I awoke this morning to hear two attacks against local eating, one on the radio while I was still in bed, the other a blog post that popped up in my feed reader. Both of them missed the mark by reasonably wide margins.

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First, on WBEZ I listened to the Marketplace Morning Report at 4:50am (I get up early so you don’t have to). They played a segment from Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute. Mr. Wilkinson correctly points out that food miles may not be the chief source of carbon emissions that your food creates. He goes on to point out that there is a complex, nuanced relationship between the food we eat and the environment that we live in:

A tomato raised in a heated greenhouse next door can be more carbon-intensive than one shipped halfway across the globe. And cows spew a lot more greenhouse gas than hens, or kumquats, so eating just a bit less beef can do more carbon-wise than going completely local. It’s complicated.

Yes, Mr. Wilkinson, you are correct, it’s complicated, which is exactly why I was so puzzled when you moved on to such a gross oversimplification in your next statement:

But one thing is clear enough: the farmers in Mexico, China, and Brazil, who produce a lot of the imported food Americans eat, are poorer than the farmers here in Iowa…But the way poor people get less poor is to do business with people who have a lot of money, like us.

Are central and South American economies so dependent on food export incomes that if we decreased our consumption by a fraction, they’d slip further into poverty? I doubt it, but I’d like to see Mr. Think-Tank back his hypothesis up with some research. Is he advocating outsourcing our food supply as a goodwill effort towards improving conditions in third world countries? Aren’t there economic, security, and safety concerns that come along with that line of thinking? Does he advocate buying cars that were made in the poorest country we can find? What about our clothes? The Chinese workers that make most imported clothing are very poor, but they’re not exactly treated well by their employers or their governments. I don’t have all the facts in front of me, but to quote Mr. Wilkinson, “it’s complicated”.

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Steven Dubner, author of Freakonomics, published a piece in his blog by James McWilliams a historian at Texas State University. Mr. McWilliams takes the anti-locavore argument to silly new heights by equating “eating local” with “setting up regional food systems”. He points out that every region is not equipped to produce a completely diverse food supply year round.

The first comment at the bottom of this blog post hits the nail on the head when he points out that Mr. McWilliams is “setting up a straw locavore”. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a locavore or even anyone at a farmer’s market who is pushing for diverse, independent regional food systems. We understand that coffee doesn’t grow in Iowa and there’s not too much wheat growing in Arizona. Most locavores I’ve spoken to advocate a more simplified diet that focuses on the best of what their region has to offer. Either we make some sacrifices to avoid foods that aren’t local, or we make concessions for the things we enjoy or need.

Mr. McWilliams spent a lot of energy attacking a position that really just doesn’t exist.

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Both of these pieces illustrate what’s behind a bit of my frustration with the word “locavore”. They both seem to believe that it’s an unyielding point of view, like veganism. They’re taking this misconception and attacking a belief that doesn’t really exist, meanwhile taking aim at practical local eaters at the same time. Motivations behind eating local are not singular nor are they unyielding.

Is it really so wrong to want to choose a ripe peach grown in your home state rather than grapes shipped in from Chile?

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Michael, thanks for finding these things, let alone writing a cogent response.  I prefer not to be as rational, or maybe not as willing to write as thoughtful.  I'll just let em rip:

The anti's love to point out the various points of the carbon usage of local farmers.  “A  tomato raised in a heated greenhouse next door can be more carbon-intensive than one shipped halfway across the globe [emphasis added].”  First of all it begs the sloppy construction, is it or is it not more carbon intensive?  More important, says who?  It's like my other favorite strawman that I'll return to in a moment, that all local farmers drive to the market in SUVs.  Who the hell sez that all greenhouses (i.e., poly vinyl hoophouses) are heated.  The ones I know of, locally, generally are only heated in the deep dead of winter.  If they are not heated, do you know how much energy is used?  So how valid is the comparison?   What they are really trying to say is that some times, some ways, a locally grown tomato can use more energy than a shipped in tomatoe.  Still, they do not offer the proof, solid proof that local tomatoes, are in fact, using more energy.   Where are the energy sucking greenhouses?  Where?  Who?

And the thing that gets me the most, are the International growers using no other energy besides the shipping costs?  In other words, I find that the argument against local is that there are inputs that use energy and these inputs are as much as the transportation costs.  But what about the other energy used by the non-local grower.  Take that into account.  It's like the energy used to heat a greenhouse vs. the energy needed to fuel a plan.  Well, what about the greenhouses used by the other farmer.  His tractor.  Getting his stuff to a distributor.  The packing machines?  Etc., etc., etc.

OK, another fuel mile thing that bugs me, one that bugs me even more, one that I just mentioned.  The idea that International distribution is so damn efficient compared with the gal at the farmer's market driving her cute Cooper Mini to the market.  After having read this argument in Slate or was that Salon, I have been especially observant of the transportation used at farmer's markets.  I continue to find the vast amount of farmers bring their stuff in, in trucks!  Big effin' trucks.  One farmer at the Oak Park market is so efficient, he sells his corn from the same truck he picks it!  And another thing, do the math.  The argument is that the fuel efficiency of boats and trains and semi's means that less energy is used per item of food.  OK.  Let's say that 1 unit of energy was used in shipping 10,000 strawberries to Chicago.  That equals 10,000 units of energy per strawberry. Now lets say that 3 units are used by the local farmer (and I do not think the difference is truly that great).  He brings in 500 strawberries.  That's 1,500 units of energy used.  Where is more energy used?

Wait you say.  You are encouraging people to eat local.  If everyone listened to me, the farmer would have to bring in 10,000 strawberries to meet the strawberry demand.  That's now 30,000 units of energy used!  But what pray tell would cause the local food system not to alter their transportation practices as demand increased.  More food will be trucked at a time.  Maybe even trains will be used.  Hell, in the old days. potatoes were shipped from Wisconsin to Chicago.  Logic and fuel costs tell you that in the long run, the energy costs will always be lowest for local food.

Enough for now?