A few years ago when I was doing a lot of work in the sustainable food world and "local" was becoming as much of a buzz word as "organic," I found myself frequently asking people which of the two they felt was more of a priority. From a whole-systems perspective, it makes sense that an organic apple flown in from New Zealand and sold at Whole Foods ultimately has a much higher impact on the planet than a conventional apple from a nearby orchard sold at the farmer's market.
While most people reading this are probably inclined to think of the fossil fuels and carbon emissions (and compromised freshness) implicit in an imported apple, the majority of consumers still don't. The majority of consumers also don't consider the farmer's market a staple food source, and even if they did, many don't have one close by.
But farmer's markets are on the rise, and while they generally have a reputation for high prices and a gourmand patronage, they are increasingly accessible to people on limited incomes, and many accept food stamps. Successfully widening the customer base is not just a question of affordability, though, it's a question of really wanting to choose the market option. There are lots of reasons to do it: it supports local economies, it fosters community interaction, the food tastes superior, and the market usually makes weekly shopping feel more like a celebration than a chore. But many of these reasons, as Michael Pollan points out, are "sentimental." In a recent article in the New York Times, Pollan lays down the pragmatism of local food systems from the perspective of our long-term safety.
It stems, unsurprisingly, from last month's E.coli outbreak, and the astonishingly illogical tactics industrial food suppliers have taken (both prior to the outbreak and in its wake) to combat bacterial contamination -- rather than remove the threat, they'll simply irradiate our food, sterilize the manure that contaminates the supply, and enforce regulations on food producers large and small. E.coli comes from cow manure, which sits of feedlots that lie adjacent to vegetable farms and water sources.
Industrial animal agriculture produces more than a billion tons of manure every year, manure that, besides being full of nasty microbes like E. coli 0157:H7 (not to mention high concentrations of the pharmaceuticals animals must receive so they can tolerate the feedlot lifestyle), often ends up in places it shouldnt be, rather than in pastures, where it would not only be harmless but also actually do some good. To think of animal manure as pollution rather than fertility is a relatively new (and industrial) idea.
Alex talked about the spinach ordeal several weeks ago in terms of the need for a backstory about the things we eat. Besides being simply useful, backstory has caché in haute cuisine, where menus now have anecdotes about ingredients; but again, Pollan might call that a sentimental argument for knowing more. We get backstory by having relationships with the creators of the story. You can't have a relationships with the Natural Selection foods employee who picked the spinach, nor the one who washed it in a million-gallon vat, nor the one who packed it or shipped it or delivered it. I'd venture to say that there are only two ways to trace your food's history: grow it yourself, or buy from local farmers and producers. In my old haunts at the Berkeley farmer's market, Pollan confirmed the sense of security that comes from knowing your grower:
The week of the E. coli outbreak, washed spinach was on sale at my local farmers market, and at the Blue Heron Farms stand, where I usually buy my greens, the spinach appeared to be moving briskly. I tasted a leaf and wondered why I didnt think twice about it. I guess its because Ive just always trusted these guys; I buy from them every week. The spinach was probably cut and washed that morning or the night before it hasnt been sitting around in a bag on a truck for a week. And if there ever is any sort of problem, I know exactly who is responsible. Whatever the risk, and Im sure there is some, it seems manageable.
The point is that our food system is increasingly vulnerable to an increasing risk of terrorism. Much as scare tactics may be exaggerating the danger, it's a fact that the centralization and industrialization of the supply is the opposite of the direction we want to go if we're concerned about safety and security. Surely this won't be the last time that one of our staple foods gets swept off every shelf and menu across the nation for fear of outbreak. But where those shelves and menus are stocked with goods from twenty miles away, the community will be chowing worry-free.
Michael Pollan will be giving an address this morning at the Bioneers Conference and speaking this afternoon on a panel about the "Globalocal Food Movement." We're attending and will follow up with more...
