The Locavore's Dilemma

by Pierre Desrochers

  29 Edward Francis Adams and Louis Adalbert Clinton. 1899. The Modern Farmer in his Business Relations: A study of some of the principles underlying the art of profitable farming and marketing, and of the interests of farmers as affected by modern social and economic conditions and forces. N.J. Stone Company, p. 16 http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla;idno=2927196 .

  30 The original quote is “la vapeur a supprimé les saisons” by Henri Hitier, 1901. “L’évolution de l’agriculture.” Annales de géographie 10 (54): 385–400, p. 386.

  31 Jacques Redway, 1907. Commercial Geography. A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges. Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 1–2 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24884/24884-h/24884-h.htm.

  32 Susanne Freidberg. 2009. Fresh. A Perishable History. Belknap Press (Harvard University Press), p. 9.

  33 Jacques W. Redway. 1923. Geography. Commercial and Industrial. Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 82–83.

  34 For a more detailed look at the issue, see Ndiame Diop and Steven M. Jaffee, 2005. “Fruits and Vegetables: Global Trade and Competition in Fresh and Processed Product Markets.” In M. Ataman Aksoy and John C. Beghin (eds) Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries, World Bank, pp. 237–57. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGAT/Resources/GATChapter13.pdf.

  35 For a more detailed discussion of the issue, see Robert Tripp. 2002. Seed Provision & Agricultural Development: The Institutions of Rural Change. Overseas Development Institute; and Robert Tripp. 2003. “How to Cultivate a Commercial Seed Sector.” Overseas Development Institute http://www.syngentafoundation.org/db/1/447.pdf.

  36 Matt Ridley. 2010. The Rational Optimist. How Prosperity Evolves. HarperCollins Publishers, p. 149.

  37 For a detailed survey of these issues, see Indur M. Goklany. 2007. The Improving State of the World. Cato Institute. We will address health and safety concerns in more details in chapter 6. On food prices, suffice it to say that the average wheat price in the late 20th century was only 10% of the historical average in previous centuries. The same basket of agricultural goods bought in the United States in the early 21st century cost only about a third as much as it would have five decades earlier and in the United Kingdom about only one-thirteenth of what it would have cost 150 years earlier. On that last statistics, see BBC News UK. 2012. “Groceries ‘Cheaper’ Now than in 1862, Grocer Magazine Finds.” (January 6) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16450526 .

  38 David J. Spielman and Rajul Pandya-Lorch. 2009. Millions Fed. Proven Success in Agricultural Development. International Food Policy Research Institute. http://www.ifpri.org/book-5826/ourwork/programs/2020-vision-food-agriculture-and-environment/millions-fed-intiative .

  39 Peter Garnsey. 1999. Food and Society in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge University Press, pp. 23–24.

  40 See, among others, Kym Anderson. 2009. Five Decades of Distortion to Agricultural Incentives. Agricultural Distortion Working Paper No. 76. World Bank http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTRADERESEARCH/Resources/544824-1163022714097/Five_decades_of_distortions_0309rev.pdf.

  41 Joseph Edward de Steiguer. 2006. The Origins of Modern Environmental Thought. University of Arizona Press, p. 6.

  42 Basic information on these experiments can be found on the American Transcendentalism website http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/index.html and on the Fruitlands Museum website http://www.fruitlands.org/. Louisa May Alcott’s 1873 satire Transcendental Wild Oats is based on her family’s experience at Fruitlands. It is available online in her collection of short stories Silver Pitchers: and Independence http://books.google.ca/books?id=-5m5obve7XUC&dq=transcendental+wild+oats&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  43 See Telfair Museum of Art. 2009. Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914. University of Georgia Press.

  44 For more details and additional references on this history, see “History of Urban Agriculture.” Sprouts in the Sidewalk http://sidewalksprouts.wordpress.com/history/ A recent detailed case study of one such past experiment is Sarah Moore. 2006. “Forgotten Roots of the Green City: Subsistence Gardening in Columbus, Ohio, 1900-1940.” Urban Geography 27 (2): 174–192.

  45 USDA. War Era Food Posters from the Collection of the National Agricultural Library http://www.good-potato.com/beans_are_bullets/index.html .

  46 Charles Lathrop Pack. 1917. “Urban and Suburban Food Production” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 74: 203–206, p. 203.

  47 Charles Lathrop Pack. 1919. The Victorious Garden, National War Garden Commission, p. 1 http://books.google.ca/books?id=fLMo180ErtYC&dq=editions:x7pJ7CT6nigC&source=gbs_navlinks_s .

  48 The Arthurdale Heritage website can be found at http://www.arthurdaleheritage.org/. A recent book on this failed experiment is C.J. Maloney. 2011. Back to the Land: Arthurdale, FDR’s New Deal, and the Costs of Economic Planning. Wiley.

  49 Morriss Llewellyn Cooke. 1918. Our Cities Awake. Notes on Municipal Activities and Administration. Doubleday, Page & Company, p. 269 http://www.archive.org/details/ourcitiesawakeno00cookrich.

  50 Morriss Llewellyn Cooke. 1918. Our Cities Awake. Notes on Municipal Activities and Administration. Doubleday, Page & Company, p. 269 http://www.archive.org/details/ourcitiesawakeno00cookrich.

  51 Anonymous. 1913. “Why Food is Dear. City Distribution Adds Usually 50 Per Cent. to Price Received by Farmers.” New York Times (July 13) http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F40F13FB3E5B13738DDDAA0994DF405B838DF1D3.

  52 Quoted by Joseph Russell Smith. 1919. The World’s Food Resources. H. Holt & Company, p. 567 http://www.archive.org/details/worldsfoodresour00smituoft.

  53 Quoted in Oscar Diedrich von Engeln. 1920. “The World’s Food Resources.” Geographical Review 9 (3): 170–190, pp. 185–186.

  54 Michael Pollan. 2008. “Farmer in Chief.” New York Times Magazine October 9 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html.

  55 Morriss Llewellyn Cooke. 1918. Our Cities Awake. Notes on Municipal Activities and Administration. Doubleday, Page & Company, pp. 269–270 http://www.archive.org/details/ourcitiesawakeno00cookrich.

  56 Morriss Llewellyn Cooke. 1918. Our Cities Awake. Notes on Municipal Activities and Administration. Doubleday, Page & Company, p. 270 http://www.archive.org/details/ourcitiesawakeno00cookrich.

  57 A. B. Ross. 1917. “The Point of Origin Plan for Marketing.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 74: 206–210, p. 206.

  58 Idem, p. 207. The plan is also summarized in Joseph Russell Smith. 1919. The World’s Food Resources. H. Holt & Company, pp. 567–571 http://www.archive.org/details/worldsfoodresour00smituoft.

  59 Joseph Russell Smith. 1917. “Price Control Through Industrial Organization.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 74 (Special Thematic Issue: The World’s Food): 280–287, p. 283.

  60 Russell Smith, idem, pp. 285–286.

  61 For a list of similar “local food” studies conducted in other locations between the First World War and the late 1920s, see Lorian P. Jefferson. 1926. “The Balance of Trade in Farm Products.” Journal of Farm Economics 8 (4): 451–461 and Henry C. and Ann Dewees Taylor. 1952. The Story of Agricultural Economics in the United States, 1840–1932. Iowa State College Press. The context of such studies was a drastic decline in agricultural commodity prices in the 1920s.

  62 See, among others, Michele VerPloeg et al. 2009. Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food. Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences . United States Department of Agriculture http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ap/ap036/ap036.pdf.

  63 We will discuss a few of these broader policies in chapter 5, but not the European equivalents of Victory Gardens, such as the “Dig for Victory” campaign in the United Kingdom. A recent book on the latter topic is Twigs Way and Mike Brown. 2010. Digging for Victory: Gardens and Gardening in Wartime Britain. Sabrestorm Publishing http://www.sabrestorm.com/digging.html .

  64 Frederic Clemson Howe. 1915. The
Modern City and Its Problems. Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 5–6.

  Chapter 2

  1 Plato. Around 360 BCE. The Republic, Book II http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html .

  2 Frédéric Bastiat. 1862. « La peur d’un mot. » In Oeuvres complètes, Tome Deuxième, Guillemin, p. 397.

  3 Thomas Hardy. 1891. Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented http://www.gutenberg.org/files/110/110-h/110-h.htm.

  4 Ray Hughes Whitbeck. 1924. Industrial Geography. Production, Manufacture, Commerce. American Book Company, pp. 12–13.

  5 Frédéric Bastiat. 1848. “What is Seen and What is Not Seen.” In Selected Essays on Political Economy (nonpaginated) http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html#Chapter%201,%20What%20Is%20Seen%20and%20What%20Is%20Not%20Seen.

  6 Thomas Robert Malthus. 1800. An Investigation of the Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions. Davis, Taylor, and Wilks. Nonpaginated version available at http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/malthus/highpric.txt .

  7 Jill Richardson. 2010. “Locavore Lessons for Curmudgeons.” Grist (August 22) http://www.grist.org/article/food-fight-do-locavores-really-need-math-lessons/P4.

  8 To give of sense of how much still needs to be accomplished though, according to a USDA report, direct sale to consumers, like farmers markets, only accounted for 0.4 percent of total agricultural sales in 2007 (excluding nonedible products only brought the total up to 0.8 percent). See Steve Martinez, Michael Hand, Michelle Da Pra, Susan Pollack, Katherine Ralston, Travis Smith, Stephen Vogel, Shellye Clark, Luanne Lohr, Sarah Low and Constance Newman. 2010. Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues. Economic Research Report #97. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR97/ERR97.pdf .

  9 The issue is obviously trickier for processed products depending on the various rules of origins regulating them. For instance, “Canadian” pickled products are often grown in other countries, but if enough processing activities take place in Canada, they can earn a national designation.

  10 Joseph Russell Smith. 1917. “Price Control through Industrial Organization.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 74 (The World’s Food): 280–287, p. 285.

  11 Joseph Russell Smith. 1917. “Price Control through Industrial Organization.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 74 (The World’s Food): 280–287, p. 285.

  12 USDA grading services http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/Grading and food standards http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/standards can be found on the agency’s website.

  13 John M. McKee. 1925. “The Relation of Local Farm Output to the Local Product.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 117: 278–284, p. 282.

  14 Idem, p. 284.

  15 For a recent discussion of the issue, see Bee Wilson. 2008. Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee. Princeton University Press. For a more ancient and concise source, see « Adulteration. » 1911. Encyclopedia Britannica http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Adulteration. For a concise history of food adulteration in the United States, along with regulatory attempts to address the problem, see Marc T. Law. 2010. “History of Food and Drug Regulation in the United States.” In Robert Whaples (ed.) EH.Net Encyclopedia http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Law.Food.and.Drug.Regulation.

  16 Friedrich Christian A. Accum. 1820. A Treatise on Adulterations of Foods, and Culinary Poisons, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown http://books.google.ca/books?id=YWAUAAAAQAAJ&hl=fr&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  17 Quoted in Bertie Mandelblatt. 2007. “A Transatlantic Commodity: Irish Salt Beef in the French Atlantic World.” History Workshop Journal 63 (1): 18–47, p. 29.

  18 Adulteration. 1911. Encyclopedia Britannica http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Adulteration.

  19 See, among others, Lauren Etter. 2010. “Food for Thought: Do you Need Farmers for a Farmers Market?” Wall Street Journal (April 29) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703404004575198270918567074.html#articleTabs%3Darticle.

  20 Colleen Vanderlinden. 2010. “Scammers at the Farmers’Market: How to Make Sure You’re Supporting Local Farmers. Be educated, be vigilant, know what’s in Season!” PlanetGreen.com (September 29) http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/scammers-at-the-farmers-market—-and-how-to-make-sure -youre-supporting-local-farmers.html.

  21 Linda Crago. “Growing Food in Niagara—How Things Change in 14 Years. Part 3: Local and Organic.” Tree and Twig Farm Blog (April 17) http://tree-andtwigheirlooms.blogspot.com/2011/04/growing-food-in-niagara-how-things_17.html; See also Mischa Popoff. 2011. “Beware of Organic Crusaders.” The National Post, March 11 http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/04/11/mischa-popoff-beware-of-organic-crusaders/.

  22 US House of Representatives. 2009. “Statement of Joel Salatin (April 17, 2008).” After the Beef Recall: Exploring Greater Transparency in the Meat Industry. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg51700/html/CHRG-110hhrg51700.htm.

  23 Russ Parsons. 2008. “Food Fight Grows over the Cream of the Crop.” Los Angeles Times (March 9) http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/09/local/me-market9.

  24 Some farm-to-institution programs (such as farm-to-school http://www.farmtoschool.org/) also operate on the same model and can be subjected to the same kind of criticism we raise for CSA initiatives.

  25 Patti Ghezzi. 2009. “The Tasty Advantages of Community Supported Agriculture.” Divine Caroline http://www.divinecaroline.com/22145/70730-tasty-advantages-community-supported-agriculture.

  26 Lynda Altman. 2001. “Pros and Cons of Community Supported Agriculture. CSAs are not for everyone” Associate Content from Yahoo.com (February 15) http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7734092/pros_and_cons_of_consumer_supported.html?cat=6 .

  27 Adapted from the Tucson Community Supported Agriculture initiative website http://www.tucsoncsa.org/about/why-you-should-join/.

  28 Gary Blumenthal. 2011. “Creating False Markets.” World Perspectives, Inc. (February), p. 1.

  29 One estimate of the number of different physical products marked by a barcode in the greater New York City area is 10 billion. True, many of these are supplied by small businesses that cater to narrower niches, but the diversity and affordability of products offered by large supermarket chains and “Big Box” retail stores has become truly astounding, even by recent historical standards.

  30 For a more detailed examination of this claim that isn’t limited to food offerings, see Tyler Cowen. 2002. Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World’s Cultures. Princeton University Press.

  31 For a more detailed discussion of the issue, see Susan Fleiss Lowenstein. 1965. “Urban Images of Roman Authors.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 8 (1): 110–123.

  32 Virgil. 37 BCE. The Eclogues http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/eclogue.html.

  33 Horace. Approx. 35 BCE. Satires, Book 2, Satire VI: The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse. http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceSatiresBkIISatVI.htm#_Toc98155109 and Horace. 14 BCE Epistles, Book 2, Part 2: An Answer to Florus’ Complaints http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpistlesBkIIEpII.htm.

  34 For a more detailed treatment of the romantic and aristocratic roots of environmentalism in the English-speaking world, see Donald Gibson. 2002. Environmentalism: Ideology and Power. Nova Publishers.

  35 Rob Harris. 2007. “Let’s Ditch this ‘Nostalgia for Mud,’ Spiked (December 4) http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4144.

  36 Genesis 3: 17–19.

  37 Henry David Thoreau. 1854. Walden, or Life in the Woods http://books.google.ca/books?id=pbElaJ5zROUC&dq=thoreau+walden&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  38 Karl Kautsky. 1899 (1988). The Agrarian Question in Two Volumes. Zwan Publications, p. 218. Kautsky
further observed that the individuals most likely to leave the countryside were “propertyless labourers, and of these the unmarried” and that it was “not simply the physically strongest, but also the most energetic and intelligent” that migrated (p. 224).

  39 Mario Polèse. 2009. The Wealth and Poverty of Regions. Why Cities Matter. University of Chicago Press, p. 139. See also Edward Glaeser. 2011. Triumph of the City. How our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. Penguin Press, p. 7.

  40 Mario Polèse. 2009. The Wealth and Poverty of Regions. Why City Matters. University of Chicago Press, p. 140.

  41 Edward Glaeser. 2011. Triumph of the City. How our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. Penguin Press, p. 70.

  42 Ben Worthen. 2010. “A Dozen Eggs for $8? Michael Pollan Explains the Math of Buying Local.” Wall Street Journal (August 5) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704271804575405521469248574.html For another acknowledgement of this fact by an organic food supporter, see Jeffrey Kluger. 2010. “What’s so Great about Organic Food?” Time (August 25) http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2011756_2011730_2011720,00.html.

  43 Gary Blumenthal. 2008. “Hand Building Automobiles (Food).” World Perspectives, Inc. (May), p. 2.

  44 USDA website. Food CPI, Prices and Expenditures: Expenditures on Food, by Selected Countries (various tables) http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/.

  Chapter 3

  1 Quoted in Kaori O’Connor. 2009. “The King’s Christmas Pudding: Globalization, Recipes and the Commodities of Empire.” Journal of Global History 4 (1): 127–155, p. 143. The [British] Empire Marketing Board’s (1926–1933) mission was to encourage “local” Empire shopping campaigns. A collection of posters produced by this organization is available on the website of the Manchester Art Gallery at http://www.manchestergalleries.org/the-collections/revealing-histories/propaganda-pride-and-prejudice-posters-from-the-empire-marketing-board/.