The Locavore's Dilemma

by Pierre Desrochers

  26 In places with stable or growing populations and little ability to import forest products, continued declines in forest cover spur increases in prices of forest products, causing landowners to plant trees instead of crops or pasture grasses. Significant erosion problems and disastrous floods in deforested watersheds have also motivated government officials in developing countries to implement reforestation programs.

  27 For more detailed discussions of these issues and additional references, see Paul E. Waggoner. 1996. “How Much Land Can Ten Billion People Spare for Nature?” Daedalus 125 (3): 73–93; Indur M. Goklany. 2007. The Improving State of the World. Cato Institute; Pierre Desrochers. 2010. “The Environmental Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits (By Creating Value within the Bounds of Private Property Rights)”Industrial and Corporate Change 19 (1): 161–204; and Pierre Desrochers. 2008. “Bringing Inter-Regional Linkages Back In: Industrial Symbiosis, International Trade and the Emergence of the Synthetic Dyes Industry in the Late 19th Century.”Progress in Industrial Ecology 5 (5–6): 465–481.

  28 For a broad and accessible introduction to the purpose, scope and limits of LCA, see, among others, the webpage of the US Environmental Protection Agency on this research methodology at http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/lcaccess/. We reviewed this literature in more detail in Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu. 2008. Yes, We have no Bananas. A Critique of the ‘Food Miles’ Perspective .Mercatus Policy Series Primer no. 8, Mercatus Center (George Mason University) http://mercatus.org/publication/yes-we-have-no-bananas-critique-food-miles-perspective?id=24612.

  29 Caroline Saunders and Peter Hayes. 2007. Air Freight Transport of Fresh Fruit and Vegetables- Report for the International Trade Centre (ITC), Geneva, Switzerland. Research Report No. 299. New Zealand: AERU, Lincoln University) http://researcharchive.lincoln.ac.nz/dspace/bitstream/10182/248/1/aeru_rr_299.pdf.

  30 DEFRA. 2005. Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development , ED50254 Issue 7 (July) http://www.defra.gov.uk.

  31 Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews. 2008. “Food Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States,” Environmental Science & Technology 42 (10): 3508-3513.

  32 DEFRA. 2005 Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development , ED50254 Issue 7(July). http://www.defra.gov.uk. A ton is a metric measurement of 1000 kilograms (kg), where 1 kg. = 2.2 lbs.

  33 Caroline Saunders, Andrew Barber, and Greg Taylor. 2006. Food miles—Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand’s Agriculture Industry . Research Report No.285, New Zealand: AERU, Lincoln University http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/documents/2328_rr285_s13389.pdf Apples and similar fruits are frequently kept in storage with higher than normal CO2 concentrations. Temperature control involves either maintaining lower than ambient temperatures to inhibit spoilage or maintaining higher than ambient temperatures to prevent freezing, depending on the location.

  34 LlorençMilà i Canals, Sarah J. Cowell, Sarah Sim, and Lauren Basson. 2007. “Comparing Domestic versus Imported Apples: A Focus on Energy Use,” Environmental Science and Pollution Research 14 (5): 338-344.

  35 Jenny Gustavson; Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert van Otterdijk, Robert and Alexandre Meybeck. 2011. Global Food Losses and Food Waste. FAO. The number is based on 2007 data. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ags/publications/GFL_web.pdf. See also Amanda D. Cuéllar and Michael E. Webber. 2010. “Wasted Food, Wasted Energy: The Embedded Energy in Food Waste in the United States.” Environmental Science & Technology 44 (6): 6464–6469. For recent discussions of these issues, see H. Charles J. Godfray et al. 2010. “The Future of the Global Food System.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365 (3554): 2769–2777 http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1554/2769.abstract; John D. Floros et al. 2010. “Feeding the World Today and Tomorrow: The Importance of Food Science and Technology.” Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Technology 9 (5): 572–599 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2010.00127.x/abstract.

  36 Lorrayne Ventour. 2008. “The Food We Waste” WRAP http://wrap.s3.amazonaws.com/the-food-we-waste.pdf See also Tara Garnett. 2006. “Fruit and Vegetables & UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Exploring the Relationship.” FCRN Working paper 06-01, rev. A, Food Climate Research Network http://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/fruitveg_paper_final.pdf.

  37 Kenneth Marsh and Betty Bugusu. 2007. “Food Packaging: Roles, Materials and Environmental Issues.” Journal of Food Science 72 (3): R39–R55 http://www.ift.org/knowledge-center/read-ift-publications/science-reports/scientific-status-summaries/~/media/Knowledge%20Center/Science%20Reports/Scientific%20Status%20Summaries/FoodPackagingEnviron_0407.pdf.

  38 Quoted in Paul Monaghan. 2008. “Why the Co-Op Is Wary of Food Miles Labeling.” The Guardian (Green Living Blog) April 24 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2008/apr/24/soilassociation-vcoop?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487.

  39 For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Kelly Rae Chi, James Mc-Gregor and Richard King. 2009. Fair Miles: Recharting the Food Miles Map. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Oxfam http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/15516IIED.pdf.

  40 Tracy Miles. 2006. “Concern Mounts over UK Soil Association Food Miles Plan.” Organic Pathways http://www.organicpathways.co.nz/business/story/567.html.

  41 International Trade Statistics http://www.intracen.org/tradsat and Trade Competitive Map http://www.intracen.org/appli1/TradeCom.

  42 Catherine Riungu. 2005. “Why Kenya Dominates Export of Flowers to the EU market,” The East African (February 21) http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/-/2560/245890/-/7oem2tz/-/index.html.

  43 James MacGregor and Bill Vorley. 2006. “Fair Miles?: The Concept of “Food Miles” through a Sustainable Development Lens.” Fresh Perspectives No.1 (IIED) http://pubs.iied.org/11064IIED.html.

  44 Freshinfo. 2008. “Airfreight Proposals Vilified by Industry.” (April 8) http://www.agrifoodstandards.net/en/news/global/airfreight_proposals_vilified_by_industry.html.

  45 James MacGregor and Bill Vorley. 2006. “Fair Miles?: The Concept of “Food Miles” through a Sustainable Development Lens.” Fresh Perspectives No.1 (IIED) http://pubs.iied.org/11064IIED.html.

  46 James MacGregor and MuyeyeChambwara. 2007. “Room to Move: ‘Eco-logicalSpace” and Emissions Equity,” Fresh Perspective No.14 (IIED) http://pubs.iied.org/17023IIED.html.

  47 Adrian Williams. 2007. Comparative Study of Cut Roses for the British Market Produced in Kenya and the Netherlands, Précis Report for World Flowers (Cranfield University) http://wwww.fairflowers.de/fileadmin/flp.de/Redaktion/Dokumente/Studien/Comparative_Study_of_Cut_Roses_Feb_2007.pdf.

  48 Adrian Williams. 2007. Comparative Study of Cut Roses for the British Market Produced in Kenya and the Netherlands, Précis Report for World Flowers (Cranfield University http://wwww.fairflowers.de/fileadmin/flp.de/Redaktion/Dokumente/Studien/Comparative_Study_of_Cut_Roses_Feb_2007.pdf.

  49 Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills. 2000. “How Cities Green the Planet.” City Journal (Winter) http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_how_cities.html.

  50 Ed Glaeser. 2011. Triumph of the City. How our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. Penguin Press, p. 201.

  51 David Owen. 2009. “Is Locavorism Good for the Environment?” http://www.davidowen.net (September 9) www.davidowen.nethttp://www.davidowen.net/david_owen/2009/09/is-locavorism-good-for-the-environment.html.His more detailed argument can be found in David Owen. 2009. Green Cities. Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability. Riverhead Books.

  52 For a more detailed discussion of these issues, see Ed Glaeser. 2011. Triumph of the City. How our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. Penguin Press.

  53 That they are now denigrated as “sprawl” doesn’t change the fact that they are as old as the first cities and, as such, much more ancient than racial problems, modern tax po
licies and the automobile.

  54 For a more detailed examination of these issues, see Robert Bruegmann. 2006. Sprawl, A Compact History. University of Chicago Press.

  55 Eric Jaffe. 2011. “If the World Lived Like New Yorkers, We’d All Fit Into Texas.” The Infrastructurist July 22. http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/07/22/if-the-world-lived-like-new-yorkers-wed-all-fit-into-texas/.

  Chapter 5

  1 World Health Organization, Glossary—Food Security http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/ For a broader discussion of the concept since its emergence in the early 1980s, see Simon Maxwell and Rachel Slater. 2003. “Food Policy Old and New.” Development Policy Review 21 (5-6): 531–553. Much relevant and freely accessible material on the topic can be found on the Global Food Security website (U.K. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/.

  2 Peter Garnsey. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis. Cambridge University Press, p. 6 defines food shortages as a “short-term reduction in the amount of available foodstuffs, as indicated by rising food prices, popular discontent, hunger, in the worst cases bordering on starvation” and a famine as a “critical shortage of essential foodstuffs leading through hunger to starvation and a substantially increased mortality rate.” More general treatments of the issue include Robert W. Fogel. 2004. The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World. Cambridge University Press; Brian Murton. 2000. “Famine.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas. The Cambridge World History of Food. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1411–1427; and Cormac Ó Gráda. 2009. Famine. A Short History. Princeton University Press.

  3 For a more detailed portrait of current hunger in underdeveloped economies, see the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2010-global-hunger-index.

  4 For a concise survey of the issue, see Jere. R. Berhman, Harold Alderman and John Hoddinott. “Malnutrition and Hunger.” In BjørnLomborg (ed.) 2004.Global Crises, Global Solutions. Cambridge University Press, pp. 363-420. The worldwide number of undernourished people is based on diverse statistical aggregates and, unavoidably, the underlying methodology has been the subject of various criticisms. For a discussion of some of these problems, see Derek Headey. 2011. “Was the Global Food Crisis Really a Crisis? Simulation Vs Self-Reporting.” Vox (June 6) http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6615.

  5 As of this writing, major food price spikes occurred in 2008 and late 2010. It is probably fair to say that the former was primarily driven by very high oil prices that were made worse by policy decisions such as food export bans and the latter by high fuel prices and bad weather in the U.S., Australia, Russia and China. The New York Times now devotes a portion of its website to the issue http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/food_prices/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier.

  6 See, among others the Declaration NGO Forum Rome Summit +5 http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=418; Josh Brem-Wilson. 2010 The Reformed Committee on World Food Security. A Briefing Paper for Civil Society (Section 1) http://www.foodsovereignty.org/Portals/0/documenti%20sito/Home/News/reformed%20CFS_english.pdf; and the websites of organizations such as La Via Campesina http://viacampesina.org/en/ and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty http://www.foodsovereignty.org/.

  7 See, among others, Peter Rosset. 2008. “Food Sovereignty and the Contemporary Food Crisis.” Development 51 (4): 460–463.

  8 Standard statements to this effect are found in Oakland Institute. 2008. The Food Crisis and Latin America, Policy Brief http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/content/food-crisis-and-latin-america; and Frederic Mousseau. 2010. The High Food Price Challenge: A Review of Responses to Combat Hunger. Oakland Institute http://media.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/high_food_prices_web_final.pdf.

  9 Brian Murton. 2000. “Famine.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas. The Cambridge World History of Food. Cambridge University Press, p. 1412.

  10 Of these factors, drought is generally thought to have been the most significant historically. See Cormac Ó Gráda. 2009. Famine. A Short History. Princeton University Press, pp.14–15.

  11 Vaclav Smil. 2002. China’s Past, China’s Future. Routledge, p.72.

  12 Frank Dikköter. 2010. Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. Bloomsbury Publishing.

  13 One such instance is described in chapter 5 of the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Nehemiah. Various translations of the book can be found at http://www.early-jewishwritings.com/nehemiah.html.

  14 George Dodd. 1856. The Food of London: A sketch of the chief varieties, sources of supply, probable quantities, modes of arrival, processes of manufacture, suspected adulteration, and machinery of distribution, of the food for a community of two millions and a half . Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, p. 27. http://books.google.ca/books?id=w1UZAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  15 William Wilson Hunter. 1871. The Annals of Rural Bengal, fourth edition. Smith, Elder and Co http://books.google.ca/books?id=yEoOAAAAQAAJ&dq=relatedOCLC19227940&source=gbs_navlinks_s:;.

  16 Cormac Ó Gráda. 2009. Famine. A Short History. Princeton University Press, pp. 157 and 219.

  17 Global Food Markets Group. 2010. The 2007/08 Agricultural Price Spikes: Causes and Policy Implications. DEFRA, pp. 14 and 90 http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/pdf/ag-price100105.pdf.

  18 Accounts of such migrations can be found in, among other places, William Wilson Hunter. 1871. The Annals of Rural Bengal, fourth edition. Smith, Elder and Co, p. 55 http://books.google.ca/books?id=yEoOAAAAQAAJ&dq=related:OCLC19227940&source=gbs_navlinks_s ; and Peter Garnsey. 1988. Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis. Cambridge University Press.

  19 Louis Torfs. 1839. Fastes des calamités publiques survenues dans les Pays-Bas et particulièrement en Belgique, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à nos jours. Casterman, p. 209 http://books.google.com/books?id=W1ZbAAAAQAAJ&hl=fr&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  20 Aristotle. 350 BCE. Meteorology Book II, Part 4 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/meteorology.2.ii.html.

  21 Saint Gregory of Nazianzus App. 382 AD. “On St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea” (translated by Leo P. McCauley, SJ), pp. 27-99. Reprint in 2004/1953 The Fathers of the Church: Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint-Ambrose, Funeral Orations. The Catholic University Press of America, p. 57.

  22 Benjamin Franklin. 1774. “Principles of Trade.” Reprint in Jared Sparks (ed.) 1836. The Works of Benjamin Franklin, volume 2. Hilliard, Gray and Company: 383-409, p. 407 http://books.google.ca/books?id=IvE_AAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

  23 Christian Wolmar. 2010. Blood, Iron & Gold. How the Railroads Transformed the World. PublicAffairs, p. 224.

  24 For a complementary discussion of some of the issues raised in this section, see Thomas R. DeGregori. 2003. “The Anti-Monoculture Mania.” Butterflies and Wheels (July 12) http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2003/the-anti-monoculture-mania/.

  25 George W. Norton, Jeffrey Alwang and William A. Masters. 2010. Economics of Agricultural Development. World Food Systems and Resource Use, Second Edition. Routledge, p. 139.

  26 Rachel Carson. 2002/1962. Silent Spring (40th anniversary edition). Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 10.

  27 William A. Haviland and Gary Crawford. 2009. Human Evolution and Prehistory, Second Canadian edition, Nelson Education Ltd, pp. 315–316.

  28 James Whorton. 1974. Before Silent Spring. Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America. Princeton University Press, p. 6.

  29 Thomas R. DeGregori. 2003. “The Anti-Monoculture Mania.” Butterflies and Wheels (July 12) http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2003/the-anti-monoculture-mania/.

  30 Randy C. Ploetz. 2005. “Panama Disease: An Old Nemesis Rears Its Ugly Head. Part 1.The Beginnings of the Banana Export Trades.�
�� APS-Plant Health Progress (August) http://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/PanamaDiseasePart1.aspx; and Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.” Agronomy Journal 100: 9–21. Whether or not the taste of Gros Michel was incomparably superior to Cavendish as if often claimed by opponents of monocultures is not something we are able to ascertain..

  31 Jock Galloway. 2000. “Sugar.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas. 2000. The Cambridge World History of Food. Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/us/books/kiple/sugar.htm; and Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.” Agronomy Journal 100: 9–21.

  32 Jeffrey Granett, M. Andrew Walker, Laszlo Kocsis and Amir D. Omer. 2001. “Biology and Management of Grape Phylloxera.” Annual Review of Entomology 41: 387–412.

  33 For a personal account of the research that resulted in this solution, see Charlie Martinson. 2008 “Looking Back at Nearly Fifty Years at Iowa State.” Essays on the College of Agriculture’s History, Iowa State University http://www.ag.iastate.edu/coa150/martinson.php .

  34 Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.” Agronomy Journal 100: 9–21.

  35 Adi B. Damania. 2008. “History, Achievements, and Current Status of Genetic Resources Conservation.” Agronomy Journal 100: 9–21.