The Locavore's Dilemma

by Pierre Desrochers

  —LUCIUS JUNIUS MODERATUS COLUMELLA

  De Re Rustica (On Agriculture), approximately 65 AD.1

  In the early 1970s, a young New York City chef enrolled in the French Literature Ph.D. program of Columbia University, in the hope of eventually moving into the more respectable halls of academia. Things turned sour when he suggested a rather unusual dissertation topic: the history of French food as revealed through the writings of some of the country’s literary giants, such as Ronsard, Proust, Voltaire, Zola, and Balzac. His would-be adviser shot down the proposal on the grounds that food was too trivial a subject to serve as the basis of a dissertation. Fortunately for America, Jacques Pépin had by then already decided to give up on academia and return to the kitchen.2

  What a difference a few decades make! Food history, production, and policy are now the bread and butter of numerous professors of social and cultural studies and rapidly expanding cohorts of graduate students. Policy analysts and essayists write reams on food security and sustainability, and some prominent practitioners of this genre, the premier example being journalism professor Michael Pollan,3 have become intellectual rock stars.

  In an age where in the United States both lawyers and prison inmates outnumber full-time farmers, working to familiarize urbanites with some of the intricacies of modern food production and politics is a valuable endeavor.4 Unfortunately, a lot of recent scholarship and the smorgasbord of television reports, magazine cover stories, popular books, and shock documentaries it has inspired are largely built on older and more questionable muckraking, populist, protectionist, pastoral nostalgia, “small is beautiful” and “vitalist”5 traditions. The result is a one-sided narrative that decries our industrial food system as being rotten to the core without acknowledging some of its very tangible benefits when compared to older practices. To give but one illustration, a professor at a well-respected American university proudly states that his course “Food: A Critical Geography” does “not attempt to provide ‘both sides’ of the food system story” as his students are allegedly being “inundated” with the corporate perspective on a daily basis, often “without being aware of it.” Those who would like to hear or feel something different can simply “turn on the TV, go to the supermarket, or eat at McDonald’s!”6

  Sure, Pollan and his disciples grudgingly admit, thanks to large firms and technical advances “edible foodlike substances” and “nutritional simulacra” are now more abundant, consistent, convenient, and (much) cheaper than ever before. But look at the downside. Food, “something that nourishes people and provides them with secure livelihoods,” has been transformed into a “commodity for speculation and bargaining.”7 “Hungry for profit” agribusiness has created a “globesity pandemic” because “stuffed but starved” children of the corn and their fossil-fuel fed parents ingest chemical residue-ridden processed meat, grains, fruits, and vegetables that have the taste, consistency, and nutritional value of cardboard. Dangerously unstable monocultures (the practice of growing a single crop over a large area) created through carpet bombing the soil with harsh chemicals and the depletion of aquifers are triggering massive erosion while drastically reducing biodiversity. Animals pumped full of antibiotics are raised in cramped quarters that breed super bacteria. Migrant farm workers are paid slave wages to toil in a chemical stew that freely seeps into nature where it triggers all kinds of dangerous mutations. And, unlike supermarkets, which only care about making money, local family farmers feed local people first. Then there are the concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), salmonella, E. coli, mercury, superweeds and superbugs, terminator genes, soaring cancer rates, food safety crises, foreign oil dependence, increased greenhouse gas emissions, declining rural communities, marine dead zones, and neo-colonial land grabs in poor countries. . . . As activists see it, our modern-day genetically-modified “corn-utopia” is soaking up a rapidly vanishing petroleum pool while delivering junk food, rural poverty, and agricultural pollution.

  The path out of this agricultural wasteland, we are told, boils down to consumers paying more and eating less, a wholesale rethinking of the way everything is done from “plough to plate,” and promoting regional food economies both in America and around the world.8 Crucial steps in this respect involve a carbon-fuel detoxification diet and a radical reduction, if not an outright ban, on the consumption of meat products and foreign food. Ultimately, corporate agriculture must be put to death by thousands of sustainable, organic, local, and ethical (SOLE)9 food initiatives whereby increasingly self-reliant communities escape from the grips of the “Monsatans” of this world through their support of small-scale rural operations and the conversion of suburban crabgrass wasteland and urban rooftops into edible bounty. While this “Delicious Revolution” may add a few digits to our collective grocery bill, more sustainable practices, increased quality and safety of food, healthier bodies, and improved spiritual well-being make it worthwhile.10

  From our perspective, the most fascinating aspect of the SOLE narrative is how quickly it displaced once widespread fears about the imminent detonation of the (over)population bomb. After all, it was less than five decades ago that Harry Harrison published his dystopian novel Make Room! Make Room! (the inspiration behind the 1973 movie Soylent Green), in which food shortages were addressed through covert cannibalism. In a world where no good deed goes unpunished, the individuals who actually defused the P-bomb11—from large scale farmers, professional plant breeders, and manufacturers of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers to agricultural equipment and packaging manufacturers, commodity traders, and logistics industry workers—became increasingly demonized as poor stewards of the Earth and public health threats. The nature of the foodstuffs being supplied, rather than their potential shortages, became the new focus for food activism in advanced economies.

  Of the four SOLE components, “local”12—the idea that an ever-growing portion of our food supply should be produced in close physical proximity to the consumers who will eat it—has made the greatest gain in popularity in the last two decades and is now, not surprisingly, being endorsed by influential political figures such as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, who stated:In a perfect world, everything that was sold, everything that was purchased and consumed would be local, so the economy would receive the benefit of that. But sometimes that stresses the capacity: the production capacity or the distribution capacity. Especially since we don’t have yet a very sophisticated distribution system for locally grown food. One thing we can do is work on strategies to make that happen. It can be grant programs, loan programs, it can be technical assistance.13

  In December 2010, President Obama signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which contained a provision to bolster farm-to-school programs through the government-subsidized National School Lunch, School Breakfast, Special Milk, Child and Adult Care, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable, and Summer Food Service programs. As a follow-up on this legislation, in April 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it had introduced a new rule that will give preference in contract bidding for school meals to local farm products.14 In November of that year, Senator Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree introduced the Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act, a series of measures to support local farm programs worth approximately $200 million, intended to “increas[e] access to fresh, local foods” while “creating jobs and strengthening [local] econom[ies]. . . . Making it easier for farmers to sell food locally and easier for consumers to buy it translates directly into a more healthy economy and more jobs in our communities,” Pingree said, adding that consumers “want to be able to buy fresh, healthy food that doesn’t have to travel halfway around the world to get to them.”15

  There is, however, still no agreement on the true meaning of “local food” (or “foodshed” or “regional food system”) among its various proponents. While apparently nobody thinks of it in terms of a single household or farm, is it (or should it be) limited to within a few miles
of one’s residence, as was often the case for most of human history? Within 100 miles (160 kilometers) from consumers in our car-dominated era? Within the larger confines of a modern metropolitan area and its surrounding countryside? Perhaps even a day’s drive from a locavore’s home or a distribution warehouse? Or even “less than 400 miles from its origin, or within the State in which it is produced,” as stated in the 2008 U.S. Farm Act?

  Adding to this confusion are a few other issues. For instance, what about food grown or caught near its final point of purchase but then trucked, shipped, or flown over significant distances in order to be processed in a large manufacturing operation or inspected in a central distribution hub, before being shipped back to a store near its production site? (For instance, squids caught on the California coast are now reportedly sent to China in order to be cleaned and frozen before being shipped back to California.16) Should one also care about the geographical origins of the electricity, gasoline, diesel, packaging material, computers, fertilizers, pesticides, and even the seeds and embryos used by “local” producers?

  Another paradox is that, as a result of thousands of years of agricultural diffusion and adaptation, “local” agriculture has long been based for the most part on nonnative species while all “national” culinary traditions rely to a large extent on once foreign ideas and commodities, ranging from grilling, baking, and confectionary techniques to sugar, coffee, chocolate, chili pepper, citrus fruits, and tomatoes. For instance, Indian curries, Hungarian paprika, and Korean kimchee did not exist before the introduction of the American chili pepper. Staple American crops such as soybean, corn, and wheat are native to China, Mexico, and the Middle East, respectively. In fact, if modern-day activists were to cling to any consistent notion of “local” food, a truly “made in the USA” agricultural diet would be limited to turkeys, some farmed native fish and shellfish (including Atlantic salmon and Brook trout), sunflowers, blueberries, cranberries, Jerusalem artichokes, and some varieties of squash.

  Leaving aside the complexities of properly defining the term “local,” the case put forward by local food activists can be divided into five broad arguments.17 To summarize:• Social: The globalized food supply chain and big box retailers have eroded the community ties that once existed between geographically proximate food producers and consumers. Unlike the impersonal nature of large stores and shopping malls, farmers’ markets promote camaraderie, informal conversation, and good will, thus helping to foster relationships, neighborhood ties, and vibrant local communities. Eating locally connects consumers to a larger, though circumscribed, social world.

  • Economic: Local food purchases improve the economic circumstances of mostly small-scale farmers (especially those not using vast quantities of synthetic chemicals and mammoth machinery for mass production) who otherwise struggle in the face of international competition, along with the fortunes of independent stores who cannot access the international food market as easily as large retailers. Money spent locally moves through fewer hands, thereby ensuring that more of it ends up in local producers’ pockets than when it is sent out to the distant headquarters of monopolistic large retail chains, shipping companies, and mega corporate farms. Local producers are also more likely to pay their staff a living wage and be attuned to social justice concerns than large corporate entities that exploit workers both at home and abroad.

  • Environmental: Because locally produced food travels fewer miles, it generates less greenhouse gas emissions than items brought in from more distant areas. Local food production systems that serve a broad array of needs are also more diverse than large, export-oriented systems where only one or a few varieties of crops are planted. Increased farming biodiversity is not only desirable from an ecological perspective, but also more aesthetically pleasing than factory farming. In addition, large-scale producers are much less likely to be held accountable by distant consumers for the damage they cause to ecosystems. Promoting local food production also encourages land conservation for agricultural purposes and is an indirect way to fight urban sprawl. Unlike imported food, locally grown produce is often sold without packaging that then gets thrown away.

  • Security: Populations fed by local producers can always count on them in times of crisis such as during wars or with sudden price hikes on imported food items. By their very nature, international food markets only cater to the highest bidders and are not concerned with the fate of marginal populations. Diversified local agricultural offerings are also less likely to succumb to diseases than monocultures and will still be around when our petroleum supply is gone and we have no choice but to revert to local production.

  • Taste, Nutrition, and Safety: All other things being equal, locally grown food is fresher than that which has traveled over long distances on cargo ships, railroads, and trucks. Such food not only tastes better but also is more nutritious as it has spent less time in various forms of storage and is more likely to have been picked at its peak of freshness. Food produced in countries with lower overall health, safety, and environmental standards is also, by the very nature of the methods and lack of care involved, going to be more harmful to consumers. And unlike the food contamination that takes place in central processing facilities where vast quantities of food from diverse geographical origins commingle and are exposed to undesirable elements such as salmonella, the small scale of local food production ensures that any such problems remain localized and are easily traced.

  While superficially compelling, SOLE has drawn fire from a number of critics, such as Missouri conventional farmer Blake Hurst;18 journalists Joe Pompeo,19 Stephen Budiansky,20 and Ronald Bailey;21 writers Dave Lowry22 and Greg Critser;23 academic economists Thomas R. DeGregori, 24 Art Carden,25 Steven Landsburg,26 Steven Saxton,27 Edward L. Glaeser,28 and Jayson L. Lusk, and F. Bailey Northwood;29 political scientist Robert Paarlberg;30 and private sector agricultural policy analyst Gary Blumenthal.31

  As these and other critics see things, locavores belong to an environmentalist sect that makes a moral issue out of where your food is grown and are satisfied with the appearance of green behavior rather than facts and effective results. Oblivious to what life is really like when most food is organic and locally produced, they promote a dire lifestyle now limited to our planet’s most destitute locations.

  If you want to embrace locally produced organic and nonprocessed food, the political scientist Robert Paarlberg points out, you could move to sub-Saharan rural Africa, where SOLE is a daily reality. There, about 60% of the population is engaged in either farming or herding from dawn to dusk. In addition, because these farmers can’t afford modern technologies, they must rely on traditional organic methods, and only about 4% of their cropland is irrigated, de facto protecting precious local watersheds and underground aquifers. Because approximately 70% of households live more than a 30 minute walk from the nearest all-weather road, residents must purchase and sell most of their food locally while their primitive cooking technologies and lack of access to processed food ensures that they must devote much time to food preparation. What is the reality of this SOLE dream? Average cereal crop yields that are at best one-fifth as high as in advanced economies, and life as our ancestors pretty much knew it, with average incomes hovering around $1 a day and an approximately one in three probability of being malnourished.32

  In the end, critics tell us, SOLE is essentially a fad promoted by bicoastal urban “agri-intellectuals” whose knowledge of and practical experience with food production are typically limited to the world of hobby gardening and a once-in-a-lifetime foray into hunting or killing a backyard animal. Among other problems, these fans of the local uncritically champion a few “alternative” operations, such as Joel Salatin’s Polyface farm, a “family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm, and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley” that is in the business of “healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture.” Yet, they rarely mention Polyf
ace’s low productivity, high prices for common “industrial” livestock breeds, arguably greater health risks in light of their livestock’s management practices, and dependence on both conventional producers for livestock and apprenticeship programs for cheap labor. Furthermore, Salatin derives substantial revenues from his numerous (and often distant) engagements as both a speaker and consultant to supplement his farming income, something which could obviously never be duplicated by producers who would adopt his holistic organic farming model.33

  Too busy denouncing some imaginary ills of modern farming, agri-intellectuals and proponents of locavorism do not ask why large-scale agricultural producers—who alone can feed large numbers of people at affordable prices—raise crops and care for livestock the way they do. Enthralled by romantic notions of rural life, they care little about the damage inflicted on unprotected crops by pests and weather, don’t consider the real-world consequences of food shortages, and brush aside concerns about the large-scale deforestation that would inevitably ensue from the much less productive methods they promote.

  To food writer Dave Lowry, the largely upper middle-class followers of SOLE principles are often “foodiots,” who, already saddled with “anti-capitalist sensitivities,” too much income, and unsubstantiated fears about conventional food quality, further live “in constant fear of being identified with the McRib-gobbling proletariat.”34 Another “benefit” of the SOLE fad, according to health writer Greg Critser, is that it helps reconfirm the elite status of professional chefs and food critics threatened by the ever-increasing abundance and affordability of once scarce and expensive ingredients.35 Farmers’ markets have in the meantime evolved into a combination of premium boutiques and environmentalist temples whose main offering is “feel good” value at premium prices. In the end, the real magic of locavorism, Lowry tells us, is that it allows some individuals to achieve the non-negligible feat of being simultaneously snobs and “one of the folks.”36 Locavorism, according to food policy analyst Gary Blumenthal, essentially boils down to “social affinity, a sense of sympathy for David and antagonism toward Goliath due to concerns about tribe, equity, and greed.”37