THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 96, May 6, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
LOCOVORE'S DILEMMA: A DIFFERENT VIEW ON BUYING LOCALLY
By Dennis T. Avery
FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE WELL-OFF, WELL-FED NORTH AMERICAN WHO DOES NOT HAVE TO TOIL MUCH OF THE DAY FOR HIS SUBSTANCE, WHAT'S
NOT TO PRAISE IN THE WEST'S ABILITY TO PROVIDE THE WORLD WITH CHEAP, FAST, UNIFORM, RELIABLE, BUG-RESISTANT, VITAMIN-ENHANCED FOOD?
THE LONGTERM ADVANTAGES OF HIGH-YIELD FARMING & MODERN TRANSPORTATION -- THE NEED TO DOUBLE GLOBAL FOOD PRODUCTION DURING THE NEXT
HALF CENTURY -- CAN ORGANIC FARMING DO IT?
FULL STORY:
A Canadian couple of my acquaintance has just published a book provocatively titled The Locovore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000 Mile Diet. A new
review in Publisher’s Weekly calls it a “daring, bare-knuckled, frequently sarcastic defense of the status quo in Western industrial agribusiness. From the
point of view of the well-off, well-fed North American who does not have to toil much of the day for his subsistence, what’s not to praise in the West’s ability to
provide the world with cheap, fast, uniform, reliable, bug-resistant, vitamin-enhanced food?”
Publisher’s Weekly correctly points out that high-yield farming has abolished famine on “our side of the world.” Modern transportation, they note, also
allows us to consume all kinds of out-of-season foods.
Publisher’s Weekly was even kind enough to mention your humble author in the same breath with Aristotle as “impressive experts.” Unfortunately,
Aristotle hasn’t been that impressive since Galileo dropped those weights off the Leaning Tower of Pisa 400 years ago to prove heavy and light objects fall at the
same speed.
Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu, a husband and wife duo with the University of Toronto, say food-miles are a joke. I say they’re a bad joke. It begins with
the reality that the local food craze was birthed in Oakland, California, one of the few places in the world where year-round local supplies are available. But that’s
only because of the federal water subsidies that turned the “great California desert” into the lush garden we think of as California today. Do you suppose the
locovores support the dams and irrigation systems?
Publisher’s Weekly says the book’s authors consider it a “romantic, risible, irrational movement to patronize one’s local organic farmer.” I don’t go that
far. Buy what the local guys can provide fresh. Not even locovores, however, get much of their nutrition from that little farmers’ market. Most of what we eat is
grown where the crops grow best, whether that means semi-arid Kansas for top-quality wheat or Minnesota for a cool springtime to foster baby peas, or the
Pacific ocean to bring fresh salmon to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The railroads brag that, in 2010, they moved a ton of freight 484 miles on a gallon of
fuel. Let them do it.
“In large parts of the world, ‘local’ trumps science, and people suffer as a result,” says Blake Hurst, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau, in the book’s
foreword. “Desrochers and Shimizu take the idea of local food to the back of the barn and beat the holy livin’ tar out of it. In a more rational world, their defense
of what is so clearly true would not be needed. However, our world is not rational, and most of what passes for thinking about food is as full of air as an elegant
French pastry.”
I think of organic as quaint. Most of the malnourished in the world are eating organic food, however, because they have nothing else. They and their wildlife
suffer keenly because of no fertilizer and terribly low yields. Affluent parents often try to get “healthier” food for their children by paying more, but all of our
food is safe and healthy. Do folks in poor countries live longer, healthier lives on their organic, seasonal diets? Longevity statistics say quite the opposite.
And, let’s consider Publisher’s Weekly’s dismissive comment that “factory farming” has abolished famine on “our side of the world”? How do they think
the other side of the globe is going to be fed in the next 50 years? The world’s population is in its last expansion. Two billion people are getting rich enough to
eat meat and drink milk. We’ll have to double global food output or abolish most of the world’s wildlife in order to try to feed everyone. Does anyone think
organic farming can do it?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Health & Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production & Consumption
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was formerly a senior analyst for the U.S.
Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years. Readers may write to him at P.O. Box 202,
Churchville, Virginia, 2442; send email to cgfi@hughes.net; or visit our website at www. cgfi.org
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity