The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet

"If you take the local food movement to its logical extreme...people who live beyond their local food chain are essentially parasites," explains economic geographer Pierre Desrochers, co-author of the book, The Localvore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet.

Using economic and historical data, Desrochers and his co-author Hiroko Shimizu pick apart the latest food activist trend extolling the benefits of eating local. "If everything was so great when most food was sourced locally centuries ago," asks Desrochers, "why did we go through the trouble of developing a globalized food supply chain in the first place?"

Desrochers sat down with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie to discuss the book, the benefits of factory farming, and the enduring nature of food activism.

About 5:45 minutes.

Cameras by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain. Edited by Meredith Bragg.

[PoliticalWeekly]

I believe if we eliminate ALL (meaning none for the smaller guys too) subsidies, we will have a freer market.

[theatheistpaladin]

While a Localvore diet is can be healthier the main reason I see people choose this diet because of environmental reasons. Which also explains why the organic requirement this there because of the perception of the 'greenness' of organic. There are a lot of petroleum products and petroleum burned to get our food to us. We shouldn't think in terms of 'localvore' but rather a 'low-petroleum diet.'

[Jhomey]

Watch "Food, Inc." The reason this movement is happening is because 4 companies own roughly 75% of the meat industry. GMO crops patented by Monsanto have Roundup infused into their DNA, and are sold largely without labeling. The outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 is directly related to the practices of the meat industry, specifically cattle consuming corn and their living conditions. Theres so much that cant be said in 500 characters, but the documentary is on netflix. definitely worth the watch.

[EuphrasieF]

Yeah. I was trying to watch this video with an open mind, and I kept waiting for him to address the question of what impact modern food production has on the environment, but nothing... Of course, this is just a short video. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he addresses it in his book.

[kerberos]

i could eat local, but then since I live in Stockholm I couldn't eat bananas, peanuts, I don't know if I could get Coffee, NO CHOCLATE, no bambooshoots. A whole lot of stuff would be gone from my diet.

[anti]

Certainly it would be great if healthy food was available in the grocery store, but thanks to government subsidy of the grain industry, that's not really possible.

[anti]

Those worried about CO2 output should be more worried about the state of govt-funded climate science which leapt from the evidence that some mild warming recently occurred, to the conclusions that: a) this warming is a Bad Thing to be avoided, b) it is due to CO2 output in conjunction with c) a strong positive water vapor feedback, and d) it is something that humans can do anything about. You need only read the "Comments" section of IPCC AR4 to see scientists' ignored dismissals of these claims.

[PerfectionObsessive]

if you want to go into environmental issues, trying to import foreign seeds to a local area to grow a "balanced" diet is WAY more detrimental to the eco system than shipping food to a dinner plate.
For example, growing corn in almost any area outside its native origin would kill a large amount of insects as corn and more notably corn-meal is noted as an "organic pesticide"
Furthermore, growing plants in area which a plant is not adapted to would cause ecological strains based on mineral uptake.

[THEGREGDREW]

I think people are cajoling others to buy local for the sake of buying local, in order to "stimulate" the local economy. I work at a grocery store and people sometimes complain that pretty much all corned beef comes from Brazil. "Why can't that be made in America?" I explain that these people must have a comparative advantage in making this product. Even if we could make corned beef cheaper and better, we can make something ELSE even better still - so we benefit from the division of labor.

[theatheistpaladin]

I didn't say that organic was green just that it was perceived as green. There is a reason that I point to the use of petroleum. It not that shipping is bad but how we do it. If we can invest in infrastructure that would help reduce the use of petroleum, then shipping food wouldn't be as bad. I love my oranges and chocolate. Here one example that we can use to upgrade our highways:
/kMev1FCMQLU

[theatheistpaladin]

I know, but it is the only way to phrase the issue correctly. It really isn't about Local vs. Shipped. It is really much broader than that.

[UTubekookdetector]

yes, agriculture subsidies are a bad deal, unless their goal was to make Americans pay for more for say, sugar than everyone else.

[SuperSneakySteve]

Thumbs up if you couldn't stop looking at his right eye.

[kevd]

Transporting anything creates a some amount of pollution, but in the case of food, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Alaska, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland and other places that experience long winters may have less pollution if they don't import much of their food, but their long, cold winters severely limit their growing options (at reasonable expense). Of course it is logistically impossible to grow or raise much of anything in cities.

[PerfectionObsessive]

all I am reading is "I can be lazy and not bring up proper citations and you're stupid for not letting me do so"

[Ragnarokgn]

The consumption of locally produced food can make sense in those particular areas that have a comparative advantage in the production of particular foodstuffs. The "greens" go wrong when they do not understand that price and environmental impact are strongly correlated. For example, it makes more to ship winter tomatoes from Spain than build a large array of greenhouses in the UK.

It is trade manipulations (tarrifs, subsidies, ect) that distort "green" choices.

[rastamasta]

Hopefully the book is better reasoned that the argument in this interview. Basically he just says: we are better off now than in the early 19th century. We have a globalised food chain now. We didn't then. Therefore arguments to eat more locally are completely wrong.

[Siegetower]

Good point on the greenhouses and unintended consequences not considered by those in the fad. What if we took this to a logical conclusion where everything had to be local? If everything has to be local, will the people of Los Angeles have to grow its' own timber for housing, or New York City quarry its' own gravel for tower construction, or Detroit mine it's own iron ore for steel?

This whole movement ignores economic realities that some places have advantages in production others don't have.

[glanemann]

Uh, yes it is. You can virtually get anything you want to eat from most corners of the world in your town or a town near you. If you want to go back to old times where you have bread a few chickens and some eggs then yeah there is a lack of diverse food there.

[daobagua]

Don't forget about the C02 output problem in growing food out of season. Take for example Canada, during winter months, in order to grow local food (due to the fad) we have to grow in heated greenhouses. How cheap is that on C02?

Also, if you do not have supply chains for global food supply, then each community needs to be equipped to grow twice as much food, in case half of it is lost due to local natural disaster, This infrastructure also has a cost. I could go on.. but I shant.