Monday, July 23, 2007

Sayonara, citrus?

I've been thinking a lot about the local-food movement, and specifically food miles, since publishing a piece on the "new food journalism" in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Here are a few points to toss into the interesting debate that Drake's lead Ideas piece is inspiring:

1. In "Omnivore's Dilemma," Michael Pollan exempts chocolate and coffee from his ban on non-local foods, on the grounds that there is a centuries-long tradition of consuming truly unique foodstuffs from faraway lands. But how is Pollan's eating chocolate in Berkeley -- at any time -- any different from Bostonians' eating lettuce in January?

2. What are people in Reno, Nevada, supposed to eat? (Is it a coincidence that many of the leading local-foods advocates live in Northern California, a comically perfect place to grow food?)

3. Given that we live in an economy in which virtually everything in our homes has been designed and built hundreds or thousands of miles from where we live, where's the sense in singling out food for this particular kind of analysis?

On the last point, this might be one area in which it makes sense to think like an economist (or at least like Columbia's Jagdish* Bhagwati, whom I interviewed on the subject): If we were to raise taxes on gasoline (or petroleum, or carbon), that would discourage environmentally wasteful shipping throughout the economy. There would be no need to calculate how far the butterbean on your plate traveled to reach you, or the RAM card in your computer. (No one would possibly calculate all the "food miles" and "consumer-product miles" in their lives anyway, Bhagwati says; each person would need a full-time staff of analysts for the task. Even then, it would probably be impossible.)

On the other hand, a lot of local food just tastes better -- reason enough to eat more of it.

*Spelling fixed.

Posted by Christopher Shea at 09:29 AM

Print | E-mail to a friend | Permalink | Subscribe via rss