, in the real world, if you join a CSA to eat locally, you will almost certainly wind up eating more vegetables, one, because they're arriving on schedule and you need to do something with them, and two, because you're being forced out of your conventional cooking habits by the arrival of all this strange stuff, and will wind up trying and liking new things you wouldn't have otherwise (and they'll actually be good, unlike their supermarket versions).

I can say with certainty that this has been my experience. After Pollan's book, I've tried to limit my in-home meat consumption, but with the summer/fall arrival of my CSA box, eating meat is rare as it's just too easy and delicious to find things to make with all those vegetables. It's like if you had a garden that was abundant, you'll eat your garden stuff first, and then supplement with grocery/butcher items. In that case, you're much more likely to consume significantly less non-local foods.

I mostly just found it interesting that such a large percentage (83!) of greenhouse gas emissions associated with food comes from the production phase. The transportation factor isn't irrelevant of course, but it's dwarfed by the production factor and is seemingly pretty minor. It's just one study, but I always welcome hard numbers, and thought it worth highlighting from a link provided several posts up. Really, I was just trying to share what I thought was an interesting chunk of data.

As for what conclusions you can draw from that data --

I take those numbers to mean that if what you really want in life is to alter food habits to benefit the environment, the first thing to do is cut back on (red) meat. I.e., with regards to one's food consumption, probably the best thing you can do for the environment is become a vegetarian, or near-vegetarian.

Can you eat locally on top of that? Of course. They are not mutually exclusive behaviors. It's more that if you are setting out to save the environment by changing food habits, you seem to be better off trying to convert people into becoming vegetarians than into becoming locavores. Though best of all would probably a vegetarian locavore.

Are locavaores about saving the world by changing food habits? David Tamarkin seems to suggest at least a decent number are. But I haven't had any come knocking on my door on a Sunday morning . . . yet.

I don't think that's a secret, that it's more efficient to eat greens and corn directly than to process their nutrients through a cow first. But I like hamburgers!

The other thing about this is, the agricultural-industrial complex has had many years and billions of bucks (private and governmental) to optimize its processes by now. The farmer's market/locavore whatever movement has been working on reverse engineering the pre-industrial method of bring food to market on a shoestring for maybe a couple of decades, really. So they've made doing things the industrial way as low-cost and efficient as they can, while Farmer Joe is playing catch-up with a beater truck (and no fat government subsidy).

Going to the farmer's market and overpaying for stuff (which is great and worth it nonetheless) is a kind of capital investment in helping Farmer Joe and all the others (and the people who run farmer's markets) work out better ways of doing things. I don't expect them to be perfect at it yet; I expect really good tasting tomatoes, and hopefully my support as a customer will keep them going as they work it all out and devise better systems. That's part of why the comment about finding the world's poorest farmers and helping them instead of those fabulously well-off Illinois and Wisconsin farmers is so dunderheaded; it's not just about helping one farmer, it's about supporting an entire marketing system for this kind of produce and meat. I can do that most effectively right where I live, not by shipping money halfway around the world so produce can come around the other half. Local is where the bang for the buck is in building markets for everybody.

cows always get the blame. what an unfortunate situation for a magnificent creature. she eats the crap that no other animal would touch...grain hulls and milling waste, sugarbeet pulp, corn milling by-products (what would your Coke cost if Bessie didn't eat all that corn gluten feed), ethanol byproducts, and every other conceivable waste product from our agricultural industry (chicken manure, blood meal...ground up feathers!!!). and they get blamed for inefficiency!

teatpuller wrote:cows always get the blame. what an unfortunate situation for a magnificent creature. she eats the crap that no other animal would touch...grain hulls and milling waste, sugarbeet pulp, corn milling by-products (what would your Coke cost if Bessie didn't eat all that corn gluten feed), ethanol byproducts, and every other conceivable waste product from our agricultural industry (chicken manure, blood meal...ground up feathers!!!). and they get blamed for inefficiency!

All furthering the case for eating local and not supporting this agro-industrial model. To be clear, I love cows. I love steak, and couldn't imagine a life without cheese and ice cream. Local eating includes cow eating too, just not on as large a scale.

Keep the cow, give up the coke. That's my mantra. Or something like that.

I like seeing numbers too, like JamPhil, but I don't really know why. I don't know enough to know which ones to believe or quite what to make of them.

I love eating local. I've not pulled a VI, or taken a locavore challenge, but I did buy 40 lbs of Missouri peaches last weekend and went to a restaurant last night where the bartender sources local elderflower syrup for cocktails.

I don't know the science behind the science, but I find compelling the idea that the industrial-agricultural industry, and the efficiencies therein, are responsible for the huge available diversity of our diets, which I enjoy.

And that our ability to enjoy the kinds of locally-sourced, hand-produced, homegrown, kitchen-canned delicacies that we seek out is a product of the phenomenal wealth (of time and treasure) of our society, which in turn is built on increases in productivity and efficiency of, among other things, the food production system.

Now that we have the wealth, I'm all in favor of reinvesting that wealth in trying to increase the efficiencies in family farming and weed out the gross malpractices of industrial agriculture, but I can honestly say that I have no idea what the consequences or desired outcomes, on a large, societal scale, ought to reasonably be. I understand the "political movement"-type criticism on those grounds.

On the other hand, I'm still enjoying the homemade peach butter, peach relish, peach pies, and peach ice cream; and the Shatto dairy milk and butter; and the locally raised heritage pork and beef; and I'll continue to do so until I don't have the money to buy it or the time to make it.

I've read the article and the blog and don't find it as flawed as many here have written.

If you agree with the construct that the localvore movement is altruistic then it seems legitimate to explore those altruistic claims and evaluate whether or not they are legitimate and hold up to greater scrutiny.

The author advances an argument that isolating your food spend to locally grown produce (and other foodstuffs) potentially harms needier farmers in developing world countries. Probably not the best argument to make, but he's trying to illustrate the hypocrisy of the localvore argument.

Yes, developing world economies are far more dependent on agriculture for income and employment. And the U.S.' far superior production infrastructure and federal ag policy (Farm Bill) directly harms developing world farmers. But localvore consumption (calories consumed) is so minor to be irrelevant. And, those developing world small holder farmers aren't producing product (with very minor exceptions that can be aggregated and sold in sufficiently large quantities) that is exported anyway.

The environmental impact question is interesting. I agree that the complex is not built for local farmers -- it's built to lower prices -- and so an evaluation of transportation emissions and costs is a mixed bag.

Farming practices need to be assessed for a true comparison and I suspect that those producing for the farmers markets are an incredibly inefficient lot which I would attribute more to their attempt to match products that are inefficient to produce with their market (versus their ability to produce efficiently). Small farmers who supply the Chi farmers markets could almost as efficiently product #95 red delicious apples or a DeKalb Roundup Ready yellow corn variety (that's grown mostly for animal feed and ethanol) if that was their business. It's not. Selling really tasty, incredibly inefficient varieties to highly affluent urbanites at stratospheric prices is their business.

And so the writer attempts to point out through a piece on localvores that some of our food politics are in conflict with the reality of our choices. If he knew more about agriculture and food production he'd be able to build a stronger argument but it's certainly not as flawed and diabolical and some have suggested.

As a Chicagoan the biggest issue I have with the localvore movement is that here we only produce food about four months out of the year. The northeastern illinois population is a direct result of the ag industrial complex that we seem to agree is so terrible. Certainly in other parts of the country eating local might make sense but it's just ridiculous if you expect to support a diet with some diversity.

Eat your tasteless Chilean peaches and plums...in January when they are your only option. I promise that you won't be putting any Michigan orchard farmers out of work.

auxen1 wrote:I've read the article and the blog and don't find it as flawed as many here have written.

If you agree with the construct that the localvore movement is altruistic then it seems legitimate to explore those altruistic claims and evaluate whether or not they are legitimate and hold up to greater scrutiny.

I believe you correctly state what seems to be a fundamental premise of this article. It is not valid. Thus, the argument is flawed. We can argue whether it's more or less flawed, but flawed it is, by my reading...which is not to say it is not a worthwhile read. Many of us tend to favor locavorism, and it's always helpful to have one's assumptions challenged.