Stephen Budiansky, self-proclaimed "liberal curmudgeon," has stuffed together another flimsy, flammable straw man out of boilerplate anti-locavore rhetoric on the New York Times op-ed page, with the patronizing title Math Lessons For Locavores.
It's a familiar formula: start by establishing yourself as the voice of reason by professing your own deep appreciation of the merits of locally grown food as evidenced by the bounty of your own back yard. Then, launch into a diatribe against a mythical army of dour, sour food mile nazis, including 'celebrity chefs and mainstream environmental organizations,' whose support for local farmers is based on wildly misguided and naive notions about curbing one's carbon 'foodprint.'
Throw in a bunch of dubious and/or irrelevant statistics that appear to be truly locally sourced -- i.e. pulled out of your own behind. Add a few disingenuous claims about the environmental benefits of industrial agriculture. Wrap things up with a statement so ludicrous that you have to publish it on your own website because hey, the New York Times is only willing to go so far:
"...eating food from a long way off is often the single best thing you can do for the environment, as counterintuitive as that sounds."
Budiansky's argument tars all eat-local proponents with the same broad brush, warning us that we're turning into a bunch of joyless, sanctimonious schmucks who are flimflamming an unsuspecting public:
For instance, it is sinful in New York City to buy a tomato grown in a California field because of the energy spent to truck it across the country; it is virtuous to buy one grown in a lavishly heated greenhouse in, say, the Hudson Valley.
Sinful according to whom? As I wrote on page 27 of Rodale's Whole Green Catalog:
Bear in mind that buying local is often the most low-impact choice -- but not always: an out-of-season local tomato grown in a fossil fuel-heated greenhouse could consume more energy than one that's been field grown and shipped from Mexico.
But hey, what do I know? I'm just one of those local-food advocates who brandishes statistics that are "always selective, usually misleading and often bogus" to back up our "doctrinaire assertions."
That describes Budiansky's own modus operandi in a nutshell. His op-ed focuses almost exclusively on the question of how much fossil fuel is used to grow and ship food, and concludes that the amount of energy used is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Sure, and because eggs weigh less than the grain it costs to feed the factory farm hens that produce them, it was presumably quite energy efficient to ship those 380 million factory farmed eggs that have since been recalled for possible salmonella contamination from Iowa to fourteen other states.
But energy efficiency is only one small part of the equation when you add up the reasons to buy local. Other factors include: flavor and nutrition; support for more ecological farming practices; reduction of excess packaging; avoidance of pesticides and other toxins; more humane treatment of livestock and workers; preservation of local farmland; spending one's dollars closer to home; the farmers' market as community center, and so on.
Budiansky totally ignores these issues, except to challenge the assumption that sustainable agriculture is better for the environment than industrial agriculture. After establishing the folly of food miles, he goes on to note:
Other favorite targets of sustainability advocates include the fertilizers and chemicals used in modern farming. But their share of the food system's energy use is even lower, about 8 percent.
Again with the energy usage! Geez. As if that were our big beef with fertilizers and chemicals. What about soil erosion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, the rise of superweeds and antibiotic-resistant infections, the dead zones in our oceans and rivers, exposure to contaminants, and all the other environmentally disastrous consequences of 'conventional' farming?
According to Budiansky, the real culprit, when it comes to squandering energy, is us:
Home preparation and storage account for 32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far.
He cites the miles we drive to do our grocery shopping and the energy it takes to run our fridges, dishwashers, stoves, etc. But what do any of these things have to do with whether you choose to buy food locally? Your fridge uses the same amount of energy regardless of where the food you put in it came from.
If Budiansky sincerely cares to examine what constitutes a truly low-impact diet, why does he ignore one of the biggest sources of food-related wasted energy in the average American household? As New Scientist recently noted:
More energy is wasted in the perfectly edible food discarded by people in the US each year than is extracted annually from the oil and gas reserves off the nation's coastlines.
What's so maddening about sloppy op-eds like this is that they give fodder to folks who hate the very notion that their food choices have any consequences beyond their own waistlines and bank balances. At a time when global warming is surely fueling fires, floods, and drought all over the world, we need to have an honest conversation about how the way we eat contributes to climate change.
What we don't need is dishonest misrepresentations and tiresome stereotypes about the eat local movement. If you actually read what us good food folks have to say about eating ecologically, you'll see that the emphasis is on adopting a predominantly plant-based diet, eating foods when they're in season, limiting your consumption of animal products and processed convenience foods, and avoiding the chemicals and pesticides that are used in conventional farming.
Buying local produce is obviously a part of the equation. But to portray it as the sole consideration of sustainable food advocates is to adopt a lazy contrarian position that is guaranteed to generate controversy, and just as sure to do absolutely nothing to engender a meaningful discussion about these issues. Budiansky needs to be taken out to the foodshed and pummeled with his own lousy logic.
At the end of his blog post elaborating on his op-ed, he writes: "More seriously: environmentalism ought to be about pragmatism, not dogmatism."
Seriously? Such a deeply unserious piece such as his doesn't deserve to take up valuable real estate like the Times op-ed page. Though, like most real estate, it's worth less than it once was. Publishing stuff like this doesn't do much for the Old Grey Lady's property values.
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William Marler: "I am the Egg [Rule] ... " Would It Have Prevented the Salmonella Outbreak?
Abstract
Despite significant recent public concern and media attention to the environmental impacts of food, few studies in the United States have systematically compared the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with food production against long-distance distribution, aka “food-miles.” We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food
I always shop at the farmers markets.
We support the local farmers markets at least once a week.
I also feel that there are certain items that we cannot live without-ie Trader Joes Brown Basmati Rice-which i still buy.
I think that balance is the key and although the author of the original story made it seem like reducing carbon imprint is a hoax.....every little bit counts!!
Yes, eat local. But also eat 1) food in season and 2) food indigenous to your area. This should form the bulk of ones kitchen. Then supplement it with food that would be preposterous to try to grow on your own, like bananas or pineapples.
It's the same for sweet corn, cantaloupe, and other summer vegetables. In the winter we eat the vegetables that keep well: sweet potatoes, winter squash, and potatoes.
If we learn to eat in season, being a locavore makes perfect sense.
if you are being genuine, you should check your source because most likely, you are supporting a major corporation who sources from third world farmers, but not fairly or humanely.
Local products are great in concept, but not necessarily any better (or worse) than well-managed industrial farming. In fact, responsible large-scale farming and transport are a lot healthier for us both individually and collectively in the long run.
If you really believe in being a "loco-vore" just dig up your lawn and plant your own crops. Anything else is just rationalized BS.
To point out just two major results of our badly implemented industrial farming, native species of birds, insects, small animals and even bacteria and fungi are wiped out or vastly reduced. And topsoil is eroded away, because contour farming and other conservation practices interfere with the huge machines used on many industrial farms. We are losing our topsoil at an unsustainable rate.
That's only two of many serious faults of our current system that are leading us towards agricultural and ecological disaster.
Most of us who support local and organic agriculture would love to see well run, sustainable industrial farming - but that's not going to happen as long as the only criteria for their success is short-term money profits.
I know many Obama voting farmers who are quite upset at the gall of the urban left wingers who have no experience in agriculture at all who dare lecture them about the proper ways of farming.
Even the organic farmers hide their faces in embarrassment when the lefties call for no pesticides.....(ummm....google "organic pesticides" and you'll find fungicides like copper sulfur dust approved for organic farms....yum yum).
I am familiar with "organic" pesticides. Rotenone, one of the more popular, has been implicated in MS.
But you point is taken. "Nuts" was a poor choice...
:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100622175510.htm
Organic Pesticides Not Always 'Greener' Choice, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (June 23, 2010) — Consumers shouldn't assume that, because a product is organic, it's also environmentally friendly
But it was "all natural!"
Modern ag reduces global warming. Here's a simple example: Soybean land used to be plowed, disced, dragged, planted, sprayed, cultivated more than once and then hand cut for the weeds missed. Now with GM soybeans and no-till practices the process is just plant and spray. That's it. Nothing else. Even an urban person with no ag experience can see this cuts down on fuel use. The soil erosion and herbicide runoff is less than conventional methods as well.
So if you want to cut global warming support modern ag. The data is there. It's obvious. Ag scientists have it. Farmers have it. I grow soybeans.
There is a much larger ag world outside the urban farmer's markets. Get to know it.
I only purchase organic NON GM tofu and soy milk. And I wouldn't purchase anything with hydrolized soy protein in it. I understand that with drift it is difficult to guarantee all organic soy is non GM but MONSANTO is ruining the world of healthy farming by making farmers buy only their seed and putting out of business anyone who wants farm without using their seed.
You must have been one of the farmers who sold your soul to the MONSANTO devil. You will pay for that in your afterlife.
I'll leave the scientific explanations to those who have studied and understand facts and figures. Me? Forgive me while I try a bit of creative non-fiction:
The difference between a strawberry shipped to Michigan from California and one picked by myself in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is more remarkable than I know how to convey. The first time I had a UP berry, I attained immediate enlightenment. No need for sugar, no almost-kinda redness. They were sweet with a full-blown strawberryness that you just don't find in store bought.
I could try to explain the difference between local and shipped berries to people who denigrate locavores until heck freezes, but that's a thankless job. So I won't. I'll just saver my dark ruby red home-made strawberry jam and feel sorry for them.
of course it's also the variety. the supermarkets mainly have the kind that feels and looks like rubber. they have a name. they last longer but don't taste.
I am proud to be a localvore. This doesn't mean that I don't buy tomatoes or peaches when they aren't available from local products. But, I now can and preserve, so I can enjoy local products through the winter. And I raise our own chard other greens and herbs during winter using a coldframe made from recycled soda bottle plastic. Check it out!! (http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/How_to_Winter_Sow.html)