Consumers in the Kingston area, calling themselves the ‘Food Down the Road community council’, have decided that simply supporting local foods isn’t enough. According to an article in the January 8th Ontario Farmer, they want a formal policy that ensures ‘governments, local institutions and businesses, through policy and practice, become champions for local farmers and eaters’
This is a grand plan, but even participants admit they’re ‘not quite sure how they’re going to get there’. I’m glad to hear it. I think local food proponents, or ‘locavores’ started with a good idea, and they have the ‘act locally’ part nailed. However, I don’t hear them talking about the ‘think globally’ part of the equation nearly enough, so we need to slow the bandwagon down.
It’s easy to point out countless areas of the world in which this local food craze just doesn’t work, but we don’t have to travel that far. In my home town in Northern Ontario, a local food plan means lots of protein…and not much else. Frankly, I’d miss things like grains, fruits, and dairy products, unless of course I bought a cow, which would be a radical idea.
And speaking of radical, Joel Stein, a contributor to Time magazine, recently illustrated the extremes he feels ‘locavores’ are pushing toward with a brilliant, opposing plan: preparing a ‘distavore’ meal. In his January 10th column, Extreme Eating, Stein explained the idea, noting that nothing he purchased to prepare for the meal was produced within 3,000 miles of his home. Not an easy task, considering that he lives in Los Angeles and, as he notes, ‘farmers in Southern California, it seems, can grow anything’. To add insult to injury, Stein bought everything at Whole Foods, the store he refers to as ‘the local-food movement’s most treasured supermarket, the one that has huge locally grown signs next to the fruits and vegetables’.
It’s a drastic approach for putting things into perspective, but I think it works. How can we fail to see that there are people who don’t have the same options we do, and who need to share the riches that we take for granted? The local-food movement is quick to talk about what the Kingston group called ‘an ecologically and economically sustainable local food system’ which they see as ‘essential to a vital, healthy, food secure community’. But are they sure about those benefits? Is there scientific evidence that locally grown fare is healthier or safer than the alternative? As for the environment, there is growing evidence that food produced safely and efficiently in one part of the world, and shipped to other regions, is far more energy efficient than the items we pick up on weekend trips to farmers’ markets in our Hummers and Lincoln Navigators.
The Food Down the Road group is committed to a ‘system that promotes human dignity and community food security, with fair access to healthy and appropriate foods for all citizens’. What they don’t seem to realize is that this is the perfect argument for a global food strategy, one in which countries with an overabundance of resources can readily provide for those who don’t have enough to feed their families. Let’s be careful about demanding policies that suit few and ignore many. While supporting local fare when we can, lets make sure our blinders don’t prevent us from seeing things globally.
