TheSoko.com - Why Eat Local Food?

Buying locally grown food is the answer to many problems facing us today. Dave Gabriele explains.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, an interdisciplinary research portal that focuses on the interactions among key environmental, social and economic trends, the average North American meal travels a staggering 2,400 kilometres from farm to plate. There are many aspects of how we get our food that we may not consider when we stop off at the local supermarket for groceries. Is food that has travelled a great distance bad?

Going the Distance

Produce purchased in the supermarket may have been travelling or stored from days to weeks. Many of those foods are left to ripen in transit or by means of chemicals rather than on the vine like locally grown foods. When a fruit, for example, is ripened en route and/or travels for days on end, it affects the fruit’s nutritional value. The concentration of important vitamins and phytonutrients are diminished. It just makes sense; fresher food is more nutritious, not to mention, tastier.

Pollution Contribution

To quote The David Suzuki Foundation website, “transporting foods increases the level of greenhouse gas emissions and pollutes our air.” This is easy to understand since we know that shipping food long distances requires all manners of planes, trains, ships and transport trucks. This massive worldwide distribution requires an amazing amount of energy that typically comes from burning heavy-polluting fossil fuels. Perishable foods, such as fruits and vegetables, must be refrigerated during transport, which boosts the energy consumption (and the resulting pollution) even higher. On top of this, transporting food requires specialized packaging as well as chemical treatments to prevent rotting and over-ripening. All the extra packaging ends up in our dumps and the chemicals end up in our bodies.

A 2005 report published by the English journal Food Policy found that although buying conventional foods from supermarkets is cheaper, there are often many hidden costs. The true price of food, according to the study, is disguised by externalising the costs. Hidden costs take the form of environmental and climate damage as well as damage to roads and infrastructure.

Our Local Economy

Since 1961, the amount of food transported between countries has increased 400 per cent and with growing globalization the number continues to increase. But does this increased transport and trade mean stronger economies for us? According to Brian Halweil, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC, the answer is no.

In his book Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket, Halweil reports an interesting discovery from a study conducted by the New Economics Foundation in London. The study found that “every £10 spent at a local food business is worth £25 for the local area, compared with just £14 when the same amount is spent in a supermarket. That is, a pound (or dollar, or peso, or rupee) spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy.” This amazing finding shows that economically, it makes sense for us to buy from local sources of food rather than from the supermarket. Spending money at the supermarket means significant portions of the economical benefits of spending money goes abroad, outside of our surrounding communities and well beyond the scope of our daily lives. Buying local food increases the prosperity of our immediate economic environment.

Foreign Farmers

Some of you may now be thinking exactly what I was thinking at this point in my research: doesn’t buying foods from economically challenged countries help the farmers feed their families? And if that is the case, doesn’t buying highly transported food help the world’s poor?

William G. Moseley of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in 2007, “If the local food movements in Europe and North America reduce their demand for organic and fair trade products from afar, the most likely consequence is that African farmers who have entered these niche markets will return to producing their export crops in the conventional, pesticide-intensive manner. While local food markets can provide some income for these farmers, they still are reliant on export opportunities for the bulk of their cash income.”

This perspective seems to be the main opposition to the concept of eating locally. However, many do not agree. In an interview on the Worldwatch Institute website, Brian Halweil comments on this common view, “...the supposed benefits of export agriculture are not as straightforward as many economists or IMF (International Monetary Fund) officials would argue. There are plenty of studies from North America, Asia and Africa showing that the farmer growing export crops actually gets a very tiny slice of the profit made on those exports; most of the profits go to the trader, broker, exporter, shipper -- the people at the other end of the food chain. There is good evidence that freer trade in agricultural goods does not benefit farm communities, and they might even suffer. Yes, the IMF has encouraged nations around the world to emphasize export agriculture, but I would argue that boosting food self-reliance can help developing nations retain precious foreign exchange, reduce exposure to the whims of international markets and inject money into the national economy.”

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vote with your dollar

It is not disputed that buying locally grown food helps reduce waste, energy and materials and is usually more nutritious for us. However, the debate on whether or not it is good for the poorer economies of the world continues. From what I see, buying locally grown food is an idea that appeals to many people that are concerned for their health and well being.
In my opinion, buying local food is the solution to many problems. It is possible that with new solutions come new problems, but in this case, I believe the good by far outweighs the bad.

Sources:
The 100 Mile Diet
WorldWatch Institute
Green Belt
David Suzuki