auxen1 wrote: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.

Note that to some extent, farmers in developing world countries would also do well to become part of a locavore movement in their own locales. "Subsistence farming" has kind of a bad ring to it, but the fact is, those farmers who grew diverse crops could sustain their own families; when European colonial forces came in, various pressures drove those farmers into monocrop agriculture, which in turn indentured them to a cash economy and thus made them a lot less resistant to the occasional failure of a single crop in a season.

This is obviously a complex argument, and by no means am I saying that farmers in developing countries would be "better off" if they had never changed from that way of life. Just trying to add some information...

Mike G wrote: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.*

I agree. And I'd add that when the "instead" is hard (e.g., don't change your light bulbs, install solar panels on your roof instead), the most likely outcome is doing nothing, rather than something. All the "instead" serves to accomplish is to convince people of the hopelessness of the easy change having any effect. Result: inertia.

I want to address these points. I appologize in advance for the long windy-ness

auxen1 wrote:

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.

What is the basis for this statement. Is fruit and vegetable farming in the upper-midwest inefficient? Honestly, I have no links or such to go on either, but I do have a bit of experience visiting farms and some general reading on the subject. From that very limited base, I would question this. First of all, we live in a part of the world with extremely high quality agricultural facilities. Most everything grows well here. It is in places like California and Florida and Arizona that foods do not naturally grow well, but have been coaxed to grow via modern (mostly irrigation) practices. Second, the current system of subsidies highly encourages, if not forces (maybe) farrmers into using their land for King Corn and Queen Soy. Third, fruit and veg production, from what I have seen, is, well I am not sure easy is the right word, but you would be surprised how many fruits or veg can be produced on only a few acres of land. Fourth, fruits and veg can be produced on lands that are not as highly suited for big A. Take Henry and his farm in Congerville, IL. His farm runs across two plateau's, with a ridge dividing. It would be crappy land for corn-soy. For veg, just visit his stand at the Evanston Farmer's Market.

As to prices, we have discussed this before, but farmer's market prices rarely exceed prices for organic produce sold at area stores, and often farmer's market prices are cheaper than Whole Foods organics. Just compare the prices of the heirloom tomatoes at the two places. In addition, as I have written weekly on the Local Beet (cf here), there is plenty local around that is not wholly expensive.

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.

I'll come back to this again, but that is just not true. There are local fruits and veg twelve months a year. The market season is basically six months May-Oct; on top of that you have farmer's, such as my friend Farmer Vicki of Genesis Growers, actively growing through November. Then, you have farmers growing inside such as Growing Power in Milwaukee, AquaRanch in downstate IL and Snug Haven Farms in SW Wisconsin. On top of that, you have local apples, local potatoes, and other local crops that are stored and sold throughout the year.

Yes, yes, the amount of food produced from November through May is small, but that is not a question of nature and technology. It is a reflection on current demand. The more people demand their food be local, the more you will see farmers stepping in to produce in the cooler times. For instance, in the NE, there are already farmer's whose whole seasons begin in the fall and end in the spring. I imagine that similar operations will take root here.

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.

It is not you sole option. My family and I have happily ate local twelve months a year for several years now. It is very much doable in the Chicago area. Of course we follow my first rule of eating local, don't make yourselves nuts eating local. We are not immune to buying oranges or bananas in the winter, but last winter, aside from a purchase of some parsley (and maybe some other herbs), we never purchased anything that we could not buy local. We managed. We managed because as I noted above, there is food here year round. In the darkest months, we ate salads from local greens. We also stored and preserved foods to make our harvest last. The Local Beet will soon have a guide up to help you all store and preserve food.

There are several issues with eating local. It requires dedication and work (and believe me more work than dedication). The thing is, it's guys like Michael and Michael and my family and Cassie Green and such are helping make it easier for people to eat local going forward. I strongly believe that many of the problems with the system can be ameliorated by more demand. As each of us eats local, it makes it easier for each of us to eat local.

What is the basis for this statement. Is fruit and vegetable farming in the upper-midwest inefficient?

My copy read that those producing for the farmers markets are an inefficient lot compared to farmers producing for other channels in larger quantities. I'll define my scale as weight per acre (or yield) and I didn't mean to put a value judgement on any form of production, they all have their role. So, in answer to your question, some forms of farming are more efficient and more productive than others.

I have to disagree with the statement that foods do not grow naturally well in California, Florida and Arizona. Yes, water usage is a problem (in all of agriculture). But our population at 300 million plus would not eat without the food production in those three states.

you would be surprised how many fruits or veg can be produced on only a few acres of land.

Not nearly as much here in Illinois as the annual production in the same number of acres in California or Florida where they have mutiple growing seasons. Whether those acres are organic or conventional.

fruits and veg can be produced on lands that are not as highly suited for big A.

Big Ag, as I understand it, also produces fruits and vegetables. And, good growing land is good growing land regardless of who farms it.

I've not read anything to convince me that locally grown foods are produced in sufficient quanities -- or could be produced in sufficient quantities -- to supply fresh fruits and vegetables (other than apples, potatoes and other tubers) year-round. I could be really wrong about this, but I believe that food demand stays constant throughout the year as we continue to eat. And, not speaking for others, but I would pay farmers' market prices for fresh, New Haven peaches, Illinois sweet corn and all sorts of Nichols Farm produce from November through May if it were available.

Food production in the Midwest throughout the winter requires copious amounts of fossil fuels. So it's simply a matter of what devil you want to sleep with. Again, not a value judgement.

(am I the only person that thinks it's ironic that a value judgement is being placed on whether fruits and vegetables that mostly originated on the other side of the world are grown here, where they would never survive naturally, or on the coasts, where they would never survive naturally....)

I absolutely believe that you eat local throughtout the year and have done so for several years. The author's point is that it might not make any sort of real difference.

Note that to some extent, farmers in developing world countries would also do well to become part of a locavore movement in their own locales. "Subsistence farming" has kind of a bad ring to it, but the fact is, those farmers who grew diverse crops could sustain their own families; when European colonial forces came in, various pressures drove those farmers into monocrop agriculture, which in turn indentured them to a cash economy and thus made them a lot less resistant to the occasional failure of a single crop in a season.

This is obviously a complex argument, and by no means am I saying that farmers in developing countries would be "better off" if they had never changed from that way of life. Just trying to add some information...

* farmers in developing world countries ARE part of a "localvore movement", they just don't think about it or haven't branded it;
* subsistence farmers are growing diverse crops....what their families will need to eat throughout the year. Threats to this are many including weather, poor genetics, hostile human forces and inadequate crop protection;
* I don't think it's the monocrop farmers in the developing world that are having the toughest time. Just like in the U.S., they are the rich guys.

Agree that it's a complex subject.

auxen1 wrote:Food production in the Midwest throughout the winter requires copious amounts of fossil fuels. So it's simply a matter of what devil you want to sleep with. Again, not a value judgement.

That statement is certainly a walk-back from David Tamarkin's, but, again, what is the basis. It might appear that winter grown food is energy intensive, and I am open to seeing statistics that compare energy used in winter produce as well as energy used in actual winter farming to shipped in produce. Still, again, I am quite familiar, and have visited, winter farming faciliites. I cannot speak to all, but I the farm I most know uses no fossil fuels to heat her hoop houses--she does burn wood when tempatures really get cold, as in well below freezing. Moroever, farmers use various techniques to protect outdoor crops, so they can grow even in frozen ground. So, yes a lot of energy could be used for winter farming, but does it have to?

I am also willing to concede that my ideal fantasy world of stored local crops relased into the markets over the winter requires energy to maintain, but again, I am doubtful until shown otherwise that the energy needed to store foods is greater than the energy needed to transport food AND also warehouse and store it in the Chicago winter. In other words, out of state Apples need just as much storage help as local apples.

(am I the only person that thinks it's ironic that a value judgement is being placed on whether fruits and vegetables that mostly originated on the other side of the world are grown here, where they would never survive naturally, or on the coasts, where they would never survive naturally....)

You'll have to clarify that one for me. What crops are native to this area: ramps, watercress, certain plums I suppose, nettles, oh, what else? Apples and potatoes and peaches and pretty much all what we eat on a daily basis originated in other parts of the world. Just as tomatoes did not exist in Italy once upon a time. Winter farming is mostly about the few crops that thrive with limited weather needs like greens.

I absolutely believe that you eat local throughtout the year and have done so for several years. The author's point is that it might not make any sort of real difference.

Sorry, I have yet to read anything from this thread or the Time Out Chicago author that makes me think that eating local does not make a difference.

An example of Midwestern winter farming.

Graf of interest:

Like the morning I navigated the twisting icy driveway down to the farm. Warner had run the propane heaters all night to stave off the arctic blasts. He figured it cost him $350 in propane.

Surprisingly, Snug Haven averages only four or five of these all-nighters a winter. Hoop-house spinach can tolerate temperatures into the low teens and rebound the next morning if it's thawed with an hour or two of heating, he says.

Hardly a picture of gas guzzlin'

That statement is certainly a walk-back from David Tamarkin's

If I've suggested that I support the author's argument then I've misled you. The topic of his thesis interests me. He doesn't argue it well.

Need to be really careful about interpolating from very little data and attempting to replace science with anecdotes. And, how was that wood cut cut down and transported to the greenhouse? Was any energy used? Any emissions?

Stored crops are great (and I don't think storage uses much energy). But you can count them on one hand. Readily concede that apples and potatoes don't need to be shipped in from other parts of the country. Although potato chip manufacturers, for one, buy fresh year round...beginning with the Florida crop and then moving north and west as the season's progress. They try to minimize use of old potatoes.

You'll have to clarify that one for me.

My point (clumsily made) is that there's nothing local or natural about our food today. Wild blueberries maybe.

Sorry, I have yet to read anything from this thread or the Time Out Chicago author that makes me think that eating local does not make a difference.

...you'll need to define difference. I would argue that my farmers' market fruit and vegetable purchases make us a little happier than we'd otherwise be which is sufficient for me. The spend is a bit ridiculous but we enjoy it nonetheless.

Is it better for the environment...better for the economy, etc.? That really depends on how you choose to look at it.

Need to be really careful about interpolating from very little data and attempting to replace science with anecdotes. And, how was that wood cut cut down and transported to the greenhouse? Was any energy used? Any emissions?

How did the shipping company land that big contract with the fruit company? Did anybody fly to meetings? Was there imported wine served? We can play this game all day, but it just doesn't matter to me. Someone can do the exhaustive survey, maybe our international supply chain is so incredibly efficient that it uses less than local growing, I very much doubt it but say it's possible, I still don't care. I like my local produce when I can get it and keep it myself. I like it because I like it, because I like having farmers around my city, it would not be the same if they were all in Zimbabwe and we paved the whole midwest, even if that would be allegedly better for the planet. The intangible positive effects of supporting local farmers do not reduce to a balance sheet for me.

If you agree with the construct that the localvore movement is altruistic ...

There is an economic argument for being a locavore, but it's not about gas mileage or poor farmers in Chile. The truth is that I agree with the locavore-haters that my delicious local tomatoes, peaches, asparagus, and peppers are often obscenely expensive. I want the whole darn region to start eating local so that we can all join together with our massive buying power, create increased competition, and demand lower prices. It pisses me off that tasteless Chilean tomatoes and Peruvian potatoes cost half what my vastly superior IL, WI, MI and IA products do. Local eaters unite! This is the opposite of altruism - pure selfishness!

auxen1 wrote:Need to be really careful about interpolating from very little data and attempting to replace science with anecdotes. And, how was that wood cut cut down and transported to the greenhouse? Was any energy used? Any emissions?

Stored crops are great (and I don't think storage uses much energy). But you can count them on one hand. Readily concede that apples and potatoes don't need to be shipped in from other parts of the country. Although potato chip manufacturers, for one, buy fresh year round...beginning with the Florida crop and then moving north and west as the season's progress. They try to minimize use of old potatoes.

Hey, I'm Mr. Beware the Dangers of Anecdotal Fallacy Logic. I totally agree in the dangers of using such evidence based on things like "the farmer I know." What I've seen, however, is the opposite, I've seen too many anti-local arguments attempt to apply certain thesis against perceived local situations without actually seeing the situation. If there was a rash of energy using greenhouses out there, than I can see the argument, but what I see is the argument that greenhouses can use a lot of energy. I do not see evidence that they do use a lot of energy.

I think you under-estimate storage crops. Besides apples and potatoes, good storage crops include most root vegetables, think beets, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, celery root, carrots; onions, cabbages, pears including Asian style pears, tomatoes--there are varieties of tomatoes grown especially for keeping; sunchokes, ground cherries, hard squashes and pumpkins. What else? Where do mushrooms fit in?

Let me reiterate what I constantly state, I do not think being a locavore requires 100% commitment to local foods or foods within some artificial boundary. Still, I believe that local eating, which demands a combination of seasonal eating and storage eating produces a more diverse diet than one based on a system that says eat whatever. Even a winter diet is quite varied with the amount of things available from the list cited above.

The problem, I have seen (and mentioned before) that so many winter foods are shunned. Shunned for one thing because they appear to be Depression foods (are we gonna be eating beets again then anyways?); shunned for another thing because winter foods in general are more difficult to deal with in the kitchen.

I know this is getting off the subject. I know that people are gonna look for reasons to not eat local as a "movement" (as compared to say getting a good peach when possible). Ultimately, people can make up their own minds whether they think it's "worth it" to eat local, and for those who are convinced, I am going to do my best to help, here, on my blog and at Localbeet.com.

BTW, I agree wholly with the sentiments above.

I like it because I like it

You've made the author's point better than he made it himself.

The intangible positive effects of supporting local farmers do not reduce to a balance sheet for me.

Agree with this. And also know that energy use, CO2 emissions, input costs, yield and other tangible effects that today drive farming and sustainable agriculture do reduce to a balance sheet.

KennyZ

An outcome of the success of the farmers markets is that the the large vegetable breeders will develop new products intended to approximate what affluent consumers value (Ugly Tomato). But, if they could produce these varieties for Chicago in winter at the same cost or less they would. They can't and so the products will be bred to travel and ripen similar to winter produce already available at the major chains. And so they are approximations and nothing like the truly fresh produce we can buy here in July and August (which would not travel so well to California, I might add).

The Indians lived pretty close to nature. I'm no expert but I believe their winter diet was absent of any fresh fruits or vegetables.

auxen - I am missing why the last part of your post was addressed to me. I think I do agree with it, however.

Kenny Z --

I share your aspiration for great, low priced produce.

I don't think that big agriculture is really working to replicate in scale the great local produce that we're getting in the summer because there are too many barriers.

Sorry if that was unclear.

auxen1 wrote:Kenny Z --

I share your aspiration for great, low priced produce.

I don't think that big agriculture is really working to replicate in scale the great local produce that we're getting in the summer because there are too many barriers.

Sorry if that was unclear.

Got it. In case I was also unclear... I have no desire for "big agriculture" to help me achieve my aspiration for low-priced produce. I simply hope for a day when my local, Farmer-Dave produced tomato costs the same as or less than one shipped from halfway around the world.

auxen1 wrote:* farmers in developing world countries ARE part of a "localvore movement", they just don't think about it or haven't branded it;

Hm... I have to admit that I'm thinking mostly of past studies of African History, particularly in the colonial period. What I was describing specifically was the experience of Africans as European colonial and missionary systems moved in and the "civilizing" mission involved strong pushes to get Africans into a cash economy, which meant a sharp reduction in the amount of subsistence farming and a lot of subsequent ecological and economic problems.

In any event, upon rereading your original post, I see that you are also generally discrediting the argument that US locavores are "hurting" farmers in the developing world, not only because of the infinitesimal impact of locavore dollars but because most farmers in the developing world are not producing a lot of crops for export...

so, er... yep.

Germuska:

In considering contemporary Africa food issues I would strongly encourage you to look at the work of Columbia University's Earth Institute which is headed by Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs' work there, and previous work at Harvard is as thorough as exists on the topic.

Tamarkin Strikes Again!

Edited to add quotes from now-online original, to help set context.

Having found a surefire formula for following Wilde's advice, David Tamarkin is back this week with another polemic sure to set us humming. In this case I think he has a better take on a truer subject: how the Innernut is changin' the restaurant reviewin' game. (No link yet because it's not up at their site yet, so far as I can see. How old media!) The gist of it is that the gentlemen's agreements of the review trade-- notably, give 'em a month of fleecing the public at full price before you dare take them to account for it-- are crumbling under the onslaught of Yelpers who make a sport of being first, and others like LTHers who have no compunction about reporting on opening day.

TOC took a small survey of local food writers working in print and found that Yelp, and sites like it, are slowly yet steadily changing the way restaurants are reviewed. Professional critics are reviewing restaurants faster, and publications are changing the way they cover restaurants in order to keep up with Yelp, et al.

“I definitely feel like the rules are different online,” Chicago magazine senior editor Jeff Ruby wrote in an e-mail. “There is a certain latitude, editorially, that we allow ourselves.”... Tribune restaurant critic Phil Vettel said that whereas he used to give a restaurant more than two months before visiting—and then wait at least a month before making a return visit—he now makes his first visit after three or four weeks. That change in policy was a direct reaction to the speed with which websites were getting to restaurants. “It’s a faster world…people don’t wait around for information.” Besides, he says. “There’s something to be said for getting out the information right away.”

On the whole his points are well taken as far as they go. But I see two key points that really ought to have been brought up-- and largely aren't.

The first, glaringly obvious one to me is, the big reason it's okay for an LTHer to visit a restaurant on opening day and Phil Vettel ought to wait a month or more is because it won't be the last time you read about this place at LTHForum. Print media restaurant reviews may not be cast in stone, precisely, but it's at least pretty thick tar. Chances to go back and reevaluate are relatively few, a reviewer like Vettel maybe gets one or two shots a year to go back and say "Trotter's Still Got It." Where the first-day review at LTHForum will, as we all know, be amplified by at least a few other folks and possibly hundreds, a degree of sampling which would bankrupt Sam Zell if the Trib adopted it wholesale. Some of those threads have a novelistic richness in the way they chart the rise, or rise and fall, of places like Kuma's, Smoque, Mastsumoto, Tacos del Pacifico. That's a new reviewing art form which dwarfs, and renders largely irrelevant, carping about whether any one amateur reviewer is as qualified or responsible as a professional one. Pitting user LuvMeSumTacos at Yelp against a Vettel/Wheaton whoever head to head as literary figures is missing the point of the essentially collaborative, not individual, form of restaurant coverage that's being created here.

The other point is that Tamarkin seems eager to enforce the caste lines separating the pros from the ams (even as he's mildly sardonic about pros denying that the ams ever influence them at all, ever, don't even look at 'em, nosiree). This is demonstrated not least by the fact that he calls print reviewers for comment, but there's no comment from anybody at the sites that are driving his topic like Yelp or here. Yet set aside that there are many of us who can plausibly claim membership on either side of the line; even the name pros he talks to are, in fact, cross-fressers, like Nagrant (posts here, has his own blog site), Sula (posts here and at the Reader's blog, says he approaches the latter differently from the print reviews), and Jeff Ruby (also says that Dish posts are a different kettle of fish from print pieces as far as the rules go). (The piece points out, with ironic punctiliousness, that Ruby and co-Disher Penny Pollack are "not officially critics." You and me both, pal, don't let it stop ya from speaking your mind!) Trying to enforce the pro-am divide in 2008 is like a preacher trying to burn rock and roll records after the Beatles have been on Ed Sullivan. There's no going back to Pat Boone now, this is what the world of reviewing is going to be like from now on, a messy free for all in which garage reviewers can knock the pros off the charts with one great lick. Mostly won't, 9,999 out of 10,000 times won't, professionalism and editing and experience all matter... but can.

"I'll probably never produce a masterpiece, but so what? I feel I have a Sound aborning, which is my own, and that Sound if erratic is still my greatest pride, because I would rather write like a dancer shaking my ass to boogaloo inside my head, and perhaps reach only readers who like to use books to shake their asses, than to be or write for the man cloistered in a closet somewhere reading Aeschylus while this stupefying world careens crazily past his waxy windows toward its last raving sooty feedback pirouette." —Lester Bangs

I'm starting to think that Tamarkin is funnin' with us. He linked LTH's and Chicagoist's comments on the localvore issue to the TOC website.

FWIW, Sula points out that I misread him that the let 'em be open a month before you review them rule only applies to review reviews, it also apparently applies to stray snarky comments on the blog too.

Michael Nagrant has a piece up too. Not only do people review restaurants when they first open now, they review magazine pieces before they go online!

Mike G wrote:Having found a surefire formula for following Wilde's advice, David Tamarkin is back this week with another polemic sure to set us humming. In this case I think he has a better take on a truer subject: how the Innernut is changin' the restaurant reviewin' game. (No link yet because it's not up at their site yet, so far as I can see. How old media!)

Here is a link to the article referred to above by MikeG.

I too was bothered by Tamarkin’s article, but having read Peter Singer & Jim Mason’s The Ethics of What We Eat, my disagreement with his position is a bit different.

Before delving into it, let me provide a little background. I try to eat seasonally and locally for most of the year. I serve as the membership chair of Green City Market and shop there most every Wednesday and Saturday. Even in my business, I source locally as long into the Winter as I possibly can. When we were starting out back in 2005, my business partner asked a hypothetical: what would we do if a client requests asparagus in December. I told her that I would explain that the taste would never be as vibrant in December as it is in May. And, if they continued to insist, I would recommend that this client would likely be better served by another caterer. This was a hard-line position particularly because the Eat Local movement was still on the fringes of the food community, which may have cost us some customers. It still drives me crazy when I watch some caterers touting their commitment to local and then serving tomatoes, eggplant, and asparagus in January.

This being said, I don’t consider myself a locavore. I drink diet coke, eat chocolate and imported pasta. Locavores to me are the couple in Plenty, hard line purists who denied themselves even wheat until they found local wheat berries that they ground themselves.

I want to give a second piece of background before I get to my comments on Tamarkin’s article. I may be wrong, but from reading through the thread, it seems that no one has actually read Singer and Mason’s book so let me try to summarize it. The Ethics of What We Eat is a book that I recommend often when I give classes or speak on sustainability. Singer is a professor of bio ethics at Princeton and Mason an attorney who comes from a Missouri farming family. The book looks at the ethical issues raised by our food choices by examining the diets of three American families, identified as the standard American diet, the conscientious omnivores and the vegans. The question posed is what are the most ethical decisions that we can make as an eater?

My problem with Tamarkin’s piece is that he takes a very small part of the discussion in the Singer and Mason book (the chapter “Eating Locally” is 15 pages in a 296 page book) and largely misrepresents it. In their discussion of the ethics of eating locally, they start out with this premise:

The fact that local food is fresher and tastes better is not, in itself, an ethical reason for buying. . . . Protecting my health and that of others for whom I buy may be an ethical obligation, but local food is not necessarily healthier than other food.

After accepting that, they then examine three inducements for eating locally put forward by FoodRoutes: 1. You’ll strengthen your local economy; 2. You’ll support endangered family farms; and 3. You’ll protect the environment. In response to the first question:

When we think ethically, we should put ourselves in the position of all those affected by our actions, no matter where they live. If farmers near San Francisco need extra income to send their kids to good colleges, and farmers in developing nations need extra income in order to afford basic health care or a few years of elementary school for their children, we will, other things being equal, do better to support the farmers in developing countries.

(In later chapters, the authors consider the environmental costs of transporting from other countries, whether those trade dollars actually go to the farmers and whether the farmers would be better off becoming self-sufficient rather than growing commodities to export.) Their conclusion on this point is simply that keeping dollars in your own community is not an ethical principle and that:

[t]o adhere to a principle of “buy locally” irrespective of the consequences for others, is a kind of community-based selfishness.

In their answer to this question, they do conclude, however, that an interpersonal relationship with the person who grows your food is a sound reason for buying locally.
On the second question, Singer and Mason agree that supporting endangered family farms can be an important value in part because:

When people see themselves as custodians of a heritage they have received from their parents and will pass on to their children, they are more likely to cherish the land and farm it sustainably.

Finally, on the environmental impact, they start with this premise:

While we agree that we have an ethical obligation to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and that transporting food long distances requires energy and produces carbon-dioxide emissions, it does not follow that we can always reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by buying locally produced food.

Here’s where they talk about the tomato example. A farm in Ohio puts in a hydroponic system to raise early tomatoes to supply their customers in June. Most of the energy that ripens the tomatoes is solar heat captured by the glass, but the farm also uses an oil furnace. Comparing the fuel used to heat the furnace with that required to truck tomatoes from Florida in June, Singer and Mason find that the transportation requires less fuel than the furnace. They note that

[t]his outcome is especially striking, given that [the farm] is using heat only to combat late frosts and assist the sun to grow the tomatoes earlier than [it] otherwise could.

A few pages later their conclusion becomes apparent in their statement that

‘[b]uy locally and seasonally’ is a better policy than simply ‘buy locally’.

They also conclude that

[B]uying locally produced food is often the best ethical choice, but not because the food is locally produced. To reduce the amount of fossil fuel that is involved in producing our food, we should buy local food, if it has been grown with similar energy efficiency to food from somewhere else – but not if the local grower had to burn fossil fuel to provide heat, and not if there is a lot of extra driving involved in picking the food up, or getting it delivered.

Now, there is a point upon which I agree with Tamarkin: not all local food is sustainable. It is critical to look at not just where the food has been grown, but how. To provide a pithy example, last year, I took the localvore challenge when my parents were in town, my mother offered to make dinner, suggesting that she would simply pick up some steaks from the grocery store saying “I’m sure that they come from Iowa.” She may have been right. If so, the meat would have been local; however, in all likelihood, not sustainable. Not every local farmer or producer acts as a good steward of the soil. To give a plug to Green City Market, because of our higher standards, you can trust that our farmers are working towards moving using the most sustainable methods, which is not necessarily the case with every farmer at other markets.

If your motivation for eating locally is simply to eat the best and the freshest food possible, then none of these concerns should be an impediment. If, however, you eat locally because of ethical reasons as many people do, Tamarkin is correct that the localvore diet is an overly simplistic answer to some difficult questions. When I speak on the subject of sustainable eating, I always say that it really comes down to the famous words of Wendell Berry: Eat responsibly.

I know that many of the people who’ve responded to this thread are more concerned with the taste of their food than the environmental and social impact of its production. Truthfully, I began eating locally for this very reason. Then I started to read and began to see how deeply broken our food system really is. Let me tell you Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a feel good book compared to some of the other titles on my shelf. Another book that I highly recommend, Paul Roberts’ The End of Food details a doomsday scenario that will scare the bejezus out of you. Back in June, I wrote the following summary of the problems we currently face in a newsletter:

A Not So Perfect Storm
For months, we’ve been reading about the alarming rise in the world’s wide food prices. And unfortunately, given the desire of many journalists to simplify an issue, it often seems that this phenomenon has been laid solely at the feet of ethanol. In reality, this crisis has many roots in addition to the ethanol boom, including a multi-year drought in Australia’s wheat belt, the increased demand for meat in India and China due to their growing affluence, speculation in the commodities market, rising fuel costs, which effect not just shipping rates but the cost of the petroleum-based fertilizers and now the very imperfect, yet frighteningly effective, storms in the Midwest, which have destroyed far too much of the coming harvests of wheat, soy and corn. All of these factors have created a perfect storm, a simultaneous occurrence of events, which if taken individually would be far less powerful, but their chance combination has created a crisis of epic proportions. To borrow a famous Bette Davis line, “fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

And in this summary, I hadn’t taken into account the effect of rising population and water shortages on the sustainability of our current food system. Suffice to say, we’re screwed if we don’t begin to make some changes. This is a complicated situation that will require complicated solutions. To quote from The End of Food:

Just as long ago broke farming into its constituent pieces and are now suffering the consequences, our solutions have tended to follow a patter that is no less reductionist, in which each problem (for example, synthetic farm chemicals) is met with its own discrete solution (organics). Yet just as most of our food challenges are now understood to be interrelated and evolving, our solutions, too, must be both comprehensive and capable of constantly adapting.

Just one final comment, there was a suggestion in this thread that a goal of the “eat local” movement should be to demand lower prices This is a tough one. Up until recently, cheap oil allowed us to keep our food prices unnaturally low. Without our food system being propped up by cheap oil, food prices will rise. I often use the statistic that people 50 years ago spent about 17% of their household income on food, a few years ago, that percentage was down to 6. Truth be told, while I won’t take the Alice Water’s response to rising food prices of ‘buy one less pair of sneakers’, I do hope that the increase in food prices may encourage people to be more frugal like our grandparents one were. Nevertheless, when cheetos are less expensive than carrots, many of the dietary problems plaguing low income communities will continue. While beyond the scope of this response, while they may be a first step, the farmers markets and community gardens are not the answer to this problem. As proposed by both Paul Roberts and Tom Phillpott of Grist.org, We need to instead encourage midsize farms and regional food supply systems.

Finally, and then I’ll shut up, if we’re really concerned about sustainability, the biggest and most effective change that we can make is to eat less meat. As anyone who’s met me will attest, I am no vegetarian. However, the more I’ve learned, I realize that eating meat everyday at 2 to 3 meals is an unsustainable habit. Call me selfish, but I’d like eat a hamburger every once in a while when I’m 80 and so if I decrease my meat consumption today to be able to do so, so be it. Unfortunately, however, given the grim economic news of late, a decline may occur less because of choice and more because of fiscal reality.

The "perfect storm" has passed and global agricultural commodity prices are down about 50% from recent highs.

Just one final comment, there was a suggestion in this thread that a goal of the “eat local” movement should be to demand lower prices

I wouldn't say demand. I think if you help create a market you tend to increase the efficiencies that will, eventually, lower prices or at least even the playing field a bit. Key word is tend; you're absolutely right that food prices have probably been at an artificial all-time-low and they're just about guaranteed to go up now across the board. So I accept that I pay a lot and am glad it's going directly to producers-- which is my argument for supporting the local economy as a moral act, I know whose pocket it went in.

Good comments, Melissa.

MAG-

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Very interesting.

-Mary

MAG wrote:I too was bothered by Tamarkin’s article, but having read Peter Singer & Jim Mason’s The Ethics of What We Eat, my disagreement with his position is a bit different.

Before delving into it, let me provide a little background. I try to eat seasonally and locally for most of the year. I serve as the membership chair of Green City Market and shop there most every Wednesday and Saturday. Even in my business, I source locally as long into the Winter as I possibly can. When we were starting out back in 2005, my business partner asked a hypothetical: what would we do if a client requests asparagus in December. I told her that I would explain that the taste would never be as vibrant in December as it is in May. And, if they continued to insist, I would recommend that this client would likely be better served by another caterer. This was a hard-line position particularly because the Eat Local movement was still on the fringes of the food community, which may have cost us some customers. It still drives me crazy when I watch some caterers touting their commitment to local and then serving tomatoes, eggplant, and asparagus in January.

This being said, I don’t consider myself a locavore. I drink diet coke, eat chocolate and imported pasta. Locavores to me are the couple in Plenty, hard line purists who denied themselves even wheat until they found local wheat berries that they ground themselves.

Melissa, thanks for keeping this topic alive and writing with such passion! I especially like that bit about the asparagus.

I want to say a couple of things, not in any way disagreeing with what you are saying, but a couple of things. First, and this gets into some of the arguments MikeG first put up on this thread, but I strongly disagree with the idea that beng a locavore is about totality. I believe one can be a locavore without having to follow the extremes of the couple in Plenty. A locavore can drink diet coke, coffee or wine from Italy--I've done all of these things in the last 48 hrs. We eat imported pasta, chocolate and gosh darn even bananas. I do not think any of those things detract from our local commitment. Nor, more importantly, would I believe they disqualify me from being a locavore.

Is it a question of semantics. To a good extent, yes. If someone wants to consider me a false locavore or rip the locavore wings off my shirt, well go ahead. It won't bother me. Still, I believe that locavorism or localism or whatever, is about priorities and decisions. It is about trying to get people to make better choices in their eating and buying habits. If people make the commitment to source local when they can, that's locavorism to me, and that's what I want other's to adopt, and what I am trying to provide help. I have no desire for anyone to be pure or absolute. Moreover, as I have said in the talks I have given, I do not want people to make themselves nuts trying for local. I believe a relaxed approach leads to more local eating anyways.

This gets me to my second point. I appreciate what you say about the providence of a product, that a lot goes into it beyond where it it is from; that industrial pork from Iowa does not have any intrinsic value over any other industrial pork. If nothing else, I hear you saying that we should not just look to see if a product is local. I agree with that. What I see, however, is that local is, nearly always, the path to get to the kinda food I want to eat from an ethical, sustainable, organic, communitarian, whatnot perspective (as well as from a taste and quality perspective).

Local food produces better food for a few reasons. First of all, when you are seeking local foods, you pretty much have to throw yourself into alternative food systems. You meet producers, learn about their products, identify the ones that meet your specifications. Second, "local" providers have to compete in ways beyond mass distribution and fancy advertising. Thus, they find other ways to get it done, and the consumer benefits. Last, by rejecting what is easy to buy, you are forced to find what can be better to buy, just compare the quality of local cheeses to more popular cheeses.

Now, of course, all of these things are doable and possible without the food being local. Take the example of Jasper Hill cheeses: a little digging and tasting would find both the right farming practices and the right tasting. Why not eat it? So, then we do return to the arguments about community and food miles and the such. All things being equal, I'll skip the Jasper Hill for another round of Marienke Gouda. As you so rightly note, all things are not equal, and seldom are. You point to important considerations people should make when buying food. I simply point out that buying local is the best way to get there.

Is it a question of semantics. To a good extent, yes.

You're right - it is largely a matter of semantics. But do recall, Tamarkin's definition was based on Green City Market's developed for its locavore challenge, which was to "eat only locally produced food for two weeks." Most people who took it gave themselves a general exception on sugar, salt, spices, olive oil, coffee and tea, and perhaps one other personal exception, such as wine or diet coke. I obviously can't speak to Tamarkin's motivations, but it was clear from Singer that he was addressing the people like the couple in Plenty who chose to take this to its extreme. While there is some dissension about a made-up word, there are a number of people who take it to this extreme:

From http://www.localvore.co.uk,

, a localvore is a person who eats only locally-grown and produced food.

There are others that are more forgiving: from dictionary.com

a person who attempt to eat only foods grown locally.

My personal feeling on this is that I am not a locavore, but someone who seeks out locally-produced food. What's the difference? Because my diet includes a fair amount of non-local foodstuffs, I think were I to call myself a locavore would be akin to saying that I'm a vegetarian while eating a slice of bacon every morning. There are people out there who do eat locally, who sacrifice far flung and even some not so far flung foods and whether I agree or disagree with them, I think it undermines their sacrifices for me to put myself in the same category.

You point to important considerations people should make when buying food. I simply point out that buying local is the best way to get there.

Maybe. Sometimes. Not always. Just like not all organic foods are sustainable, neither is all local food. Singer wrote that the better policy is "buy locally and seasonally." I would add say that the best policy is "buy locally, seasonally and sustainably." As I said earlier, not every local farmer is a good steward of the soil and if my options are 1) buy from a local farmer or producer doing damage to the environment through their farming or production methods or 2) buy from a non-local farmer who is not, in my hierarchy, I'll buy from the latter. Fortunately, in the vast majority of circumstances, I don't have to make that decision because I do have farmers that I know and trust and even those that I don't know personally, if they have a stand at Green City Market, I can trust that they have been vetted carefully.

One final note, as I mentioned, I did the localvore challenge last year and while I wouldn't adopt it 100% of the time, I found it useful because it made me think about everything that I was putting into my body and every ingredient in the things that I buy.

Mike G wrote:

Just one final comment, there was a suggestion in this thread that a goal of the “eat local” movement should be to demand lower prices

I wouldn't say demand. I think if you help create a market you tend to increase the efficiencies that will, eventually, lower prices or at least even the playing field a bit. Key word is tend; you're absolutely right that food prices have probably been at an artificial all-time-low and they're just about guaranteed to go up now across the board. So I accept that I pay a lot and am glad it's going directly to producers-- which is my argument for supporting the local economy as a moral act, I know whose pocket it went in.

Good comments, Melissa.

As the person who perhaps initiated in this thread the idea of "demanding" lower prices, let me say that I wholeheartedly agree with just about everything in MAG's post. Food prices have been unnaturally low, and I think there is much to be gained from having our country pay its real share of food costs. I do also believe that by creating more demand for local food, we can send a message that we do not support subsidies and policies that artificially lower the price of industrial food and make it harder for local farmers to compete.

I very much enjoyed the post that began this latest exchange. I found it well written and containing much to think about and discuss.

50 years ago spent about 17% of their household income on food, a few years ago, that percentage was down to 6.

I often times site this sort of data in my work. I believe, though, that today Americans spend 9.8% of their income on food (USDA posts the data for the roughly last 100 years). Your figures may indicate what they spend in the home (versus home+eating out). Still and all, we've never spent less for our food and that trend line is a constant.

Your assessment of the many complex factors contributing to higher food prices is well done.

You end with commentary on how we can truly live with sustainable food production and suggest lower meat consumption. It's true that as societies become more affluent their consumption of meat increases and their efficiency of producing calories decreases inversely. In the U.S., this has resulted in 70+ percent of our cropland being dedicated to grains for animal feed. The environmental effects of this have been catastrophic to the environment (CO2 emissions, erosion, water, fossil fuel use).

But that has changed in the last two years because of 1.) changes to the farm bill and 2.) genetics. Without the same levels of subsidies farmers are focusing on efficiencies and that has equated with the steep growth of no till farming. No till means microorganisms aren't being exposed to air and so don't eat one another and decompose (steep reduction in greenhouse gas emissions). No exposed soil means that the water runs off into streams and rivers without carrying along mother earth for the ride (and fertilizer and other chemistries). No plowing means fewer trips through the field on the tractor and less fossil fuel use. Far less water consumed. Less labor. Same or higher yields.

The second change has been genetics which have brought along genetically modified crops. Since the introduction of gmo's, the use of chemical pesticides in the U.S. has been cut in half. The chemical industry views gmo's as a threat to its survival. Genetically modified crops make no till farming far more probable.

I shop at farmers markets in Chicago and often ask the farmers who raise corn if they practice no till. They don't. I guess my question is how is sustainable agriculture being defined. Is it being defined by use of fossil fuels, water, other inputs....yields and soil use and quality?

Or, is it being defined by some other more nebulous concept?