Clueless New Yorkers Again Reporting On Stuff They Don't Understand

I was so irked by yesterday's witless New York Times piece questioning the environmental value of eating locally that I thought the fairest thing to do was simply ignore it. 

But now that the Times climate blogger Andrew Revkin has drafted a tepid response, I feel compelled to add a scalding hot one. 

In yesterday's piece titled "If It's Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener?" writer Andrew Martin riffs unintelligently off some ideas rattling around at UC Davis about whether the carbon footprint of locally grown food is really smaller than that of food shipped from far away.  The Davis people suggest that strawberries grown en masse on an industrial farm and sent by railroad en masse may use less oil than strawberries grown at your neighbor's small farm and sent to the farmer's market in a beat-up old pick-up. 

There are so many variables in this example that I find it intellectually worthless.  For example, how far is the local farmer driving the strawberries?  All the way to Union Square or just to Westchester?  And is he or she driving a hybrid?  And by the way, how far are the Price Chopper supermarkets from the rail yard, too, and how fuel efficient are their trucks?

As to why somebody at UC Davis is pushing such a dicey idea, here's a clue, Andrew...University of California.  Which state has the most to lose if all of us in the other 49 start supporting our local farmers?  California.

Plus, nowhere does anybody mention the possibly of growing the strawberries in your own backyard using zero oil, and possibly not even a bowl that has to be washed, if you just fill your face right in the garden.  Dear Andrew Martin, this is not a difficult crop.  I've been growing boatloads of them for years with little input other than benign neglect.

And even IF the oil costs of locally grown produce and farmer's-market-browsing consumers were actually higher than the costs of mass-produced produce and depressed supermarket shoppers...oil is NOT the only environmental cost of industrial farming.

Farming on that kind of scale is an incredible strain on an ecosystem.  It depletes water resources, especially in a dry place like Calitornia, breeds pests, soil exhaustion, poisonous run-off that pollutes aquifers, manure pits the size of Rhode Island...a million other environmental evils.

There are other questions, too.  If farming only takes place in California, what will happen to our glorious landscape here in upstate New York?  Nothing but cheap vinyl-sided housing as far as the eye can see.  Successful small farms stop sprawl.  Encourage the revitalization of towns, where we can all walk to buy our groceries.  Keep a little space clear for wildlife. 

Not to mention, they beautify the world.  Nothing, in my opinion, and I include Yosemite and Big Sur, is as beautiful as a neat little New England farm.  Ten thousand years of human intelligence about how to deal with nature wrapped up in a few dozen heavily worked acres.

These aesthetic questions are not meaningless.  Ignore them, and we'll wind up with a populace too down-hearted to care about global warming.  The indisputable fact is, locally grown food tastes a million times better than the plastic stuff shipped here in the winter from California.  It is life-affirming.   

In my book, beauty and flavor alone are reason enough to buy from local farmers.  But I will need a hell of a lot more evidence before I am convinced that giant agribusinesses are better for the environment than the lovely young guys at the Saratoga Springs farmers' market from whom I buy parsnips and steal gardening advice. 

Comments

[Frances]

As always, a thought provoking post. The vision of us eating straight from the land, maybe a neckerchief tied around your chin for a bib to sop up the dribbles, should be rendered by a suitable artist. You are so right, California has lots to lose from the eating locally movement. It's always about money, not about right and wrong, isn't it?

[Colleen]

Loved, loved, loved reading this. I could not agree with you more about the aesthetic importance of local agriculture, or about the connectedness we feel when we know the people who grow our food. And you totally hit the nail on the head regarding California's stake in the "eat local" movement.

[susan harris]

And here's another place the Times falls short - not providing a "Who's Blogging About This" on their site for every article, as even the Washington Post does. If they did, a well-informed response like one this could be injected into the discussion. But they're a long way from getting on board with Web 2.0.

[El]

I found both articles amazingly dispiriting too, and it is in this feeling that I wondered if I was alone in feeling it. When Revkin said "But my guess is that most people seeking local produce are not in it to save the climate," my response was, et tu, Andy? Are you really that clueless? (And if so, I want your job.)

What neither article addresses is the actual fossil fuels expended to actually grow and fertilize and harvest the food: guess what, your average local truck farmer will always have a smaller footprint than a California conglomerate farm, I don't care how it got from California to where you happen to live.

[NS Jones]

Liked your post and site. I agree, it will take a lot more evidence before I think local food is not the way to go. Challenging ideas isn't a bad thing though, as long as it makes sense. Farmer's markets and CSAs make sense to me.

[Ed Bruske]

The original Times piece by Andrew Martin, while certainly not the last word, made a number of good points worthy of discussion. Being someone who tries to cook with local products on a daily basis, blogs daily about food, receives a weekly Communuty Supported Agriculture (CSA) food box and now keeps close tabs on what's happening in the local farmers markets, I can attest that there are many rough edges to this locavore movement.

I was thinking as much on Sunday as I paid $28 for a four-pound, bone-in pork shoulder roast. The first thing you notice is that everything being sold by the various meat vendors at the farmer's market--every slice of ham, every pork chop, every chicken quarter--has been individually packed in plastic. Because the farmers market is not a full service grocer, you have to tabulate all the other markets you must travel (i.e. drive) to in order to complete your shopping list. Then make a tally of all the different farm vehicles being driven into the District of Columbia from Pennsylvania, Virginia and Marland to put designer kale and radishes on display. Then take into consideration that most of the markets in most parts of the country are now closed for the season. So the local food is coming from where?

It is, in fact, a horribly inefficient system that in fact represents only a tiny sliver of this country's food production. It is not at all carbon neutral, and we as citizens--with our happy-go-lucky automobile culture and sprawling McMansion developments--are only making it worse, driving up the cost of local farmland to unreachable prices. It's probably more accurate to say that we will only have a truly environmentally friendly agriculture when the oil finally runs out and we have to tear up all those suburban lawns to plant vegetables.

Let's hear it for backyard chickens...

[Michele Owens]

Oh yes, Ed Bruske, I think everybody ought to do it themselves! I grow enormous tons of gorgeous food without any excess of effort, cash, oil, or time.

But no matter how inefficient eating from local farmers may be, you cannot convince me it is worse than draining rivers and lakes to irrigate deserts to grow chemical fertilizer-fed, pesticide sprayed industrial food which will be shipped thousands of miles to sit on the shelves of supermarkets the size of football fields where the air-conditioning is always cranked too high.

[Andy Revkin]

Nice post. I stand by my comments on Dot Earth, which point to the big basket of benefits offered by regional agriculture. And what I wrote about shrimp being flown from Scotland to China and back again surely illustrates the energy intensity of industrial-style food management.

[CaliGardenGirl]

Well, i live in California and I couldn't agree more with the post above. And I often do travel past Harris Ranch, a HUGE conglomerate farm. After you see something like that, there is NO WAY you can argue that the local farmers are worse or on par with the conglomerate farms.

It's just so amazing to see it. So many Californians after seeing it become localvores. So much energy, fuel and pesticides are used at those huge farms it's not even funny, or healthy for California. By the way, we are running out of water and we're growing strawberries in December!

In fact Sunset magazine has a blog about eating locally; it's called the one-block diet where they grow all their own food.

[Michelle Derviss]

Question : would you prefer to go without fresh California produce during the entire winter, which in some areas of the country is about 8 months in favor of waiting till your local climate warms up a bit more so that you can feed your family strawberries, lettuce or whatever ?

curious.

[CaliGardenGirl]

No, that's why I live in California :-).

[Michele Owens]

Excellent point, Michelle Derviss. I was wondering when somebody was going to ask me that. I do buy supermarket produce, beginning right about now.

But I think what I would really prefer is to get it together to have a hoop house and a better root cellar. Then I could conceivably harvest my own food all year long.

But for less ambitious gardeners--my farmers' market manages an impressive array of local produce all winter. They don't just know how to grow the stuff, they know how to store it, too.

[Don Boekelheide]

Yes, middle and upper class North Americans across the continent can eat any fresh (if flavorless) fruits and veggies we want, in any season. Not just from California, either - there's Central America, Chile, New Zealand...And the prices can't be beat.

But, do those endless bins of blandness necessary add up to a nutritious and tasty diet? It's a false choice, I think, to assume that the best, indeed the only option we have is industrial produce at the supermarket - either that, or 8 months of living on something worse than MREs.

As gardeners, we pride ourselves on stretching productivity throughout the year, plus we freeze, dry, preserve and can as things ripen in our garden. We change our eating habits with the seasons - that's part of the fun, and a wellspring of taste and nutrition.

If I remember right, it is eating both locally and _seasonally_ that counts.

If we, through our chosen food system, destroy local farmscapes and ecology because we prefer the supermarket's time warped monotony to local diverse growers who produce with the seasons, a vinyl village would make the perfect setting to munch our industrial salads -

"Oh, goody, Blanche! Square tomato salad in January! You know, they taste just like they did in July!"

What a miracle! You think Barbara Kingsolver might want to write about it???

Beyond issues of taste and ecology, there is also a matter of simple nutritional justice.

The supermarket only feeds those of us fortunate enough to afford it. The poor folks beneath the clouds of pesticide who grow and pick that food (those toiling in the US are branded "illegal aliens" - our most recent xenophobic outbreak scares and disgusts me), can't afford to eat it.

Supermarkets have simply pulled out of inner city neighborhoods, leaving poor families unable to obtain _anything_ fresh, industrial or otherwise - unless they grow it themselves in a community garden or in their yards, or community organizers bring small farmers and communities together to sponsor inner city farmers' markets.

Something odd and disturbing happens when people lose touch with where food comes from, and begin thinking of it simply as a "product" to be "consumed" whenever an urge hits us. Food and our relationship to growing (or finding) food goes much deeper, as Wendell Berry pointed out long ago. When we forget where food comes from, we uproot our souls.

Our bargain "choices" in the supermarket come at a high cost, aesthetically, environmentally, nutritionally, spiritually, personally, and in terms of social justice. I think Michele is absolutely right on the mark to raise questions about the Times story and the tepid response.

[sandra]

I live on veggies during the winter delivered from a local organic farm, and yes they don't include tomatos or lettuce. The selection does include a range of veggies you can make into winter salad,including lambs lettuce and sprouts, winter radish with a gorgeous wine coloured inside, apart from carrots and cabbage. There are also all the root veggies and squashes for baking and boiling and soups.
Frankly I don't want to eat strawberries in December, and if I get an unconquerable urge to do so, I can probably find some in my freezer put away during the summer when they were over-abundant in the garden. There is nothing like the anticipation of the first small lettuce leaves in Spring, or the first asparagas, or the first strawberries or peaches. I like eating veggies in season, they feel right and taste wonderful, and when I am tired of one sort another is just coming into season.

[JT]

Gee whiz, being comfortably coddled and well-fed as I am in (dare I say it) California, I did not realize the bile people out there feel towards us left-coasters.

Anyway, plenty of people here do not want to eat strawberries (or apricots, or peaches, or plums . .) shipped from around the world out of season either; fact is our berry season is in full swing by late February, which I imagine feels like winter in some places. But rest assured that we wear hair shirts as we eat the berries so we don't enjoy them too too much.

[Angela]

I like to grow food in my backyard, and I like to shop at local farmers' markets. As a Californian, I know I'm more than blessed when it comes to fresh produce. Mea Culpa.

But the whole California import/export, "locavore" topic seems so moot when you consider the fact that California exports its abundance to the rest of the world, not just the U.S.

If you look at goods and services, the whole world barters. We feed Japan and land-challenged Japan gives us awesome technology. We feed Canada and Canada gives us... oh, I don't know... whatever it is that Canada produces that we can't.

It's just where we are in the whole, grand cultural geography scheme of things. Each county, state, country and continent has something different to offer the world. That's not going to change.

Yes, we should all grow more of our own food in our own backyards and on our patios, balconies and rooftops; and yes, Easterners should eat nothing but frozen, homegrown strawberries for eight months out of the year.

But will we Californians stop eating your Eastern maple syrup? Will we all stop driving our Japanese-made cars (hybrids, even)? Blogging on our Chinese-made iMacs? Wearing our Australian UGGs? Will we all start growing our own coffee beans? I wish! It's one of the few crops that doesn't grow in California. Locavore sounds like a very dirty word if it means going without coffee.

Yes, we spoiled Americans should do our part to shrink our clown-sized carbon footprints, but can we? Will we? I don't know. All I can say is, welcome to the "age of miracle and wonder". Buckle up and don't forget the cloth bags.

[Michele Owens]

Angela, Elizabeth just sent me a link to a story about hobby greenhouses that says there is a guy in North Dakota who grows his own coffee in one. So there you go!

I enjoy many things about the global economy, most especially the Swiss rug dealers on eBay--and the fact that bankers in France suffer when homeowners in Detroit, exploited by the same global financial industry, can't pay their subprime mortgages.

But there's a difference between an iMac and a strawberry. One travels well, the other doesn't.

The produce in the supermarkets here uniformly sucks--not to mention the sheer craziness of their shipping in apples from Washington State when we are surrounded by apple orchards here in upstate New York.

Whatever efficiencies demand that my supermarket sell rubber apples from Washington, rather than the crisp products of Saratoga Apple down the road, are meaningless efficiencies.

They are the kind of thing we'll look back on and laugh at in a wiser future, the same way we laugh at bomb shelters and strip malls now.

[Frances]

Our local grocery store sometimes offers local produce with a large sign and display. It is seasonal and costs more, but people seem to be willing to buy it despite that. Especially popular are the local tomatoes, labeled as Grainger County. They are a big deal here and many markets showcase them, even in the larger cities. That is a step in the right direction. When they start coming in, it is even on the local news.

[Katy]

The absurdity of California shipping oranges to Florida grocery stores and Washington State transporting tons of apples to the North East are just two small examples highlighting the fact that the largest profits earned from our market basket is in the transportation of our food not from the food it self.

[Peg]

Great post! You should send it to the Times as a letter.

I agree with the points of how absurd it is for fruits grown within a local economy to be supplanted or even augmented with crops from far away. Why does Florida need California oranges, except in seasons of drought or bad weather? And why should New York or Massachusetts import apples from Washington?

I live in Albany and am so happy the local apple orchards and farmers' markets are thriving...but winter is a dark season, indeed...hence that Dark Days challenge I have been seeing (similar tot he 100-mile diet idea)...in which one tries to eat a meal comprised of only local produce and products once a week in the winter, if one lives in the Northerly zones...

[Shirley Bovshow]

Angela made some good points regarding the interdependance of food and hard goods between the different U.S states and other countries. This is a major carbon footprint generator that will not be easy to distill, (even if the locavore habit is adopted by the masses)
The very infrastructure of commerce in our world today is based on a "spider web" of goods that hold the economies of many rich and poor countries together.It isn't surprising that as gardening enthusiasts, we focus on what we can immediately control, and that is our food source. So we focus on it, as we should. (I'm not addressing the point of superior taste with local grown foods just the environmental benefit)I wish this alone would solve the worlds' problem, but somehow I do not think it will.
People outside our interest group may find it hard to adopt the "grow your own" mentatlity or opt for the farmer's market on the one day it is available in their area. It is a matter of convenience to many in our coddled consumer market.Heck, as a professional gardener, I find it difficult to just motivate the masses to do some good old fashioned gardening (thats another great topic.) In my industry we are strategizing to win over the next generation of gardeners,who find what we do not "fun" but "work."
That said, I say, "grow your own veggies and support your local farmer" because it is better for our health and promotes local commerce. Is it a major carbon foot print mitigator? I don't know, we will see.

[Tibs]

I have noticed in our Farmers' Market which is held in the city park that there are people who are selling stuff they have bought from a wholesaler, same stuff you can get at the grocery and definately not grown locally. I don't know if you have to get a permit to sell or just show up, but there is no monitering of the stuff. Yeah, they can say it's grown organically, but how do you know?

[Michele Owens]

Shirley, people don't know that the work of gardening IS fun. Meanwhile, they spend millions of hours on weird machines at the gym, producing absolutely nothing, beautifying nothing but themselves.

Even if it would have only a neglible impact our carbon footprint, getting these people to garden instead would be fantastic for our culture.

[firefly]

There is actually a school of thought that advises eating with the seasons -- that the body is better off with root vegetables in the winter and lighter things like lettuces and fresh crops in spring and summer. Depending on where you are and how the seasons play out, your diet will differ, if you follow that approach.

I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to clock time (o how I hate changing, either forward or back!) and I think the global transport of veg in all seasons falls under the same industrialized mandate to ignore the sun, moon, stars, and weather, and keep your nose to the grindstone under fluorescent lights.

There's a local co-op forming here in answer to Whole Foods' wading into town and gobbling up all the other organic grocers, and when the co-op gets some legs, I plan to join.

[Angela]

"But there's a difference between an iMac and a strawberry. One travels well, the other doesn't."

Excellent point, Michele, and ripe strawberries seem particularly vulnerable to rot (Botrytis, etc.). None of us really want to know what's been sprayed on our huge, gorgeous, conventionally grown strawberries, do we? http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r734100111.html

Hydroponic hothouses practicing IPM might be the ticket to fresh year-round strawberries in Eastern regions. Let's make them solar powered to counter the energy argument.

But, hey, I'd take a frozen strawberry over no strawberry any day.

Do I really have to grown my own coffee? Damn that greenhouse of mine!