I was reading the paper today, and for no good reason, i thumbed through the Living section. I should know better than that, as that damn section always has the touchy-feely bullshit that makes me cringe. Not all touchy-feely stuff is bad, but the living section has this way of always feeling like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Anyhow, I ran across yet another article about "Locavores", people who only eat food grown/raised within a certain distance of their home. Now, I'm all for reducing emissions by less distance when it comes to shipping. But this presents a greater problem for me. Namely, that we are a "feel-good" society, not a "get-something-accomplished" society. We feel good because we're buying, say, strawberries that are locally grown IN JANUARY. Now, I see an issue there. I love strawberries. They're an awesome form of berry, and I believe that they should be enjoyed by all who love and crave them. But, I have to ask how the hell we're growing strawberries and various other produce during the frozen months of our little chunk of tundra. Sadly, the answer is quite clear; greenhouses. There's nothing eminently wrong with greenhouses, but I get the feeling that we're just transferring the environmental costs from one stage to another. Let's take a quick look, shall we?
Locally grown strawberries will have to travel at most 150 km's to come to market, thusly cutting way down on emissions from cars. That would be the main argument for them. But are the strawberries processed on site for quality control and packing? Or do they have to be sent to another facility for that? Also, these greenhouses they were grown in didn't grow out of the ground after some water, fertilizer and a little TLC. They had to be built, which means heavy equipment, building materials, and man hours. Where did the building supplies have to come from? What brought them to the build site? What put them together? How did the workers get there to build it? How is it heated/lighted/powered in general during the cold months? These costs add up, both in emissions and cost. Powering the lights and fans of a greenhouse takes a lot of power, and as most power in Canada is supplied via coal-firing power plants, a lot of coal. If we were to grown the produce outside during the more hospitable months, that would mean no greenhouses, no need for excessive amounts of power, and less coal being burnt. Which also translates to less emmisions.
The issue is, growing produce out of season is not an economical option. The cost (both environmentally and fiscally) in producing and maintaining a site suitable for growing berries in the dead of winter makes me wonder how much good we are actually doing by buying our locally grown products. We have to figure out whether we can figure out a concept that at the very least is up-front with consumers about what the real environmental and economical footprint of a company is, instead of fooling them into believing they are doing good through their "informed" buying decisions. Otherwise, the only good we're doing is for people's consciences.
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Good points Van.
ReplyDeleteI think that most "Locavores" also practice seasonal eating, so they change their diet as the seasons change. I actually have never seen locally grown strawberries in winter, although I don't doubt their existence.
The other thing about local eating is about pesticide control. In countries like China, the government is way more lax about using harmful toxins on fruit, same with areas of Central America where regulation is more difficult to control.
But furthermore, much of the international food industry forces farers into mono-cropping which can be devastating to the lives of communities and individual families. Not to mention most "Locavores " focus on buying food from small community based farms helping small business and local economy, which in times like these is a plus.
While I agree with you that if you should take a local stance on eating, you have to be aware of more than the factors of distance, there are a lot of political, economic and health reasons why people chose to eat local as well.
Any thoughts....rebuttals??
Yes, the locavore movement would effectively kill Third World farming, which obviously depends on transporting from their neck of the woods to ours. Isolationism has never been a good idea, but to promote local eating in the name of very arguable environmental ideals at the expense of campesinos who need to eat today and tomorrow as well--that's just another form of closed-mindedness, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteNo one is arguing for isolationism. Resources around the world should be exchanged. That being said arguing for international trade by defending corporations that rob farmers of sustainability through mono cropping and then exploiting them further through providing genetically modified seed... that is close minded. Many of the farming practices that are being forced upon farmers of the third world push quantity production leading to desertification, deforestation and not to mention perpetuating the cycle of poverty and adding to global warming.
ReplyDeleteSlamming small grass roots movements that encourage awareness, stimulate the local economy, encourage awareness of individual health and awareness of consumption, I think that is close minded.
I have to agree with both of you on this one. We should all be aware of ways to become more environmentally aware while also realizing that (while at times exploitive) farming in third world nations is the lifeblood of their economies. Coffee is a perfect example of those two issues butting heads; while the prices paid to the farmers for their crop are ridiculously low, it is also their livelihood. They are living off of the exploitive wages paid by first-world coffee giants, and cannot fight for better earnings lest the giants stop buying. So really, we're perpetuating a brutal cycle, but if we were to straight up stop, and only eat what we produced here in Canada, we would starve those people we are striving to helpthrough initiatives like fair-trade products. So, at the end of the day, I have no solution. But discussing it is a good step.
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